In one of the closest elections in American history, Kennedy won by about 100,000 votes. Many political observers said Kennedy owed his election to the Black electorate, as about 70 percent of the Black vote went his way. Nixon blamed voter fraud. He blamed the press. He blamed the Eisenhower administration for failing to help King. And he blamed Black voters whose minds had been changed, as he put it, by “a couple of phone calls.”
