TLS, four pages, 7.25 x 10.5, personal letterhead, December 10, 1986. Lengthy letter to historian Herbert Parmet, in part: "My best recollections with regard to the Hiss-Chambers case appear in Six Crises, which was researched and written ten years after Hiss was convicted of perjury…Your information to the effect that I met with John Cronin 'four times' is an understatement, to put it mildly. Father John, as we called him, became one of our most intimate friends during the Vice Presidential years…Interestingly enough, I believe it was Jack Kennedy who first introduced me to Father Cronin. Jack and I had offices near each other on the fifth floor of the old House office building. We shared the distinction of being the two most junior members of the House Labor Committee. He was a liberal, and I was a conservative. But he was a strong anti-communist, as I was—as indicated by the fact that he broke with Helen Gahagan Douglas and other liberals in the Democratic Party in supporting Truman's Greek-Turkish aid program, as I did. I vividly recall the day he came into my office in the spring of 1950 and personally handed me a contribution of $1,000 for my Senatorial campaign, which he later told me was from his father because of his father's opposition to Helen Gahagan Douglas. An interesting sidelight is that I first met his father outside a restaurant in the spring of 1960 as I was going in and he, accompanied by Ted Kennedy, was coming out. He greeted me warmly, and told me he had been a great admirer of mine since the Hiss case, and said, 'If Jack doesn't get it, I hope you do.' In addition to conducting hearings which later eventually led to the Taft-Hartley bill, the Committee conducted investigations into communist infiltration of unions. Father Cronin, according to Jack and to Charles Kersten—who, like Jack, was also a devout Catholic—was an expert in that field. I know that Jack consulted with him in preparing his questions of alleged communists during those hearings…Where our recollections seem to differ, apparently, is that he believes that he briefed me on the Hiss-Chambers case in that 1947 period. My recollection is that our talks in that year only involved the subject of communist infiltration into labor unions." In fine condition. Nixon's pursuit of the Alger Hiss spy case earned him national attention as a leading anti-communist politician. Kennedy's father, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., was known for his friendship with fervent communist hunter Joseph McCarthy, a fellow Irish Catholic. This remarkable, lengthy letter reveals the complex relationship between rivals in the 1960 presidential election, and offers insight into both Kennedy's family and his politics.
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