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Persistent Calls. Scranton's reputation began spreading beyond his own Lackawanna County. And in 1959, he got the first of a series of calls that were to sharply reshape his career. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was seeking a press aide. Would Scranton be interested? No, he would not. But he did agree to discuss the offer with Dulles—and the skilled old international lawyer was too persuasive to be denied. Scranton took the job, briefed the press for Dulles, made foreign policy speeches, attended international conferences.
When Dulles, fatally ill, resigned, he recommended Scranton to his successor, Christian Herter. Herter expanded the job, made Scranton his office manager and liaison man with the White House and Cabinet. Herter's appraisal: "I have never seen anyone grasp with greater rapidity not only the factual details but the implications in the many knotty problems which come to this office."
The next call came early in 1960, from Republican leaders of Scranton's Tenth Congressional District. They were desperate. It was a heavily Democratic area, represented in the House by one Stanley Prokop. In the coal areas surrounding Scranton there was dismal unemployment —and the area sorely needed a Congressman who might be able to do something about it. Would Scranton run? The answer was no. Scranton said he had plenty to do at the State Department, and had come to like the work there. But all the district's G.O.P. chairmen, normally a quarrelsome lot, agreed that they wanted him, and Scranton finally gave in.
Scranton did not see how he could overturn the Democrats' 34,000 registration advantage. But he took to campaigning as though born to its cloth. He charged about the district, invaded clambakes, stormed factory gates, climbed apartment steps—always telling the people that the area needed help, and that they were not getting it from Democrats. To his surprise, he found it fun.
An Old Friend. But when his old acquaintance, Jack Kennedy, appeared in the Tenth District in his drive for the presidency, Scranton was sure he would lose. As the election returns rolled in, he found that Kennedy had indeed won the district by some 15,000 votes. But to his amazement, he also discovered that he was a winner himself by an even greater margin—17,000. He was tabbed immediately as a Republican comer.
Scranton's main aim in going to Congress was to help his district. He landed right in the middle of a nasty fight over the Kennedy Administration's plan to enlarge the House Rules Committee. Despite pleas from Republican congressional leaders to make it a party-line fracas, Scranton voted with the Democrats. A conservative Rules Committee, he figured, might block bills his depressed district needed.