Did he win by fraud too?? Those pesky Democrats.
1960: John F. Kennedy vs. Richard Nixon
Earl Mazo, a Washington reporter for the New York Herald Tribune, began his investigation after he said Chicago reporters were "chastising" him and other national reporters for missing the real story.
He traveled to Chicago, obtained a list of voters in the suspicious precincts, and began matching names with addresses. Mazo told
The Washington Post:
There was a cemetery where the names on the tombstones were registered and voted. I remember a house. It was completely gutted. There was nobody there. But there were 56 votes for [John F.] Kennedy in that house.
Mazo also found that Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's charge that other counties were doing the same thing in favor of Republicans proved to be trueโbut nothing on the scale of what happened in Chicago.
In Texas, Mazo found similar circumstances.
The
New York Herald Tribune planned a 12-part series on the election fraud. Four of the stories had been published and were republished in newspapers across the country in mid-December.
At Richard Nixon's request, Mazo met him at the vice president's Senate office, where Nixon told him to back off, saying, "Our country cannot afford the agony of a constitutional crisis" in the midst of the Cold War.
Mazo didn't back off, and Nixon called his editors. The newspaper did not run the rest of the series. "I know I was terribly disappointed. I envisioned the Pulitzer Prize," Mazo said.
The entire matter wasn't void of accountability.
Illinois state special prosecutor Morris Wexler, named to investigate charges of election fraud in Chicago, indicted 677 election officials, but couldn't nail down convictions with state Judge John Karns.
It wasn't until 1962, when an election worker confessed to witness tampering in Chicago's 28th Ward, that three precinct workers pleaded guilty and served jail sentences.
Pulitzer-winning journalist Seymour Hersh reported hearing tapes of FBI wiretaps about potential election fraud. Hershโwhose books indicate he is a fan of neither Kennedy nor Nixonโbelieved Nixon was the rightful winner.
