In the early 1960s--prior to his elimination in Dallas, Texas on
November 22, 1963 from the world of U.S. power elite presidential politics--JFK
was viewed as a politically liberal Democrat by most people in the USA and the
world. Yet during the McCarthy Era of the late 1940s and 1950s, neither JFK nor
his extremely wealthy father, Joseph P. Kennedy, expressed much political
opposition to the activities of the demagogic right-wing Republican member of
the U.S. Senate—Joe McCarthy—whose U.S. Senate committee violated the civil
liberties of U.S. liberal and leftists during the early 1950s. As Thomas J.
Whalen recalled in his 2000 book Kennedy Versus Lodge:
"....McCarthy also enjoyed close personal ties to the Kennedy family. A frequent visitor to the family's summertime retreat in Hyannis Port, McCarthy was known to participate in such time-honored family rituals as sailing, touch football, and softball....
"....`In case there is any question in your mind,' Joseph Kennedy informed a journalist in 1961, `I liked Joe McCarthy. I always liked him. I would see him when I went down to Washington and when he was visiting in Palm Beach he'd come around to my house for a drink. I invited him to Cape Cod.'
"As a personal favor, McCarthy would later help Kennedy's second-youngest son, Robert, attain a staff assistant's position on the Permanent subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate Government Operations Committee, a committee the Wisconsinite chaired....
"....Much to the dismay of liberal Democratic leaders such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Kennedy declined to go on the record against the Wisconsin senator, refusing even to pair his vote with that of another absent senator in opposition to the censure....
"This refusal to censure McCarthy was not without political calculation. The Republican was still revered by Irish Catholics in Massachusetts for his staunch anti-communism, and the idea of publicly denouncing him, however, justified, risked alienating this all-important constituency group..."
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