Due to his relative youth in the presidency (he is the youngest president ever elected), Kennedy made an effort to court his predecessors, according to Gibbs and Duffy. He was already on good terms with Truman and Hoover was a friend of his father, Joseph Kennedy, so Eisenhower was the one who had to be won over – not an easy task when Kennedy had just spent a campaign denouncing him. Kennedy met Eisenhower at the White House after he was elected and Eisenhower was still in office. Eisenhower said of Kennedy that "he had no idea of the complexity of the job at that time," but also called him one of the "ablest, brightest minds I've ever come across." They met again when the invasion on the Bay of Pigs had gone wrong and the two talked at Camp David, and Eisenhower publicly supported Kennedy in the backlash to come.
