by David Nasaw
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As James Roosevelt recalled in his memoir, Kennedy had “made it clear” after the 1936 election “that he felt he deserved a reward—which he did—and he hinted broadly that the reward he had in mind was the post of secretary of the treasury—which was out of the question. Father was not going to remove Henry Morgenthau from office. Father did not tell Joe in so many words, but in time it became clear to him.” A year later, after Kennedy had successfully organized the Maritime Commission as its first chairman, Roosevelt mentioned to his son that “we’ve got to do something for old Joe, but I don’t know what. He wants what he can’t have, but there must be something we can give him he’ll be happy with.” James was informally delegated to raise the subject of a future appointment with Kennedy, which he did “several times.” “One evening Joe said that if he couldn’t be secretary of the treasury, there was one other job he’d consider: ‘I’d like to be ambassador to England.’ I was surprised. I really liked Joe, but he was a crusty old cuss and I couldn’t picture him as an ambassador, especially to England.” James reported Kennedy’s request to his father, who on first hearing it “laughed so hard he almost toppled from his wheelchair.” Kennedy had never demonstrated any interest in or knowledge of foreign affairs, and he was among the least diplomatic men in Washington. He spoke his mind, got into fights with cabinet members such as Ickes and Frances Perkins, whom he considered softheaded, had no patience for ceremonial events or occasions, was possessed of a fierce temper and a foul mouth, and he was third-generation Irish and a practicing Catholic.31
Still, there was a logic to it all. The president was well aware, in late 1937, that whatever the future brought, he was going to have to find a way to confront the looming presence and increasingly aggressive behavior of Hitler and Mussolini on the continent and the Japanese in China. To do so effectively, he needed intelligence not only about internal political currents, but about the European economies, public opinion, what the bankers, industrialists, and political leaders were contemplating. This Kennedy might be able to provide. Say what you might about the man, he was a superb analyst and reporter, a clearheaded, tough-minded, independent thinker who appeared not to be swayed by ideology, belonged to no political faction, was beholden to no industrial sector, and was loyal to the president.
In early December 1937, James Roosevelt reported to Kennedy that his father was prepared to appoint him to the London post. A few days later James visited Kennedy at Marwood. Arthur Krock, who was dining alone with Kennedy that evening, as he did quite often now, recalled watching “as the pair retired to another room for a half hour or so, after which James Roosevelt departed and Kennedy returned to the table. He was fuming. ‘You know what Jimmy proposed? That instead of going to London, I become Secretary of Commerce! Well, I’m not going to. FDR promised me London, and I told Jimmy to tell his father that’s the job, and the only one, I’ll accept.’”32
Roosevelt’s trial balloon having been punctured, he notified Kennedy that he would be named ambassador to Great Britain. To make sure that the president could not change his mind a second time, Kennedy leaked the story to Arthur Krock, who went public with it on December 9, embarrassing the president, who still had an ambassador in place. Roosevelt was furious and confronted Krock, who intimated that the information had come from the State Department. The president wrote Sumner Welles, his newly appointed under secretary of state, to warn that such leaks had “become a ‘positive scandal. . . . If there is a leak in future, everyone down the line will be sent to Siam!’”33
Roosevelt knew that the appointment of Kennedy to such an important and prestigious post as ambassador to the Court of St. James’s was not going to sit well with his advisers. In his brief tenure in Washington, Kennedy had made a lot of enemies for himself: by speaking out when he shouldn’t have, by criticizing the president behind his back to his conservative friends, by offering unsolicited advice on matters that were beyond his purview, and by, time and again, making it clear that he thought he was infinitely smarter, certainly about business and the economy, than anyone else who worked for the president. The general consensus was that he was not to be relied on, that his professed loyalty to the president and the New Deal was skin-deep, that he cared only about himself and his future.
In what may have been a preemptive attempt to push back against the inevitable criticism, Roosevelt “got started on Joe Kennedy” in a December 8 meeting with Secretary of the Treasury, Morgenthau. The president had learned that Floyd Odlum, the wealthy lawyer and industrialist who had extensive holdings in utilities, had “offered Kennedy one million dollars to represent the utilities in Washington.” There was nothing illegal about making such an offer, if indeed one had been made. Still, the fact that the utilities industry, which had so bitterly opposed New Deal regulatory legislation, might think that Kennedy would work for them reflected badly on him and his loyalty to the White House. Roosevelt told Morgenthau that he had “faced Kennedy with this story and that he absolutely denied it.” Still, Morgenthau noted in his diary, the president had agreed with him that Kennedy was “a very dangerous man.” He was sending him to London, he told Morgenthau, “with the distinct understanding that the appointment was only good for six months and that furthermore by giving him this appointment any obligation that he had to Kennedy was paid out.” Morgenthau was not convinced that even with such safeguards, the appointment should be made. “Don’t you think,” he asked Roosevelt, “you are taking considerable risks by sending Kennedy who has talked so freely and so critically against your Administration?” The president assured Morgenthau that he had “made arrangements to have Joe Kennedy watched hourly and the first time he opens his mouth and criticizes me, I will fire him.” He closed the discussion by repeating “two or three times, ‘Kennedy is too dangerous to have around here.’”34
Harold Ickes, Roosevelt’s secretary of the interior, disliked and distrusted Kennedy even more than Morgenthau did. He was intensely jealous of Kennedy’s relationship with Roosevelt, his fortune, his large family, his overwhelming self-confidence, and his rapport with the Washington press corps. “Kennedy has probably a better press right now than any member of the Administration,” Ickes wrote in his diary for December 18, 1937. “He is a very rich man who is always doing favors for newspapermen. For instance, when he is to be away from his large and luxurious Washington house he will turn it over to some newspaper man who can entertain lavishly, leaving all the bills to Kennedy to pay when he returns.” Ickes’s major fear at the moment, which he noted in his diary was shared by Tom Corcoran, was that Kennedy would use his friendship with Jimmy Roosevelt to exert more and more influence over the president and his policies. “Kennedy . . . is pouring his conservative ideas into the sympathetic ears of Jimmy who relays them to the President. . . . Jimmy is riding with a high hand and, naturally, he is closer to the President than anyone else. Not only this, but he spends more time with him than anyone else.” Ickes’s fears were misplaced. It was true that on Louis Howe’s death, Jimmy Roosevelt had taken over many of his responsibilities and been officially named his father’s secretary in July, but it was sheer folly to believe that the president relied on him for advice or that Kennedy was suborning the New Deal or pushing it in a more conservative direction by feeding Jimmy ideas.35
While his enemies seethed, most of his friends were delighted for Kennedy, though a few begged him to consider carefully whether he was truly suited for a diplomatic position. When Boake Carter, the most popular radio commentator in the nation and a fiercely unrestrained New Deal critic, asked Kennedy if he could ever be happy in a position in which his main responsibilities would be conveying information back and forth from the State Department to the British Foreign Office, Kennedy responded that he had reached “an ‘understanding’ or an ‘agreement’” with Roosevelt that he was not to be “simply an errand boy in London,” but the president’s eyes and ears abroad, whose advice and counsel would be sought
and respected. Carter warned him not to trust such “agreements.”
“My dear lad, agreements mean nothing in his [Roosevelt’s] life,” Carter wrote. “They never have and they never will. . . . If he thinks certain things should be done as far as Great Britain is concerned, which you may think are cockeyed, you’ll either have to carry them out, a la order boy, or explode and resign. That is not a pleasant prospect. . . . Remember also no matter who is sent to London, he will remain there only so long as he does what he is told from Washington. The minute he shows independence, he’s through.” Carter strongly, “desperately” counseled Kennedy to remain in the country, where he could do much good, add to his reputation as an independent-thinking problem solver, and position himself for higher office, if he so chose. “The minute you accept a reward for your services in some key position or official job, you immediately become answerable to Roosevelt and in so doing, you have to sell out your ideals and thoughts, and work only for the things he directs. . . . You become his servant. You cease to become his consultant. . . . You are an honest man. But the job of Ambassador to London needs not only honesty, sincerity, faith and an abounding courage—it needs skill brought by years of training. And that, Joe, you simply don’t possess. . . . Joe, in so complicated a job, there is no place for amateurs.”36
Senator James Byrnes, among the most influential men on the Hill, also recommended that Kennedy remain at the Maritime Commission until a cabinet position, perhaps at the Treasury Department, opened up. Kennedy responded that had he thought it possible for him to exercise real influence over domestic policy, he might have considered staying behind, but “to continue where I am is certainly a waste of whatever talents I possess. . . . I have never had political ambitions and have none now. I am only vitally concerned with where we are headed. If fellows like yourself think I can help, I will stay and help in whatever job I can do the most good. If I can’t help, I can always go back to my own private affairs and be quite happy.”37
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The news that Roosevelt was going to appoint Kennedy to be the ambassador to Great Britain set the rumor mills in motion. The Boston Sunday Post declared on January 2 in a lengthy story, fronted by very large headlines that the WORLD’S FINANCIAL AND POLITICAL NERVE CENTRES RIFE WITH RUMORS KENNEDY TO BE 1940 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE.
Three weeks later, the St. Louis Star-Times reported that a close business associate of Kennedy’s was spreading the story that a deal had been finalized in Washington to send Morgenthau to London and replace him at the Treasury Department with Kennedy. Morgenthau, convinced that Kennedy had planted the story, called him in Palm Beach. According to the transcript of the conversation recorded by Morgenthau, Kennedy insisted that the story, wherever it came from, was “‘god-damned’ embarrassing and, of course, as you realize it’s ‘god-damned’ embarrassing to me. . . . I’m ‘God-damned’ happy! I mean, I’ve got a ‘God-damned’ good job.” Kennedy offered to find out who had written the story and demand a retraction. The two men hung up, Morgenthau convinced that Kennedy was a liar, Kennedy convinced that Morgenthau was a fool.38
Kennedy had told the truth to Morgenthau. He was indeed “‘God-damned’ happy” because he had a “‘God-damned’ good job.” If he could not be secretary of the treasury, there was no better place for him than as the first Irish Catholic ambassador to Great Britain. The list of past ambassadors read like a Who’s Who of America’s most distinguished publishers, poets, historians, and statesmen. No fewer than five future presidents had held the post. Every one of the Kennedy children—and their children to come—would benefit from having a father and grandfather who had served his country as ambassador to the Court of St. James’s.
“I know how you feel,” Boake Carter had conceded after what appears to have been hours of conversation on the topic with Kennedy. “I know just how damn fine it would be to give a present like this to your family. I know how it touches your own pride, and what satisfaction one gets out of a thing like this. I know the attraction to you and the type of mind you have. But—I also know the underneath spirit—or at least I think I do—which runs through you. It’s a spirit that likes to go out and do big things, fight big battles, win against huge odds.”39
With an eerily accurate degree of prescience both men would have found frightening, Carter predicted that if Kennedy accepted the appointment, he would return from London defeated, his reputation destroyed, his progress toward higher office blocked. And he was right.
Kennedy was entirely unprepared to serve as ambassador. His businessman’s skills, his head for numbers, his negotiating talents, his knowledge of domestic finance and markets, and his flair for publicity had served him well at the SEC and Maritime Commission, but they would not help him in London. Nor would his supreme self-confidence, his sense that he knew best, prepare him for a job in which he would have to answer to the secretary of state for everything he said or did.
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He had planned to sail with Rose on February 9 (the children would join them at the end of the school term), but when she was stricken with appendicitis, he delayed his departure for two weeks and flew without her to Palm Beach to join James Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins, to whom he had lent his house, for a few days in the sun. Rose arrived in Palm Beach in the middle of February, and Kennedy flew that same day to Washington.
Two weeks earlier, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins had made an appearance before the Senate Committee on Commerce to oppose the “compulsory arbitration” amendment to the Merchant Marine Act that Kennedy had proposed. Kennedy, invited to respond to her, indicated that he would be delighted to do so. The day before he appeared, committee chairman Royal Copeland predicted a “field day” in the hearing room. And that was what he got.
As a witness, future ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy was anything but diplomatic. In a letter read aloud to the committee and in comments afterward, he lashed out with undisguised contempt at Secretary Perkins and those who had sided with the CIO and opposed his call for mandatory arbitration. “His opinions of the Secretary of Labor are hardly printable,” Time magazine would later report. “Mr. Kennedy was so steamed up that Senator Copeland cautioned: ‘As chairman of this committee I welcome your fury, Joe, but as a doctor I must tell you it isn’t doing your stomach ulcer any good.’” While we don’t know what the president thought of Kennedy’s attack on his secretary of labor, the newspapers by and large applauded it, as did several congressmen, including Senator Copeland, who, when Kennedy had concluded his remarks, “turned to him and said, ‘The members of this committee are very sorry that you are leaving your present post to go to England. We wish you would stay here.’”40
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He had resigned as chairman of the Maritime Commission after only eight months in office, but with a near universal roar of approval, his reputation among the press and the public enhanced by his tough-talking attack on the maritime unions and Frances Perkins. Time magazine marked his departure with an article titled “Kennedy Candor.” “In a mood of mingled relief and regret, Chairman Joseph Patrick Kennedy of the U.S. Maritime Commission wrote President Roosevelt last week: ‘I should like to report in relinquishing my post that the ills of American Shipping had been cured. . . . Candor compels me to say, however, that the shipping problem is far from solved.’ . . . The President replied: ‘My dear Joe. . . . You have maintained your justly earned reputation of being a two-fisted, hard-hitting executive.”41
PART IV
London
Fifteen
A PLAINSPOKEN AMBASSADOR
The day before he was to sail to London, Kennedy was invited to Hyde Park to meet one last time with the president. They spent the morning discussing the faltering American economy, “the foreign situation in general,” Kennedy wrote in his diary, British politics, and Anglo-American relations. The question of what the new ambassador would wear at court was brought up. The president had, from the moment he made th
e appointment, never stopped joking about how bad Kennedy would look in knee breeches, the traditional dress at court. “He told me of his mother’s worry that I shall not wear knee breeches and suggested that, if she brought up the matter at luncheon, I might say I am waiting until I get to London to decide. If I didn’t do something of the kind, the President warned me, no lunch might be eaten.”1
Confronted by reporters after lunch, the president, with Kennedy beside him, good-naturedly turned aside any serious questions about their discussions. “When the interviewers finally turned to Mr. Kennedy and jokingly suggested that he come outside so they might ‘work’ on him, the President said that suggestion also had to be ruled out because Mr. Kennedy had to get his stomach ready for his ocean voyage.”2
The press was out in force the next day to cover Kennedy’s departure in the misconceived hope of a public confrontation between the seamen who manned the S.S. Manhattan and Kennedy, who had once claimed that maritime labor conditions were so bad that he would never allow a member of his family to take sail on an American-flagged ship. Regrettably for the reporters, there was no confrontation or ugliness of any sort, though for Kennedy the departure was “a nightmare. All of the children, except Jack, were there to see me off, but I couldn’t get to them. Newspaper men, casual well-wishers, old friends and strangers by the thousand, it seemed to me, pressed into my cabin until we all nearly suffocated. . . . Jimmy Roosevelt managed to get to my cabin and I took him into the bedroom for a brief chat. Even there, the photographers had to snap us as we sat on the bed trying to make sense. Finally, I got up to the deck and the children.”3