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had met in person. I remember the astonishment that greeted my announcement that Kennedy was going to be our next President.
    “He really believes it!” the ambassador’s group joked.
    We were en route to one of the bleakest areas of Mexico, Santa Margarita Island, off the western coast of Baja California Sur, when the reports of the Wisconsin primary were due. I insisted that Kennedy would defeat Humphrey roundly, and remember taking some bets to that effect. The general consensus was that he would merelysqueak through, and I fear that no one in the plane except me thought that whether he won or not he had much chance of either the nomination in July or victory in November.
    We had flown on to La Paz, the capital of the great arid state of Baja California Sur, when the radio announced the Wisconsin results. I remember being somewhat stunned, for although Kennedy had won, his margin of victory was much less than I had been predicting. Wisconsin seemed to be a setback, even though Kennedy had contested a primary in another man’s backyard. Ambassador Hill and his team had a good deal of fun at my expense, and as on the night I had drawn the diagram showing that Rockefeller could win, I began to wonder if Kennedy had the invincibility that I had accorded him. Then came West Virginia.
    I will always think of that West Virginia primary with special affection, for not only did it seal my candidate’s chances for the nomination, not only did it exorcise the ghost of Al Smith and the anti-Catholicism he suffered, but it also came when I was far from home and engaged in some of the best political debate I have known. I was in Guatemala with a group of American military personnel who loved politics and who were extraordinarily adept in piecing together data and making deductions therefrom.
    Day after day we gathered to discuss the impending conventions, and at each meeting one or another of us would have some special information gleaned in some special way. Adlai Stevenson had lately been through the area and he had said thus. Lyndon Johnson had beenvisiting Ambassador Hill and he had reported so. Ambassadors from other countries had been of this opinion. An admiral who had flown in from Washington had spent some hours with Nixon, and he offered new data. I doubt if there could have been many places, in those exciting weeks, where the political fortunes of the United States were more vividly and intimately discussed than in Guatemala.
    And all we heard or knew confirmed our belief that the West Virginia primary was going to be the critical test. Those who knew the South were convinced that West Virginia’s natural anti-Catholic animus would defeat Kennedy. Those who knew Hubert Humphrey were satisfied that he had picked for his maximum effort the one state which was most likely to yield him victory. Finally a group of us gathered one night in Guatemala City to argue politics only, in an orderly way and with each man citing his sources, for a period of about four hours.
    The conservative and Republican side was defended by a brilliant naval captain, Jacob Heimark. The shrewd middle-of-the-road position was expressed by the cleverest man of the group, the naval aviator and certificated lawyer, John Meisenheimer. The liberal position was defended by me, while two or three army officers stood by to subject anything said to rigorous analysis. In the exciting months that were to follow I often found myself wishing that I could reconvene that brilliant group of men, who though far from America were yet so conversant with American problems.
    As the evening wore on, circumstances required each man to put up or shut up, for clarity demanded that eachsay exactly what he thought was going to happen. I shall not report what voting preferences Captain Heimark and Lieutenant Meisenheimer expressed, for our meeting did have a kind of confidential nature about it, since we were being brutally frank in our expressions, but I can recall my own