Inside the Kennedy White House

JFK's election brought Irish-American Catholics to the center of U.S. power

All that changed with JFK's election in 1960. The most prominent Irish Americans surrounding Kennedy were David Francis Powers, Dick Donahue, Kenneth O'Donnell and Lawrence O'Brien, a quartet of political wizards who were aiding JFK long before he ran for president.

When you also consider that JFK's brother, Bobby, was one of his closest aides (and his Attorney General), as well as the informal advice often given to JFK by his father, Joe Sr., you see why it was whispered that Kennedy presided over an "Irish Mafia" - or "Murphia," as Jackie Kennedy once called them. (Kennedy confidant and biographer Theodore Sorensen once commented that despite the jovial nature of the term, the group actually disliked the term "Irish Mafia," at least initially.)

"Powers" That Be

David Powers was the son of Irish immigrants from Cork who settled in Charlestown, Massachusetts. Always humble, Powers once said he was merely "a newsboy who met a president," referring to a childhood job. Powers - "Boston to his fingertips," according to the "Encyclopedia of the Irish in America" - first worked for Kennedy in 1946, when JFK ran for Congress.

Powers "was recruited to add a sense of working-class realism to what the Harvard-educated Kennedy feared might be perceived as his own lace-curtain credentials as a political candidate," the Washington Post once noted. Powers himself once said: "While Jack Kennedy was a completely new type of Irish politician himself, having come from such a different background, he was, at bottom, very Irish and he could never hear enough of the old Irish stories."

Meanwhile, in recent years, Kenny O'Donnell's legacy has grown in prominence, thanks in part to the Hollywood film "Thirteen Days." Based on the Cuban Missile Crisis, the film's star was Kevin Costner who portrayed (you guessed it) Kenny O'Donnell, who tries to mediate between the "hawks" and "doves" in Kennedy's inner circle. (For what it's worth, Defense Secretary Bob McNamara later commented that O'Donnell's role in the movie was "totally fictional.") O'Donnell also was from Massachusetts (Worcester). His father was a legendary Holy Cross football coach. Thanks to the GI Bill, O'Donnell attended Harvard where he met Bobby Kennedy, who became his roommate. O'Donnell and the Kennedys "couldn't gain acceptance into any of the elite clubs because of (their) religion," Thomas Maier writes in his excellent book "The Kennedys: America's Emerald Kings."

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