The Irish Brotherhood: John F. Kennedy, His Inner Circle, and the Improbable Rise to the Presidency

by Helen O'Donnell, Kenneth O'Donnell Sr.

Overview

"The Irish Brotherhood" is the history of Jack Kennedy s original political inner circle. Led by Bobby Kennedy, Kenny O Donnell, Larry O Brien, and Dave Powers they were tough minded, Irish-Catholic guys who were joined together by a common ambition to see Jack Kennedy through to the White House. War veterans who were young, ambitious, and they wanted their country back. Jack Kennedy was their man, their leader. No matter that he was Irish, Catholic, and his Old Man had made as many enemies as friends Jack had ambition, brains, a special charisma. To win the White House would be a victory not only for Jack Kennedy, but for the downtrodden. They collectively decided that if the political powers would not let them in willingly then they would kick the door down. At the center of the story is Kenny O Donnell, Jack Kennedy s tough talking, no-bullshit, top political aide. Jack recognized he needed Kenny s blue collar, political genius and Kenny recognized something special in Jack.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781619027053
Publisher:	Catapult
Publication date:	03/15/2016
Pages:	528
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Helen O'Donnell is the daughter of John F. Kennedy's top–gun political aide, Kenneth P. O'Donnell. Ms. O'Donnell is the author of A Common Good: The Friendship of Robert F. Kennedy and Kenneth P. O'Donnell. She also worked with Chris Matthews of MSNBC's Hardball on his 2012 book Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero. She lives in Los Angeles and Washington, DC.

Kenneth "Kenny" O'Donnell, Sr was a war hero and a graduate of Harvard University where he played football with Robert F. Kennedy. Through his relationship with Bobby, he became Jack Kennedy's top political aide during the 1950s. In 1960, he worked hand in glove with Jack and Bobby as they designed and drove the Kennedy Machine to victory.

Read an Excerpt

The Irish Brotherhood

John F. Kennedy, His Inner Circle, and the Improbable Rise to the Presidency

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By Helen O'Donnell

Counterpoint

Copyright © 2015 Helen O'Donnell
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61902-508-0

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Nobody traveling with the candidate could have predicted the resurgence of the Catholic issue. As Kenny recalled, "Throughout the summer of 1960, we’d been to Philadelphia, Chicago, Oklahoma; we’d seen enormous crowds across California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas. Wild crowds, uncontrollable crowds. Because we’d been coming on steadily, we thought, 'This is over, we’ve won.’”

But Bobby’s in-flight phone call to the campaign’s mobile headquarters on the Caroline changed everything. "We’ve got to have an emergency meeting in Hyannis Port,” Bobby insisted. "I think we’re in serious trouble, and if we don’t stop the bleeding, it could be over.”

Senator Kennedy reluctantly agreed, and he and Kenny cancelled their remaining schedule, rerouting their flight from D.C. to Massachusetts. At this late date, they would have to figure out how to save Jack’s faltering campaign, a campaign they had wrongly assumed was on a clear-cut path to victory.


Exhausted and still reeling from Bobby’s call, Jack and Kenny headed to the Kennedy compound, where the early New England autumn chill had already set in. The plane ride there on the Caroline was marked, Kenny said, by its silence. "We did not yet know what Bobby knew, so we could not begin to plan or even react. The only upshot was that in Hyannis Port Jack could see Jackie and Caroline, get some much needed rest, and recoup for a couple of days.”


As they took their seats in Bobby’s living room, Kenny remembered, "Bobby’s point to us was that we were not gaining momentum at all. For every vote we earned, anti-Catholic bigotry would cost us five. Given our success out West, Senator Kennedy and I had trouble taking this in.”


But Bobby’s bad news was backed up by polls, and also by numerous calls from state leaders who, fearing anti-Catholic violence, had asked to have Jack’s path through their states rerouted. Others wanted the Kennedy events in their states canceled altogether. The anti-Catholic forces had not been vanquished after all by Jack’s eloquent speech in Houston on the separation of church and state. These forces of irrationality and paranoia had only gone underground, regrouped, and now they were back, more vicious than ever, and apparently more politically shrewd.


(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Irish Brotherhood by Helen O'Donnell. Copyright © 2015 Helen O'Donnell. Excerpted by permission of Counterpoint.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 The Loss 7

Chapter 2 Early Days 21

Chapter 3 Building the Team 37

Chapter 4 The Upset 57

Chapter 5 Taking Over the State 87

Chapter 6 The Kennedy Operation 107

Chapter 7 Jack's "Valley of Depression" 131

Chapter 8 Chicago 149

Chapter 9 Washington Interlude 173

Chapter 10 The McClellan Committee 191

Chapter 11 The Landslide 213

Chapter 12 The Kennedy Kickoff in Palm Beach 241

Chapter 13 Going Nationwide 259

Chapter 14 Ohio or Wisconsin? 285

Chapter 15 Wisconsin, West Virginia, and the Catholic Issue 307

Chapter 16 Hardball Politics in Pennsylvania 331

Chapter 17 Los Angeles: The Democratic National Convention 345

Chapter 18 The National Campaign: Round One 367

Chapter 19 The Campaign 393

Chapter 20 Election Night 415

Chapter 21 Taking Power 429

Chapter 22 That Jack Magic 455

Epilogue 479

Editorial Reviews

"This lively account...will appeal to a wide range of audiences; general readers will relish the flowing, fast–paced anecdotes and informed readers and scholars will value insights into pre­social media mid–20th–century politics." —Library Journal

"Swollen with a daughter's pride but also full of gripping detail." —Kirkus

From the Publisher

01/26/2015
Working from extensive recordings left by her father, former political aide Kenneth “Kenny” O’Donnell Sr., Helen O’Donnell (A Common Good) produces an intimate, complex look at the years leading up to J.F.K.’s presidency, a span covering 1946–1961. Drawing from these personal recollections, she reconstructs pivotal scenes, setbacks, and challenges as Kennedy ascended the political ranks. However, this is more than a book about Kennedy; it focuses on the so-called Irish Brotherhood: his closest friends and advisors, “the group of men who gathered around John Kennedy as he made his dramatic rise.” As she notes, “this book is my father’s story of his Jack and Bobby Kennedy”—a story her father always wanted to tell but never did. Certain themes, of course, crop up with regularity: politics, religion, and the tight-knit bond of Irish-Americans that helped hold this circle together over the years. Though mainly channeling her father’s experiences, O’Donnell presents them in an accessible, engaging manner; the figures portrayed are full-fledged characters, and the story unfolds like a political drama. Nevertheless, it remains a narrow slice of the Kennedy legend, focused solely on his political career, ending as he enters the White House and treating him as a larger-than-life icon. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

02/15/2015
Although John F. Kennedy is remembered for surrounding himself with many high-brow advisors, he relied on an "Irish Brotherhood"—his brother Robert Kennedy, campaign director Ken O'Donnell, appointments secretary Dave Powers, and strategist Larry O'Brien—for running his successful campaigns for Congress, the Senate, and the presidency. This lively account from O'Donnell (A Common Good) shows just how much Kennedy depended on her father, Ken O'Donnell (1924–77), his "tough-talking, no-bull shit, political aide" for blunt advice. Much of the book is a first-person narrative, with the author skillfully using dialog quoted from the Kenneth O'Donnell/Sander Vanocer NBC tapes housed in Washington, DC and also from several oral histories. The most thorough and fascinating chapters cover the 1960 presidential campaign, especially the primaries in Ohio, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, and the nail-biting election-night results. Interestingly, O'Donnell describes how Kennedy could never overcome anti-Catholic bias and how bigotry nearly cost him the election. Ken O'Donnell continued to serve as Kennedy's most trusted advisor until his assassination in 1963. VERDICT This book will appeal to a wide range of audiences; general readers will relish the flowing, fast-paced anecdotes and informed readers and scholars will value insights into presocial media mid-20th-century politics.—Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA

Library Journal

2014-12-15
The daughter of Kenneth O'Donnell, a principal adviser to John F. Kennedy, discusses the strategies, successes and failures that led to JFK's becoming the 35th president.O'Donnell, who had access to some key recordings and interviews her father had conducted, has written previously about him and the Kennedys, A Common Good: The Friendship of Robert F. Kennedy and Kenneth P. O'Donnell (1998). It was through Robert Kennedy (whom he had known at Harvard) that O'Donnell entered the Kennedy inner sanctum and became a dominant member of what the author calls "the Irish Brotherhood" (she disdains the darker "Irish Mafia" locution). O'Donnell begins the tale in Chicago in 1956, when JFK failed to win the vice-presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention. Then she rewinds a bit, taking us back to the late 1940s. We witness JFK's run for the Senate, watch the warriors working during the 1952 election, return for a closer look at 1956 and then arrive at the major focus of the story—the 1960 election, which consumes nine chapters. The author ends with the inauguration and the Bay of Pigs, responsibility for which she endeavors to lay at the feet of the Eisenhower administration. O'Donnell's subtitle is a bit misleading: Yes, she deals a bit with the other Irish advisers (Larry O'Brien and Dave Powers, principally), but the vast majority of the attention is on her father. Few of her characters have smudges. Yes, JFK had a wandering eye (mentioned once, never discussed), and RFK had a temper. But mostly it's virtue that interests the author—JFK's debating skills and intelligence, O'Donnell's bluntness and fierce loyalty (we're also told—more than once—that he was "quick as a cat"), and RFK's organizational skills. Lines from Camelot end the text. Swollen with a daughter's pride but also full of gripping detail.

Kirkus Reviews