In Love with Defeat. H. Brandt Ayers

him to respond to Republican charges that his own Secretary of State, James Burns, was for Nixon. Truman’s response was: “Jimmy and I split when I sent him to Russia and didn’t hear a goddamned word from him until an assistant told me he was arriving at Patuxent River Naval Station and that he was setting up the networks to report to the American people. I sent him a handwritten note that said, ‘Jimmy, you better get your ass up here and report to the boss, first.’ He resigned a few weeks later for reasons of health—and the old scudder ain’t dead yet!”

      Television was decisive in carrying North Carolina for Senator Kennedy, but it was not the TV debates that turned the tide. Voters in the thirty counties west of Raleigh, where Democrats traditionally got their majority, did not warm to the notion of having a Catholic in the White House. They were going fishing until late October when the handsome young senator campaigned “Down East,” and more significantly, the regional TV stations ran non-stop commercials of the candidate’s meeting with the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. Among Kennedy’s remarks that made a personal connection with the predominantly Protestant ministers was when he wondered aloud whether anybody asked defenders of the Alamo what church they belonged to.

      Of much greater and more lasting personal significance was a blind date with an attractive Raleigh girl, 18-year-old Josephine, who was then known as Josie, Ehringhaus, the governor’s granddaughter. The date went badly. I wore a straw hat, which she thought “fruity.” When we arrived at my apartment and encountered a couple campaigning for Terry Sanford, she treated them rudely, because her father, J. C. B. (Blucher) Ehringhaus Jr., was supporting Lake. Inside the apartment, I angrily made a comment not calculated to endear me, “If I knew you better, I’d spank you.” Still, some kind of connection had been made. Josie was beautiful, though I resolutely declined to admit it when she asked if I thought she was, instead substituting another adjective: “arresting.” In spite of the rough launching, I pursued her because she was smart and good looking, inviting her to an invitation-only premiere rerun of Gone with the Wind. We began to click and fell in love when Terry brought dancing back to the Governor’s Mansion—a black tie affair with the North Carolina symphony playing waltzes. My standing as a likely son-in-law was cemented with Josie’s witty and charming mother, Margaret, when Josie begged off a date to stay with her. Blucher was out of town and there had been a serious crime in the neighborhood. The “girls” would keep each other company and watch Margaret’s favorite show, The Untouchables. That night, I sent a telegram to Margaret: “Don’t worry, my agents have your house under surveillance. Signed, Elliot Ness.” When Margaret discovered the author, I was in.