Early in the campaign, Kennedy sometimes seemed to be a nervous, hesitant, and generally poor public speaker. But telling the PT 109 story was his touchstone, and he later traced his confidence in his own political future to these speeches and to how well audiences responded. Privately, Kennedy wisecracked to a friend about the story’s universal appeal, “My story about the collision is getting better all the time. Now I’ve got a Jew and a nigger in the story and with me being a Catholic, that’s great.”
