Distinctly Montana Magazine

54 D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A M A G A Z I N E • FA L L 2 0 2 6 He held the headdress but didn't put it on. The reception may have been enthusiastic or muted; journalist Edmund Chris- topherson called it "typical." His electioneering strategy revealed itself at the evening's fund- raising dinner in the basement of the Al Bedoo Shrine. There had been some debate about the pricing of the evening's festiv- ities. Should it be higher, and cater to the more affluent donors? Or should the price be lower, encouraging wider attendance? Kennedy argued for the lower price, and his camp prevailed— the cost would be $3.00 a plate. Some wrangling had preceded the Sunday evening dinner. Late on Saturday night, a rancher named Clem Cormier received a call from someone on the Crow Tribal Council, whom Cormier had previously arranged to come to Billings and make Kennedy an honorary member of the tribe. They demanded that Cormier pay them $800 up front or they wouldn't attend. Cormier balked. Instead, he drove to Hardin, bought the headdress presented to JFK at a gift shop for $65, and convinced his friend, the Crow rancher Fred Strong Enemy, and his family to attend instead. It was they who inducted Kennedy into the tribe. Cormier would also present JFK with a cowboy hat and boots, which he likewise declined to put on, but held politely in his hands. At the dinner, Kennedy spoke about his policy on farmers and the perceived failure of his opponents—including Vice Presi- dent Richard Nixon, his likely opponent in the 1960 Presidential election, should he secure his party's nomination. He admon- ished the Eisenhower administration's decision to block the Yellowstone Dam, saying that we needed to develop more dams in order to keep up with the Russians, who were set to exceed American production of hydroelectricity "by 1975." He finished by quoting Robert Frost: he had "promises to keep" and "miles to go" before he could sleep. At the end, Kennedy shook hands with all 700 attendants—many more than the expected 400. Kennedy was denied the pleasure of waking up in Montana on that first trip. His busy schedule demanded that he get on a plane that very night. While driving to the air- port, Nick Maltese, the county chairman who had arranged the dinner, asked him why he hadn't worn the headdress for the crowd. He replied that he remem- bered Calvin Coolidge photographed in one of those getups be- fore and didn't care for the association. Even so, Kennedy seemed to take some pride in his "official" Crow status. He wrote Red Welsh, one of the organizers of his first visit to Montana, and greeted him with "How, Kemo Sabay." And later, on Jack Paar's television show, he joked that now that he'd been accepted in the tribe, he would start rooting for the Indians in Westerns. He returned in March of 1959, this time to Butte. Once again, it was a speaking engagement and he wouldn't be spending the night. Speaking to a crowd of 400 (impressive as there was only three days' notice to arrange the event), Kennedy flattered the crowd. In a radio interview that afternoon, he had called Butte the "Boston of the West," and added that "Boston is sometimes called the Butte of the East." To a town with considerable roots among the so-called "shan- ty Irish," he must have seemed to some like the epitome of the "lace curtain Irish," well-heeled and respectable. His wife, wrote Christopherson, though "attractive and gracious," was possibly hindered by "her bouffant hair style and eye makeup that hadn't yet caught on out here," and by what some found to be an "aloof, modern...Eastern reserve—almost a coldness" quite unlike the "easygoing, informal" Westerners around her. It was to be Jack- ie's only trip to Montana. Still, he won many supporters in Butte for having chosen to speak with the student journalists from the local high schools first thing after arriving. Joseph Duffy was one of the students he met with, and he would remember later how he had been "very impressed by his interest in us...to suddenly be in a discussion with a man who, in retrospect, seems to have been every bit as great then as now, is something that stays with you a long time." Kevin and Joan Shannon, meanwhile, spent the day at home, re- laxing. They had asked if Senator Kennedy might be available to discuss their charitable organization, the Rocky Mountain Asso- ciation for Retarded Children, with them—it was an issue near to their hearts, as their own child suffered from developmental disabilities. Kennedy hadn't responded yet, and as it was late in the day, they must have figured their request fell on deaf ears by the time they received a phone call.

• Cover