JFK

by Fredrik Logevall

  5. Smith, Nine of Us, 54–55.

  6. Leamer, Kennedy Men, 67.

  7. Ralph Horton OH, JFKL; Leaming, Jack Kennedy: Education, 30.

  8. “When he was home,” Eunice later said, “[Mother] let him sort of take over.” RK, Times to Remember, 148.

  9. Smith, Hostage to Fortune, xxv; Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 351; Charles Laurence, “Grandpa Joseph’s Letters Edited by Adopted Kin,” National Post, January 13, 2001. As Amanda Smith notes, the volume of Kennedy family letter-writing picked up markedly at the start of the 1930s. “As the younger children learned to write and as Joe and Jack set off for boarding school (from which they were obliged to write home weekly), the volume of family correspondence grew dramatically. The children evidenced less care in saving letters received from their parents than did their parents in saving letters from them. Their father’s correspondence with them survives largely because he dictated it and filed the letters he received from them along with the carbon copies of the letters he had sent. Their mother’s correspondence, which at the time was often handwritten, appears to be less complete.” Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 64.

  10. Kennedy, True Compass, 40, 30–31.

  11. Alfred Adler, The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler: A Systematic Presentation in Selections from His Writings, ed. H. L. Ansbacher and R. R. Ansbacher (New York, Basic Books: 1956), 379–80, quoted in Leamer, Kennedy Men, 46; James quoted in Dorothy Rowe, My Dearest Enemy, My Dangerous Friend: Making and Breaking Sibling Bonds (London: Routledge, 2007), 87.

  12. Kennedy, True Compass, 21; RK, Times to Remember, 120.

  13. Burns, John Kennedy, 28.

  14. JPK to JPK Jr., July 28, 1926, box 1, JPKP.

  15. KLB OH, JFKL; Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 353.

  16. RK, Times to Remember, 110–12; Smith, Nine of Us, 154.

  17. Collier and Horowitz, Kennedys, 61.

  18. RK, Times to Remember, 94; Parmet, Jack, 18–19.

  19. Parmet, Jack, 19.

  20. RK, Times to Remember, 192; McTaggart, Kathleen Kennedy, 10; JFK to RK, n.d., printed in Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 97; Kennedy, True Compass, 24.

  21. Cameron, Rose, 101–2; KLB OH, JFKL.

  22. John F. Kennedy, ed., As We Remember Joe (privately published, 1944), 3.

  23. McTaggart, Kathleen Kennedy, 14; Kessler, Sins of the Father, 43; KLB OH, JFKL.

  24. Quoted in Meyers, As We Remember Him, 6.

  25. Seymour St. John, “JFK: 50th Reunion of 1000 Days,” June 1985, CSA.

  26. Quoted in Kennedy, Fruitful Bough, 210–11.

  27. McTaggart, Kathleen Kennedy, 12; Damore, Cape Cod Years, 23; Cameron, Rose, 98–100.

  28. Kennedy, True Compass, 33. At Christmastime in Bronxville, Jean Kennedy Smith related in her own memoir, each child could expect just one special gift, such as a doll, a game, or roller skates. Smith, Nine of Us, 47, 77.

  29. KLB OH, JFKL.

  30. Mary Pitcairn Davis interview, CBP; McTaggart, Kathleen Kennedy, 15; Leamer, Kennedy Men, 67.

  31. Quoted in Burns, John Kennedy, 130.

  32. Quoted in Perry, Rose Kennedy, 51. See also Larson, Rosemary, 43–59.

  33. Perry, Rose Kennedy, 51–52; McTaggart, Kathleen Kennedy, 11.

  34. RK interview by Robert Coughlan, January 24, 1972, box 10, RKP; Leamer, Kennedy Men, 47.

  35. JPK to Rosemary Kennedy, November 13, 1929, box 1, JPKP; Nasaw, Patriarch, 153.

  36. Whalen, Founding Father, 165.

  37. From the Choate class of 1933, the school placed forty-six students at Yale, twenty at Princeton, eight at Williams, and three at Harvard. Choate News, January 28, 1933.

  38. Years later, Jack would claim he was denied admission to Groton on account of his Catholicism. Brauer, Second Reconstruction, 13.

  39. Wardell St. John to JPK, May 20, 1929, box 20, JPKP; JPK to Wardell St. John, April 20, 1929, CSA; JPK to Russell Ayers, May 1, 1929, printed in Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 83–84.

  40. Russell Ayers to JPK, June 27, 1933, CSA; Housemaster (Ben Davis) report, June 1930, box 20, JPKP.

  41. On June 20, 1930, Assistant Headmaster Wardell St. John wrote Rose that Jack had achieved a score of 124 on the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test, “which is nine or ten points above our School average.” St. John predicted on that basis that Jack would do very well at Choate. He advised Mrs. Kennedy not to inform her son of his Otis score, as that might incline him to depend too much on his ability, which “in itself is never at all sufficient!” Wardell St. John to RK, June 20, 1930, box 20, JPKP.

  42. Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 459; Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 85.

  43. JFK to John Fitzgerald, n.d., box 4b, JFKPP.

  44. JFK to RK, n.d., box 1, JFKPP; JFK to JPK and RK, n.d., box 1, JFKPP.

  45. JFK to RK, n.d. (1930–31), box 1, JFKPP.

  46. Nelson Hume to JPK, January 7, 1931, box 21, JPKP.

  47. Stossel, Sarge, 24; Leamer, Kennedy Men, 65.

  48. In his next report, the grades slipped a bit: English II, 86; History II, 77; Math II, 95; Latin II, 55; Science II, 72; Religion II, 75. Canterbury Record, box 1, JFKP.

  49. JFK to JPK, n.d. (1930), box 5, JPKP; JFK to JPK, n.d., box 4b, JPKP.

  50. JFK to JPK and RK, March 31, box 21, JPKP.

  51. JFK to JPK and RK, postmarked March 5, 1931, box 21, JFKPP.

  52. Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 87–88.

  53. Wardell St. John to RK, June 24, 1931, box 20, JPKP; Bruce Belmore to Choate School, July 11, 1931, CSA; Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 88–89.

  54. Meyers, As We Remember Him, 11.

  55. George St. John to JPK, October 20, 1931, CSA; Clara St. John to RK, October 7, 1931, CSA.

  56. Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 458; Seymour St. John and Richard Bode, “ ‘Bad Boy’ Jack Kennedy,” Good Housekeeping, September 1985. For the experience of another Choate student in this period, the poet and publisher James Laughlin, see MacNiven, Literchoor Is My Beat, 28–29.

  57. Quoted in St. John, “JFK: 50th Reunion”; Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 90.

  58. Both letters quoted in St. John, “JFK: 50th Reunion.”

  59. St. John to JPK, October 20, 1931, CSA; Leamer, Kennedy Men, 76.

  60. Leaming, Jack Kennedy: Education, 21. Said a classmate years later: “I recall that in our third form year teacher Ben Davis one day sent Jack out of French class to comb his hair. When he returned, it looked worse than ever. ‘Le Petit Chou,’ said Ben with a sigh. It looked worse than a head of cabbage.” St. John, “JFK: 50th Reunion.”

  61. Ralph Horton OH, JFKL; KLB OH, JFKL; Perret, Jack, 33; Meyers, As We Remember Him, 15. See also Lem Billings’s recollections in The New Yorker, April 1, 1961.

  62. Horton OH, JFKL. In a different interview, Horton said, “Jack had an excellent mind, and it wasn’t channeled into the type of work we were doing. He hadn’t matured to channel it as he did in later years at Harvard.” Horton OH, CBP.

  63. Horton OH, CBP.

  64. Blair and Blair, Search for JFK, 33; Horton OH, JFKL; KLB to RK, January 1972, box 12, RKP. The prime place of football in campus life can be seen in back issues of The Choate News from the period. Jack did, however, win praise for his effort on the junior squad: “Aggressive, alert and interested—Jack was a tower of strength on the line.” Leinbach Football Juniors report, n.d. (fall 1933), Choate School Archives–Outline, box 1, JFKPP.

  65. JFK to JPK, December 9, 1931, box 1, JFKPP.

  CHAPTER 4: JACK AND LEM

  1. Mrs. St. John to RK, Choate School Archives–Outline, box 1, JFKP.

  2. RK, Times to Remember, 176–77.

  3. JPK to JFK, April 12, 1932, box 1, JPKP.

  4. Earl Leinbach to St. John, n
.d. (1932), box 20, JPKP. Emphasis in original. Mae West story is in Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 94. The headmaster agreed that the young man was likable. In a letter to Joseph Kennedy in February 1932, he summarized Leinbach’s efforts, then concluded: “Jack is so pleasantly optimistic and cheerful that he makes all of us want to help him. He challenges the best that’s in us—and we’re giving it, with full confidence in the outcome.” George St. John to JPK, February 17, 1932, box 20, JPKP.

  5. Earl Leinbach to St. John, n.d. (1932), box 20, JPKP. Emphasis in original.

  6. George St. John to JPK, November 24, 1933, box 20, JPKP; George St. John to JPK, November 27, 1933, box 20, JPKP; St. John, “JFK: 50th Reunion.”

  7. George St. John to JPK, June 14, 1932, box 20, JPKP; Choate Summer Session Report in Algebra, September 3, 1932, box 20, JPKP; Choate Summer Session Report in French, September 4, 1932, box 20, JPKP. According to The Choate News, the summer session opened on August 8 with twenty boys; by the end, on September 19, the number had grown to forty-seven. Choate News, October 8, 1932.

  8. St. John, “JFK: 50th Reunion”; Parmet, Jack, 31–32.

  9. Rip Horton later said, “He was a very mediocre student. He did have one particular flair that stands out in my mind and that was a flair for writing. We used to have to submit essays two or three times a year and we had an English teacher by the name of Dr. Tinker. I can remember after we had submitted our essays, Dr. Tinker said to Jack Kennedy, ‘Jack you have a very definite flair for writing. It’s a career that you should think of pursuing when you graduate from school and college.’ And it came as sort of a shock to me because I never considered Jack Kennedy a very outstanding student in any particular area.” Horton OH, JFKL. A slightly different version is in Horton OH, CBP.

  10. JPK to JPK Jr., November 21, 1933, box 1, JPKP; Parmet, Jack, 32; Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 113; Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 134.

  11. JPK to George St. John, November 21, 1933, CSA. Kennedy also expressed his frustration in a letter to Joe Junior, who was now in London. “I wish you would write Jack and really set forth some ideas that will give him a sense of responsibility….It will be too bad if with the brain he has he really doesn’t go as far up the ladder as he should.” JPK to JPK Jr., November 21, 1933, box 1, JPKP.

  12. George St. John to JPK, November 27, 1933, CSA.

  13. “Justice” (JFK English composition paper), April 1934, box 1, JFKPP; O’Brien, John F. Kennedy, 67–68. Niece Amanda Smith points to this paper in suggesting that Jack in this period outstripped Joe Junior in sensitivity and empathy. Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 113.

  14. Kay Halle OH, JFKL; Churchill, World Crisis; Leaming, Jack Kennedy: Education, 22. Just when this encounter occurred is not clear. Barbara Leaming has it in late October 1932, while Nigel Hamilton places it in mid-1934. Also possible is early 1934, when we know Jack had an acute case of anemia. Much later, Halle, who knew Churchill and had turned down an offer of marriage from Churchill’s son Randolph, compiled three volumes of Churchilliana.

  15. Leaming, Jack Kennedy: Education, 22; Hellman, Kennedy Obsession, 14–15.

  16. Nasaw, Patriarch, 134–35.

  17. Whalen, Founding Father, 117–42; Beschloss, Kennedy and Roosevelt, 65–66. On Hoover, see Whyte, Hoover; and Kennedy, Freedom from Fear, chap. 3.

  18. Kennedy himself is usually the source of the story. For contrasting assessments of its veracity, see Whalen, Founding Father, 49; and Nasaw, Patriarch, 55. See also Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 5–6.

  19. Beschloss, Kennedy and Roosevelt, chap. 4; Nasaw, Patriarch, 167–84. See also Joe Kennedy’s later explanation in McCarthy, Remarkable Kennedys, 58.

  20. Whalen, Founding Father, 113; McCarthy, Remarkable Kennedys, 58.

  21. See the astute analysis in Beschloss, Kennedy and Roosevelt, 266–76.

  22. JPK to FDR, March 14, 1933, printed in Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 116. See also Beschloss, Kennedy and Roosevelt, chap. 4; Krock, Memoirs, 330.

  23. Quoted in Beschloss, Kennedy and Roosevelt, 77.

  24. Moley, After Seven Years, 286–89; Newsweek, September 12, 1960. On the Ireland offer, see JPK to JPK Jr., May 4, 1934, box 21, JPKP.

  25. The idea may have come from economist and presidential adviser Raymond Moley, who reasoned that since Kennedy knew the loopholes, he could close them. Manchester, Glory and the Dream, 96.

  26. Horton OH, CBP; KLB OH, JFKL.

  27. On Joe Junior’s Harvard Trophy, see Choate News, June 3, 1933.

  28. Quoted in Parmet, Jack, 33.

  29. KLB to RK, January 1972, box 12, RKP; Collier and Horowitz, Kennedys, 62. On February 24, 1933, The Choate News announced that Frederic Billings had been awarded the Pyne Honor Prize, Princeton’s highest general distinction.

  30. KLB OH, JFKL.

  31. The theme of mutual dependence is ably laid out in Pitts, Jack and Lem.

  32. Collier and Horowitz, Kennedys, 45; Pitts, Jack and Lem, 33, 30.

  33. Quoted in David Michaelis, “The President’s Best Friend,” American Heritage 34 (June/July 1983), 16.

  34. JFK to KLB, n.d. (April 1934), box 1, KLBP.

  35. Quoted in Pitts, Jack and Lem, 21.

  36. Pitts, Jack and Lem, 21.

  37. St. John, “JFK: 50th Reunion”; KLB to RK, January 1972, box 12, RKP; KLB OH; Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 117. To his father, Jack wrote of Maher, “We are practically rooming with him which is more than we bargained for.” JFK to JPK, n.d. (1934), box 5, JPKP.

  38. Quoted in St. John, “JFK: 50th Reunion.”

  39. Larson, Rosemary, 69–70.

  40. G. St. John to JPK, February 8, 1934, box 4, JFKPP; Clara St. John to JFK, February 6, 1934, excerpted in Choate calendar of JFK letters, box 21, DFPP. According to his biographer, the poet James Laughlin, three years ahead of Jack, felt from Mrs. St. John a degree of empathy and emotional support he did not get from his own mother. MacNiven, Literchoor Is My Beat, 28–29.

  41. Jeffrey Laikind, “Life at Choate,” Choate Rosemary Hall Bulletin, Spring 2017; McNamara, Eunice, 19.

  42. C. St. John to RK, February 6, 1934, CSA. To Billings he wrote, after the worst was over, “It seems that I was much sicker than I thought I was, and am supposed to be dead, so I’m developing a limp and a hollow cough.” JFK to KLB, February 1934, box 1, KLBP.

  43. JFK to RK, April 21, 1934, printed in Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 129; Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 106.

  44. JFK to Mr. and Mrs. St. John, March 4, 1934, excerpted in Choate calendar of JFK letters, box 21, DFPP; Choate report for House (Maher), n.d. (1934), box 20, JPKP.

  45. Michaelis, “President’s Best Friend,” 15–16.

  46. JFK to KLB, June 19, 1934, box 1, KLBP.

  47. JFK to KLB, June 19, 1934, box 1, KLBP. Emphasis in original. His sign-off in another letter showed his affection for his friend: “Well, LeMoyne, I hope you are progressing. Will see you soon, Le Moyne ma Cherie (my darling, French) if I ever get out of the place alive. Yours till hell freezes over.” JFK to KLB, June 18, 1934, box 1, KLBP.

  48. JFK to KLB, June 27, 1934, quoted in Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 112.

  49. Leamer, Kennedy Men, 89–90; Dr. Paul O’Leary to JPK, July 6, 1934, box 21, JPKP; JPK to G. St. John, September 15, 1934, JPKP; Dallek, Unfinished Life, 75.

  50. O’Brien, John F. Kennedy, 64–65; Searls, Lost Prince, 58–59. For a dramatic description of one of Jack’s come-from-behind victories, see Graham, Victura, 40–43.

  51. Pitts, Jack and Lem, 21–22; David Walter, “Best Friend,” Princeton Alumni Weekly, April 12, 2017.

  52. JFK to KLB, June 27, 1934, quoted in Pitts, Jack and Lem, 22.

  53. JFK to KLB, June 27, 1934, quoted in Pitts, Jack and Lem, 20.

  54. JFK to KLB, June 23, 1933, KLBP; St. John, “JFK: 50th Reunion”; Colli
er and Horowitz, Kennedys, 65.

  55. Recalled Rip Horton of Cawley: “I remember Jack dating Olive Cawley. She was a magnificent-looking girl, really beautiful. But I can remember we were not particularly effective with girls.” Blair and Blair, Search for JFK, 34. Cawley, meanwhile, described Jack as smart, funny, and mischievous. “He was always surrounded by excitement. In the group that travelled together, Jack called the shots: where they would go, what they would do. His friends were the satellites, especially LeMoyne.” O’Brien, John F. Kennedy, 63.

  56. Pitts, Jack and Lem, 25.

  57. Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 120; Pitts, Jack and Lem, 25.

  58. Maher reported of Jack in November: “Matched only by his roommate, Billings, in sloppiness and continued lateness. All methods of coercion fail.” By January 1935 the assessment had become harsher still: “I’m afraid it would be foolishly optimistic to expect anything but the most mediocre from Jack….For a year-and-a-half, I’ve tried everything from kissing to kicking Jack into just a few commonly decent points of view and habits of living in community life, and I’m afraid I must admit my own failure as well as his.” Quoted in St. John, “JFK: 50th Reunion.”

  59. KLB to RK, January 1972, box 12, RKP.

  60. Horton OH, CBP.

  61. Horton OH, CBP; KLB OH, JFKL. Some accounts have it that the headmaster changed his mind about expulsion only after being persuaded to do so by Joe Kennedy.

  62. St. John telegram to JPK, February 11, 1935, box 20, JPKP; JPK to St. John, telegram, February 15, 1935, CSA; KLB to RK, January 1972, box 12, RKP; KLB OH, 2:75, JFKL; Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 488.

  63. KLB OH, 2:56–57, JFKL; Dallek, Unfinished Life, 40; Meyers, As We Remember Him, 16.

  64. JPK to JFK, April 26, 1935, box 1, JPKP; JPK to JFK, December 5, 1934, box 1, JPKP.

  65. Wardell St. John to JPK, March 18, 1935, box 20, JPKP; St. John, “JFK: 50th Reunion.”