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Sunday, August 17, 2014

KEFAUVER DEFEATS JFK

JFK LOSES FIRST AND ONLY POLITICAL RACE

Chicago, Illinois (JFK+50) Fifty-eight years ago today, August 17, 1956, John Fitzgerald Kennedy lost his first and only political contest.

Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee defeated Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts in the balloting at the Democratic National Convention here in Chicago to become the party's nominee for Vice-President of the United States.

Senator Kefauver won the nomination on the second ballot after his colleague, Tennessee Senator Albert Gore, Sr. bowed out of the race and threw his support to Mr. Kefauver.

Senator Kennedy gave a gracious concession speech after the balloting in which he asked the convention to make Kefauver's nomination unanimous.

The defeat proved to be advantageous for Senator Kennedy as the Stevenson-Kefauver ticket was soundly defeated by Eisenhower-Nixon in November.

JFK's stock in the Democratic ranks grew rapidly after the general election and he would win his party's presidential nomination four years later.


Senator Estes Kefauver
Tennessee (D)

OSWALD DID RADIO INTERVIEW 51 YEARS AGO

New Orleans, Louisiana (JFK+50) Lee Harvey Oswald, self-proclaimed secretary of the New Orleans chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, was interviewed fifty-one years ago today, August 17, 1963, on a local radio program broadcast here in New Orleans.

Mr. Oswald appeared on WDSU-AM's Latin Listening Post and was questioned by moderator William K. Stuckey.*

Just a few days later Oswald appeared on WDSU's Conversation Carte Blanche in a debate with Ed Butler of the Information Council of the Americas and Carlos Bringuier, a Cuban refugee.





OSWALD FILES FOR MARINE DISCHARGE

El Toro, California (JFK+50) Private First Class Lee Harvey Oswald applied for a hardship discharge from the United States Marine Corps fifty-five years ago today, August 17, 1959.

Private Oswald stated that his mother had suffered an injury and needed his support.

Oswald was released from active duty in the USMC on September 11, 1959.

According to Robert J. Groden's "The Search for Lee Harvey Oswald" (1995), Lee's mother, Marguerite Oswald, was injured on December 5, 1958 when a box of glass jars fell on her head while she was working at a department store in Fort Worth, Texas. 

According to Groden,  she had "completely recovered months before Lee applied for the early discharge".