Jack Kennedy called Mrs. King. (Richard Nixon did not.)

[Octafish]

Just prior to the 1960, then-Sen. John F. Kennedy risked alienating the conservative Southern Democrats by talking to Coretta Scott King while Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. rotted in a "backwoods Georgia jail." The photo below was taken when Dr. King visited President Kennedy at the White House.



Robert Kennedy: His Life by Evan Thomas

EXCERPT…

(Robert) Kennedy seemed to fret about what to do as John Seigenthaler drove him to the airport early that afternoon. He was flying to New York for a campaign event. Maybe, he told Seigenthaler, he should take the heat off his brother and act as a "lightning rod" by calling the judge himself. Seigenthaler, whose phone had been ringing all morning with calls of angry southern politicians protesting JFK's call to Mrs. King, urged Bobby to stay out of it. Bobby wearily agreed.

The next day, a press aide told Seigenthaler that the wires were reporting that the judge had released King -- at the intervention of Robert Kennedy.

Can't be true, Seigenthaler said; Kennedy had assured him he wouldn't call the judge. But it was true. Seigenthaler called Kennedy, who sheepishly disclosed the call. He said that, on the plane to New York, he had got to thinking about the whole matter. It was "disgraceful...It just burned me up," Kennedy said. "It grilled me. The more I thought about the injustice of it, the more I thought what a son of a bitch the judge was." So Kennedy called the judge and gave him a lecture on the constitutional right to make bail, and the judge agreed to release King. Later, speaking with Wofford, Kennedy said he told the judge, "If he was a decent American, he would let King out by sundown. I called him because it made me so damn angry to think of that bastard sentencing a citizen to four months hard labor for a minor traffic offense."

The impact of JFK's call to Mrs. King and RFK's intervention with the judge was immense. Daddy King, Martin Luther King's father, an extremely influential Baptist preacher, openly shifted his endorsement from Nixon to Kennedy. The Kennedy campaign brilliantly exploited the symbolism of phone calls with a samizdat campaign in the black community. Careful not to tout the Kennedy-King connection in the popular mainstream press, lest southern voters take umbrage, the Kennedy campaign published hundreds of thousands of leaflets and handbills that were distributed at black churches and bars. On one side, a flyer read: "Jack Kennedy called Mrs. King" On the other side it said: "Richard Nixon did not." Many political analysts believe that this PR offensive decided the election. In a half-dozen states in the East and Midwest carried by Kennedy by very narrow margins on election day, black turnout made the difference. Richard Nixon's chauffeur understood. "Mr. Vice-President," he told his boss after the election, "you know I had been talking to my friends. They had been all for you. But when Mr. Robert Kennedy called the judge to get Dr. King out of jail -- well, they just all turned to him."

CONTINUED…

Excerpted from "Robert Kennedy: His Life” by Evan Thomas, pages 101-102.

[monmouth]

1. Would love to know Nixon's reply. Must. buy. book...n/t

[Octafish]

2. Understand Nixon kept his jowls shut on the matter.

From Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Global Freedom Struggle

(Interviewer): Dr. King, have you heard anything from Vice President Nixon or any of his supporters?

(King): No I haven’t. I’ve been confined for the last eight days and I haven’t talked with anybody actually from Washington or from the campaign.5

(Interviewer): Do you know whether any efforts were made on behalf of the Republican headquarters to help you?

(King): No I don’t. I haven’t heard of any efforts being made and I don’t know of any personally.

(Interviewer): Do you know of any efforts made on behalf of the Kennedy group?

(King): Well, I understand that the Kennedy group did make definite contacts and did a great deal to make my release possible. I don’t know all of the details of this just coming out of (prison?)

(Interviewer): (words inaudible) urge you to vote for Kennedy?

(King): Well, I would not like to make a public statement concerning the person for whom I will vote because I follow a non-partisan course and heading a non-partisan organization, namely the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (recording interrupted) (. . .)

CONTINUED...

http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/interview_after_release_from_georgia_state_prison_at_reidsville

IMFO, Dick wasn't the worst. His advisers were.

[monmouth]

3. Thanks so much for posting that...n/t

[Octafish]

5. Anytime, monmouth! The words spoken by these people make us feel like we're there.

After the election, when the results were in and it was clear that the black vote had helped elect JFK, columnist Murray Kempton asked Kennedy if he was glad he had called King's judge. "Sure I'm glad," Kennedy said and added cryptically, "but I would hope I'm not glad for the reason you think I'm glad." Thinking over the story of Kennedy's call to Judge Mitchell, Seigenthaler finally concluded that RFK must have been operationg on twin tracks -- moral impulse and pragmatism.

-- ibid.

[gratuitous]

4. "The more I thought about the injustice of it"

What is something you wouldn't hear a politician today be saying, Alex?

Correct, gratuitous.

I'll take Cynical Political Calculations for $1,000, please.

[Octafish]

6. The Kennedys were steamed the Georgia judge sentenced MLK to four months hard labor.

Imagine what they'd say about the railroading of Gov. Siegelman by Karl Rove of the BFEE?