Here we find the second reason why Jack Kennedy’s Asian tour of 1951 matters in historical terms (the first being that it caused him and Bobby to grow much closer): it altered his outlook on U.S. diplomacy in what would come to be called the Third World. Already in previous months he had moved away from the simplistic idea that the spread of Communism in Asia occurred only or mostly because of State Department bungling; the expedition reinforced this shift. More important, the trip convinced him that America must align itself with the newly emerging nations, that colonialism was a spent force, and that Communism could never be vanquished exclusively or even principally by military means. One had to meet colonized and recently independent peoples where they lived, had to speak to their needs, their aspirations. Did U.S. officials understand these essential truths? Jack was skeptical. Many of “our representatives abroad seem to be a breed of their own,” he told reporters in November, “moving mainly in their own limited circles not knowing too much of the people to whom they are accredited, unconscious of the fact that their role is not tennis and cocktails, but the interpretation to a foreign country of the meaning of American life and the interpretations to us of that country’s aspirations and aims.”70

In Robert Kennedy’s later assessment, the trip left “a very major impression” on his brother, for it showed “these countries from the Mediterranean to the South China sea all…searching for a future; what their relationship was going to be to the United States; what we were going to do in our relationship to them; the importance of the right kind of representation; the importance of associating ourselves with the people rather than just the governments, which might be transitional, transitory; the mistakes of the war in Indochina; the mistake of the French policy; the failure of the United States to back the people.”71

Jack’s problem, one he would wrestle with throughout the rest of the decade, was how to align this more subtle interpretation of Communism and Cold War dynamics with the increasingly Manichaean political debate at home in the United States. As an ambitious politician angling for higher office, he understood that many voters liked simple explanations and quick fixes, and moreover that Republicans in the forthcoming 1952 election would seek to discredit the Democrats at every turn, hammering hard on the theme that Truman’s party was weak-kneed and irresolute on combating Communist agitation at home and abroad.

He knew, moreover, that Joe McCarthy continued to ride high. Back in April, after Truman fired Douglas MacArthur for publicly airing his disagreements with the White House over the conduct of the Korean War, the Wisconsin senator condemned the action and called for the president’s impeachment. Two months after that, on the Senate floor, McCarthy had gone after none other than General George C. Marshall, who had been Army chief of staff during World War II and then had led the State and Defense departments. He was a national symbol, an icon, a man seemingly beyond reproach, yet McCarthy charged him with “a conspiracy so immense and an infamy so black as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man; a conspiracy so black that, when it is finally exposed, its principals shall be forever deserving of the maledictions of all honest men.” Specifically, McCarthy proclaimed, Marshall had willfully allowed China to be lost and had squandered American prestige and power. Democrats were outraged and called on GOP leaders to condemn the speech, but McCarthy’s colleagues mostly stayed silent, while the right-wing press heaped praise on his assessment. That fall, while the Kennedy siblings journeyed through Asia, the Wisconsin man again claimed that the State Department harbored Communists.72

McCarthy made the cover of Time that October—the surest sign he had arrived. Editor in chief Henry Luce, a staunch Republican and member of the China lobby, bowed to no one in the depth of his anti-Communist fervor, but he had little regard for the kind of simplistic populism McCarthy represented and, moreover, found him coarse and crude. To Luce, the senator’s exaggerations and grandstanding threatened to discredit more authentic anti-Communist efforts. And he had an inkling that McCarthy’s popularity had peaked. So on this occasion Time did what the Luce publications had thus far generally refrained from doing: it hit McCarthy hard, accusing him of peddling in innuendo, of answering legitimate questions with savage attacks, of having little curiosity and little regard for common decency. “Joe, like all effective demagogues, found an area of emotion and exploited it. No regard for fair play, no scruple for exact truth hampers Joe’s political course. If his accusations destroy reputations, if they subvert the principle that a man is innocent until proved guilty, he is oblivious. Joe, immersed in the joy of battle, does not even seem to realize the gravity of his own charges.” Yet “ ‘McCarthyism’ is now part of the language,” the article acknowledged, and anyone choosing to take on McCarthy faced an immense challenge: “His burly figure casts its shadow over the coming presidential campaign. Thousands turn out to hear his speeches. Millions regard him as ‘a splendid American’ (a fellow Senator recently called him that).”73

McCarthy, as always, hit back hard, blasting Time for “desperate lying” and sending letters to advertisers urging them to stop giving business to Time and its sister publications Life and Fortune. At Time Inc., executives worried that Luce, usually so astute in judging the public mood, had miscalculated—McCarthy, they believed, was not losing public support but gaining it. Luce backed off. His magazines returned to a safer position, occasionally chiding the senator, sometimes praising him, and generally holding to the line that he was a necessary counterweight to the Truman administration’s timidity on Communism.74

Such was the tricky path Jack Kennedy would have to navigate should he seek statewide office the following autumn; he knew it, his aides and confidants knew it. McCarthy remained deeply popular among Catholics in Massachusetts, and he was, moreover, a friend of the family. He still enjoyed support among Republican leaders who, however objectionable they found him personally, believed he was winning votes for the party. (Robert Taft came to McCarthy’s defense when Harry Truman described him as “a Kremlin asset.”)75 Truman’s popularity, meanwhile, was low and going lower—in 1951 it never rose above 32 percent. Jack accordingly walked a middle path, boosting his anti-Communist credentials by voicing policy differences with the White House on specific matters, including China policy and military preparedness, while also noting near the end of the year that accusations of Communists in the Foreign Service were “irrational.”76

It was a savvy strategy in the circumstances, but would it be enough in a tough battle to unseat the formidable Henry Cabot Lodge? For that matter, would Jack even get the opportunity to wage that fight? As the year turned, Paul Dever had yet to decide if he would seek another term in the governor’s mansion or take on Lodge for the Senate seat. Until he did, John F. Kennedy and his team could do nothing but continue their behind-the-scenes preparations. And wait.