The Kid Brother

With a multiplicity of presidential candidates for 1960, the Democratic Party has really done pretty well at appearing as a bunch of amiable folk at a social gathering. In fact, the dead-earnest maneuvering for position has often seemed more like a minuet, and remarkably rare is the occasion when one of the participants has voiced--in public--anything less than kindly thoughts of the rest. But last week a kid brother got into the act and started giving the dancers a hotfoot.

The kid brother was strapping (6 ft. 2 in., 200 Ibs.) Edward ("Ted") Kennedy, 27, serving as a sort of general evangelist for the candidacy of his eldest brother, Massachusetts' Senator John Kennedy (Jack Kennedy is 42; Robert Kennedy, who recently resigned as counsel for the Senate's labor-investigating McClellan committee, is 33). On a snowy night before a storm-braving audience of only 15 Young Democrats in the University of Denver's student Y.M.C.A. lounge. Ted Kennedy blissfully answered some blunt questions, unaware that a reporter from the Rocky Mountain News was in the room. Brother Jack, said Ted, is waging an all-or-nothing campaign to be the Democratic presidential nominee, and has no interest in the vice-presidential spot (as recently as last June, front-running Jack Kennedy privately said he would be willing to be Adlai Stevenson's running mate). The Democrats, he said, would be foolish if they nominated Stevenson, a "brilliant but ineffectual man," who would "make an admirable Secretary of State."

Of another Democratic hopeful, Ted Kennedy said that Missouri's Senator Stuart Symington "is not in a position of particular leadership, but in some people's opinion has the least against him." As for Minnesota's Senator Hubert Humphrey, Ted Kennedy dismissed him as a candidate who will "not be a significant threat in the convention."

After the News reported his remarks, young Lawyer Kennedy, who took his degree at the University of Virginia last June, began having some somber second thoughts. Adlai Stevenson ineffectual? Why, said Ted Kennedy, "I can't imagine my saying it."

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