COUNTDOWN: 65 DAYS

September 5, 1960

Washington, D.C.

Richard Nixon couldn’t believe his luck. Bad luck.

First it was that drama with Rockefeller, and then having to cut a deal with the party liberals.

And then, right when Nixon was basking in the praise for his convention speech, there was Ike, saying he needed a week to remember anything significant the vice president had contributed to his administration.

Now here he was—on Labor Day, no less—stuck in a hospital bed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The knee that he’d banged against a car door in North Carolina had become unbearably painful by month’s end. Doctors discovered a lump had formed under his skin, a dangerous infection called hemolytic Staphylococcus aureus.

He’d be laid up for at least a week, maybe two. Instead of flags and bunting and stump speeches, he spent his Labor Day writing a statement that celebrated American workers:

“We have great production, high standards of working and living but America’s strength is beyond those, the strength represented in the vigor and integrity and independence of American unions, in the institution of free collective bargaining in which workers and management establish the pace of economic advance.”

Nixon was being treated with antibiotics. He had to stay off his feet so his knee could heal. His press secretary, Herb Klein, told the media that Nixon “continues to be in excellent physical condition.”

Richard Nixon visited by Senate leaders Lyndon Johnson and Everett Dirksen

(Associated Press)

But GOP leaders were whispering loud: What if Nixon’s condition deteriorated? What if he couldn’t campaign? If his recovery dragged on, the Republican National Committee might have to choose a new nominee, and soon.

Nixon wouldn’t let that happen. He’d follow his doctors’ orders. He’d come back stronger than ever. But losing two weeks in a tight campaign was serious. A long list of speaking appearances was already wiped out.

If everything went right, Nixon said he’d resume his campaign on September 12 with a six-day, 9,000-mile swing through fourteen states. That would show the public that he was back on his feet.

The political landscape was shifting. Nixon couldn’t afford to lose any more ground to Kennedy.

And JFK was a politician to his bones, taking full advantage of Nixon’s misery. Kennedy was zigzagging all over the country in his private airplane, showing up in places that were considered GOP strongholds.

All Nixon had to counter Kennedy’s attacks on the campaign trail was Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., his vice presidential candidate. But Lodge wasn’t as aggressive a campaigner as Nixon was. He didn’t like the routine of meeting and greeting voters. In fact, sometimes Lodge seemed to have trouble staying awake at events. He’d take long naps after lunch, and he refused to make campaign appearances at night.

If Kennedy got a big bump in the polls, it might be time for Nixon to abandon his “clean and upright” electioneering pledge. Nixon knew all too well that muckraking could work wonders.

Detroit, Michigan

Jack Kennedy was on fire. He was on a swing through union-rich Michigan on Labor Day, conjuring up images of the old Franklin D. Roosevelt New Deal coalition.

In Detroit’s Cadillac Square, sixty thousand people heard Kennedy rip into the Eisenhower administration for failing to promote economic growth, for high interest rates that hurt the “working man.”

The Massachusetts senator said the administration’s policies had cost a family of four $7,000 during the Eisenhower presidency. That meant less money a worker had for “an education, or a new house, or a rainy day or his old age.”

The GOP slogan “You never had it so good” meant little to the nation’s four million unemployed, he said.

“For the last eight years, we have had a government frozen in the ice of indifference…. We must recapture the spirit of Franklin Roosevelt and start moving forward on the unfinished business facing this country,” he declared.

He said he stood strongly on the side of organized labor.

“The goals of the labor movement are the goals of all Americans and their enemies are the enemies of progress. The man and party who oppose a decent minimum wage also oppose decent wages for our teachers. The man and party who oppose medical care for the aged have no more compassion for the small farmer or the small businessman, or hungry families in the United States or around the world. That kind of man—and that kind of party—likes things the way they are,” he said.

John Kennedy in Detroit on Labor Day

(Library of Congress, U.S. News & World Report Magazine Collection)

And JFK made the strongest civil rights speech of his career, declaring his desire to end racial discrimination everywhere: in schools, homes, and churches—and at lunch counters.

He daringly stated his support for the sit-in strikes, like the one that started with the four Black college students in Greensboro, North Carolina, and spread across the nation.

His comments in the Motor City were intended to appeal to the United Auto Workers, whose sit-down strikes in the late 1930s led to higher wages and better working conditions.

“I want every American free to stand up for his rights—even if he has to sit down for them,” he said.

His visit to Michigan energized Democratic leaders across the state. It was like that everywhere Kennedy campaigned. He wasn’t just a politician. No, he was a celebrity, a movie star.

Michigan governor G. Mennen “Soapy” Williams gushed about Kennedy’s charisma in towns throughout the state. “At the state fair, policemen tried to keep [JFK] from mingling in the crowd and shaking hands, but he did it anyway,” Williams said. “The way people swarmed to him, grabbing his hand and wanting his autograph and storming his car—why, he proved he’s a bearcat at campaigning.”

With Nixon sidelined with his knee injury, Kennedy knew this was the time to crank up the razzle-dazzle, build his support, press his advantage. He might not get a chance like this again.