Kennedy exuded youth, energy in Spokane visits

The road that carried U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy to the heights of American political power passed through Spokane nearly 50 years ago when his brother, John F. Kennedy, was running for president.

Edward Kennedy’s job was to organize Western states during the 1960 campaign and the run-up to it. He came to Spokane to lay some groundwork before his brother’s candidacy was formally announced.

He arrived Dec. 1, 1959, and tantalized Spokane with word that JFK would appear in the city within a few months. Sure enough, Jack Kennedy attended a Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner Feb. 11, 1960, drawing a crowd.

At 28, Edward Kennedy returned to Spokane on Aug. 23, 1960, for organizational meetings going into the fall campaign.

“He was very businesslike, very concrete,” recalled Bob Dellwo, of Spokane, a former Democratic Party official who served as the 5th Congressional District campaign chairman for the 1960 Kennedy campaign.

Kennedy apologized for being so young, Dellwo said, but he assured volunteers that he came from a family with experience in politics.

Years later, Dellwo said he met Kennedy in Washington, D.C., while he was representing Inland Northwest Indian tribes as their attorney. “Teddy was noted for being very sympathetic of what we called at the time Indian causes,” Dellwo said.

The youngest of four Kennedy brothers, Edward Kennedy was elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts in 1962 to finish JFK’s term.

He returned to Spokane on Nov. 21, 1965, to dedicate the Kennedy Memorial Sports Pavilion at Gonzaga University – just two years after his brother’s assassination on Nov. 22, 1963. An estimated 6,000 people turned out for the dedication, including the state’s leading political figures.

Kennedy told them the assassination caused the American people to reassess “their own thinking about many of the problems of our country.”

Later that day, he appeared at a $50-a-plate dinner at the Davenport Hotel for U.S. Rep. Tom Foley, a Spokane Democrat facing his first re-election campaign. Foley later became speaker of the House.

Sally Jackson, of Spokane Valley, a longtime Democratic activist, said news of Kennedy’s death Tuesday was hard to hear. “I just loved him. I loved all of them. I shed a tear (Tuesday) night when I saw the announcement. I shed a lot of tears over the Kennedy boys,” she said.

Spokane City Councilman Steve Corker, a longtime Democrat, said he worked with Edward Kennedy in Oregon during the JFK campaign, traveling through the Willamette Valley on campaign-organizing visits during the summer of 1960. Corker had just graduated from high school in Portland and was the youth chairman for the campaign.

“I remember the Harvard accent, the Boston accent, that everyone thought was curious and funny,” Corker said.

He said Kennedy was jovial, accessible and never arrogant. “I just remember how young he was,” Corker said.