What Are the Odds That This Story is Fake?

September 22, 2009 by Jack Pitney | Filed Under Richard Nixon, Teddy's Bet | Leave a Comment 

Jonathan Movroydis previously noted a The Los Angeles Times story quoting an Edward Kennedy yarn about the 1960 election:

“And, believe me, I knew the odds. I was so certain of Jack’s victory that I placed a Las Vegas bet on it. My winnings could have given me enough money to buy a new car, a really fancy new car. The speedy Aston Martin DB4 had just come out of England a couple years earlier, and I really wanted one. Well, I won that bet, but I never bought the car. I made the mistake of telling dad about it, and he hit the roof … He went at me tooth and nail. I never did collect on my bet … “

This story is, as the Obama White House would say, fishy.  How could Ted Kennedy have scored so much when his brother was the odds-on favorite to win?  From a UPI story in The Los Angeles Times, October 23, 1960:  “LAS VEGAS: Oddsmakers in this desert gambling community were quoting 3-2 odds on Sen. Kennedy defeating his Republican rival Vice President Nixon in the Presidential race Nov. 8. The odds previously favored Kennedy 6-5.”

Ted Kennedy: I Gambled On The 1960 Election

September 21, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Richard Nixon, Teddy's Bet | Leave a Comment 

Reading through Teddy Kennedy’s memoir, True Compass, the LA Times’ Richard Abowitz notes an excerpt from the book that reveals that the late Massachusetts Senator went to Las Vegas to gamble on the outcome of the 1960 election:

“And, believe me, I knew the odds. I was so certain of Jack’s victory that I placed a Las Vegas bet on it. My winnings could have given me enough money to buy a new car, a really fancy new car. The speedy Aston Martin DB4 had just come out of England a couple years earlier, and I really wanted one. Well, I won that bet, but I never bought the car. I made the mistake of telling dad about it, and he hit the roof … He went at me tooth and nail. I never did collect on my bet … “

Senator Kennedy — who (as it has been recently revealed) spearheaded the effort to bring down the Nixon presidency– must have placed a very risky bet. The 1960 election was one of the closest elections of all time, separated only by a margin of 113,000 votes.

Historians, and many Kennedy supporters, later acknowledged serious and substantial voter fraud on election day in 1960.

The change of one vote per precinct in any one of four key states —including Texas and Illinois— might have changed history.

In Mayor Richard Daley’s Chicago, one voting machine recorded 121 votes after only 43 people had voted, and in LBJ’s Texas there was one county where 4,895 voters were registered, but 6,138 ballots were miraculously recorded.

According to former Washington Post editor Benjamin Bradlee, Mayor Daley reportedly told John Kennedy, “Mr. President, with little bit of luck and the help of a few close friends, you’re going to carry Illinois.”

The New York Times columnist Tom Wicker also opined: “Nobody knows to this day, or ever will, whom the American people really elected in 1960.”

Some how the late Senator knew the odds.

Was it just luck? Or was it the help of a few close friends?