Distinctly Montana Magazine

55 w w w . d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m "Yes, hello?" It was JFK's aide Dave Powers. He asked them if they had the time to meet with him. Thinking it might be a prank, Kevin threw a coat over his simple wool shirt and he and Joan drove to the Finlen Hotel. Powers intercepted them as they entered. He looked at Kevin Shannon, smiled, and said, "Your face is a map of Ireland, could you be Kevin Shannon?" Kennedy spent a long time talking to the Shannons—long enough that he arrived a little late to his fundraiser dinner. He told them that his own sister, Rosemary, suffered from a similar ailment. They found, to their amazement, that a nun who had been caring for Rosemary now taught at the local School of the Immaculate Conception. When they paused for a photo opportunity, Kennedy, noticing that Joan was pregnant, said, "I think that Mrs. Shannon would be more comfortable if she kept her coat on." This small act of grace may have saved her some embarrassment. Later, Kevin would remember thinking the future presidential candidate "looked 20 feet tall. We were starry-eyed. It was like a dream. A man who could be president, yet he took time to sit down and talk to us about our problems. They couldn't have been nicer. We thought, 'who are we to take his time?'" At the dinner, he continued his wooing of the Buttians at large by welcoming "the Irish and all those who would like to be Irish." The two groups composed a considerable portion of the popula- tion of Butte. As Kevin Shannon reported, "That day I was proud to be Irish!" Kennedy won primaries in Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Or- egon. The nomination was in reach, but Montana's delegates wouldn't vote until late June. They would have to be won over. JFK and his entourage arrived at Helena on June 26 at 11 p.m. He disembarked from his plane and took a call. Symington, his rival, was already at Boulder's Diamond Bar S, where he was supposed to stay. Despite being exhausted, Kennedy decided to stop by the less luxurious Placer Hotel and meet the delegates. He entered carrying a suit on a hook. One onlooker would remark that he "never saw such a tired man in my life." Another, Leo C. Greybill Jr., said that the weariness couldn't dim him: "He still gave that feeling of personal intensity—a real jolt—when he looked at you with his tremendous blue eyes and shook your hand—a feeling that he was concentrating on you..." However tired he was, Kennedy decided to spend nearly the whole night at the Placer taking meetings and making phone calls. Journalists and entourage were everywhere, stealing a few moments of sleep wherever they could, on couches or on the floor. Kennedy finally sent down to the front desk for a board. He needed one for his bed, as a consequence of a bad back. Ma- rie Merrill, secretary of the "JFK-For-President" organization in Helena, retrieved a length of plywood from a banquet table and delivered it to him. The next morning Kennedy and his people were up at 6 a.m. in a moment captured in Theodore White's classic The Making of the President, 1960: "Outside, the mountains of Montana were fra- grant with early summer; pine and fir glistened as they reached to the sky on a June day of absolute purity; the dandelions had passed to seed, but the mountain slopes twinkled with daisies, with primroses, with bluebells, with black-eyed Susans, with purple lupine. But Kennedy had indoor work to do..." Indeed, JFK was up and moving about in a blue nightshirt by the time people started to arrive. They ate ham and eggs and discussed the delicate delegate situation. Kennedy shaved in the bathroom of room 620, wearing a blue towel and answer- ing questions as he lathered. Then he crossed through room 621 into 622, where he took a shower. He returned through the ad- joining rooms to find that more and more people were arriving, including four women. "Whoops," Christopherson has Kennedy tell his audience. "I didn't know so many people got up this early in Helena!" He excused himself and went back to 620. There he dressed, and emerged with a pair of wet socks he had washed in the sink and asked Marie Merrill where he could hang them. ONE ONLOOKER WOULD REMARK THAT HE "NEVER SAW SUCH A TIRED MAN IN MY LIFE."

• Cover