Support for Kennedy varied from To H. Stuart Hughes, professor of History, Kennedy is a man whom he could vote for "only with fear and trembling," due to the Senator's narrow views on foreign policy. But to William Proxmire, Democratic Senator from Wisconsin, Kennedy is a man who will "move swiftly, hit hard, and be loved, as no one has been loved since Roosevelt in the early days of his administration." After dismissing vice-President Nixon as "not worth discussing," Hughes moved on to criticize Kennedy for looking at foreign policy strictly in nationalistic terms. He pointed out that putting the U.S. in a competition of strength and prestige with Russia excludes further possibilities for foreign affairs. The duty of the U.S., Hughes maintained, is promoting the general welfare of the people, which only by implication includes competition with anybody else. These cold war criteria of judging nations, Hughes charged, have resulted in an "either-or mentality," Kennedy, be pointed out, has written off Ghana, Guinea, and Cuba to the Russians, forgetting that those countries are far more interested in the welfare of their people than in choosing sides of the cold war. In the case of Cuba, Hughes pointed out that the Castro government has done a great deal more than the previous one in working for the welfare of the people. He added that the Cuban experiment may be positively popular in South America, and by considering Cuba our enemy, we may be losing a great many friends. Speaking before an appreciative audience at Harkness Commons, Proxmire enthusiastically supported Kennedy as the candidate who could bring economic and political justice to the farmers, the aged, the unemployed, and to the southern Negroes. He supported his candidate's stand for a firm policy against Castro, whom he said he had "created drum-head courts, murdered people, and seized American property without so much as an I.O.U." Although Proxmire thought that Eisenhower's endorsement of Nixon would be of no consequence, he said that the chances of a Kennedy victory are far from certain, and that the election will be a very close one. Kennedy, he declared, is far from a shoo-in at this time, and despite the rising tide of the Democratic campaign the results of the election are still in question.
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