The Art of Becoming a Citizen: A Meditation

All I have left to do is learn to be good.

—Iris Murdoch’s protagonist in The Sea, the Sea

The youngest people who were eligible to vote in 1960 are now in their eighties.

—Irwin F. Gellman, Campaign of the Century

It begins on the sunny morning of November 14, 1960, on the island of Key Biscayne. I was a reporter from the Miami Herald, and the photographer and I were among a crush of new people waiting for JFK and Nixon to meet for the first time since the presidential election. A curly-haired man came out at first and told us, “He just had the presidency stolen from him,” then descended the steps and mingled with the crowd. Someone said, “That’s Bebe Rebozo, Nixon’s best friend.”

Presently two smiling men in suits and ties appeared on the porch of the Key Biscayne Hotel and offered themselves to a starburst of flashbulbs.