Background
Kenneth Patrick O'Donnell was born on March 4, 1924, in Worcester, Massachussets, United States, the son of Cleo O'Donnell, the football coach of the College of the Holy Cross and St. Anselm's College, and Alice Guerin.
( This classic New York Times bestseller is an illuminati...)
This classic New York Times bestseller is an illuminating portrait of JFK—from his thrilling rise to his tragic fall—by two of the men who knew him best. As a politician, John Fitzgerald Kennedy crafted a persona that fascinated and inspired millions—and left an outsize legacy in the wake of his murder on November 22, 1963. But only a select few were privy to the complicated man behind the Camelot image. Two such confidants were Kenneth P. O’Donnell, Kennedy’s top political aide, and David F. Powers, a special assistant in the White House. They were among the president’s closest friends, part of an exclusive inner circle that came to be known as the “Irish Mafia.” In Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye, O’Donnell and Powers share memories of Kennedy, his extraordinary political career, and his iconic family—memories that could come only from intimate access to the man himself. As they recount the full scope of Kennedy’s journey—from his charismatic first campaign for Congress to his rapid rise to national standing, culminating on that haunting day in Dallas—O’Donnell and Powers lay bare the inner workings of a leader who is cherished and mourned to this day, in a memoir that spent over five months on the New York Times bestseller list.
https://www.amazon.com/Johnny-We-Hardly-Knew-Fitzgerald/dp/1480437832?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1480437832
politician Presidential adviser
Kenneth Patrick O'Donnell was born on March 4, 1924, in Worcester, Massachussets, United States, the son of Cleo O'Donnell, the football coach of the College of the Holy Cross and St. Anselm's College, and Alice Guerin.
Following graduation from Worcester Classical High School in 1942, O'Donnell joined the United States Army Air Corps, flying thirty missions as a B-17 bombardier over Europe during World War II. Afterward, he attended Harvard University, from which he graduated with a B. A. in government in 1949.
While at Harvard Kenneth O'Donnell was quarterback and captain of the football team and the roommate of Robert F. Kennedy, an end on the varsity football team and brother of the future president of the United States.
O'Donnell began his longtime association with the Kennedys in 1946, when Robert enlisted him to work for John Kennedy's inaugural congressional campaign in the North End area in Boston. Despite disliking Joseph P. Kennedy, the candidate's conservative father, O'Donnell admired John Kennedy for his war record. O'Donnell played a key role in Kennedy's election to the Senate over Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. , in 1952. It was O'Donnell who persuaded Robert Kennedy to assume control of the campaign, which O'Donnell felt was heading toward "absolute catastrophic disaster. " After Kennedy's victory, O'Donnell continued as a paper salesman while holding the position of the senator's unpaid state representative in Massachusetts.
In 1957 he assisted Robert Kennedy, now counsel to the Senate Rackets Committee, as an administrative assistant, and he remained in Washington, D. C. , the next year as a member of Senator John Kennedy's staff. During Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign, he emerged as a principal organizer. As one of Kennedy's most trusted friends and a member of the advisory group dubbed the Irish Mafia, O'Donnell officially served the new administration as appointments secretary.
O'Donnell also made travel arrangements for Kennedy; he himself traveled so anonymously that outsiders mistook him for a Secret Service agent. He also controlled the use of White House limousines and helicopters and White House office space. Moreover, he acted as liaison with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Secret Service. Jacqueline Kennedy once called O'Donnell the "wolfhound, " because whenever he entered the room, she knew that her husband had to return to work. O'Donnell so earned Kennedy's trust that he became one of the few people with whom the president was completely open. Along with David Powers, another longtime friend of Kennedy's, he amused the president with shared reminiscences. Because of his fierce loyalty, O'Donnell also felt free to speak bluntly to Kennedy. Suspicious of most people, he was particularly sensitive to those who might seek to use the president.
How much influence O'Donnell had on Kennedy's ideology and policy is disputable. Press Secretary Pierre Salinger once claimed that O'Donnell had more impact on Kennedy's key decisions than any other adviser. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. , labeled O'Donnell an important liberal influence. Other Kennedy aides played down O'Donnell's importance on policy, arguing that "Ken was oriented toward people, not issues. " One thing is certain: Kennedy did not always take O'Donnell's advice. He went against O'Donnell in speaking frankly on the issue of his religion during the 1960 campaign, in selecting Lyndon Johnson as his vice-presidential candidate, and in deciding to push civil rights legislation in 1963 in the face of O'Donnell's contention that it would wreck other proposed programs.
Ironically, it was O'Donnell who not only planned the arrangements for Kennedy's last trip to Texas in November 1963, but he also sold Kennedy on the political importance of visiting Dallas, despite the advice of others. Following Kennedy's assassination on November 22, O'Donnell saw to it that Kennedy's remains left Dallas that same day, even though local officials insisted that an autopsy first be performed.
Of all Kennedy's personal advisers, O'Donnell remained in the new administration the longest, regardless of past differences with Johnson. His new position as a special assistant to the president was a symbiotic one - the new president needed a Kennedy intimate to win the support of northern political leaders for the approaching 1964 presidential campaign. The president also used O'Donnell as a liaison with Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who was Johnson's chief antagonist and who had vice-presidential aspirations in 1964.
For O'Donnell's part, he wanted to prevent the presidential election of Republican Barry Goldwater. He consequently sought to prevent a rift in the Democratic party for which the Kennedyites would be blamed. Most important, he believed that, as Johnson's adviser, he could best protect Robert Kennedy's interests. While Kennedy had virtually no chance for the vice-presidency, O'Donnell was in a good position to assist Robert Kennedy's successful efforts to win the Democratic Senate election in New York.
During 1964, O'Donnell served as a special assistant to the president and as executive director of the Democratic National Committee. Resigning in January 1965, O'Donnell returned to Massachusetts, where he lost the gubernatorial primary race against state attorney general Edward J. McCormack the next year.
In 1968, disgusted by the Vietnam War, he advised Robert Kennedy to seek the presidency. Following Kennedy's assassination in June, O'Donnell helped to shape the peace plank for the party platform, which was defeated at the Democratic National Convention in August.
Afterward, O'Donnell returned to his public-relations firm in Boston and assisted his brother in a printing business. In 1970, in collaboration with David Powers, he published a ghostwritten memoir, "Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye, " detailing their association with John Kennedy. That same year, O'Donnell lost another bid for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Massachusetts, this time placing a disappointing fourth in the primary. In his two races, O'Donnell lacked the money, statewide recognition, and flair needed to be a successful candidate.
O'Donnell died in Boston from undisclosed illnesses apparently induced by alcoholism.
Being president assistant to John Kennedy (1961-1963), O'Donnell so earned Kennedy's trust that he became one of the few people with whom the president was completely open. He was even part of the group of Kennedy's close advisers ("Irish Mafia"). In 1970, Kenneth O'Donnell published a memoir, "Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye, " detailing their association with John Kennedy.
( This classic New York Times bestseller is an illuminati...)
During the 1960's, O'Donnell was a New Deal Democrat who believed that government should help the dispossessed; he was also one of the few Irish Catholics in Massachusetts who thought that red-baiter Joseph McCarthy was a discredit to his country.
Quotations: O'Donnell commented the assassination of John Kennedy: "I told the FBI what I had heard, but they said it couldn't have happened that way and that I must have been imagining things. So I testified the way they wanted me to. I just didn't want to stir up any more pain and trouble for the family. "
Kenneth O'Donnell was a member of the Democratic party.
Unlike the stereotypical Irish politician, the wiry, dour, and abrasive O'Donnell was a man of few words, most of them "no. " His thin, small mouth and unsmiling eyes and defiant face seemed to punctuate his expletives. So protective was the "iceman" of the president that he refused many visitors entry to the Oval Office. Consequently, with the president's concurrence, the genial Evelyn Lincoln, Kennedy's personal secretary, permitted staffers and select outsiders passage through her office. In this way, the president had the best of both worlds, for he could tell those he really did not want to see to contact O'Donnell; those who were more familiar with procedures merely went through Lincoln's office.
On September 19, 1948, O'Donnell married Helen Sullivan; the couple had five children. An intensely private person, O'Donnell managed to keep his family out of the spotlight. His wife died in January 1977; later that year he married Asta Hanna Helga Steinfatt.
