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learned he had won, though Nixon’s press secretary did not concede the result until after noon.
    Kennedy puzzled over how to respond to the narrow margin. He could look back to Woodrow Wilson’s 42 percent plurality in 1912 and take comfort from knowing that Wilson won a second term and became one of the most significant presidents of the century. But it did little to salve Kennedy’s wounded pride and self-confidence, especially since everyone in his inner circle had been predicting a victory of between 53 and 57 percent: “How did I manage to beat a guy like this by only a hundred thousand votes?” he asked one of his aides. More important, it left him less room to maneuver; he would have to build an administration with greater regard for Republican sensitivities. His promise to adopt a fresh outlook on the Cold War, for example, gave immediate ground to decisions on choosing directors of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Liberals urged him to appoint new national security and law enforcement officials who could signal a change. Instead, two days after the election, Kennedy announced that Allen Dulles and J. Edgar Hoover would remain as heads of the two agencies.
    The same week, Kennedy arranged a meeting with Nixon as a show of national unity. He privately acknowledged that he had nothing to say to his recent rival, but he thought it was important to give the impression that he would construct a bipartisan administration, though he would not offer him a job. After the meeting, in which Nixon did most of the talking, Kennedy privately remarked, “It was just as well for all of us that he didn’t quite make it.”
    Two meetings with Eisenhower were more consequential. Kennedy wished to avoid any demonstration of antagonism, which had marked the transition from Truman to Eisenhower in 1952–53. Although Kennedy did not think well of Ike, seeing him as an “old fuddy-duddy” and calling him an “old asshole” who had lost control of his administration and become a “non-president,” he understood that Eisenhower still enjoyed high public standing.
    The first meeting at the White House in December 1960 focused on foreign policy problems. Eisenhower dominated the conversation; afterward he praised Kennedy as “a serious earnest seeker for information.” He believed that Kennedy “will give full consideration to the facts and suggestions we presented,” implying that despite party and campaign differences, Eisenhower foresaw continuity between their administrations. Kennedy kept his counsel largely because he didn’t wish to reveal the limits of what he knew about the topics Ike had put before him or what he intended to do as president: “NATO nuclear sharing, Laos, the Congo, Algeria, Disarmament [and] Nuclear test suspension negotiations, Cuba and Latin America, U.S. balance of payments and the gold outflow.”
    In January, as Kennedy approached his inauguration, he asked for a second meeting. He was particularly worried about a civil war in Laos and the possibility that his first crisis would compel a decision on using military force to prevent a communist victory, which Eisenhower’s advisers believed would pose a threat to all of Southeast Asia. Kennedy told an aide, “Whatever’s going to happen in Laos, an American invasion, a Communist victory or whatever, I wish it would happen before we take over and get blamed for it.” He feared a military action that went badly, diverted attention from other issues, and produced unfavorable contrasts with Ike. Comparison between him, a junior naval officer, and Eisenhower, the storied five-star World War II general, would clearly be disadvantageous at the start of Kennedy’s term.
    When he sat down with Eisenhower, Kennedy wanted to discuss administrative questions. In particular, he was keen to talk about “the present national security set up, organization within the White House . . . [and the]