President-elect Kennedy's first top-level appointees:
Abraham Alexander Ribicoff, 50, to be Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare. "If I am elected," John Kennedy once promised, "Abe Ribicoff can be anything he wants to be in my Administration." One of Kennedy's first and staunchest supporters for President, Connecticut's popular, soulfully handsome Ribicoff was considered a top candidate for U.S. Attorney General. Ribicoff turned down that job with the characteristic comment that he was out of practice as a lawyer—and besides, it would be politically hard on the new Administration for a Catholic and a Jew to lead any fight for integration....
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
