The Making of a Catholic President: Kennedy vs. Nixon 1960 (review)

Shaun A. Casey is associate professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC; is a visiting fellow at the Center for American Progress; and served as a senior adviser for religious affairs and an evangelical coordinator for the presidential campaign of Barack Obama. His political instincts have served him well in tackling the subject of this book, in which he describes the political processes by which the 1960 presidential campaign of John F. Kennedy both overcame and effectively utilized what at first appeared to be a severe political liability in his quest for the White House—namely, his Catholicism. He does so with the savvy of a political insider.

Casey's treatment of this topic aptly explores the questions of campaign strategy, organized Protestant opposition, and Catholic responses in light of Kennedy's public profession of the Catholic faith. The story is briskly told in eight chapters and an epilogue, which attempts to draw a few modest conclusions for contemporary students of politics and religion. In the closing pages, Casey also briefly and admirably tackles the question of the nature of Kennedy's Catholicism, making some intriguing observations about American Catholicism in the 1950s.

The story is told broadly, although there is, perhaps, slightly more attention to the Protestant world than the Catholic. The responses of Cardinals Richard Cushing and Francis Spellman to the vicissitudes of the campaign, as well as more voices of the contemporary Catholic press, might have filled out this slight imbalance. The endnotes and index will prove helpful to researchers, although some significant names from among Kennedy's chief advisers are omitted from the latter (e.g., John Kenneth Galbraith and Archibald Cox), and Cushing is referred to in the text more times than the single reference noted. (On p. 113, Senator Thomas Dodd is misidentified as his son, Christopher, the current Democratic senator from Connecticut.) This book should appeal to general readers as well as to graduate students.

Casey masterfully describes the efforts of Orland K. Armstrong, a Baptist layman and a former Republican congressman from Missouri, who labored prodigiously behind the scenes to unite liberal and conservative Protestant leaders and their denominations against Kennedy. However, it does not appear from the evidence provided in this book that Nixon was complicit in this clandestine operation. Casey has also uncovered the dissenter within the organization Protestants and Other Americans United (POAU): W. Stanley Rycroft, a Protestant minister, who may have provided the Kennedy campaign with important intelligence. His description of the furtive machinations of Reverend Billy Graham in trying to prevent a successful Catholic presidential candidacy does not provide a favorable impression of the now-revered evangelist. Finally, his chapter describing the work of Father John F. Cronin, S.S., assistant director of the Social Action Department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC), on behalf of Richard Nixon is a significant contribution to our understanding of this priest. Unfortunately, Casey appears to have consulted only the Cronin papers as found at the Nixon Presidential Library. It might also have been helpful to consult the NCWC archives.

The theme of this book has also been explored by Thomas J. Carty in A Catholic in the White House? Religion, Politics, and John Kennedy's Presidential Campaign (New York, 2004).While Carty especially concentrates on the winning over of elite, liberal, secular minds by the Kennedy campaign, in light of their historic antipathy to Catholicism, Casey examines more the political machinations and theological concerns among believers. These two books nicely complement each other in pursuit of the fuller picture.