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O'Brien has followed that advice-up to a point. Officially, patronage is left to Democratic National Committee Chairman John Bailey, who works in consultation with O'Brien Staffman Dick Donahue. But O'Brien knows well that patronage is still a potent political instrument; he makes recommendations to Bailey on major appointments, and his suggestions receive top-priority consideration. Thus, when the 14 members of the Italian-American congressional bloc threatened to vote against the Administration's feed-grains bill just to demonstrate their power, O'Brien quickly found out what was on their minds: no man of Italian descent had been appointed to a major Administration post. O'Brien promised to look into the matter for them, the bloc voted right, and a few weeks later the White House was pleased to announce the appointment of Salvatore Bontempo as head of the State Department's consular service. For good measure, Michel Cieplinski was named as Bontempo's assistant, mollifying an eleven-member Polish-American group in the House.
All Congressmen now know that, although John Bailey is the nominal dangler of political plums, O'Brien is really the man to see when they have a patronage problem.
Worlds Apart. For all the political power tools that he can command, Larry O'Brien's greatest strength lies in his personal relationships with the members of Congress. He can talk their language. Like them, he is a political pro. He has the pro's disdain for windmill-tilting amateurs. "The eggheads," he says, "want the candidate to win on his own terms, to defy the party and interest groups. The egghead thinks it's worthwhile to be defeated. I think it's worthwhile to be elected." This same pragmatic professionalism sets O'Brien apart from many of the other men who surround President Kennedy. "I don't know what I'm doing in this crowd," O'Brien once mused. "I didn't go to Harvard, and I'm not athletic. I don't even play touch football."
Larry O'Brien was born in the Roland Hotel, a small hostelry that his father owned, in downtown Springfield, Mass., on July 7, 1917—six weeks after John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born, 75 miles across the state and a world apart, in his father's big home in Brookline. Both Lawrence O'Brien Sr. and Myra Sweeney O'Brien were immigrants from County Cork. Myra was a proud, slender woman and a talented cook—her clam chowder, beef stew and soda bread were locally celebrated—who had worked as a domestic before her marriage. O'Brien Sr. was a scrappy redhead, and an up-and-coming real estate operator. By the time young Larry was born, his father owned a string of drab roominghouses, an insurance business and the Roland Hotel.