MAN FROM MASSACHUSETTS

The second Democrat to declare his presidential intentions, and the leading candidate of his party:

Massachusetts' Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 42.

Early Life. Born in quiet, suburban Brookline. the second of nine children of an Irish-American family, he grew up in all the opulence that money can buy. Though Boston's Brahmins scorned the Kennedy clan (both of Jack's grandfathers became highly successful Democratic politicians), Jack and his brothers and sisters spent their childhood holidays in such faraway places as Palm Beach and Rome, hobnobbed with princes and politicians. After prepping at Choate, Jack headed for Harvard. When his multimillionaire father, Joseph Kennedy, became U.S. Ambassador to Britain, Jack interrupted his junior year to make a grand tour of Europe as a privileged spectator of the beginning of World War II. Graduating cum laude from Harvard ('40), he caught the nation's eye with an enlarged version of his thoughtful college thesis, Why England Slept. Later, as a Navy lieutenant in the Solomon Islands, he became an authentic war hero, saved the lives of his crewmen after a Japanese destroyer knifed through their PT boat and sank it.

Political Career. After the war, Kennedy naturally turned to politics, successfully ran for Congress in 1946. Six years later he cast his net for the Republican Senate seat of Brahmin Henry Cabot Lodge and won, in a stunning reversal of the Eisenhower tide that swept through Massachusetts and the nation. In the Senate, Kennedy has been a thoughtful middle-reader, with a highly independent record and a special interest in labor reform. At the 1956 Democratic Convention he was chosen to make a nominating speech for Adlai Stevenson, then was swirled up in the great attempt to stop Tennessee's Estes Kefauver from getting the vice-presidential nomination, missed getting the nomination himself by a thin 38 1/2 votes. Since his re-election to the Senate by a record Massachusetts vote in 1958, he has waged a tireless, continuous campaign in all 50 states for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Personality & Philosophy. His shockheaded youthfulness, his wealth, and his Roman Catholic faith are mixed political blessings in the race where the Democratic bosses yearn for a candidate with no handicaps. Among his assets are an engaging personality, a persuasive and positive speaking talent and a pretty wife, the former Jacqueline Bouvier, daughter of a Manhattan financier; together and with Baby Daughter Caroline, the Kennedys have probably filled more picture-magazine space than all other candidates combined. A man of proven courage (his Pulitzer-prizewinning book. Profiles in Courage, was written while he was recovering from a painful, near fatal series of operations for a wartime spine injury), Kennedy has waged a forthright and energetic campaign on most issues, has doubled back only on his 1956 Senate vote against high, rigid farm price supports (the vote that lost him much Midwest support in the 1956 vice-presidential race) to embrace supports in this campaign. By poll and by general agreement of the professionals, Kennedy currently leads the field of Democratic hopefuls.

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