A low blow was delivered for Kennedy on April 27, two weeks before the final vote, when Kennedy’s friend Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., himself a decorated World War II Navy veteran, attacked Humphrey by saying, “I don’t know where he was in World War II,” and even handed out leaflets claiming Humphrey was a draft dodger. It inferred cowardice on the part of Humphrey, who did not serve in the war for medical reasons, despite trying to enlist. Roosevelt later said “of course, Jack knew,” referring to the smear.
