JFK

by Fredrik Logevall

  66. Parmet, Jack, 40; Paul Chase to Seymour St. John, July 28, 1983, CSA. One friend recalled this affability: “When we graduated from Choate we exchanged pictures as so many seniors do and the inscription on his picture of me was also, I think, indicative of his interest in political affairs. I remember it very well—I still have the picture. He signed it ‘To Boss Tweed from Honest Abe, may we room together at Sing Sing.’ He had a sense of humor about things.” Horton OH, JFKL.

  67. The letter concluded, “He isn’t going to be at his best this evening or tomorrow or next day; he has too complex and entertaining a nature to enable him to bring all his best to bear in a mature way this week or next month. Jack needs time for his development. But if we can be patient, and have confidence, and hold Jack up steadily and wisely at the same time, we shall be playing our best part, and more and more we shall have the satisfaction of seeing him respond.” G. St. John to JPK, November 27, 1933, CSA.

  68. St. John, “JFK: 50th Reunion.”

  CHAPTER 5: FRESHMAN YEARS

  1. In answer to the question of why he wished to come to Harvard, Jack offered a concise and handwritten answer (the form did not leave a lot of space), one stressing status and elite connections over academics: “The reasons that I have for wishing to go to Harvard are several. I feel that Harvard can give me a better background and a better liberal education than any other university. I have always wanted to go there, as I have felt that it is not just another college, but is a university with something definite to offer. Then too, I would like to go to the same college as my father. To be a ‘Harvard man’ is an enviable distinction, and one that I sincerely hope I shall attain.” The explanation he gave to Princeton was nearly identical. The applications are in box 2, JFKPP.

  2. Certificate of admission, Harvard College, July 17, 1935, box 20, JPKP.

  3. Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, 19. Kramnick and Sheerman, Harold Laski, 333–35.

  4. Manchester, Portrait of a President, 185; Nasaw, Patriarch, 198; JPK to JPK Jr., February 14, 1934, box 1, JPKP. Wrote Rose of the decision: “The United States and most of the western world were in the grip of the Depression, and there were many revolutionary currents and ideas—Marxist and semi-Marxist—in the political atmosphere….Therefore he [Joe Senior] wanted our son to understand the challenges he might be facing as put forth by a brilliant challenger, Professor Laski. He already had the same plan in mind for Jack. For after all, he said, ‘these boys are going to have a little money when they get a little older, and they should know what the “have nots” are thinking and planning.’ ” RK, Times to Remember, 170–71.

  5. JFK to JPK, December 4, 1934, box 1, JPKP.

  6. Quoted in Lasky, J.F.K., 70.

  7. Perry, Rose Kennedy, 87; RK, Times to Remember, 200.

  8. JPK to JFK, February 6, 1935, box 21, JPKP; Byrne, Kick, 40–41.

  9. Quoted in Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 482.

  10. Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 126; Michaelis, Best of Friends, 138.

  11. JPK to KK, February 20, 1935, box 1, JPKP.

  12. Byrne, Kick, 41.

  13. RK diary notes, box 1, RKP; JFK to KLB, September 29, 1935, quoted in Pitts, Jack and Lem, 40.

  14. RK diary notes, box 1, RKP.

  15. On these developments, see, e.g., Kershaw, Hitler: Hubris, 531–73.

  16. See, e.g., Throntveit, Power Without Victory; Knock, To End All Wars.

  17. The literature is large, but see, e.g., Steiner, Triumph of the Dark, chap. 3; and Kershaw, To Hell and Back, chap. 5. For a survey of the entire troubled decade, see Brendon, Dark Valley.

  18. For an interesting contemporaneous assessment of Laski, see Schlesinger, Life in the 20th Century, 197–99.

  19. JFK to KLB, n.d. (October 1935), quoted in Pitts, Jack and Lem, 41–42.

  20. JFK to KLB, October 21, 1935, box 1, KLBP. According to Herbert Parmet, Joe Kennedy helped make the late matriculation possible: “Bending to Jack’s desire, his father used a contact to overcome the barriers to late admission. Lacking personal leverage with Princeton, Joe Kennedy turned to one with influence, Herbert Bayard Swope. The newspaperman talked Princeton’s Dean Christian Gauss into some ‘enlightened’ flexibility. In mid-October, Jack’s father received Swope’s wire that Gauss had waived the rule prohibiting such late admissions ‘in response to picture I painted young Galahad [sic]…Hurrah new tiger!’ ” Parmet, Jack, 42.

  21. KLB to JFK, October 17, 1935, box 4b, JFKPP.

  22. Quoted in Pitts, Jack and Lem, 42–43.

  23. Torbert Macdonald OH, JFKL.

  24. JPK to JFK, November 11, 1935, box 21, JPKP.

  25. KLB to JFK, December 10, 1935, box 4B, JFKPP; Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 147.

  26. Dr. William Murphy to JPK, November 30, 1935, box 21, JPKP; Murphy to JPK, December 16, 1935, box 21, JPKP; JPK to JFK, January 11, 1936, box 21, JPKP; JFK to JPK and RK, n.d. (January 1936), box 1, JPKP.

  27. JFK to KLB, January 18, 1936, quoted in Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 149.

  28. JFK to KLB, n.d. (January 1936), quoted in Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 148.

  29. JFK to KLB, January 27, 1936, quoted in O’Brien, John F. Kennedy, 78.

  30. JFK to KLB, January 27, 1936, quoted in Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 149.

  31. JFK to KLB, n.d. (January 1936), quoted in Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 149.

  32. JFK to KLB, n.d. (January 1936), quoted in Pitts, Jack and Lem, 45–46; Horton OH, JFKL.

  33. Quoted in Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 205.

  34. JFK to KLB, March 3, 1936, quoted in Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 153–54.

  35. The initial notes were compiled by Kennedy’s successor at the SEC, James Landis, and by another SEC associate, John J. Burns. Krock then fashioned the various bits into a polished manuscript.

  36. JPK, I’m for Roosevelt, 3. “Dear Joe,” FDR’s thank-you note began, “I’M FOR KENNEDY. The book is grand. I’m delighted with it.” Whalen, Founding Father, 186.

  37. JFK to JPK, May 9, 1936, box 21, JPKP.

  38. JFK to KLB, May 9, 1936, quoted in Collier and Horowitz, Kennedys, 67. Jack’s physician at Peter Bent Brigham had advised against the ranch sojourn, on the grounds that the young man would be too far away from medical assistance should he need it. Murphy to JPK, November 30, 1935, box 21, JPKP.

  39. On this point, see Leamer, Kennedy Men, 100–101. The boasts were a standard feature of Jack’s letters in this period.

  40. JFK to KLB, May 25, 1936, quoted in Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 157.

  41. RK, Times to Remember, 155.

  42. Searls, Lost Prince, 94–99.

  43. JFK handwritten reapplication letter, July 6, 1936, box 2, JFKPP.

  44. Admissions dean to JFK, July 9, 1936, box 2, JFKPP. For a time, father and son gave thought to the idea of having Jack try to complete the four-year degree in three years. Wrote Mr. Kennedy to the dean of freshmen, Delmar Leighton: “Jack has a very brilliant mind for the things in which he is interested, but is careless and lacks application in those in which he is not interested. This is, of course, a bad fault. However, he is quite ambitious to try and do the work in three years.” JPK to Leighton, August 28, 1936, box 20, JPKP. Nothing came of the idea.

  45. Smith, Harvard Century, 124–31.

  46. Parker, John Kenneth Galbraith, 43–44; Schlesinger, Veritas, 168, 181; Nell Painter, “Jim Crow at Harvard: 1923,” New England Quarterly 44, no. 4 (December 1971).

  47. Conant, Man of the Hour, 117–32; Lemann, Big Test, 39–52; Schlesinger, Veritas, 175–78.

  48. White, In Search of History, 41.

  49. White, In Search of History, 42–43.

  50. Myrer, Last Convertible, 42.

  51. White, In Search of History, 42; Schlesinger, Life in the 20t
h Century, 115. White’s assessment of Schlesinger would in later years grow more mixed, a fact acknowledged by both men (see Schlesinger, 115). An excellent biography of Schlesinger is Aldous, Imperial.

  52. Schlesinger, Life in the 20th Century, 108–12; Smith, Harvard Century, 125.

  53. See the academic records in box 2, JFKPP.

  54. James Farrell OH, JFKL; Blair and Blair, Search for JFK, 46.

  55. JFK to KLB, October 21, 1936, quoted in Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 166; Gerald Walker and Donald A. Allan, “Jack Kennedy at Harvard,” Coronet Magazine, May 1961, 85; Meyers, As We Remember Him, 22.

  56. JFK to JPK, n.d. (1937), box 5, JPKP; “JFK’s Harvard/Harvard’s JFK” (exhibit), Lamont Library, Cambridge, MA, 2017; Walker and Allan, “Jack Kennedy at Harvard,” 85; Graham, Victura, 50. In addition to Guadalcanal Diary, Tregaskis would also write an account of Jack Kennedy’s wartime experience aboard PT 109.

  57. Walker and Allan, “Jack Kennedy at Harvard,” 85.

  58. Galbraith, Life in Our Times, 53; Searls, Lost Prince, 98.

  59. “JFK’s Harvard/Harvard’s JFK,” Lamont Library; Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 175. The program for Freshman Smoker, with a full-page ad from the men’s clothier J. Press, is in box 2, JFKPP. Joe Junior, who had run the event two years before, had lined up Rudy Vallée, the bandleader and actor.

  60. Quoted in Parmet, Jack, 50; and Schlesinger, Veritas, 183.

  61. JFK to KLB, January 27, 1937, box 1, KLBP.

  62. Nigel Hamilton calls it “one of the most important documents of John F. Kennedy’s early life.” Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 170.

  63. JFK, “Francis the First,” box 1, JFKPP.

  64. JFK, “Francis the First.”

  65. Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 170.

  66. JPK to JFK, February 15, 1937, box 1, JPKP; JFK to KLB, n.d. (February 1937), box 1, KLBP.

  67. Quoted in Perret, Jack, 51.

  68. JFK European diary, 1937, box 1, JFKPP.

  69. KLB OH, JFKL.

  70. JFK European diary, July 8, 1937, box 1, JFKPP.

  71. JFK European diary, July 9, 1937, box 1, JFKPP.

  72. JFK European diary, July 10, 1937, box 1, JFKPP. Lem, who kept his own diary on the trip, wrote on July 10: “We are very careful to leave the car around the block & then apply for rooms looking as poverty stricken as possible.” KLB diary, PX 93-34, AV Archives, JFKL. See also Maryrose Grossman, “Jack and Lem’s Excellent European Adventure, Summer 1937,” jfk.blogs.archives.gov/​2017/​10/​18/​jack-and-lems-excellent-european-adventure-summer-1937/.

  73. JFK European diary, July 13, 1937, box 1, JFKPP; Perrett, Jack, 54.

  74. Gunther, Inside Europe. On Jack quizzing the French about their defenses, see Billings’s recollections in The New Yorker, April 1, 1961.

  75. JFK European diary, July 19, 1937, box 1, JFKPP.

  76. JFK European diary, July 25, 1937, box 1, JFKPP; Leamer, Kennedy Men, 132.

  77. JFK European diary, July 26, 1937, box 1, JFKPP; KLB diary, July 26, 1937, PX 93-34, AV Archives, JFKL; Dallek, Unfinished Life, 50.

  78. JFK European diary, July 26, 1937, box 1, JFKPP. Of Carcassonne, Jack wrote: “An old medieval town in perfect condition—which is more than can be said for Billings.”

  79. Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 184.

  80. JFK European diary, August 1, 1937, box 1, JFKPP; Perret, Jack, 57.

  81. JFK European diary, August 3, 1937, box 1, JFKPP.

  82. JFK European diary, August 9, 1937, box 1, JFKPP.

  83. Quoted in Pitts, Jack and Lem, 62–63.

  84. JFK European diary, August 17, 1937, box 1, JFKPP. Lem wrote in his diary: “Hitler seems very popular here—you can’t help but like a dictator when you are in his own country—as you hear so many wonderful things about him and really not too many bad things.” KLB diary, August 17, 1937, PX 93-34, AV Archives, JFKL. For a German account of the visit, see Lubrich, John F. Kennedy Unter Deutschen, 55–127.

  85. JFK European diary, August 18, 1937, box 1, JFKPP; Perret, Jack, 60–61.

  86. JPK Jr. to JPK, April 23, 1934, printed in Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 130–32; JPK to JPK Jr., May 4, 1934, printed in Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 133–35.

  87. JFK European diary, August 20, 1937, box 1, JFKPP.

  88. KLB diary, August 27, 1937, PX 93-34, AV Archives, JFKL.

  89. Dallek, Unfinished Life, 51.

  CHAPTER 6: OUR MAN IN LONDON

  1. JPK diary, February 23, 1938, box 100, JPKP.

  2. NYT, February 11, 1938. Rose had planned for herself and the children to travel at the same time as her husband, but she came down with appendicitis and had to postpone her departure.

  3. JPK to Felix Frankfurter, December 5, 1933, printed in Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 122; Nelson, John William McCormack, 222–23. On the donations, see Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 66; and Newsweek, September 12, 1960. David Nasaw gives a lower sum for the personal contribution: $15,000. Nasaw, Patriarch, 182–83.

  4. Krock, Memoirs, 169–71; Beschloss, Kennedy and Roosevelt, 106.

  5. Quoted in Brands, Traitor to His Class, 457. When a friend charged the administration with pursuing far-left policies, Kennedy shot back: “There has been scarcely a liberal piece of legislation during the last sixty years that has not been opposed as Communistic.” Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, 11.

  6. Nasaw, Patriarch, 272.

  7. Krock, Memoirs, 333; Koskoff, Joseph P. Kennedy, 114–15.

  8. Roosevelt, My Parents, 208–10; Whalen, Founding Father, 214.

  9. Beschloss, Kennedy and Roosevelt, 153–54; Roosevelt, My Parents, 208–10.

  10. Henry Morgenthau Jr. diaries, December 8, 1937, vol. 101, HMP, LC; Nasaw, Patriarch, 273. According to Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, a key advocate of the appointment was Thomas Corcoran, a lawyer and close adviser to FDR. Corcoran, Ickes wrote in his diary, “had done everything that he could to bring about the appointment of Kennedy to London, his chief motive being that he wanted to get Kennedy out of Washington.” Harold Ickes diary, December 18, 1937, HIP, LC.

  11. NYT, December 9, 1937; Koskoff, Joseph P. Kennedy, 118; Collier and Horowitz, Kennedys, 81.

  12. Boake Carter to JPK, December 28, 1937, box 90, JPKP; Nasaw, Patriarch, 275, 277. On the background to the New York Times story, see Arthur Krock private memo, December 23, 1937, box 31, AKP.

  13. Beschloss, Kennedy and Roosevelt, 161; JPK to Jimmy Roosevelt, March 3, 1938, printed in Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 239; Whalen, Founding Father, 214–15.

  14. On world developments in 1938, see, e.g., Steiner, Triumph of the Dark, chaps. 8–9; Kershaw, To Hell and Back, 303–34; Mitter, Forgotten Ally, 98–144. On the Austrian annexation, see Evans, Third Reich in Power, 646–64.

  15. Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 226; Bailey, Black Diamonds, 337–38. By tradition, the U.S. ambassador selected some thirty American debutantes, from at least ten times that number of applicants, for presentation to the king and queen. Because the ambassador rarely knew the women in question, the process was bound to be arbitrary, not to mention time-consuming. Kennedy, after checking with superiors in Washington and the British government, amended the criteria so that thenceforth only American residents of Britain were eligible. Cynics wondered if he did it partly in order to boost the publicity for his own daughters.

  16. Cutler, Honey Fitz, 279; Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 516. The feat even made the news in France. “M. Kennedy fait ‘hole-in-one,’ ” one paper headlined it. Rose reiterated that Joe Junior and Jack were skeptical about the hole-in-one in a telegram dated March 17, 1948, box 2, JPKP. See also Swift, Kennedys Amidst the Gathering, 27.

  17. Morison, Three Centuries, 476–79; Bunting, Harvard, 187–88; Schlesinger, Life in the 20th Century, 112.

>   18. George Taylor OH, JFKL; George Taylor, “A Seaman Remembers John F. Kennedy,” The Sea Breeze 76 (July 1964); Gerald Walker and Donald A. Allan, “Jack Kennedy at Harvard,” Coronet Magazine, May 1961, 82–95.

  19. Walker and Allan, “Jack Kennedy at Harvard.”

  20. Parmet, Jack, 46; Macdonald OH, JFKL.

  21. Macdonald OH, JFKL; O’Brien, John F. Kennedy, 85.

  22. Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 205. Hamilton provides an excellent account of the ins and outs of the Spee story.

  23. Renehan, Kennedys at War, 21.

  24. Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 206–8.

  25. JFK to JPK and RK, n.d. (April 1938), box 21, JPKP; JPK to JFK, May 2, 1938, box 21, JPKP; Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 209.

  26. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., “Harvard Today,” Harvard Advocate, September 1936, 20–24; Schlesinger, Life in the 20th Century, 120.

  27. Schlesinger, Life in the 20th Century, 120.

  28. JFK Academic Record 1937–1938, box 2, JFKPP.

  29. To hear the recording, go to Colleen Walsh, “JFK Speaks from His Harvard Past,” Harvard Gazette, May 9, 2017, news.harvard.edu/​gazette/​story/​2017/​05/​earliest-recording-of-jfk-found-in-harvard-archives/.

  30. Parmet, Jack, 49.

  31. Quoted in O’Brien, John F. Kennedy, 80.

  32. Schlesinger, Life in the 20th Century, 122–23; Leuchtenburg, Shadow of FDR, 64–65; Parker, John Kenneth Galbraith, 47–48.

  33. Parmet, Jack, 55. According to Kenny O’Donnell and Dave Powers, Jack later told them he and his brother Joe met FDR during the 1936 campaign, in the company of their grandfather Honey Fitz. Roosevelt, Jack said, threw out his arms and cried, “El Duce Adelino!” in reference to the older man’s theme song, “Sweet Adeline.” O’Donnell and Powers, “Johnny,” 58.

  34. Washington Evening Star, January 20, 1961; Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 507.

  35. For varying interpretations of what happened, see Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 210; and Parmet, Jack, 45; RK, Times to Remember, 215; and Blair and Blair, Search for JFK, 54. According to his mother, Jack ruptured a spinal disc when he hit the ground at a bad angle. RK, Times to Remember, 215.