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The matter was urgent. John F. Kennedy should be elected the new president of the United States in 29 days. So Henry D. Irwin rushed to send telegrams to all Republican voters on November 20, 1960.
They should help him out of the dilemma: Irwin thought the Democrat and election winner Kennedy was a dangerous communist. He also suspected Republican Richard Nixon as a loser; moreover, he “couldn’t bear it,” as Irwin later put it.
But how could you prevent them both, Kennedy? and Nixon? As a Republican elector in the state of Oklahoma, he was supposed to vote for Nixon, the winner in Oklahoma, in the Electoral College, the electoral college that always elects the president in mid-December. And Irwin had sworn fealty in his election as a voter. Making a different decision meant breaking the fundamental rules and customs of the electoral system.
Immoral Offer: “Strictly Confidential Answers”
Irwin went even further with his Telegram offensive: The Republican electorate could hardly deny Kennedy’s victory, he wrote. But there are “enough conservative Democratic voters” who would reject this “working socialist” Kennedy. An immoral offer followed:
