Politica Dynastica

"Certainly within the past one hundred years," wrote one commentator in the summer of 1960, "no simple City has so dominated the political scene as Boston does today." That year, Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy was the Democratic nominee for president. His Republican opponent, Richard M. Nixon, chose as his running mate ambassador to the United Nations and former senator from Massachusetts, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.

In Politica Dynastica: Kennedy, Lodge, and the Coming of War in Vietnam, Daniel R. Hart explores how the relationship between Kennedy and Lodge reflected a microcosm of mid-twentieth century Boston: Lodge the exemplar of the established privilege of the Brahmin caste and Kennedy the culminating embodiment of the striving Irish Catholic immigrant.

In 1952, Kennedy challenged the thrice-elected Lodge for a seat in the Senate, a triumph that would propel Kennedy to presidency. By the third year of his presidency, Kennedy had overcome his early foreign policy struggles-the Bay of Pigs, the Berlin Wall, the neutralization of Laos-and had proven his mettle during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Yet, the situation in South Vietnam remained untenable.

Why, then, would a Democratic president turn to the losing Republican vice-presidential candidate for the most critical ambassadorship in his administration? The alacrity and significance of the appointment was unprecedented in American history and, as Hart suggests, was inextricably tied to Boston, a city as complex as the situation in Vietnam in 1963. Kennedy's need to keep his options open were challenged by the rapidly changing events, and though the men maintained a cordial relationship, in his 100 days as Kennedy's ambassador, Lodge proved to be a dominant figure. Lodge's appointment, and subsequent actions, lends itself to Hart's analysis of what Kennedy might have done in Vietnam.