Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.

Joseph Patrick Kennedy (September 6, 1888 – November 18, 1969) was an American businessman, investor, philanthropist, and politician. Known for his own political prominence as well as that of his children, he was the ambitious patriarch of the Kennedy family.

Kennedy was born into a political family in East Boston, Massachusetts. After making a large fortune as a stock and commodity market investor, he invested in real estate and a wide range of privately controlled businesses across the United States. During World War I, he was an assistant general manager of a Boston area Bethlehem Steel shipyard; through that position, he became acquainted with Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. In the 1920s, Kennedy made huge profits by reorganizing and refinancing several Hollywood studios; several acquisitions were ultimately merged into Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) studios. Kennedy increased his fortune with distribution rights for Scotch whisky. He owned the largest privately owned building in the country, Chicago's Merchandise Mart.

Kennedy was a leading member of the Democratic Party and of the Irish Catholic community. President Roosevelt appointed Kennedy to be the first chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which he led from 1934 to 1935. Kennedy later directed the United States Maritime Commission. He served as the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1938 to late 1940. With the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, Kennedy was pessimistic about Britain's ability to survive attacks from Germany. During the Battle of Britain in November 1940, Kennedy publicly suggested, "Democracy is finished in England. It may be here [in the United States]." After a controversy regarding this statement, Kennedy resigned his position.

Kennedy was married to Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy; the couple had nine children. During his later life, he was heavily involved in the political careers of his sons. Three of Kennedy's sons attained distinguished political positions: John F. Kennedy served as a U.S. senator from Massachusetts and as the 35th president of the United States, Robert F. Kennedy served as the U.S. attorney general and as a U.S. senator from New York, and Ted Kennedy was a U.S. senator from Massachusetts. Kennedy was also the father of Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver and U.S. Ambassador to Ireland Jean Kennedy Smith.

Early life and education

Kennedy's yearbook photo from Boston Latin School

Joseph Patrick Kennedy was born on September 6, 1888, at 151 Meridian Street in East Boston, Massachusetts.<ref name="auto3">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Kennedy was the elder son of Mary Augusta (née Hickey) Kennedy and businessman and politician Patrick Joseph "P.J." Kennedy.<ref name="auto3"/> Kennedy attended Boston Latin School, where he excelled at baseball and was elected class president<ref name="auto6">Template:Cite book</ref> before graduating in 1908.<ref name="auto3"/>

Kennedy then attended Harvard College, where he gained admittance to the prestigious Hasty Pudding Club but was not invited to join the Porcellian Club.<ref name="auto6"/> Kennedy graduated in 1912<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> with a bachelor's degree in economics.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Business career

Kennedy set his future sights on embarking on a business career upon his graduation from Harvard. During his mid-to-late 20s, he made a large fortune as an active commodity and stock investor; he then reinvested much of his proceeds into film studios, real estate, and shipping lines. Although Kennedy never built a significant business from scratch, his timing as both buyer and seller was excellent.<ref>David Nasaw, The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy (2012) pp. 168–69.</ref>

Various criminals, such as Frank Costello, boasted that they worked with Kennedy in mysterious bootlegging operations during Prohibition.<ref name=Okrent>Template:Cite news</ref> Although his father was in the whisky importation business, scholars dismiss the claims. The most recent and most thorough biographer David Nasaw asserts that no credible evidence has been found to link Kennedy to bootlegging activities.<ref name="Nasaw, pp. 79–81">Nasaw, pp. 79–81.</ref> When Fortune magazine published its first list of the richest people in the United States in 1957, it placed Kennedy in the $200–400 million group, equivalent to about $3.2 billion in 2023.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Inflation-fn<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Early ventures

Kennedy in 1914, aged 25, when he claimed to be America's youngest bank president.

Kennedy's first job after graduating from Harvard was a position as a state-employed bank examiner. This job allowed him to learn a great deal about the banking industry. In 1913, the Columbia Trust Bank, in which his father held a significant share, was under threat of takeover. Kennedy borrowed $45,000 (equivalent to $Template:Inflation million in Template:Inflation year) from family and friends and bought back control. At the age of 25, he was rewarded by being elected the bank's president. Kennedy told the press he was "the youngest" bank president in America.<ref>Kessler, p. 25.</ref> In May 1917, Kennedy was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Massachusetts Electric Company, New England's leading public utility at the time.<ref name="Joseph P. Kennedy - JFK Library">Template:Cite web</ref>

Kennedy emerged as an astute businessman who possessed an eye for value, possessing shrewd entrepreneurial acumen and savvy investment foresight. For example, as an active real estate investor, he turned a handsome profit from his privately controlled ownership of Old Colony Realty Associates, Inc., an investment company which bought distressed real estate throughout the United States.<ref>Kessler, p. 27.</ref>

Although he was skeptical of American involvement in World War I,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Kennedy sought to participate in wartime production as an assistant general manager of Fore River, a major Bethlehem Steel shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts. There, he oversaw the production of transports and warships.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Through this job, he became acquainted with Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt.<ref name="Joseph P. Kennedy - JFK Library"/>

Wall Street and stock market investments

In 1919, Kennedy joined Hayden, Stone & Co., a prominent stock brokerage firm with offices in Boston and New York, where he became an expert dealing in the unregulated stock market of the day, engaging in tactics that were later considered to be insider trading and market manipulation violations.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He happened to be on the corner of Wall and Broad Streets at the moment of the Wall Street bombing on September 16, 1920, and was thrown to the ground by the force of the blast.<ref>Beverly Gage, The Day Wall Street Exploded, Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 156.</ref> In 1923, he established his own investment company.<ref name="auto4">Template:Cite web</ref> Kennedy subsequently became a multi-millionaire as a result of taking "short" positions following the 1929 stock market crash.<ref name="auto4"/>

Kennedy was enlisted in 1924 to help stabilize the stock of John D. Hertz's Yellow Cab Company, a taxi cab operator, against a bear raid; afterward, Hertz suspected Kennedy of carrying out such a raid against the stock himself.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1933, he helped establish a "stock pool" that bought large quantities of stock in Libbey-Owens-Ford (LOF), an auto-glass manufacturer, and wash-traded huge volumes of stock among themselves while promoting the outright fraud that their company was related to Owens-Illinois, a glassmaker that made bottles which presumably would have profited from the imminent repeal of Prohibition.<ref>Nasaw, p. 192.</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

1929 Wall Street Crash

Kennedy later claimed he understood that the rampant stock speculation of the late 1920s would lead to a market crash. It is said that he knew it was time to get out of the market when he received stock tips from a shoe-shine boy, but no evidence has been found of the anecdote and the first known version of the same tale was associated to Bernard Baruch in 1957.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Kennedy survived the crash "because he possessed a passion for facts, a complete lack of sentiment and a marvelous sense of timing".<ref>"Essay: The Merits of Speculation", Time, September 22, 1967.</ref>

During the Great Depression, Kennedy shrewdly increased his wealth by devoting most of it to investment-grade real estate. In 1929, Kennedy's fortune was estimated to be $4 million (equivalent to $Template:Inflation million in Template:Inflation year).Template:Inflation-fn By 1935, his wealth had increased to $180 million (equivalent to $Template:Formatprice in Template:Inflation year).Template:Inflation-fn He also acquired enough capital to establish million-dollar trust funds for each of his nine children that guaranteed lifelong financial independence.<ref>Nasaw, p. 92, 131</ref>

Investments

Hollywood

Studio photo of Kennedy as part of trade paper advertisement promoting Film Booking Offices of America's forthcoming attractions, May 1928

Kennedy, along with fifteen others, signed a telegram warning that the release of Sadie Thompson starring Gloria Swanson would jeopardize the ability of the film industry to censor itself. Swanson needed financing for her film production company, and Kennedy began a three-year affair with her when he met her for lunch in New York after the film's release.<ref>Kessler, pp. 60–61.</ref>

Kennedy generated windfall profits from reorganizing and refinancing several Hollywood film studios. He began with film distribution in New England, buying first movie theaters in Massachusetts,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> but quickly moved on to industry-wide arrangements and production.<ref>Nasaw, p. 66</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> While still at Hayden, Stone & Co., Kennedy boasted to a colleague, "Look at that bunch of pants pressers in Hollywood making themselves millionaires. I could take the whole business away from them."<ref name="Beauchamp, Cari 2009 p 23">Beauchamp, Cari (2009) Joseph Kennedy Presents: His Hollywood Years p. 23, Knopf, New York. Template:ISBN.</ref> One small studio, Film Booking Offices of America (FBO), specialized in Westerns produced cheaply. Its owner was in financial trouble, and asked Kennedy to help find a new owner. Kennedy formed his own group of investors and bought it for $1.5 million.<ref name="Joseph P. Kennedy - JFK Library"/>

In March 1926, Kennedy moved to Hollywood to focus on running film studios.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> At that time, film studios were permitted to own exhibition companies, which were necessary to get their films on local screens. With that in mind, he bought controlling shares in Keith-Albee-Orpheum Theaters Corporation (KAO), which had more than 700 vaudeville theaters across the United States that had begun showing movies.<ref>Kessler, p. 53</ref> In October 1928, he formally merged his film companies FBO and KAO to form Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO)<ref name="Richard J. Whalen 1964">Richard J. Whalen, The Founding Father, 1964.</ref> and made a large amount of money in the process. Kennedy had no interest in vaudeville; he just wanted the theaters, which he planned to convert to movie houses for the film booking interests he ran in cooperation with Radio Corporation of America (RCA).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> As the developer of photophone, a sound system for the new "talkies", RCA needed to forge a connection with Hollywood to sell its product. At the same time Kennedy knew that he needed to compete in the new market of sound films and to do so he would have to have access to a technology that was not proprietary.<ref name="Joseph P. Kennedy - JFK Library"/>

Keen to buy the Pantages Theatre chain, which had 63 profitable theaters, Kennedy made an offer of $8 million (equivalent to $Template:Inflation million in Template:Inflation year). It was declined. He then stopped distributing his movies to Pantages. Still, Alexander Pantages declined to sell.<ref>Kessler, p. 57.</ref> However, when Pantages was later charged and tried for rape, his reputation took a battering, and he accepted Kennedy's revised offer of $3.5 million (equivalent to $Template:Inflation million in Template:Inflation year). Pantages, who claimed that Kennedy had "set him up", was later found not guilty at a second trial. The girl who had accused Pantages of rape, Eunice Pringle, was rumored to have confessed on her deathbed that Kennedy was the mastermind of the plot to frame Pantages.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> This rumor was later debunked by Pringle's daughter, Mary Worthington.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Kennedy made over $5 million (equivalent to $Template:Inflation million in Template:Inflation year) from his investments in Hollywood. During his three-year affair with film star Gloria Swanson,<ref name="Beauchamp, Cari 2009 p 263-5">Beauchamp, Cari (2009) Joseph Kennedy Presents: His Hollywood Years pp. 263–5, Knopf, New York. Template:ISBN.</ref> he arranged the financing for her films The Love of Sunya (1927) and the ill-fated Queen Kelly (1928). The duo also used Hollywood's famous "body sculptor", masseuse Sylvia of Hollywood.<ref name="Beauchamp, Cari 2009 p 263-5"/> Their relationship ended when Swanson discovered that an expensive gift from Kennedy had actually been charged to her account.<ref>Kessler, p. 86.</ref>

Liquor importing

Kennedy ventured into aspects of the legal liquor business during Prohibition in the United States. As soon as it became legal to do so, Kennedy ventured into liquor importing. One of his shipping ventures he was involved in was the importation of large shipments of high-priced Scotch whisky where he earned a handsome profit in the process. Various contradictory "bootlegging" stories surrounding Kennedy have circulated but historians have not accepted them.<ref name="Nasaw, pp. 79–81"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> At the start of the Franklin Roosevelt administration in March 1933, Kennedy and future Congressman James Roosevelt II obtained the exclusive rights to import some alcoholic beverage brands to the United States from Great Britain, before Prohibition ended,<ref name="JFK-Lib/JPKpp">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Prohibition/Kennedy-Churchill-Roosevelt">Template:Cite magazine</ref> and later founded Somerset Importers, a business entity that acted as the exclusive American agent for Haig & Haig Scotch, Gordon's Dry Gin, Dewar's Scotch, King William IV Scotch Whisky,<ref name="WF/brora-history-6">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="nmAh/1361823">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="gg/JohnGillonCo">Template:Cite web</ref> and Riondo Puerto Rico Rum, and other imported drinks.<ref name="TDB/2019/myth-kennedy">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="TDB/2010/kennedy-myth">Template:Cite news</ref> Kennedy kept his Somerset company for years.<ref>Nasaw, p. 611.</ref> In addition, Kennedy purchased spirits-importation rights from Schenley Industries,<ref name="jfkL/jpO'D">Template:Cite web</ref> a New York City liquor company with a Canadian distillery.<ref name="Richard J. Whalen 1964"/> Though he possessed substantial investments in various shipping lines that imported significant shipments of liquor,<ref name="nytimes/1979/06/24/time-decision">Template:Cite news</ref> Kennedy himself drank little alcohol. He so disapproved of what he considered a stereotypical Irish vice that he offered his sons $1,000 not to drink until they turned 21.<ref>Leamer 308.</ref>

Real estate

Kennedy reinvested the proceeds he made from liquor importing into various residential and commercial real estate ventures, much of it concentrated in New York City, and the Hialeah Park Race Track in Hialeah, Florida.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> The most important purchase of his real estate investment career was marked by the land acquisition of the largest privately owned building in the country, Chicago's Merchandise Mart (the world's largest building at the time), which gave his family an important base in that city and an alliance with the Irish-American political leadership there to lay the groundwork for realizing his sons' future political ambitions.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The Merchandise Mart's revenues became a principal source of wealth that formed much of the Kennedy family's private fortune, including being a source of funding for financing his sons' future political campaigns.<ref name = Langton>James Langton, "End of the house that Joe built". The Sunday Telegraph via the Ottawa Citizen, March 22, 1998: A10.</ref>

Political career

SEC Chairman (1934–1935)

Kennedy on Time magazine cover, 1935

In 1932, Kennedy supported Franklin D. Roosevelt in his bid for the presidency. This was his first major involvement in a national political campaign, and he donated, lent, and raised a substantial amount of money for the campaign.<ref name="Joseph P. Kennedy - JFK Library"/>

In 1934, Congress established the independent Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to end irresponsible market manipulations and dissemination of false information about securities.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Roosevelt's brain trust drew up a list of recommended candidates for the SEC chairmanship. Kennedy headed the list, which stated he was "the best bet for Chairman because of executive ability, knowledge of habits and customs of business to be regulated and ability to moderate different points of view on Commission."<ref>Nasaw, p. 208</ref>

In his address to the Boston Chamber of Commerce on November 15, 1934 Kennedy said this: “Deplorable loss was the consequence of ill-considered conception, preparation, and execution. We don't want the staccato tempo of much of the frenzied financing of the late twenties.” Kennedy continued, “We have the tremendous task of educating the American public to protect itself against high-pressure salesmanship. No law has ever been devised or administered which successfully eradicated crookedness. The Federal Government, however, hopes to fill a much needed want,hopes to be a vigorous factor in the relentless war on stock frauds.”<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Kennedy sought out the best lawyers available, giving him a hard-driving team with a mission for reform. Notably, he selected William O. Douglas and Abe Fortas, both of whom were later appointed to the Supreme Court. Douglas eventually became SEC Chairman in 1937.<ref>Nasaw, p. 216</ref> The SEC had four missions. First was to restore investor confidence in the securities market, which had collapsed on account of its questionability, and the external threats supposedly posed by anti-business elements in the Roosevelt administration. Second, the SEC had to get rid of penny-ante swindles based on false information, fraudulent devices, and get-rich-quick schemes. Thirdly, and much more important than the frauds, the SEC had to end the million-dollar maneuvers in major corporations, whereby insiders with access to high-quality information about the company knew when to buy or sell their own securities. A crackdown on insider trading was essential. Finally, the SEC had to set up a complex system of registration for all securities sold in America, with a clear set of rules, deadlines and guidelines that all companies had to follow. The main challenge faced by the young lawyers was drafting precise rules. The SEC succeeded in its four missions, as Kennedy reassured the American business community that they would no longer be deceived and taken advantage of by Wall Street. He trumpeted for ordinary investors to return to the market and enable the economy to grow again.<ref>Nassau, The Patriarch, pp. 219–228</ref> Kennedy's reforming work as SEC Chairman was widely praised on all sides, as investors realized the SEC was protecting their interests. He resigned from the SEC in September 1935.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Chairman of U.S. Maritime Commission (1937–1938)

In 1936, Roosevelt sought Kennedy's help on the campaign, and Kennedy responded with his book I'm for Roosevelt, which he had published and made sure was widely distributed. The book presented arguments for why businessmen should support Roosevelt and the New Deal, told from the perspective of Kennedy's own personal endorsement. The book had significant impact in the business community and after his re-election, Roosevelt appointed Kennedy as Chairman of the United States Maritime Commission,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> which built on his wartime experience in running a major shipyard. Kennedy spent only ten months at the commission.<ref name="Joseph P. Kennedy - JFK Library"/>

Relationship with Father Charles Coughlin

Father Charles Coughlin, an Irish Canadian priest near Detroit, became the most prominent Roman Catholic spokesman on political and financial issues in the 1930s, with a radio audience in the millions every week. Having been a strong supporter of Roosevelt since 1932, in 1934 Coughlin broke with the president, who became a bitter opponent and a target of Coughlin's weekly anti-communist, anti-Semitic, far-right, anti–Federal Reserve and isolationist radio talks. Roosevelt sent Kennedy and other prominent Irish Catholics to try to tone down Coughlin.<ref>Leamer 93; Brinkley 127.</ref>

Coughlin swung his support to Huey Long in 1935, and then to William Lemke's Union Party in 1936. Kennedy strongly supported the New Deal (Father Coughlin believed that the New Deal did not go far enough, and thought that Franklin Roosevelt was a tool of the rich) and reportedly believed as early as 1933 that Coughlin was "becoming a very dangerous proposition" as an opponent of Roosevelt and "an out and out demagogue". In 1936, Kennedy worked with Roosevelt, Bishop Francis Spellman and Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) to shut Coughlin down.<ref>Maier pp. 103–107.</ref> When Coughlin returned to the air in 1940, Kennedy continued to battle against his influence among Irish Americans.<ref>Smith pp. 122, 171, 379, 502; Alan Brinkley, Voices of Protest (1984) p. 127; Michael Kazin, The Populist Persuasion (1995) pp. 109, 123.</ref>

Despite his public disputes with Coughlin, it has also been acknowledged that Kennedy would also accompany Coughlin whenever the priest visited Roosevelt at Hyde Park.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> A historian with History News Network also stated that Coughlin was a friend of Kennedy as well.<ref name=kennedyfailure>Template:Cite web</ref> In a Boston Post article of August 16, 1936, Coughlin referred to Kennedy as the "shining star among the dim 'knights' in the [Roosevelt] Administration".<ref name="Maier2009">Template:Cite book</ref>

Ambassador to the United Kingdom (1938–1940)

Ambassador Joseph Kennedy with Winston Churchill in London, 1939

In 1938, Roosevelt appointed Kennedy as the United States ambassador to the Court of St James's (United Kingdom). Kennedy hoped to succeed Roosevelt in the White House,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> telling a British reporter in late 1939 that he was confident that Roosevelt would "fall" in 1940 (that year's presidential election).<ref name=kennedyfailure/>

Kennedy and his family retreated to the countryside during the bombings of London by German aircraft in World War II. In so doing, he damaged his reputation with the British.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> This move prompted Randolph Churchill to say, "I thought my daffodils were yellow until I met Joe Kennedy".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Kennedy developed a reputation as a defeatist.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> His pessimism on the prospect of a feared German invasion of England was reflected in that on 17 May 1940, the U.S. Embassy advised the 4000 Americans then living in Britain to return home "as soon as possible." A sterner message in June warned "that this may be the last opportunity for Americans to get home until after the war."Template:Citation needed Many Americans chose to remain, and on 1 June 1940, the 1st American Squadron of the Home Guard was formed in London. They had average strength of 60–70, and were commanded by General Wade H. Hayes.Template:Citation needed Kennedy opposed the mustering of citizens from a then-neutral power, fearing that in the event of invasion, a civilian squadron would make all U.S. citizens living in London liable to be shot by the invading Germans as francs-tireurs.<ref>Kieser, Egbert. Hitler on the Doorstep: Operation 'Sea Lion' : The German Plan to Invade Britain, 1940 Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1997

Template:ISBN</ref><ref name="flash">Peter Fleming  Operation Sea Lion: Hitler's Plot to Invade England London: Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2011, page 90-91 Template:ISBN Google Books; Retrieved 24 May 2017</ref>

High society

According to the U.S. National Archives:

In London, the American Ambassador and his wife soared to the heights of British society. In the spring of 1938...the couple luxuriated in the warmth of English hospitality, hobnobbing with aristocrats and royalty at the many balls, dinners, regattas, and derbies of the season. The highlight was surely the April weekend that they spent at Windsor Castle, guests of King George VI and his wife, Queen Elizabeth.<ref>See Eyewitness.</ref>

While getting dressed for an evening at Windsor Castle soon after he arrived, Kennedy paused in momentary reflection and remarked to his wife, "Well, Rose, this is a helluva long way from East Boston, isn't it?"<ref>Kessler, p. 157</ref>

On May 6, 1944, Kennedy's daughter, Kathleen, married William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington, the elder son of the Duke of Devonshire. The union was disapproved by Rose Kennedy due to Hartington being an Anglican. Unable to reconcile their religious backgrounds, Hartington and Kathleen were married in a civil ceremony. Hartington, a major in the Coldstream Guards, was killed in action on September 9, 1944.<ref>Nasaw, pp. 564–572.</ref>

Appeasement

Kennedy rejected the belief of Winston Churchill that any compromise with Nazi Germany was impossible. Instead, he supported Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement. Throughout 1938, while the Nazi persecution of the Jews in Germany intensified, Kennedy attempted to arrange a meeting with Adolf Hitler.<ref>Hersh 64.</ref> Shortly before the Nazi bombing of British cities began in September 1940, Kennedy once again sought a personal meeting with Hitler without the approval of the U.Template:NbspS. Department of State, in order to "bring about a better understanding between the United States and Germany".<ref name="Hersh 63">Hersh 63.</ref>

Anti-British sentiment

When war came in September 1939, Kennedy's public support for American neutrality conflicted with Roosevelt's increasing efforts to provide aid to Britain.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> "Democracy is finished in England. It may be here [in the United States]",<ref name="ReferenceA">Boston Sunday Globe, November 10, 1940.</ref> he stated in the Boston Sunday Globe of November 10, 1940. With German troops having overrun Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and France, and with daily bombings of Great Britain, Kennedy unambiguously and repeatedly stated that the war was not about saving democracy from National Socialism (Nazism) or from Fascism. In an interview with two newspaper journalists, Louis M. Lyons of The Boston Globe, and Ralph Coghlan of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kennedy said:

Isolationism

Kennedy's views became inconsistent and increasingly isolationist. British MP Josiah Wedgwood IV, who had himself opposed the British government's earlier appeasement policy, said of Kennedy:

Antisemitism

According to Harvey Klemmer, who served as one of Kennedy's embassy aides, Kennedy habitually referred to Jews as "kikes or sheenies". Kennedy allegedly told Klemmer that "[some] individual Jews are all right, Harvey, but as a race they stink. They spoil everything they touch."<ref name="Hersh 63"/> When Klemmer returned from a trip to Germany and reported the pattern of vandalism and assaults on Jews by Nazis, Kennedy responded, "Well, they brought it on themselves."<ref>Leamer 115.</ref>

On June 13, 1938, Kennedy met in London with Herbert von Dirksen, the German ambassador to the United Kingdom, who claimed upon his return to Berlin that Kennedy had told him that "it was not so much the fact that we want to get rid of the Jews that was so harmful to us, but rather the loud clamor with which we accompanied this purpose. [Kennedy] himself fully understood our Jewish policy."<ref>Hersh 64; Renehan 29.</ref> Kennedy's main concern with such violent acts against German Jews as Kristallnacht was that they generated bad publicity in the West for the Nazi regime, a concern that he communicated in a letter to Charles Lindbergh.<ref>Renehan 60.</ref>

Kennedy had a close friendship with Viscountess Astor, and their correspondence is replete with anti-Semitic statements.<ref>Renehan 26–27; Leamer 136.</ref> According to Edward Renehan:

By August 1940, Kennedy worried that a third term for President Roosevelt would mean war. Biographer Laurence Leamer in The Kennedy Men: 1901–1963 reports: "Joe believed that Roosevelt, Churchill, the Jews, and their allies would manipulate America into approaching Armageddon."<ref>Leamer 134.</ref> Nevertheless, Kennedy supported Roosevelt's third term in return for Roosevelt's promise to support Joseph Kennedy Jr. in a run for Governor of Massachusetts in 1942.<ref>Fleming, Thomas. The New Dealers' War: F.D.R. And The War Within World War II, Basic Books, 2001.</ref> However, even during the darkest months of World War II, Kennedy remained "more wary of" prominent American Jews, such as Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter, than he was of Hitler.<ref>Renehan 311.</ref>

Kennedy told the reporter Joe Dinneen:

"The Kennedy Plan" to Help Jewish Refugees

Shortly after Kristallnacht, Kennedy lent his name to a proposal by George Rublee the chair of the London-based Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, to provide havens for German Jews in thinly populated areas in Africa, North America, and South America. He hoped to defray the enormous costs, including ships and temporary camps, through financing by governments and Jewish organizations. <ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Publicity about the Kennedy Plan included a sympathetic front-page story in the New York Times and an article in Life which declared that if “his plan for settling the German Jews, already widely known as the ‘Kennedy Plan’, succeeds, it will add new luster to a reputation that may well carry Joseph Patrick Kennedy into the White House.” Roosevelt quickly threw cold water on that enthusiasm by denying any knowledge of the plan. In private, he vented at Kennedy’s “grandstanding,” and rebuked him by announcing that henceforth Myron Taylor was to be the official spokesman on refugee issues. There is no indication that the president considered the plan on its merits. <ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Resignation

From late 1939 onwards, Kennedy began to suspect that Roosevelt and the State Department were excluding him from decision-making and communiqués pertinent to his ambassadorial duties. Roosevelt had started to communicate in secret with Winston Churchill (at this time First Lord of the Admiralty, later Prime Minister).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In early 1940, Roosevelt also sent personal representatives (under Secretary of State Sumner Welles, and General William Donovan) on fact-finding missions to London and other European capitals, without advising Kennedy beforehand, thereby causing the ambassador great embarrassment and annoyance.<ref>Amanda Smith, ed., Hostage to Fortune: The Letters of Joseph P. Kennedy, pp. 408–463.</ref> As a result, Kennedy was, for much of 1940, determined to resign his post, although Roosevelt insisted he remain in London. In late October 1940, Roosevelt invited Kennedy to return to Washington for a pre-election consultation, Kennedy used this visit to announce his resignation. Kennedy agreed to make a nationwide radio speech to advocate Roosevelt's reelection. Roosevelt was pleased with the speech because, Nasaw says, it "rallied reluctant Irish Catholic voters to his side, buttressed his claims that he was not going to take the nation into war, and emphasized that he alone had the experience to lead the nation in these difficult times." Kennedy finally submitted his resignation at the White House on December 1, 1940, but agreed to remain Ambassador until a successor was chosen in early 1941.<ref>Nasaw, pp. 492–96, quote p. 496.</ref>

For the rest of the war, relations between Kennedy and the Roosevelt administration remained tense, especially when Joe Jr., a Massachusetts delegate at the 1940 Democratic National Convention, vocally opposed Roosevelt's unprecedented nomination for a third term, which began in 1941. Kennedy may have wanted to run for president himself in 1940 or later. Having effectively removed himself from the national stage, Joe Sr. spent World War II on the sidelines. Kennedy stayed active in the smaller venues of rallying Irish-American and Roman Catholic Democrats to vote for Roosevelt's re-election for a fourth term in 1944. Kennedy claimed to be eager to help the war effort, but as a result of his previous gaffes, he was neither trusted nor invited to do so.<ref>Leamer pp. 152–53; William E. Leuchtenburg, In the Shadow of FDR: From Harry Truman to George W. Bush (2001) pp. 68–73.</ref>

Alliances

Kennedy used his wealth and connections to build a national network of supporters that became the base for his sons' political careers. He especially concentrated on Irish-American communities in large cities, particularly Boston, New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh and several New Jersey cities.<ref>Leamer pp 313, 434; Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor. American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley -- His Battle for Chicago and the Nation (2001) p. 250; Timothy J. Meagher. The Columbia Guide to Irish American History (2005) p. 150.</ref> Kennedy also used Arthur Krock of The New York Times, America's most influential political columnist, for decades as a paid speechwriter and political advisor.<ref>Leamer p. 349.</ref>

A political conservative (John F. Kennedy once described his father as being to "the right of Herbert Hoover"),<ref name="Leuchtenburg2001">Template:Cite book</ref> Kennedy supported Richard Nixon, who had entered Congress with John in 1947. In 1960, Joe Kennedy approached Nixon, praised his anti-Communism, and said "Dick, if my boy can't make it, I'm for you" for the presidential election that year.<ref name="kakutani19960524">Template:Cite news</ref>

Alliance with Senator Joseph McCarthy

Kennedy's close ties with Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin strengthened his family's position among Irish Catholics, but weakened it among liberals who strongly opposed McCarthy. Even before McCarthy became famous in 1950, Kennedy had forged close ties with the Republican Senator. Kennedy often brought him to his home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, as a weekend house guest in the late 1940s. McCarthy at one point dated his daughter Patricia.<ref name="Michael O 2005">Michael O'Brien, John F. Kennedy: A Biography (2005), 250–54, 274–79, 396–400; Thomas C. Reeves, The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy (1982), 442–3; Maier, The Kennedys 270–280.</ref>

When McCarthy became a dominant voice of anti-Communism starting in 1950, Kennedy contributed thousands of dollars to McCarthy, and became one of his major supporters. In the 1952 U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts, Kennedy apparently worked a deal so that McCarthy, a Republican, would not make campaign speeches for the Republican ticket in Massachusetts. In return, Congressman John F. Kennedy, running for the Senate seat, would not give any anti-McCarthy speeches that his liberal supporters wanted to hear.<ref name="Michael O 2005"/>

At Kennedy's urging in 1953, McCarthy hired his 27-year-old son, Robert F. Kennedy, as a senior staff member of the Senate's investigations subcommittee, which McCarthy chaired. In 1954, when the Senate was threatening to condemn McCarthy, Senator John Kennedy faced a dilemma. "How could I demand that Joe McCarthy be censured for things he did when my own brother was on his staff?" asked John.<ref name="Michael O 2005"/>

By 1954, Robert and McCarthy's chief aide Roy Cohn had fallen out with each other, and Robert no longer worked for McCarthy. John had a speech drafted calling for the censure of McCarthy, but never delivered it. When the Senate voted to censure McCarthy on December 2, 1954, Senator Kennedy was in a hospital and never indicated how he would cast his vote. Joe Kennedy strongly supported McCarthy to the end.<ref name="Michael O 2005"/>

Involvement in sons' political careers

Kennedy's connections and influence were turned into political capital for the political campaigns of his sons: John, Robert, and Ted. Kennedy was influential in creating John's cabinet, which included Robert as U.S. attorney general, although he had never argued or tried a case.<ref>Kessler, p. 389.</ref> He was one of four fathers (the other three being George Tryon Harding, Nathaniel Fillmore, and George H. W. Bush) to live through the entire presidency of a son.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Kennedy had been consigned to the political shadows after his remarks during World War II ("Democracy is finished"), and he remained an intensely controversial figure among U.S. citizens because of his suspect business credentials, his Roman Catholicism, his opposition to Roosevelt's foreign policy, and his support for Joseph McCarthy. Although his own ambitions to achieve the U.S. presidency were thwarted, Kennedy held out great hope for his eldest son, Joe Jr., to seek the presidency. However, Joe Jr., who had become a U.S. Navy bomber pilot, was killed over the English Channel in August 1944 while undertaking Operation Anvil. After grieving over his dead son, Joe Sr. turned his attention to his second son, John, for a run for political office.<ref name="auto">Template:Cite web</ref>

Personal life

Marriage and children

On October 7, 1914, Kennedy married Rose Fitzgerald,<ref name="Time">Template:Cite magazine</ref> the eldest daughter of Boston Mayor John F. Fitzgerald,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> in the private chapel of Archbishop William Henry O'Connell in Boston.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> After a two-week honeymoon, the couple settled at 83 Beals Street in the Boston suburb of Brookline, Massachusetts.<ref>Nasaw, p. 42</ref>

Joseph and Rose Kennedy had nine children:<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Joseph Jr. (1915–1944), John (1917–1963), Rose Marie "Rosemary" (1918–2005), Kathleen (1920–1948), Eunice (1921–2009), Patricia (1924–2006), Robert (1925–1968), Jean (1928–2020), and Edward (1932–2009). Three of the Kennedys' sons attained distinguished political positions: John F. Kennedy served as a U.S. representative from Massachusetts (1947–53), a U.S. senator from Massachusetts (1953–1960), and as 35th president of the United States (1961–63); Robert F. Kennedy served as U.S. attorney general (1961–64) and as a U.S. senator from New York (1965–68); and Edward M. Kennedy served as a U.S. senator from Massachusetts (1962–2009). One of the Kennedys' daughters, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founded the Special Olympics for disabled people,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> while another, Jean Kennedy Smith, served as U.S. ambassador to Ireland.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

As Kennedy's business success expanded, he and his family lived in increasing prosperity in Massachusetts, New York, around Washington, D.C., London, as well as the French Riviera. Their two permanent homes were located in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, and Palm Beach, Florida.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Kennedy engaged in numerous extramarital relationships,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> including relationships with actresses Gloria Swanson<ref name="Time"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Marlene Dietrich<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and with his secretary, Janet DesRosiers Fontaine.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He also managed Swanson's personal and business affairs.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Lobotomy of Rosemary Kennedy

The Kennedy family at their home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, 1931. Rosemary Kennedy is seated on the far right.

When Rosemary Kennedy was 23 years old, doctors told Joseph Kennedy Sr. that a form of psychosurgery known as a lobotomy would help calm her mood swings and stop her occasional violent outbursts.<ref name=Weiss/><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> (Accounts of Rosemary's life indicated that she was intellectually disabled,<ref name="auto5"/><ref name="auto1">Template:Cite news</ref> although some have raised questions about the Kennedys' accounts of the nature and scope of her disability.<ref name="independent.co.uk">Template:Cite web</ref>) Rosemary's erratic behavior frustrated her parents; her father was especially worried that she would shame and embarrass the family and damage his political career and that of his other children.<ref name="independent.co.uk"/><ref name="auto1"/> Kennedy requested that surgeons perform a lobotomy on Rosemary. The lobotomy took place in November 1941.<ref name="auto5">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Kennedy did not inform his wife about the procedure until after it was completed.<ref name="auto2">Template:Cite news</ref> James W. Watts and Walter Freeman (both of George Washington University School of Medicine) performed the surgery.<ref>Kessler, Ronald, The Sins of the Father, Warner Books, 1996, p. 243.</ref>

The lobotomy was a disaster,<ref name="auto5"/> leaving Rosemary Kennedy permanently incapacitated.<ref name=Weiss>Template:Cite book</ref> Her mental capacity diminished to that of a two-year-old child; she could not walk or speak intelligibly and was incontinent.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Following the lobotomy, Rosemary was immediately institutionalized.<ref>Leamer, p. 322.</ref> In 1949, she was relocated to Jefferson, Wisconsin, where she lived for the rest of her life on the grounds of the St. Coletta School for Exceptional Children (formerly known as "St. Coletta Institute for Backward Youth").<ref>Leamer, p. 412, and caption to photo of the house facing p. 650.</ref> Kennedy did not visit his daughter at the institution.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter, author Kate Clifford Larson stated that Rosemary's lobotomy was hidden from the family for twenty years.<ref name="people.com">Template:Cite web</ref> In 1961, after Kennedy suffered a stroke that left him unable to speak, his children were made aware of Rosemary's location.<ref name="people.com"/> The lobotomy did not become public knowledge until 1987.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Rosemary Kennedy died from natural causes<ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Cbignore</ref> on January 7, 2005, at the age of 86.<ref name="auto2"/>

Dr. Bertram S. Brown, director of the National Institute of Mental Health who was previously an aide to President Kennedy, told a Kennedy biographer that Joseph Kennedy referred to Rosemary as mentally retarded rather than mentally ill in order to protect his son John's reputation for a presidential run. Brown added that the family's "lack of support for mental illness" was "part of a lifelong family denial of what was really so".<ref name=Weiss/><ref>Kessler, pp. 252–253.</ref><ref name="Shorter, Edward 32–33">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=Murawski>Template:Cite book</ref>

Illness and death

Kennedy (center) and family members sit at a table during his 75th birthday celebration in his home in Hyannis Port in 1963

On December 19, 1961, at the age of 73, Kennedy suffered a stroke. He survived, but was left paralyzed on his right side. Thereafter, Kennedy suffered from aphasia, which severely affected his ability to speak. He remained mentally alert, regained certain functions with therapy, and began walking with a cane. Kennedy's speech also showed some improvement.<ref name="People: May 22, 1964" /> He began to experience excessive muscular weakness, which eventually required him to use a wheelchair. In 1964, Kennedy was taken to The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential in Philadelphia, a medical and rehabilitative center for those who have experienced brain injury.<ref name="People: May 22, 1964">"People: May 22, 1964", Time, May 22, 1964.</ref>

Kennedy's son Robert was shot on June 5, 1968 while running for president. He died the following morning at age 42.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In the aftermath of Robert's death, Kennedy made his last public appearance when he, his wife, and son Ted made a filmed message to the country.<ref>Template:Cite webTemplate:Cbignore</ref> Kennedy died at home in Hyannis Port the following year on November 18, 1969, two days before what would have been Robert's 44th birthday; he was 81 years old.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Kennedy had outlived four of his children.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He is buried at Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline, Massachusetts. Kennedy's widow, Rose, is buried next to him following her death in 1995 at age 104, as is his daughter Rosemary after her death in 2005.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

See also

• Kennedy curse
• Kennedy family

Bibliography

• Brinkley, Alvin. Voices of Protest. Vintage, 1983.
• Goodwin, Doris K. The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga. Simon & Schuster, 1987.
• Hersh, Seymour. The Dark Side of Camelot. Back Bay Books, 1998.
• Kessler, Ronald. The Sins of the Father: Joseph P. Kennedy and the Dynasty He Founded. Warner, 1996
• Leamer, Laurence. The Kennedy Men: 1901–1963. Harper, 2002.
• Logevall, Fredrik. JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956 (2020) excerpt
• Maier, Thomas. The Kennedys: America's Emerald Kings. Basic Books, 2003.
• Nasaw, David. The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy. The Penguin Press, 2012; excerpt
• O'Brien, Michael. John F. Kennedy: A Biography. St Martin's Press, 2005.
• Renehan, Edward. The Kennedys at War: 1937–1945. Doubleday, 2002.
• Renehan, Edward. "Joseph Kennedy and the Jews". History News Network. April 29, 2002.
• Ronald, Susan. The Ambassador: Joseph P. Kennedy at the Court of St. James's 1938-1940 (2021) excerpt
• Schwarz, Ted. Joseph P. Kennedy: The Mogul, the Mob, the Statesman, and the Making of an American Myth. Wiley, 2003.
• Template:Cite bookTemplate:Subscription required
• Whalen, Richard J. The Founding Father: The Story of Joseph P. Kennedy. The New American Library of World Literature, Inc., 1964.

Primary sources

• Smith, Amanda (ed.). Hostage to Fortune: The Letters of Joseph P. Kennedy. Viking, 2001, the major collection of letters to and from Kennedy

External links

• Template:IMDb name
• The Kennedys – PBS Special Template:Webarchive
• FBI files on Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.
• Affair with Marlene Dietrich
• Correspondence with the Secretary of State at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library
• Template:Find a Grave
• Template:PM20

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