Before becoming President, John F. Kennedy visited The Maritimes. The then-Senator’s visit occurred in the middle of a crisis – four days earlier, the Soviet Union launched the world’s first satellite, Sputnik.
At first, New Brunswick’s newspapers did not seem to be overly concerned with Sputnik, or altogether certain what it even was. The Moncton Times and Telegraph Journal optimistically announced the half-meter tall polished silver ball would “pave the way for interplanetary travel.” Fredericton’s Daily Gleaner, on the other hand, somewhat bewilderingly announced that the Soviet Union had just launched a “baby moon.”
Over the next few days, however, the newspaper coverage shifted, quickly bordering on hysteria. The Daily Gleaner headline screamed in giant letters “VISUAL SIGHTINGS OF RED SATELLITE WORLD WIDE” and took particular offence that Sputnik’s orbit took it over Bathurst, which had a large air force base nearby. (The Gleaner would not ever use the curious phrase “baby moon” again.)
Meanwhile, in the midst of this global crisis, a young American Senator arrived in Fredericton. John F. Kennedy had been invited by Lord Beaverbrook, who knew his father from when both were in Britain during the Second World War. Beaverbrook had been the Minister of Aircraft Production in Winston Churchill’s government at that time, and the elder Kennedy had been the United States Ambassador to England.
In the words of historian Fred Phillips: “Lord Beaverbrook would come to Fredericton in early September, enjoy the crisp Autumn days, and usually leave in the latter part of October. Understandably he liked to play the Little King. In Fredericton he would hold court, and to it he would summon prominent figures of the day – political figures, industrialists, financiers, publishers, writers, artists, historians and professors eminent in their various fields.”
John F Kennedy was in Fredericton to be presented with the honorary degree Doctor of Civil Laws from UNB.
If the young Senator had hoped that his short trip to New Brunswick would be a welcome
respite from the chaos of the Sputnik launch back home, those hopes were quickly dashed by a reporter for the Telegraph Journal who accosted him as soon as he landed in the Fredericton airport.
The man who would later establish the program which put a man on the moon reassured the reporter that “The US would have to put forward greater effort.” The impromptu and seemingly involuntary press conference went sourly, with the Telegraph Journal complaining that the Senator “parried” all questions about Sputnik, and only gave thorough answers when asked about his thoughts on baseball.
Although only 40 years old, Kennedy was a seasoned politician already. He had first been elected to the House of Representatives at the age of 29, and had fought his way into the Senate at age 35 in a hard-fought election campaign that the Daily Gleaner reported had been four and a half years long. His election to the Senate was a rare Democratic gain in an election where that country had voted en-masse for the Dwight Eisenhower’s Republican Party.
Speculation that he would run for President was already swirling, despite his young age. He had just won a Pulitzer Prize for his book ‘Profiles in Courage,’ and he had also narrowly missed out on becoming his party’s nominee for Vice President in the American election the previous year.
Lord Beaverbrook took it upon himself to fan this speculation for his friend, beginning his remarks with “When he has become the president of the United States of America, I say to him, remember New Brunswick.”
The Daily Gleaner was quite smitten with the Senator, lavishing praise on Kennedy: “He is destined for the highest office in the Union. His country, and through his country this anxious world, can use one of his breed of talents; they limn the profile of a man who has the courage not to love Caesar less, but love Rome more.”
Presumably The Gleaner was inspired by Kennedy’s oratorical gifts, as this is a highly uncharacteristic writing style for a newspaper who only days before had called Sputnik a “baby moon.”
When the Senator spoke at the University of New Brunswick’s Convocation, he urged the assembled graduates to enter “the abused and neglected profession of politics.”
He declared that for too long the “chief practitioners” of politics required nothing for success “except finding your way around a smoke-filled room.” He decried that too many politicians he knew were interested in only two things: the Constitution and themselves.
He declared: “No, what we need are men who can ride easily over broad fields of knowledge and recognize the mutual dependence of our worlds, men like my nation’s Thomas Jefferson, whom a contemporary described as “A gentlemen of 32, who could calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie and artery, plan an edifice, try a case, break a horse, dance a minuet, and play the violin.” ”
“We want from you not the sneers of the cynics or the despair of the faint-hearted. Of that we already have in abundance. We ask that you bring enlightenment, vision and illumination to a troubled world … students of the University of New Brunswick, we who are here today, concerned with the dark and difficult task ahead, ask that you bring the candles to illuminate our way.”
Despite Kennedy being an American Senator in the middle of a security scare about a mysterious Soviet satellite that was not widely understood, security for the Senator’s return trip to Boston was distinctly lax.
John F. Kennedy was driven from Fredericton to the railway station in Fredericton Junction, but arrived early for his train.
He wandered unrecognized around the station to pass the time, and spotted a small restaurant. It sold tomato soup, which was his favorite. The future President sat alone in the little New Brunswick restaurant having a bowl of soup, before boarding his train.
Three years later John F. Kennedy was elected President.
Three years after that he would be dead.
