One of the NY Times Ten Best of 2012, this book is subtitled 'The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy.' To anyone of my age, proclivities, and background, the general story of Joe Kennedy is well-known. What this author accomplishes though is the providing of substantial detail in a smooth, almost effortless, narrative. As the text runs to 787 pages, that is a noteworthy feat. This book was written at the request of Ted Kennedy and his sister Jean Smith, the two youngest of the nine Kennedy children. The author is an award-winning biographer and professor, who was afforded unlimited access to Kennedy's papers. There was a substantial degree of separation, bias and prejudice that existed in Boston a century ago. The Irish Catholics were outsiders for whom access to Boston Latin, Harvard, the right clubs and jobs was difficult to obtain. The proper Bostonians were Protestant, old money and not willing to share with the newcomers. Kennedy was an extremely talented and supremely ambitious man, and there was no obstacle he could not overcome. He succeeded at Harvard, graduated in 1912, married Rose Fitzgerald in 1914, went into banking, then industrial management and worked for the Hayden, Stone brokerage in the early 20's. He was a financier in the truest sense of the word, buying, selling, and trading stocks, making deals, wheeling and dealing, all while acquiring and disposing of businesses. He was involved in Hollywood as an owner, producer and lender as the industry switched to 'talkies'. He was relentlessly focused, as the author continuously points out, on his only true ambition - making himself and his family richer - and in a few short years, he did just that. He made millions when he sold his Hollywood interests to David Sarnoff and RKO. Before he was forty, he had established trusts for his children which were the foundation of multiple generations of wealth. He was a master short seller, who kept increasing his net worth throughout the Depression. It is Joe Kennedy's personal life though that amazes the reader and is undoubtedly the reason that his times are referred to as 'turbulent'. Apparently, he was a serious Catholic, yet one who had affairs with hundreds of women. His most famous paramour was Gloria Swanson, who was amazed that he felt that by confessing his continuous sinning, he was forgiven and could continue as a member in good standing of his church. He was virtually never home, often away three hundred days per year, but was quite attentive to his children. They all adored him and thought that he was a great dad. But as a father, he suffered incalculable pain as he buried four of his nine children and ruined the life of a fifth, when he had Rosemary lobotomized. At the time of his death, 8 years after a debilitating stroke, he had learned of Teddy's misdeeds at Chappaquiddick. Joe Kennedy's personal career highpoint came during his fifteen months as the first SEC Commissioner. Appointed because he 'knew' the ways of Wall Street, he is universally credited with getting the important Commission off on the right foot. One of his most important friendships from his Washington tour was Arthur Krock, columnist and Washington Bureau Chief of the Times, who became Kennedy's personal public relations advisor for years. Kennedy had a reputation as bootlegger, but the author completely disagrees and points out that it would be difficult for Kennedy to pass Congressional muster if there was any truth to those rumors. He was, though, an astute businessman, who in anticipation of the repeal of Prohibition, garnered the import rights for a decade and a half of Haig and Haig Scotch and Dewars White Label. Those rights were worth $900,000 per year and were the primary funding for a second series of trusts. His second job for FDR was as Maritime Commissioner, but he made it quite clear that there was only one job he wanted as reward for being the most prominent business backer of the New Deal. It was a job that just about everyone, including Roosevelt, knew he was totally unqualified for - Ambassador to the Court of St. James. Cocky and totally undiplomatic, immediately upon his arrival in London, "he was trying to usurp the authority of the Secretary of State and interfere in British politics. And two weeks into his tenure, he had already been slapped down by Cordell Hull for doing so." FDR knew he had made a significant mistake, but with his eye on the politics of the 1940 nomination, knew he didn't want an angry Joe Kennedy back in the states shooting off about this, that and everything. So, he left him there until Oct. 1940. Reading about Kennedy's two and a half years in London, one is appalled at his disloyalty, hypocrisy, headline hunting, arrogance, bigotry, total lack of any true sense of values and daily egomaniacal posturing. He was opposed to war, any war, at that time, and the author leaves a strong impression that his opposition was personal, not philosophical. He was justifiably and understandably concerned about his two oldest sons and was also fearful of the impact of war on his wealth. He comes off less an appeaser than a defeatist, although history has characterized and condemned him for being both. Upon his return to the states while technically still Ambassador, he equivocated about Lend-Lease and became persona non grata in the Roosevelt administration. Banished to Palm Springs and Hyannis Port, he would never hold public office again. The war extracted a terrible price from his large family. Jack, fortunately, survived his 1943 encounter with danger. For Joe, Jr. death came in August of 1944. It was an awful blow for Joe, Sr: "Joseph P. Kennedy would never recover from the death of his oldest son and namesake, the handsome, charming, charismatic young man who believed - with his father - that he could do anything he set his mind to". Kick's English husband, Billy, oldest son of the Duke of Devonshire, was killed in action in France in September. After the war, Kennedy turned to further building his assets and advancing Jack's career, and was rewarded with Jack's election to a very safe Congressional seat in Boston. Tragedy struck again in 1948, his sixtieth year, when Kick was killed in a plane crash in France. Of his four oldest, two were dead, one a victim of a botched lobotomy, and the fourth perennially ill. Throughout the 1950's, Kennedy remained very much behind the scene and continued to financially support Jack's political ambitions. And he was rewarded when Jack became the first (and still only) non-Protestant American president. Indeed, Jack remains only the second president (Van Buren) without a British heritage. Joe insisted, in the face of almost universal opposition, that Bobby be Attorney General. A year later on December 19, 1961, Joe Kennedy suffered a severe cerebral stroke that would put an end to the life he had so vigorously led. He was wheelchair bound and unable to speak. He viewed the sixties through a prism of pain, helplessness and indignity. He died on Nov. 18, 1969.
No comments:
Post a Comment