Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.

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Joseph Patrick Kennedy Sr. (September 6, 1888 – November 18, 1969), an American businessman, investor, and politician known for his high-profile service in the US government and for his children's political and other accomplishments. Kennedy was born in East Boston, Massachusetts, to a political family.

He made a fortune as a stock market and commodity investor but then expanded his profits by investing in real estate and a variety of other industries around the country.

He was an assistant general manager of a Boston area Bethlehem Steel shipyard during WWI; in this capacity, he became acquainted with Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Navy's Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

Kennedy made significant money in the 1920s by reorganizing and refinance several Hollywood studios; several studios were eventually turned into Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) studios;

With the exclusive distribution rights for Scotch whisky, Kennedy boosted his fortune.

Merchandise Mart, Chicago's largest privately owned building in the country, was owned by him. Kennedy was a leading member of the Democratic Party and of the Irish Catholic Church of Ireland.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt named Kennedy to be the first chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which he led from 1934 to 1935.

The Maritime Commission was later ordered by Kennedy.

Kennedy served as the US Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1938 to late 1940, when he offended Roosevelt by his indignation with Britain's survival.

"Democracy is over in England," Kennedy said during the Battle of Britain in November 1940.

It may be here [in the United States]"

Following the scandal, Kennedy resigned his position. Rose Kennedy was Kennedy's wife.

He was heavily involved in his sons' political careers during his later years.

All three of Kennedy's sons achieved distinguished political positions: John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) served as a United States Senator. Senator Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) served as Attorney General and as President of the United States from Massachusetts and as Senator from Massachusetts. Senator John Kennedy (1932–2009), and Ted Kennedy (1932–2009), both served as a United States senator and Senator. Senator Bernie Sanders of Massachusetts.

Background, early life, and education

Joseph Patrick Kennedy was born in East Boston, Massachusetts, on September 6, 1888. Kennedy, the elder son of Mary Augusta (Hickey) Kennedy, as well as businessman and politician Patrick Joseph "P.J." Kennedy. Kennedy attended Boston Latin School, where he excelled at baseball and was named class president before graduating in 1908.

Kennedy then attended Harvard College, where he gained admission to the prestigious Hasty Pudding Club but was not invited to join the Porcellian Club. Kennedy earned a bachelor's degree in economics in 1912, a first class honor.

On October 7, 1914, Kennedy married Rose Fitzgerald, Boston's eldest daughter of Boston Mayor John F. "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald and Mary Josephine "Josie" Hannon.

Personal life

Joseph and Rose Kennedy had nine children (see table below). Three of Kennedy's sons, John F. Kennedy (1953–1963) served as Attorney General (1954–1968) and as a New York senator (1960–2009). Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., his eldest son (1915-1944), was on a dangerous flying mission across the English Channel, but he died on active service in World War II. Eunice Kennedy Shriver, one of Kennedy's daughters, founded the Special Olympics for disabled people, while Jean Kennedy Smith, the president of the United States, served as the U.S. ambassador. Ambassador to Ireland.

As Kennedy's company soared, he and his family stayed in Boston, New York City, the Cape Cod peninsula, and Palm Beach.

Kennedy was involved in a variety of extramarital affairs, including friendships with actor Gloria Swanson and Marlene Dietrich and his secretary, Janet DesRosiers Fontaine. Swanson's personal and corporate affairs, as he supervised, was a little bit of mystery in Hollywood.

Doctors told Joseph Kennedy Sr. that a lobotomy would help her reduce her mood swings and prevent her from having violent outbursts. (Accounts of Rosemary's life indicated that she was physically impaired, but others had questioned the Kennedys' accounts of her illness.) Rosemary's erratic behavior annoyed her parents; her father was especially concerned that she would shame and embarrass the family and jeopardize his political career and that of his other children. On Rosemary, Kennedy ordered that surgeons perform a lobotomy. In November 1941, the lobotomy took place. Kennedy did not alert his wife about the surgery until it was complete. The surgery was performed by James W. Watts and Walter Freeman (both of George Washington University School of Medicine).

The lobotomy was a disaster. Rosemary Kennedy was left permanently incapacitated because of it. Her mental ability had dwindled to that of a two-year-old child; she was unable to walk or talk intelligibly; and she was incontinent. Rosemary was institutionalized straight after the lobotomy. In 1949, she was relocated to Jefferson, Wisconsin, where she spent the remainder of her life on the grounds of the St. Coletta School for Exceptional Children (formerly known as "St. Coletta Institute for Backward Youth"). Kennedy did not visit his daughter at the hospital. Author Kate Clifford Larson of Rosemary wrote this book. Rosemary's lobotomy had been hidden from the family for 20 years. His children were alerted of Rosemary's location in 1961, after Kennedy suffered a stroke that left him unable to talk. The lobotomy did not become widely known until 1987. Rosemary Kennedy died of natural causes on January 7, 2005 at the age of 86.

According to Dr. Bertram S. Brown, the National Institute of Mental Health's former advisor to President Kennedy, Kennedy referred to Rosemary as physically impaired rather than physically sick in order to shield his son John's image in case of a presidential campaign. Brown explained that the family's "lack of treatment for mental illness" was "part of a lifelong family denial of what was actually true."

Kennedy died on December 19, 1961, at the age of 73. He recovered, but he was left paralyzed on his right side. He suffered with aphasia, which affected his ability to talk for a long time. He remained physically fit, recovered certain functions with therapy, and began walking with a cane. His address also showed some improvements. Kennedy began to feel a great deal of muscular inability, which eventually required him to use a wheelchair. In 1964, Kennedy was admitted to The Institute for Human Potential in Philadelphia, a medical and rehabilitation center for people with brain injury.

While running for president on June 5, 1968, Kennedy's uncle Robert Kennedy was assassinated. Kennedy made his last public appearance after Robert's death when he, his wife, and son Ted made a filmed message to the country. On November 18, 1969, he died at home in Hyannis Port. Four of his children died before he was born. He was buried in Brookline, Massachusetts, at Holyhood Cemetery. Rosemary Kennedy's widow was buried next to him after her death in 1995, as had their daughter Rosemary in 2005.

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Business career

Kennedy embarked on a career in both investing and sales. He made a fortune as a stock market and commodity investor in the late 20s; he reinvests in real estate and a variety of industries. Despite the fact that he did not create a huge company from scratch, his timing as both buyer and seller was still superb.

Several criminals, including Frank Costello, have confessed to being involved with Kennedy in unconstitutional bootlegging operations during Prohibition. Scholars dismiss his allegations, despite the fact that his father worked in the whisky importation industry. David Nasaw, the most recent and thorough biographer, claims that no convincing evidence has been found to connect Kennedy to bootlegging activity. When Fortune magazine first published its first list of the richest people in the United States in 1957, it included Kennedy in the $200-400 million category.

After graduating from Harvard, Kennedy's first job was as a state-employed bank examiner; this position enabled him to learn a great deal about the banking industry. The Columbia Trust Bank, in which his father held a majority interest, was in danger of takeover in 1913. Kennedy borrowed $45,000 (equivalent to $1.2 million today) from family and friends and bought back control. He was rewarded for his service at the age of 25, by being elected as the bank's president. Kennedy declared himself to the world that he was "the youngest" bank president in the United States.

Kennedy came as a highly respected entrepreneur with an eye on value. For example, he was a real estate investor who gained a substantial sum from the acquisition of distressed real estate by Old Colony Realty Associates, Inc., which bought distressed real estate.

Although he was skeptical of American involvement in World War II, Kennedy wanted to participate in wartime production as an assistant general manager of Fore River, a major Bethlehem Steel shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts. He oversaw the manufacture of transports and warships in the United Kingdom. He became acquainted with Navy Assistant Secretary Franklin Delano Roosevelt through this work.

In 1919, Kennedy joined Hayden, Stone & Co., where he became an expert in the unregulated stock market of the day, engaging in activities that were later considered to be insider trading and market manipulation. He happened to be on the corner of Wall and Broad Streets at the time of the bombing on September 16, 1920, and was thrown to the ground by the force of the explosion. He formed his own investment firm in 1923. Following the 1929 stock market crash, Kennedy then became a multi-millionaire as a result of taking "short" positions.

Kennedy, Charles E. Mitchell, Michael J. Meehan, and Bernard Smith were among other Irish-Catholic investors in alliances, including Charles E. Mitchell, Michael J. Meehan and Bernard Smith. He established a "stock pool" to control trading in Libbey-Ford's stock. The new deal drove up the value of the pool operators' stakes in the stock by using insider details and the public's ignorance. Journalists will be bribe journalists to present their details in the most effective way, according to pool managers. Pool operators attempted to corner a stock and force the price up or push the price down with a "bear raid." Kennedy and the Yellow Cab Company were drawn into a bidding war for supremacy.

Kennedy later said he understood that the burgeoning stock market speculation in the late 1920s would lead to a market crash. He seemed to have decided against the market when he got stock tips from a shoe-shine boy. "Because he possessed a passion for facts, a complete lack of emotion, and a keen sense of timing," Kennedy survived the crash.

Kennedy soared his fortune during the Great Depression by investing the majority of his money in real estate. Kennedy's fortune in 1929 was expected to be $4 million (equivalent to $63.1 million today). By 1935, his fortune had increased to $180 million (roughly to $3.56 billion today).

Kennedy made a lot of money from reorganizing and refining several Hollywood film studios. Filmmaking in the United States was much more decentralized than it is today, with many different film studios supplying film products. Film Booking Offices of America (or FBO), a small studio that specialized in Westerns made cheaply, was one of several small shops. The company's 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.

Kennedy went to Hollywood in March 1926 to concentrate on running film studios. At the time, film studios were allowed to own exhibition companies, which were vital to get their films to local theaters. With that in mind, he acquired the Keith-Albee-Orpheum Theaters Corporation (KAO), which had more than 700 vaudeville theaters around the country that had begun showing movies. He later acquired Pathe Exchange, a design studio that later joined Cecil B. DeMille's Producers Distributing Corporation in March 1927.

He unsuccessfully attempted to operate First National Pictures in August 1928. He officially combined his film companies FBO and KAO into Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) in October 1928 and raised a considerable amount of money in the process. Kennedy, who wanted to buy Pantages Theatre Company, which had 63 profitable theaters, made an offer of $8 million ($126 million today). It had been reduced. He then stopped releasing his films to Pantages. Alexander Pantages's services were also out of business. However, Pantages' reputation was tarnished as he was later charged and tried for rape, and he accepted Kennedy's revised bid of $3.5 million ($55.2 million today). Pantages, who said that Kennedy had "set him up," was later found not guilty at a second trial. Eunice Pringle, the teen who had accused Pantages of rape, confessed on her deathbed that Kennedy was the mastermind of the plot to frame Pantages.

Many believe that Kennedy earned more than $5 million ($78.9 million) today from his Hollywood investments. He arranged the financing for her films The Love of Sunya (1927) and the ill-fated Queen Kelly (1928), during his three-year relationship with film actress Gloria Swanson (1928). Masseuse Sylvia of Hollywood also used Hollywood's well-known "body sculptor" to create the pair. Swanson's marriage came to an end when she discovered that a costly donation from Kennedy had been paid to her account.

Kennedy imported a lot of Scotch high-priced Scotch as soon as it became legal to do so. Several "bootlegging" stories have circulated, but historians haven't accepted them. Kennedy and future Congressman James Roosevelt II founded Somerset Importers, an organization that served as the sole American agent for Haig & Haig Scotch, Gordon's Dry Gin, and Dewar's Scotch at the start of the Franklin Roosevelt administration in March 1933. For years, Kennedy ran his Somerset business. Kennedy himself drank little alcohol. He so strongly condemned what he saw as a stereotypical Irish vice that he promised his sons $1,000 not to drink until they turned 21.

In New York, Le Pavillon restaurant, and the Hialeah Park Race Track in Hialeah, Florida, Kennedy converted his alcohol profits into residential and commercial real estate. In addition, Kennedy acquired spirits-importation rights from Schenley Industries, a Canadian company. Merchandise Mart in Chicago, the country's biggest privately owned building, was his most important purchase.

Political career

In 1932, Kennedy endorsed Franklin D. Roosevelt in his presidential bid. This was his first big political contribution, and he volunteered, loaned, and raised a significant amount of money for the campaign.

Congress established the independent Securities and Exchange Commission in 1934 in an attempt to combat irresponsible market manipulations and the dissemination of inaccurate information about securities. A list of potential candidates for the SEC chairmanship was assembled by Roosevelt's brain trust. Kennedy was the top pick on the list, according to the author, "the best bet for Chairman" was due to executive capability, knowledge of habits and customs of company, and the ability to accommodate different points of view on the Commission.

Kennedy sought out the best lawyers available to him, resulting in a hard-driving team on a mission for reform. William O. Douglas and Abe Fortas were among them, both of whom were later admitted to the Supreme Court. There were four missions in the SEC. First and foremost was to resurrect investor confidence in the securities market, which had collapsed due to its unreliability and the apparent presence of anti-business elements in the Roosevelt administration. SEC had to get rid of penny-ante swindles based on inaccurate data, fraudulent software, and get-rich-quick schemes in two separate campaigns. The SEC had to stop the million-dollar transactions in major companies, whereby insiders with access to detailed company data could determine whether or not to buy or sell their own securities. It was much more important than the frauds. A crackdown on insider trading was deemed a must. In addition, the SEC had to establish a complicated system of registration for all securities sold in America, with a simple set of rules, deadlines, and guidelines that all businesses must follow. The key issue for the young lawyers was in drafting concrete rules. In its four missions, the SEC met with a success, as Kennedy assured the American business community that they would no longer be deceived and taken advantage of by Wall Street. He pleaded for ordinary investors to return to the market and allow the economy to expand again. Investors were generally applauded for Kennedy's reforming as SEC Chairman, as investors understood that the SEC was safeguarding their interests. In 1935, he resigned from the SEC.

Kennedy became the first Chairman of the United States Maritime Commission in 1937, based on his wartime service in managing a large shipyard.

Father Charles Coughlin, an Irish Catholic priest near Detroit, became the most influential Roman Catholic spokesman on social and financial issues in the 1930s, with a television audience of millions of people every week. Coughlin broke with the president in 1934, becoming a vocal critic of Coughlin's weekly anti-Communist, anti-Semitic, anti-Federal Reserve, and isolationist radio talks. He had been a faithful supporter of Roosevelt since 1932. Roosevelt sent Kennedy and other influential Irish Catholics to try to muzzle Coughlin.

Coughlin swung his vote to Huey Long in 1935, then to William Lemke's Union Party in 1936. Kennedy endorsed the New Deal strongly, but some people are still convinced that the New Deal was insufficient (Father Coughlin believed that the New Deal did not go far enough – in fact, Franklin Roosevelt was a tool of the wealthy) and Coughlin was "becoming a very risky proposition" as an opponent of Roosevelt and "an out and out demagogue." Kennedy worked with Roosevelt, Bishop Francis Spellman, and Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) to close Coughlin in 1936. Kennedy continued to fight against his celebrity among Irish Americans when Coughlin returned to the air in 1940.

Despite Coughlin's public controversies, it has also been revealed that Kennedy would accompany Coughlin when the priest visited Roosevelt at Hyde Park. Coughlin was also a friend of Kennedy, according to a historian with History News Network that published it on the Internet. Coughlin referred to Kennedy as the "shining star among the dim 'knights' in the [Roosevelt] Administration in a Boston Post article on August 16, 1936."

In 1938, Roosevelt appointed Kennedy as the US ambassador to the Court of St James' (Britain). In 1940, Kennedy aspired to replace Roosevelt in the White House.

Kennedy told a British reporter in late 1939 that he was confident that Roosevelt would "fall" in 1940 (i.e. (This year's presidential election was the first in the country's presidential election)

During the bombardment of London by a German plane in World War II, Kennedy and his family retreated to the countryside. He damaged his image with the British nation by doing so. "I thought my daffodils were yellow until I met Joe Kennedy," Randolph Churchill says.

According to the US National Archives:

Kathleen Kennedy's daughter, Kathleen, married William "Billy" Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington, the elder son of Devonshire's Duke, on May 6, 1944. Rose Kennedy disapproved the union due to Hartington's being an Anglican. Hartington and Kathleen were married in a civil ceremony, but they were unable to reconcile their religious beliefs. Hartington, a major in the Coldstream Guards, was killed in 1944.

Winston Churchill's assumption that no compromise with Nazi Germany was possible was rejected by Kennedy. Rather, he supported Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement. Kennedy attempted to coordinate a meeting with Adolf Hitler during 1938, as the Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany increased. Kennedy briefly requested a personal meeting with Hitler in order to "bring about a better understanding between the United States and Germany" shortly before the Nazi bombing of British cities began in September 1940.

Kennedy also stated that he did not propose military or economic assistance to the United Kingdom. "Democracy in England is complete." In the Boston Sunday Globe of November 10, 1940, he said, "it could be here." With German troops in overrun Poland, Denmark, Norway, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France, and France's continuing bombings of Great Britain, Kennedy unambiguously and consistently stated that the war was not about saving democracy from National Socialism (Nazism) or Fascism. During a Boston Globe columnist Louis M. Lyons of The Boston Globe and Ralph Coghlan of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kennedy said: "Knowledge is the product of a newspaper writer."

Kennedy's opinions became more diverse and largely exclusive. Josiah Wedgwood IV, a British MP who had previously condemned the British government's earlier appeasement drive, described Kennedy:

According to Harvey Klemmer, who served as one of Kennedy's embassy aides, Jews are often referred to Jews as "kikes or sheenies." As a race, they stink," Kennedy allegedly told Klemmer that "some" individual Jews are all right, Harvey. They spoil everything they touch." "They brought it on themselves," Kennedy said as Klemmer returned from Germany and described the pattern of vandalism and attacks on Jews by Nazis.

On June 13, 1938, Kennedy met in London with Herbert von Dirksen, the German ambassador to the United Kingdom, who claimed on his return to Berlin that Kennedy had told him that "it wasn't so much the fact that we wanted 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." Kennedy's biggest fear with such violent acts against German Jews as Kristallnacht was that they generated no West coverage for the Nazi regime, as he wrote to Charles Lindbergh in a letter.

According to Edward Renehan:

Kennedy was worried that a third term for President Roosevelt would bring war. "Joe, Churchill, the Jews, and their allies manipulated America into Armageddon," Laurence Leamer's "Jews, 1900-1963" Nevertheless, Kennedy endorsed Roosevelt's third term in exchange for Roosevelt's promise to help Joseph Kennedy Jr. in a bid for governor of Massachusetts in 1942. However, even during the worst months of World War II, Kennedy remained "more wary of" influential American Jews, such as Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter, than he was of Hitler.

Kennedy told the reporter Joe Dinneen:

Kennedy rose to fame as a victim. "Democracy is finished in England," he said during the Battle of Britain in November 1940. It may be here [in the United States]"

It became abundantly out of sync with Roosevelt's policies when the White House read his speeches. Kennedy was recalled from his diplomatic service and sent to the United States. Roosevelt urgently needed his help to maintain the Catholic vote, and he was welcomed to spend the night at the White House. To support Roosevelt's reelection, Kennedy pledged to make a national radio broadcast address. Roosevelt was pleased with the address because, according to Nasaw, it brought dissatisfied Irish Catholic voters to his side, buttressed his arguments that the country was not going to surrender, and that he alone had the expertise to guide the country in these difficult times. Kennedy resigned as ambassador after Roosevelt was reelected.

Throughout the remainder of the war, ties between Kennedy and the Roosevelt Administration remained tense, particularly when Joe Jr. publicly opposed President Roosevelt's unprecedented nomination for a third term, which began in 1941. In 1940 or later, Kennedy may have wished to run for president himself. Joe Sr., who had effectively dropped himself from the national stage, watched World War II from the sidelines. In 1944, Kennedy remained present in the smaller venues of rallying Irish-American and Roman Catholic Democrats for Roosevelt's re-election for a fourth term. Ambassador Kennedy said he was keen to support the war effort, but he was not expected nor encouraged to do so because of his previous misdeeds.

Kennedy used his fortune and links to establish a national network of supporters, which then became the foundation for his sons' political careers. He concentrated on the Irish-American community in large cities, including Boston, New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and several New Jersey cities. Arthur Krock of The New York Times, America's most popular political columnist, served as a freelance writer and political advisor for decades.

Kennedy once described his father as being to "the right of Herbert Hoover." (John F. Kennedy) Richard Nixon, who had joined Congress with John in 1947, was a political conservative (John F. Kennedy). Joseph Kennedy, who praised his anti-Communism in 1960, applauded his democracy and said, "Dick, if my boy can't make it," Obama said for the presidential race this year.

Kennedy's close links with Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy improved his family's standing among Irish Catholics, but also weakened it among liberals who overwhelmingly oppose McCarthy. Kennedy had strong links with the Republican senator long before McCarthy became famous in 1950. In the late 1940s, Kennedy used to take him to his family's house in Hyannis Port as a weekend house guest. McCarthy dated Patricia Kennedy at one time.

Kennedy donated thousands of dollars to McCarthy, becoming one of his leading supporters when McCarthy became a leading voice of anti-Communism starting in 1950. Kennedy reportedly made a deal so that McCarthy, a Republican, would not make campaign speeches for the Republican ticket in Massachusetts. In return, Senator John F. Kennedy, who is vying for the Senate seat, will not make any anti-McCarthy speeches that his liberal supporters want to hear.

McCarthy recruited Robert F. Kennedy (aged 27) as a senior staff member of the Senate's inquiry subcommittee, which McCarthy chaired at Kennedy's request in 1953. Senator John Kennedy faced a difficult situation in 1954, when the Senate was trying to condemn McCarthy. "How could I insist that Joe McCarthy be prosecuted for conduct he did while my own brother was on his staff?" JFK, a British soldier, urged JFK.

Robert F. Kennedy and McCarthy's chief aide, Roy Cohn, had fallen out with each other, and Robert F. Kennedy and McCarthy had left McCarthy, and McCarthy no longer worked for McCarthy. John Kennedy had drafted a letter requesting McCarthy's censure but never delivered it. Senator Kennedy was in a hospital and never disclosed how he would cast his vote when the Senate refused to censure McCarthy on December 2, 1954. McCarthy was largely supportive of McCarthy's demise.

For sons John, Robert, and Ted's political campaigns, Kennedy's links and influence were turned into political capital.

Since his remarks during World War II ("Democracy is dead"), Kennedy remained a controversial figure among Americans because of his questionable corporate credentials, Roman Catholicism, his opposition to Roosevelt's foreign policy, and his support for Joseph McCarthy. Despite the fact that his attempts to reach the White House were thwarted, Kennedy maintained a great deal of fervent anticipation for his eldest son, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., who ran for the presidency. However, Joe Jr., a U.S. Navy bomber pilot, was killed over the English Channel in August 1944 while undergoing Operation Anvil. Joe Sr., who was mourning for his dead son, turned to his second son, John, for a bid for president.

When John F. Kennedy was asked about the level of involvement and clout his father had gained in his razor-thin presidential win over Richard Nixon, he'd joke that on the eve of the election, his father had informed him the exact number of votes he'd need to win: there was no way he was paying "for a landslide." Kennedy was one of four fathers (the other three being George Tryon Harding, Nathaniel Fillmore, and George Herbert Walker Bush) to live through the entire presidency of a son.

In his biography of Kennedy, historian Richard J. Whalen explores Kennedy's influence on John F. Kennedy's policy decisions. Kennedy was instrumental in the formation of the Kennedy Cabinet (which included Robert Kennedy as Attorney General, but he had never argued or tried a lawsuit).

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