Sen. John F. Kennedy makes his way into the Los Angeles Sports Arena on July 13, 1960, after being nominated for president. | AP Photo Democrats nominate JFK for president, July 13, 1960

On this day in 1960, delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles nominated Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts as their presidential candidate. The next day, at Kennedy’s behest, the delegates unanimously chose Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, the Senate majority leader, as his running mate.

In the week before the convention, both Johnson and Adlai Stevenson, the party’s nominee in 1952 and 1956, announced their candidacies. At that point, Kennedy’s nomination seemed less than assured.


Texas Gov. John Connally, a Johnson supporter, told reporters that Kennedy suffered from Addison’s disease. But Pierre Salinger, his press secretary, denied it while Kennedy’s physician, Janet Travell, falsely asserted that the senator’s adrenal glands functioned normally.

As the convention opened, Kennedy accepted Johnson’s challenge to hold a televised debate before a joint meeting of the Texas and Massachusetts delegations. Most reporters wrote that Kennedy won. In its wake, Johnson proved unable to significantly expand his delegate support beyond his Southern base.

Eleanor Roosevelt, the former first lady, seconded Stevenson’s nomination. “I did not agree with the people who said Stevenson could not be nominated because he had twice been defeated,” she wrote in her autobiography. “His defeat, I felt, was a result of running against the hero worship of President [Dwight] Eisenhower. ... I felt, too, that there was no one who could serve us better in the present crisis of world affairs or who had earned higher regard and respect among other nations.”

After the first ballot, Kennedy had 806 votes to 409 for Johnson and 79.5 for Stevenson. Favorite sons and minor candidates split the remaining 142 votes. Kennedy was the first senator since 1920 to be nominated for the presidency by either the Democrats or the Republicans. On the last day of the convention, Kennedy delivered his acceptance speech from the adjacent Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

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Kennedy's noted how Americans might be hesitant about supporting him because of his Roman Catholic faith. As he put it: “I am fully aware of the fact that the Democratic Party, by nominating someone of my faith, has taken on what many regard as a new and hazardous risk.”

Speaking to the assembled delegates in the Coliseum, he added: “And you have, at the same time, placed your confidence in me, and my ability to render a free, fair, judgment ... and to reject any kind of religious pressure or obligation that might directly or indirectly interfere with my conduct of the presidency in the national interest.”

In November, the Kennedy-Johnson ticket won 49.7 percent of the popular vote against the 49.6 percent garnered by Republican Vice President Richard Nixon and his running mate, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. of Massachusetts. Kennedy-Johnson had to carry Texas, Illinois and Nevada to claim victory. Despite allegations of voter fraud, Nixon chose not to contest the results.

SOURCE: “THE MAKING OF THE PRESIDENT 1960,” BY THEODORE WHITE (1961)

