Joe “had the sense to recognize the opportunity offered by the SEC,” one financier says, and to revel in his power. “Joe could tell the moneymen in New York what they would do, and they damned well better do it, or he could sweep them into the sea.”
Though some moguls continue to operate unchecked, Joe’s new rules do ensnare at least one notable: John “Black Jack” Bouvier. Bouvier is a handsome Hamptons socialite who made his fortune on Wall Street, though he prefers gambling, drinking, and womanizing to boardroom duties.
In July 1929, when Bouvier’s daughter Jacqueline (later to become one of America’s most beloved First Ladies) is born, “Black Jack” is a wealthy man. But unlike Joe, who strategically divested himself of vulnerable stock holdings in advance of the October 1929 crash, Bouvier is financially decimated by it, and goes on to owe substantial back taxes and subsist on loans from his father-in-law.
* * *
Joe enjoys being a “Washington insider,” with the accompanying political and social freedoms. He rents Marwood, a thirty-three-room, eleven-bathroom Italianate mansion in Maryland overlooking the Potomac River.
Kennedy and President Roosevelt enjoy a warm, if cautious, friendship. The two men smoke cigars together when the wheelchair-bound president visits the house, accessible via an elevator Joe has installed specifically to accommodate FDR.
On the weekends, Joe visits with Rose and the kids, either at their home in Bronxville; the compound in Hyannis Port on Cape Cod, purchased in 1928; or the Palm Beach mansion, purchased in 1933. He devotedly writes weekly letters to each of his sons and daughters, though he reserves his sternest words for the boys. To Jack, in December 1934: “I am not expecting too much and I will not be disappointed if you don’t turn out to be a real genius.”
In September 1935, he steps down from the SEC to run the new US Maritime Commission, responsible for building modern merchant ships to replace World War I–era vessels.
Joe quietly plants stories about himself and his family in the press. One key contact is Henry Luce of Time magazine. Another is Arthur Krock, the New York Times Washington bureau chief, who enjoys vacations at the Kennedy mansion in Palm Beach and other luxury perks in exchange for favorable coverage.
All the while, Joe is deepening a friendship and business relationship with the president’s son, James Roosevelt II, who finds himself caught between the interests of two powerful men he admires. In 1937 Joe writes, “You know as far as I am concerned…I am your foster-father.”
As World War II looms in Europe, FDR knows that Joe is pining to be appointed the first Irish Catholic ambassador to Great Britain, but tells his son to instead offer him a consolation post. Arthur Krock, in his oral history interview for the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, relates Joe’s response: “He tried to get me to take the Secretaryship of Commerce and I knew it was only an attempt to shut me off from London, but London is where I want to go and it is the only place I intend to go and I told Jimmy so, and that’s that.”
Upon receiving word of his reaction to the offer, the president calls Joe to the Oval Office. In his memoir, My Parents, James Roosevelt recalls the fun his father unleashes at Joe’s expense.
FDR makes two requests. “Would you mind stepping back a bit, by the fireplace perhaps, so I can get a good look at you?” Then, “Joe, would you mind taking your pants down?”
“I guess it was the power of the presidency,” James Roosevelt theorizes as despite their mutual confusion, Joe complies, standing in front of the president in his underwear.
“Someone who saw you in a bathing suit once said something I now know to be true,” FDR states. “Joe, just look at your legs. You are just about the most bowlegged man I have ever seen. Don’t you know that the ambassador to the Court of Saint James’s has to go through an induction ceremony in which he wears knee breeches and silk stockings? Can you imagine how you’ll look? When photos of our new ambassador appear all over the world, we’ll be a laughingstock. You’re just not right for the job, Joe.”
Still working the angles in spite of his embarrassment, Joe pleads, “Mr. President, if I can get the permission of His Majesty’s government to wear a cutaway coat and striped pants to the ceremony, would you agree to appoint me?”
FDR won’t relent. “Well, Joe, you know how the British are about tradition. There is no way you are going to get permission, and I must name a new ambassador soon.”
Joe continues to bargain. “Will you give me two weeks?”
The president agrees—and how he laughs when Joe returns with official permission from the British government to wear trousers.
When Joe later presents his credentials to His Majesty King George VI, some observers credit his stubborn Irish moxie for bucking the traditional garb of breeches and silk stockings. They have no idea it was FDR who put him up to it.
Chapter 4
On February 23, 1938, Joe Kennedy Sr. sets sail on the SS Manhattan for Southhampton, England, as the new American ambassador to the Court of St. James. He travels alone that day, but his family continues to make news. “The Kennedy Family: Nine Children and Nine Million Dollars” trumpets Life magazine in advance of their transatlantic crossing, and “Jolly Joe, the Nine-Child Envoy” is widely celebrated in London. “The Kennedys were the royal family that England wanted to have,” notes Will Swift, who writes about the Kennedys’ “thousand days” in London.
The new ambassador, his wife, Rose, and their children settle in fashionable St. James Square, enjoying the diplomatic perks of chauffeured limos and a glittering social calendar. Rose delights in studying royal protocol in preparation for a May 11, 1938, presentation at Buckingham Palace for herself and her husband, along with their eldest daughters, eighteen-year-old Kathleen and nineteen-year-old Rosemary.
The Kennedys are popular guests among British high society. At one 1938 dance, Lady Redesdale observes of Jack Kennedy, “I would not be surprised if that young man becomes President of the United States.”
Jack’s sister Kathleen—originally nicknamed “Kick” because her siblings stumbled over the full pronunciation, but it stuck for her spirited antics—also makes a heightened impression. At elite parties, she chews gum and, in her unmistakable American accent, calls the Duke of Marlborough “Dookie-Wookie.” Lady Jean Ogilvy remembers Kick once starting a food fight, and how everyone at the table joined in. “If someone else had done that, it might have been rude or shocking…But she had this way about her that made it seem an absolute liberation,” notes Paula Byrne, a Kick biographer.
Lem Billings, a family friend, recalls Kick’s declaration that her days in England made her “a person in her own right, not just a Kennedy girl.”
Around the same time, Joe and Charles Lindbergh, America’s famous aviator, meet at the home of Lady Astor and form an instant friendship. Lindbergh is a Nazi sympathizer, and friendly with Hitler. Regarding the brewing war in Europe, Joe declares, “For the life of me I cannot see anything involved which could be remotely considered worth shedding blood for,” and blames the Jews for instigating the Nazi persecution, bluntly stating to his aide Harvey Klemmer, “They brought it on themselves.”