JFK
Page 82
13. Nasaw, Patriarch, 5–6; Kelly, Graves Are Walking, 299.
14. It’s possible they knew each other before departure or met on the voyage to America, but more likely they first laid eyes on each other in Boston. Rose Kennedy, in her memoirs, implies that Patrick and Bridget met after arriving in Boston. See Times to Remember, 20.
15. The first-last formulation is from Collier and Horowitz, Kennedys, 24.
16. Koskoff, Joseph P. Kennedy, 4. Other estimates are even lower; see Miller, “Emigration,” in Crowley, Smyth, and Murphy, Atlas, 225.
17. Peterson, City-State of Boston, 572; Nasaw, Patriarch, 7. Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote to his friend Henry David Thoreau to say how stunned he was to discover Irish laborers who regularly worked a fifteen-hour day for not more than fifty cents. O’Connor, Boston Irish, 100.
18. Handlin, Boston’s Immigrants, 113.
19. O’Neill, Rogues and Redeemers, 4–5; O’Connor, Boston Irish, 60; Patrick Blessing, “Irish,” in Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, ed. Stephan Thernstrom (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), 530.
20. O’Connor, Boston Irish, 61.
21. Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 323–24.
22. Handlin, Boston’s Immigrants, 186; O’Neill, Rogues and Redeemers, 11.
23. Anbinder, Nativism and Slavery, 87–94, 135–42; Puleo, City So Grand, 72–73.
24. Quoted in Anbinder, Nativism and Slavery, 266.
25. O’Neill, Rogues and Redeemers, 16.
26. Quoted in Burns, John Kennedy, 7.
27. Handlin, Boston’s Immigrants, 91.
28. Nasaw, Patriarch, 8; Collier and Horowitz, Kennedys, 24.
29. Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 226; Collier and Horowitz, Kennedys, 24–25.
30. Whalen, Founding Father, 14–15.
31. From 1851 to 1921, that is to say, after the famine, as many as 4.5 million left Ireland, about 3.7 million of them going to the United States.
32. Dolan, Irish Americans, 147–49.
33. Collier and Horowitz, Kennedys, 27.
34. Duncliffe, Life and Times, 3; Collier and Horowitz, Kennedys, 31–32.
35. Leamer, Kennedy Men, 9.
36. Nasaw, Patriarch, 14.
37. Kessler, Sins of the Father, 12.
38. Nasaw, Patriarch, 13–14; Dallek, Unfinished Life, 15.
39. Nasaw, Patriarch, 13–14; Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 228.
40. Collier and Horowitz, Kennedys, 31–32. Koskoff, Joseph P. Kennedy, 15–16; Kessler, Sins of the Father, 16.
41. Whalen, Founding Father, 22.
42. Kessler, Sins of the Father, 16; Leamer, Kennedy Men, 12.
43. Whalen, Founding Father, 23–24; Nasaw, Patriarch, 19.
44. Nasaw, Patriarch, 21; Collier and Horowitz, Kennedys, 34.
45. “List of Secondary Schools, Universities and Colleges…from Which Students Have Entered Harvard College During the Years 1901–1920,” Harvard University Archives (hereafter HUA).
46. Amory, Proper Bostonians, 292; Whalen, Founding Father, 31.
47. The class of 1910 was a golden one: in addition to Lippmann, it had poet T. S. Eliot, radical journalist John Reed, journalist Heywood Broun, poet Alan Seeger, theatrical stage designer Robert Edmond Jones, psychiatrist Carl Binger, and politicians Hamilton Fish III and Bronson Cutting.
48. Steel, Walter Lippmann, 12; Schlesinger, Veritas, 148; Nasaw, Patriarch, 23.
49. Koskoff, Joseph P. Kennedy, 19.
50. The story of the Yale game in which he earned his letter and also picked up the game ball would become controversial, a supposed sign of his bottomless and ruthless ambition, the argument being that the game ball should have gone to the winning Harvard pitcher. But teammates defended Joe on the grounds that he had made the final out at first base and therefore by custom was entitled to pocket the ball. See Nasaw, Patriarch, 24.
51. JPK Grade Card, UAIII 15.75.12 1910–1919, box 12, HUA.
52. Collier and Horowitz, Kennedys, 29; Cameron, Rose, 27.
53. RK, Times to Remember, 8; Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 61–68.
54. O’Brien, John F. Kennedy, 6–7.
55. Collier and Horowitz, Kennedys, 37; O’Donnell and Powers, “Johnny,” 58–59.
56. RK, Times to Remember, 6–7; Perry, Rose Kennedy, 15.
57. Cameron, Rose, 40.
58. Salinger quoted in Cameron, Rose, 53.
59. RK, Times to Remember, 28.
60. The specifics from the early period of the relationship are scarce. Only at the time of their wedding would Rose begin to document their relationship. Joe’s assessments of the early years, meanwhile, are extremely limited and entirely retrospective.
61. RK, Times to Remember, 57–58. Three-quarters of a century later, as she neared ninety years of age, Rose would say, “I shall always remember Old Orchard Beach as a place of magic, for it was the place where Joe and I fell in love.” Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 144.
62. C. F. Hennessey, “Prophecy for the Class of 1908,” in R. J. Dobbyn to JPK, January 24, 1934, box 34, JPKP; RK, Times to Remember, 59; Nasaw, Patriarch, 21.
63. Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 184–89; Perry, Rose Kennedy, 23–28.
64. She did not get an earned degree, however, as the college would become accredited only in 1917. It bestowed an honorary doctorate on Rose in 1953 and now considers her its most notable alumna. Perry, Rose Kennedy, 31.
65. Nasaw, Patriarch, 28.
66. Quoted in Nasaw, Patriarch, 32.
67. Koskoff, Joseph P. Kennedy, 22–23.
68. Nasaw, Patriarch, 39.
69. Halley, Dapper Dan, 105–9; Kessler, Sins of the Father, 18. An excellent biography of Curley is Beatty, Rascal King.
70. The scholarship on the origins is massive. See, e.g., Clark, Sleepwalkers; MacMillan, War That Ended Peace; McMeekin, July 1914; Ferguson, Pity of War.
71. Rose Kennedy diary and wedding log, box 1, RKP. The Boston papers covered the wedding; see, e.g., BP and BG, October 8, 1914.
72. O’Brien, John F. Kennedy, 19.
CHAPTER 2: CHILDISH THINGS
1. A detailed assessment of this critical year is Stevenson, 1917.
2. The more commonly asserted start date is 1941, the year in which Henry Luce published his seminal editorial “The American Century,” to be discussed later in this book.
3. Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes, 4. See also Mazower, Dark Continent, ix–xx; Michael Neiberg, “The Meanings of 1917,” Journal of Military and Strategic Studies 18 (2017).
4. Tocqueville, Democracy, 559.
5. Englishman William T. Stead’s book The Americanization of the World, which appeared in 1902, predicted that America’s economic and demographic strength would propel it to the forefront of world leadership.
6. Kennedy, Rise and Fall, 202; Tooze, Deluge, 14–15. On the rise of the United States in this period, see also Zakaria, From Wealth to Power.
7. Quoted in Thompson, Woodrow Wilson, 102.
8. The studies are numerous, but see Neiberg, Path to War, and Knock, To End All Wars. Also illuminating are O’Toole, Moralist, and Kennedy, Will to Believe.
9. Between 1914 and 1916, U.S. exports to France and Britain grew 265 percent, from $754 million to $2.75 billion. In the same period, largely on account of a British blockade of German ports, exports to Germany dropped by more than 91 percent, from $345 million to a mere $29 million.
10. Figures are from Paterson et al., American Foreign Relations, 292.
11. Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 271–72.
12. Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 272.
13. Page quoted in Kamensky et al., People and a Nation, 582. The trenc
h warfare has spawned a huge literature. On the Somme fighting, see, e.g., Prior and Wilson, Somme. A superb study of anti-war thinking and activism in the United States is Kazin, War Against War.
14. Kennedy, Over Here, 12; LaFeber, American Age, 294.
15. Nasaw, Patriarch, 51–53.
16. JPK to Draft Board, February 18, 1918, box 37, JPKP.
17. On the war’s final months, see, e.g., Strachan, First World War, 259ff; Stevenson, Cataclysm, 303–406.
18. Keynes, Economic Consequences, 297. On the legacy of the war, see Reynolds, Long Shadow.
19. See, e.g., Barry, Great Influenza; Crosby, America’s Forgotten Pandemic; and Kolata, Flu.
20. Nasaw, Patriarch, 56–57; RK, Times to Remember, 151; Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 6.
21. Porter, Greatest Benefit, 484; Kamensky et al., People and a Nation, 585.
22. RK, Times to Remember, 73; Nasaw, Patriarch, 57.
23. Nasaw, Patriarch, 34.
24. Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 301–2; Cameron, Rose, 83.
25. Cott, Grounding of Modern Feminism.
26. Bailey, From Front Porch; Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 302.
27. Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 305–7; Beauchamp, Joseph P. Kennedy Presents, 29–30.
28. RK interview by Robert Coughlan, January 28, 1972, box 10, RKP; Perry, Rose Kennedy, 54.
29. Prior to one of the neighborhood outings, the governess got Jack dressed, then left him for a minute to get her coat and hat. While she was gone, he climbed through the nursery bathroom window. According to Edward Moore, “When the nurse returned she couldn’t find him but she could hear his voice calling to some of his little friends in the street. She spied Jack and tried to coax him to come in, but he was having too much fun to pay any attention to her. She called his mother and they tried to entice him in with candy and toys, but he refused to budge. They were afraid to go out and get him, because they thought he might try to fun [sic] away and fall off the roof. When he had all the fun he wanted out there he came in himself. Everyone was pretty much disturbed about it, because it was a 30 feet [sic] drop to the ground.” Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 10.
30. Cameron, Rose, 82; RK, Times to Remember, 82–83.
31. Smith, Nine of Us, 68–69. Jack was christened at St. Aidan’s. Rose was not present, as mothers were confined for three weeks then and she insisted on her children being christened as soon as possible.
32. RK, Times to Remember, 84–85.
33. JPK to Edward Place, July 2, 1920, box 21, JPKP. Earlier, Joe wrote: “Mrs. Kennedy and I feel that we can never repay you for the interest that you have taken in Jack. We would feel very badly to have the little fellow away for the period that we feel he must be, if we did not feel that he was under your care.” JPK to Edward Place, March 4, 1920, box 21, JPKP.
34. Anna Pope to JPK, May 14, 1920, box 21, JPKP; Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 9; Nasaw, Patriarch, 63; O’Brien, John F. Kennedy, 26. In response to Sara Miller, Joe wrote, “As I have told you personally over the phone, Mrs. Kennedy and I feel we can never repay you for the interest you have taken in Jack….It makes a great difference to us to know that he is so happy with you, and is getting along so very well under your treatment.” JPK to Sara Miller, March 4, 1920, box 21, JPKP.
35. Kessler, Sins of the Father, 34; Whalen, Founding Father, 54.
36. The entrance is now at 51 Abbottsford Road.
37. RK, Times to Remember, 83.
38. RK, Times to Remember, 81.
39. RK diary, April 3, 1923, box 1, RKP.
40. RK diary, April 3, 1923, box 1, RKP; RK, Times to Remember, 94.
41. Perry, Rose Kennedy, 15; Kathryn Kish Sklar, “Victorian Women and Domestic Life: Mary Todd Lincoln, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Harriet Beecher Stowe,” in Women and Power in American History, 3rd ed., ed. Kathryn Kish Sklar and Thomas Dublin (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2009), 122, 128; Linda Kerber, “The Republican Mother,” American Quarterly 28, no. 2 (summer 1976): 187–205.
42. Holt, Care and Feeding.
43. Watson, Psychological Care; O’Brien, John F. Kennedy, 39–40.
44. RK, Times to Remember, 7.
45. Cameron, Rose, 83, 85; RK, Times to Remember, 111.
46. Burns, John Kennedy, 22–23; Eunice Shriver interview, CBP.
47. Whalen, Founding Father, 57–58; Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 59.
48. RK diary, December 5, 1923, February 28, 1923, October 26, 1923, and September 11, 1923, box 1, RKP; Perry, Rose Kennedy, 61–62; Perret, Jack, 24.
49. RK diary, November 21, 1923, box 1, RKP; RK, Times to Remember, 97.
50. Flood, Story of Noble and Greenough, 79; Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 53.
51. Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 54–55.
52. Also on the team was another set of brothers, McGeorge and William Bundy. For the latter’s recollection of being a classmate of Jack’s, see Bird, The Color of Truth, 36.
53. Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 57; Bird, The Color of Truth, 36.
54. Myra Fiske OH, Dexter School, quoted in Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 57.
55. Quoted in Leamer, Kennedy Men, 35.
56. Rostow, World Economy, 210; Eckes and Zeilier, Globalization, 73.
57. On U.S. reluctance to face the challenges of world leadership in the interwar era, see Tooze, Deluge; and Thompson, Sense of Power, chap. 3. The Eurocentered world as artificial is from Kennedy, Rise and Fall, 277. On Wilson and the League fight, see Cooper, Breaking the Heart; Ambrosius, Woodrow Wilson; and Nichols, Promise, chap. 6.
58. Whalen, Founding Father, 65–66; Collier and Horowitz, Kennedys, 42.
59. An excellent history of Prohibition is McGirr, War on Alcohol.
60. Okrent, Last Call, 366–71; Nasaw, Patriarch, 79–81. Nasaw did find a “Joseph Kennedy Ltd.” involved in the liquor-smuggling trade, but the owner was a Vancouver-based Canadian whose given name was Daniel Joseph. See also Smith, Hostage to Fortune, xx.
61. “Mr. Kennedy, the Chairman,” Fortune, September 1937.
62. Arthur Krock OH, JFKL; Whalen, Founding Father, 59.
63. Whalen, Founding Father, 58–59. Quoted in O’Brien, John F. Kennedy, 29. See also Beschloss, Kennedy and Roosevelt, 65.
64. RK, Times to Remember, 57; RK interview by Robert Coughlan, January 7, 1972, box 10, RKP.
65. RK, Times to Remember, 166; Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 62.
66. “Mr. Kennedy, the Chairman,” Fortune, September 1937; Collier and Horowitz, Kennedys, 46–47; Kamensky et al., People and a Nation, 622.
67. Parmet, Jack, 11; Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 9.
68. Beauchamp, Joseph P. Kennedy Presents, 93–99; Nasaw, Patriarch, 100–102.
69. Quoted in Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 393–94.
70. Byrne, Kick, 19; Beauchamp, Joseph P. Kennedy Presents, 122–25.
71. Swanson, Swanson on Swanson, 356–57, 359. Though the family had moved to Riverdale, Rose returned to Boston to give birth.
72. Beauchamp, Joseph P. Kennedy Presents, 272–73; Nasaw, Patriarch, 144.
73. Swanson, Swanson on Swanson, 385–86.
74. Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 391–92; Perry, Rose Kennedy, 78; O’Brien, John F. Kennedy, 35. In Marriage and Parenthood: The Catholic Ideal (1911), Father Thomas Gerrard stated that sexual intercourse should be completed quickly.
75. Dallek, Unfinished Life, 23–24.
76. Swanson, Swanson on Swanson, 394. According to the book, Kennedy had sought permission from the Catholic Church to live apart from Rose and maintain a second home with Swanson.
77. Nasaw, Patriarch, 146–47; Higham, Rose, 110–11.
78. On June 3, Kennedy wrote to Joe Junior to commend him on ho
w he had carried himself at the funeral. “Everybody says you were perfectly fine and handled yourself splendidly. I was terribly disappointed not to be there myself, but I was more than proud to have you as my own representative and delighted everybody liked you so much.” JPK to JPK Jr., June 3, 1929, printed in Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 84.
79. Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 420; Kessler, Sins of the Father, 80–81.
80. Allen, Only Yesterday, quoted in Whalen, Founding Father, 106.
81. Leamer, Kennedy Men, 57; Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 391–92, 425–26.
82. Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 50.
83. RK, Times to Remember, 150; Parmet, Jack, 14.
84. Quoted in Burns, John Kennedy, 21.
85. Riverdale Country School scholarship report, June 7, 1929, box 20, JPKP; O’Brien, John F. Kennedy, 29.
86. “Plea for a Raise,” n.d., box 1, JPKP. Jack signed the letter “John Fitzgerald Francis Kennedy.” Mystified by the inclusion of “Francis,” which was not part of his name, his mother could only surmise that Jack added the name of the kindly saint to increase his chances of getting his wish.
87. O’Brien, John F. Kennedy, 29.
88. Damore, Cape Cod Years, 19–21; Nasaw, Patriarch, 92.
CHAPTER 3: SECOND SON
1. RK interview by Robert Coughlan, January 7, 1972, box 10, RKP.
2. Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 351–52.
3. Collier and Horowitz, Kennedys, 60; Thompson and Meyers, Robert F. Kennedy, 64.
4. Parmet, Jack, 20; Luella Hennessey OH, JFKL. Lem Billings recalled, “But Jack, I can remember, was as fluent as Joe [Jr.] right from the time he was fifteen. The topics were always on a high level during the entire meal. This was a challenge—it was a challenge for me as a visitor. I felt it was much more important for me to read and to know what was going on so that, when I was at the Kennedys, I would be able to at least understand the topics at the table.” KLB OH, JFKL.