| Kenny O'Donnell | |
|---|---|
Special Assistant to the President 1961–1965 |
|
| Born | March 4, 1924 Worcester, Massachusetts, United States |
| Died | September 9, 1977 (aged 53) Boston, Massachusetts, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Politician |
| Political party | Democratic |
Kenneth Patrick O'Donnell[1] (March 4, 1924 – September 9, 1977), known as Kenny, was a top aide to U.S. President John F. Kennedy and part of the group of Kennedys' close advisors called the "Irish Mafia". He served as organizer and director of Kennedy's presidential campaign schedule in 1960, as Kennedy's special assistant and appointments secretary 1961–1963, as Lyndon Johnson's Presidential Aide 1963–1965, and as campaign manager for Robert Kennedy in the 1968 presidential election campaign and, after Kennedy's assassination, for Hubert Humphrey.
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Born Patrick Kenneth O'Donnell in Worcester, Massachusetts, O'Donnell's first and middle names were legally switched in the 1960s. His father, Cleo O'Donnell, was the football coach for the Holy Cross Crusaders football team for two decades and later athletics director for all sports activities at the College of the Holy Cross. O'Donnell had an older brother, Cleo, who was a football star at Harvard during the 1940s.[2]
During World War II O'Donnell served in the US Army Air Corps (1942–1945). After completing his service in the AAC, he studied at Harvard College 1946–1949. It was at Harvard that O'Donnell met Robert Kennedy, where they were roommates[3] as well as teammates on the Harvard football team; O'Donnell became team captain in 1948. O'Donnell and Robert Kennedy remained close friends until Kennedy's assassination in 1968.[4]
While at Harvard, O'Donnell married his wife, Helen, in 1947.[2] They had five children, among them entrepreneur Kevin M. O'Donnell – in 1950 – and writer Helen O'Donnell – in 1962. Following graduation from Harvard, O'Donnell attended law school at Boston College from 1950–51. He later worked as a salesman for the Hollingsworth Paper Company and then the Whitney Corporation, both in Boston, from 1951–52. O'Donnell later worked in public relations from 1952–57.[3]
O'Donnell's friendship with Bobby Kennedy found him involved with the Kennedy family's political career already in 1946, when Bobby enlisted him to work for John F. Kennedy’s first congressional campaign,[3] and in 1952 the two campaigned together to get JFK elected to the United States Senate.[4] O'Donnell then went on to serve as JFK’s unpaid political observer in Massachusetts,[3] until he in 1957 was employed as assistant counsel of the 1957–59 Senate Labor Rackets Committee by Robert Kennedy, who had been appointed chief counsel of the committee.[4]
In 1958, O'Donnell became a member of JFK’s staff, and in 1960 he was the organizer and director of John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign schedule.[3] The following year he became Kennedy's special assistant and Appointments Secretary. In this role he functioned in many ways as Kennedy's Chief of Staff, a position that Kennedy never filled during his tenure in the White House.
O'Donnell unofficially advised Kennedy during the planning for the Bay of Pigs invasion as well as during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis,[3] and was an early critic of the Vietnam War, advising Kennedy to bring an end to America's involvement in the conflict.
O'Donnell arranged JFK's trip to Dallas in November 1963, and was in a car just behind the president's[5] when Kennedy was assassinated. It was an enormous blow to O'Donnell, who long blamed himself for the death of the president.[4]
After having served as a Presidential Aide to Lyndon Johnson until 1965,[3] O'Donnell tried to win the Democratic nomination for the election for Massachusetts Governor in 1966, losing by only 64,000 votes to Edward McCormack, which was much less than the polls had predicted.[4] In 1968, he served as campaign manager for Robert Kennedy, when Kennedy challenged President Johnson for renomination.[4]
Following Robert Kennedy's assassination in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968, which was an even worse blow to O'Donnell than the assassination of JFK five years earlier,[4] he joined, as did many others in Kennedy's campaign, Hubert Humphrey's presidential campaign, serving as campaign manager for Humphrey as well.[3]
In 1970, he made another attempt to win the Democratic nomination for the election for Massachusetts Governor, but finished fourth in a primary field of four Democrats, with just 9 percent of the vote.[4]
The combination of personal electoral disappointments and the assassinations of his two best friends drove him to increasing levels of alcoholism. He died in September 1977, just months after his wife Helen.[4]
In his biography With Kennedy (1966), Pierre Salinger writes:[5]
| “ | It was my impression that O'Donnell had the greatest influence in shaping the President's most important decisions. He was able to set aside his own prejudices against individuals and his own ideological commitments (I would rate him a moderate Democrat) and appraise the alternatives with total objectivity. It was impossible to categorize O'Donnell, as White House observers did with other staff members, as either a "hawk" or a "dove" on foreign policy, or a Stevenson liberal or Truman conservative on civil rights. JFK gave extra weight to O'Donnell's opinions because he knew he had no personal cause to argue. Ken had only one criterion: Will this action help or hurt the President? And that, for O'Donnell, was another way of asking: Will it help or hurt the country? | ” |
In his autobiography Counselor, Ted Sorensen (who served as special counsel to President Kennedy) claims that O'Donnell polarized the JFK staff into the professional "politicians" and the academicians (such as Sorensen and Arthur Schlesinger). Sorensen also claims that O'Donnell's antipathy towards himself ran so deep that he in 1976/77 worked to derail Sorensen's nomination as Director of Central Intelligence for Jimmy Carter.
O'Donnell and David Powers co-authored "Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye": Memories of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1972). ISBN 0316716251
In 1998, his daughter, freelance writer Helen O’Donnell, wrote a biography about her father and his close friendship with Bobby Kennedy: A Common Good: The Friendship of Robert F. Kennedy and Kenneth P. O'Donnell.
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Thomas E. Stephens |
White House Appointments Secretary Served under: John F. Kennedy 1961–1963 |
Succeeded by W. Marvin Watson |