1. Though some accounts claim that McCarthy was godfather to their oldest child, Kathleen, her actual godfather was Daniel Walsh, a professor at Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart, Ethel’s alma mater. Tye, Bobby, 46. In Ethel’s view, McCarthy was “just plain fun….He didn’t rant and roar, he was a normal guy.” Tye, Bobby, 35.

2. See Betty Beale’s column in the Washington Evening Star, September 30, 1953. I thank Larry Tye for this citation. For Robert’s role on the subcommittee and his relationship with McCarthy in this period, see Tye, Bobby, 24–36; and Thomas, Robert Kennedy, 64–68.

3. Sorensen, Kennedy, 59; O’Brien, John F. Kennedy, 272.

4. Sorensen, Counselor, 145.

5. O’Neill, Man of the House, 90.

6. Logevall, Embers, 341–52, 365–66, 398–402.

7. The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of Decisionmaking on Vietnam, Senator Gravel Edition (Boston: Beacon, 1971), vol. I: 591–92; Cole, Conflict in Indo-China, 171.

8. Speech transcript, January 21, 1954, box 893, JFK Pre-Pres.

9. Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense, “Preparation of Department of Defense Views Regarding Negotiations on Indochina for the Forthcoming Geneva Conference,” March 12, 1954, Pentagon Papers (Gravel ed.), vol. I: 449–50.

10. Memorandum of Discussion, 192nd Meeting of the NSC, April 6, 1954, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1982), vol. XIII, part 1, 1261.

11. Quoted in McMahon, Major Problems in the History, 121. See also Adams, Firsthand Report, 120.

12. Fredrik Logevall, “We Might Give Them a Few,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, February 21, 2016; Prados, Operation Vulture.

13. Congressional Record, 83rd Cong., 2nd sess., 4671–74. Evidently proud of his intervention, Kennedy sent a copy of his April 6 remarks to his party’s titular head, Adlai Stevenson. JFK to Stevenson, April 12, 1954, box 47, AES; William McCormack Blair Jr. to JFK, April 14, 1954, box 47, AES.

14. Quoted in Fite, Richard B. Russell, 359.

15. Mann, Grand Delusion, 153.

16. Atlanta Constitution, April 21, 1954; speech transcripts, May 11, 1954, and May 28, 1954, box 647, JFK Pre-Pres; Parmet, Jack, 285–86.

17. Logevall, Embers, 481ff.

18. See the voluminous file of letters, many of them from outside Massachusetts, in box 647, JFK Pre-Pres.

19. Brooklyn Eagle, April 26, 1954; NYT, April 8, 1954. Lippmann’s column ran under the title “Kennedy Destroys False Hopes.” BG, April 12, 1954.

20. Quoted in Sorensen, Kennedy, 37.

21. To her Irish friend Father Leonard, she wrote in 1954, “I love being married much more than I did even in the beginning.” Quoted in WP, May 13, 2014.

22. Evelyn Lincoln, “My Twelve Years with Kennedy,” SEP, August 15, 1965; KLB OH, JFKL. “Violent” is in Dallek, Unfinished Life, 194.

23. Leaming, Mrs. Kennedy, 11.

24. Bradford, American Queen, 94–95.

25. Von Post, Love, Jack, 37ff.

26. Quoted in Burns, John Kennedy, 139.

27. Irwin Ross of the New York Post was in Kennedy’s Senate office when McCarthy called him to ask how he planned to vote on Conant’s nomination. Kennedy replied that he would vote in favor. After they hung up, Ross asked Kennedy what he thought of McCarthy. “Not very much. But I get along with him.” Recalling the episode three years later, Kennedy suggested that the criticism of him for his handling of the Wisconsin man was unfair. “How many senators spoke out against McCarthy in states where it would have hurt them?” Ross described the encounter in an article three years later. New York Post, July 30, 1956.

28. Boston Post quoted in Burns, John Kennedy, 143.

29. Parmet, Jack, 302; Hitchcock, Age of Eisenhower, 145. Speaking with extreme care, Eisenhower said in early March, “There are problems facing this nation today of vital importance. They are both foreign and domestic in character….I regard it as unfortunate when we are diverted from these grave problems—of which one is vigilance against any kind of internal subversion—through disregard of the standards of fair play recognized by the American people.” Time, March 15, 1954.

30. Nichols, Ike and McCarthy; Frank, Ike and Dick, 82.

31. Matthews, Jack Kennedy, 177. In mid-August, the Ambassador insisted to some “pontificating,” disdainful British dinner companions that McCarthy remained the strongest man in America next to Eisenhower, and asked them what they had against him. He then replayed the encounter with obvious relish in a letter to Bobby. JPK to RFK, August 15, 1954, box 4, JPKP.

32. Time, June 14, 1954; Parmet, Jack, 303–4.

33. McCarthy, Remarkable Kennedys, 150; Parmet, Jack, 308–9; Dallek, Unfinished Life, 196.

34. Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 774.

35. Dallek, Unfinished Life, 196.

36. Sorensen, Counselor, 127–28; Nelson, John William McCormack, 497.

37. Time, October 25, 1954; Burns, John Kennedy, 147–48; Matthews, Jack Kennedy, 184–87.

38. O’Brien, No Final Victories, 44 ; James A. Nichols, M.D., et al., “Management of Adrenocortical Insufficiency During Surgery,” Archives of Surgery (November 1955): 737–40.

39. Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 774–75.

40. Arthur Krock OH, JFKL.

41. BG, November 6, 1954; Time, November 22, 1954.

42. Senator Prescott Bush (R-CT) offered one of the more eloquent arguments for censure: McCarthy, he declared, had “caused dangerous divisions among the American people because of his attitude and the attitude he has encouraged among his followers: that there can be no honest differences of opinion with him. Either you must follow Senator McCarthy blindly, not daring to express any doubts or disagreements about any of his actions, or, in his eyes, you must be a Communist, a Communist sympathizer, or a fool who has been duped by the Communist line.” Time, December 13, 1954.

43. Sorensen, Counselor, 154.

44. BP, December 2, 1954, quoted in Parmet, Jack, 310–11. Parmet rejects the suggestion that Kennedy used his illness to avoid casting a vote (308).

45. Charles Spalding OH, JFKL.

46. Tye, Bobby, 48; Nasaw, Patriarch, 685.

47. Heymann, Woman Named Jackie, 170–71; O’Brien, John F. Kennedy, 282.

48. Grace de Monaco OH, JFKL. For differing accounts of what occurred, and who issued the invitation, see, e.g., Bradford, America’s Queen, 98; and Andersen, Jack and Jackie, 145.

49. Priscilla Johnson McMillan interview with author, September 17, 2018, Cambridge, MA.

50. Kelley, Jackie Oh!, 143; Leaming, Mrs. Kennedy, 13; RK, Times to Remember, 353.

51. Agar, Time for Greatness; Parmet, Jack, 324–25.

52. Leaming, Jack Kennedy: Education, 221; Whalen, Founding Father, 442; Peter Lawford OH, JFKL.

53. Quoted in Adler, Eloquent, 39. See also Kennedy, Historic Conversations, 16.

54. Powers, too, would read aloud to Kennedy on his visits to Palm Beach. “I would think he had fallen asleep, and I’d stop reading,” Powers remembered. “He would open his eyes and tell me to keep going. When I came to a line that he liked, he would stop me and tell me to read it again.” O’Donnell and Powers, “Johnny,” 101. See also Perry, Jacqueline Kennedy, 44–45.

55. Sorensen, Kennedy, 67; Sorensen, Counselor, 146.

56. Quoted in Schlesinger, Thousand Days, 101.

57. TS to JFK, February 4, 1955, box 7, TSP; TS to JFK, February 14, 1955, box 7, TSP.

58. TS to JFK, February 14, 1955, box 7, TSP.

59. Parmet, Jack, 328. See also Kennedy’s January 28, 1955 letter to Cass Canfield, the president of Harper and Brothers, in Sandler, Letters, 46–47.

60. Davids made an especially valuable contribution, in the form of memos he submitted on the individual senators being considered for inclusion, and on the overall organization. See TS to JFK, February 28, 1955, box 7, TSP.

61. Lamar quoted in Lemann, Redemption, 151. On Reconstruction, a standard account is Foner, Reconstruction. See also Bryant, Bystander, 48–49; and James Oakes, “An Unfinished Revolution,” New York Review of Books, December 9, 2019.

62. JFK, Profiles, 4–5, 10.

63. JFK, Profiles, 18.

64. JFK, Profiles, 18.

65. JFK, Profiles, 222–23; Parmet, Jack, 322.

66. JFK, Profiles, 265, 222. For a contemporary examination of some of these themes, see Wilentz, Politicians and the Egalitarians; and see Charles Edel, “Why Is Political Courage So Rare?” Washington Post, March 12, 2018.

67. JFK, Profiles, 222.

68. David Ormsby-Gore OH, JFKL.

69. JFK to Eunice Shriver, July 26, 1955, printed in JFK, Profiles, “PS” section, p. 15; Parmet, Jack, 326.

70. TS to JFK, July 17, 1955, box 7, TSP; Schlesinger, Letters, 108–9, 112–18; JFK to Thomas, August 1, 1955, box 31, Profiles in Courage file, JFKL. Nevins, according to Sorensen, was “tremendously enthusiastic about the book, writing Mr. Canfield that he believes it will be extremely influential and well received, and that it adds still further to the stature of a Senator he has long admired.” TS to JFK, August 12, 1955, box 7, TSP.

71. BG, May 24, 1955; Burns, John Kennedy, 169. This is now the Russell Senate Office Building.

72. O’Brien, John F. Kennedy, 283. On May 24, Kennedy received a warm welcome from colleagues on the Senate floor. See NYT, May 25, 1955.

73. Assumption College Commencement Address, June 3, 1955, box 12, Senate Files, JFK Pre-Pres.

74. O’Donnell, Irish Brotherhood, 140–43; Damore, Cape Cod Years, 145–46. See also Frank Morrissey to JPK, June 28, 1955, box 231, JPKP.

75. O’Donnell and Powers, “Johnny,” 103–4; Sorensen, Counselor, 145; Joseph Alsop OH, JFKL.

76. Leaming, Jack Kennedy: Education, 225.