Operation Kennedy

Massachusetts' John Fitzgerald Kennedy last week added three more primary campaigns to his lengthy line of stepping stones toward the Democratic presidential nomination. In Annapolis he committed himself to Maryland's primary (May 17, 24 delegate votes) and got the reluctant backing of Maryland's Governor Millard Tawes, who had really wanted to run as a favorite son himself. In Charleston he took up a challenge thrown by Minnesota's Hubert Humphrey to fight it out in West Virginia (May 10, 25 delegate votes). In Gary he dealt himself into the

Indiana primary (May 3, 34 delegate votes, bound on the first ballot only), then set out on a highly successful round of handshaking, speechmaking and backroom planning.

Obviously, such activity is not done without planning and organization, and Jack Kennedy has the smoothest-running, widest-ranging, most efficient personal organization in the Democratic Party today. It has men, money and brains; his opponents claim it is the most savvy and hard-nosed group put together in U.S. politics since Tom Dewey and Herb Brownell swept Taft out of the G.O.P. race in '48.

Hyannis Port Meeting. Operation Kennedy came into focus on a blustery day last November when Jack met with his top lieutenants in his family's summer home in Hyannis Port, Mass. Present were Ted Sorenson, 31, son of a onetime Republican attorney general of Nebraska, Kennedy's chief policy adviser; Springfield Politician Larry O'Brien, 42, Senate Investigators Kenneth O'Donnell, 35, and Bob Wallace, 38, and Brothers Bob Kennedy, 34, and Ted, 27, his seasoned forward observers; Lou Harris, 38, a specialist in conducting political polls; and Hy

Raskin, 50, a shrewd Midwestern political strategist who was a prime mover in Adlai Stevenson's unsuccessful campaigns. From time to time old Joe Kennedy looked in to watch his son with unmitigated pride.

Without a note or chart or map, Kennedy stood with his back to a roaring fire and proceeded to analyze the U.S. political situation from top to bottom, from Kennebunkport to Ketchikan. His facts were encyclopedic: he knew the people, the problems--and had ideas about what he hoped to do.

The Influential. Since September 1956, Kennedy and Sorenson had traveled, separately and together, more than a million air miles--studying Democrats, districts, election laws, local peculiarities. Sorenson gradually accumulated a card index--now punched into Addressograph plates for speedy action--of the names of 29,000 influential Democrats. This list is considered to be the most complete ever compiled.

Last spring, when Kennedy became an open candidate, he and Sorenson began to select the best advocates in each state, and the advance men--O'Brien, O'Donnell, Wallace, and Bob and Ted Kennedy --took to the road to recruit the local organizations. Based in Chicago, Raskin carried the Kennedy argument from Ohio to Oregon. At the time of the Hyannis Port meeting, there was a trusted lieutenant in every state, and the beginnings of a full-fledged organization in all of the key primary states--Wisconsin, Oregon, West Virginia, Nebraska, Indiana and New Hampshire.

Supermarket Handouts. In Washington, Kennedy rented a suite of offices in the Esso Building at the foot of Capitol Hill, with his brother-in-law, Stephen Smith, as chief administrator. The Washington GHQ soon expanded to nine rooms, now houses top Publicity Agent Pierre

Salinger, the squadron of advance men, eight secretaries and switchboard operators (who answer the phone with the words Kennedy for President). Salinger has stockpiled a massive supply of Kennedy photographs, releases, film clips, bumper strips, lapel buttons and other campaign paraphernalia. One of the major products of the Esso Building GHQ: a 14-page master plan for "Kennedy for President State Organizational Procedure," which is as detailed as an Army training manual. It covers everything from the selection of local veterans' chairmen to techniques for giving away car stickers in supermarket parking lots.

The youthful, aggressive, fast-moving leaders of Operation Kennedy have no official titles, and the rules of the campaign are always subject to local modifications. ("We can't tell them what to do," said O'Donnell in Wisconsin last week. "We can only suggest.") Major decisions are invariably made by the candidate himself.

Protestant Drums. The preparations for last week's Indiana announcement proved Operation Kennedy in high gear. Last year Jack Kennedy made two trips to Indiana, talked with scores of local politicians, finally decided to name two co-chairmen of his state organization: State Senator Marshall Kizer of Plymouth and Southern Indiana Boss Albert Deluse of Indianapolis. As soon as the two were signed up, Operation Kennedy got to work. At a meeting in Indianapolis' Claypool Hotel last January, Kizer and Deluse met with 40 pro-Kennedy politicians, selected leaders for the state's eleven congressional districts, and outlined a campaign to fit local conditions. Items: only one Catholic was selected as a district chairman, because "it just looks better to have a Protestant beating the drums for Kennedy"; the usual farm or labor groups were not set up because "we know from experience in this state that we never have any effective work from such groups."

Until Kennedy formally announced his candidacy, the state organization was underground. Kizer and Deluse selected a public relations man, staked out an Indianapolis hotel room for a headquarters, looked over the possibilities for county chairmen. There was daily telephone liaison with Washington; Troubleshooter O'Brien made eight trips to Indiana in one month. When Kennedy finally announced, Deluse immediately rented the hotel room, requisitioned 3,000 bumper stickers, 10,000 campaign buttons, and a mountain of literature from Washington. District meetings were called, volunteer workers signed up. By last week things were moving.

Operation Kennedy takes big money--such as only Millionaire Jack Kennedy can afford. But it takes talent as well. The biggest mistake that Kennedy's rivals could make would be to judge the Kennedy campaign by the smiles, speeches and pretty pictures, and misjudge the strength and power of the organization that grimly aims to turn each smile and speech into hard votes.

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