The Original President Kennedy
By: Jack Patrick
Tags: History, Politics, World War II, President, White House

History

The Original President Kennedy

John F. Kennedy with his father, Joe P. Kennedy Sr. in 1945 (John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum archives)

It is well documented that the Kennedy’s were a strong political family, with an equally strong desire for power. Not only did JFK actively seek the presidency in 1960, so too did his brothers Robert F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy. Ultimately, fate intervened, as Bobby, like his older brother John, was shot dead in 1968, while Teddy found himself in the centre of a major scandal in 1969 which played a part in his failure to win the 1980 presidential election. However, before the three brothers entered US politics, there was another Kennedy who fought for the role — their father, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.

The early years

Joe Sr. was an ambitious man, born into an Irish Catholic family in Boston, Massachusetts in 1888 at a time where the Irish were seen as one of the lowest standing ethnicities in the social hierarchy of the United States. Despite the Kennedy family’s relatively good financial standing in the early twentieth century, the exclusion and discrimination Joe faced from his peers at school and Harvard as a result of his Irish background made life more difficult for him, shaping him into the ruthless, powerful patriarch he came to be.

His father Patrick, the son of Irish immigrants, was a local Boston politician and businessman and was also the source of inspiration for Joe’s desire for wealth and interest in politics. Knowing he would never be able to break free from his Irish Catholic heritage, it became Kennedy’s purpose in life to be accepted into American high society through money and power.

Rise to power

Kennedy’s determination to prove himself was demonstrated immediately when he became the youngest bank manager in the United States at the age of 25. Shortly after, Joe made his fortune and his first million dollars. It was during this time that Kennedy became involved with another local Irish Catholic, Rose Fitzgerald, and married her in 1914. An Irish background wasn’t the only similarity between the couple; Rose was the daughter of Honey Fitz, a prominent local politician, twice Mayor of Boston and Member of Congress, helping further Joe’s political and social standing. Their first of nine children, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr, was born the following year, and so the Kennedy dynasty began.

Kennedy, the Ambassador

After years of working in finance, banks, bootlegging, the film industry (Kennedy helped found RKO pictures) and Wall Street throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, Joe’s extreme wealth only continued to increase and he found himself helping finance Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidential campaign in 1932. This was his first taste of the ultimate American power, and by helping finance the campaigns, he believed he could work his way up in the administration and succeed in becoming President himself. Following Roosevelt’s successful elections in 1932 and 1936 as well as his new found connections in the White House, Kennedy was given roles directly in the administration and in 1938, Roosevelt gave Kennedy the position of US Ambassador to the United Kingdom. However, this wasn’t a reward.

The role of Ambassador was the beginning of the end for Kennedy’s plan for two reasons. Firstly, Roosevelt had grown suspicious that Kennedy was seeking the presidency from him and sending him to Britain kept him away from the White House. His suspicions were not unfounded. Secondly, a year later, Britain declared war on Nazi Germany. Despite an initial warm and extravagant welcome upon his arrival in London with some of his younger children, Kennedy’s political stance regarding the war caused significant issues.

Joe was an isolationist and strongly believed that the United States should not involve themselves in the ‘war in Europe’ and instead advocated for appeasement with Hitler, a stance even his sons disagreed with him on. This made Kennedy deeply unpopular with both the British and the Americans. His popularity only continued to decline and Roosevelt came to despise the Ambassador. In 1940, he was brought back to the US and relieved of his position, with the President still unable to trust him, destroying any hope that Kennedy had of achieving his ambition for the presidency.

Post-Ambassador life

Following this failure, he turned his attention to influencing his sons to succeed in the plan of putting a Kennedy into the White House. Politics was already ingrained into the Kennedy children from a young age, where almost all conversations around the dinner table consisted of discussions, debates and arguments on political topics. Joe made sure that politics was the main area of interest and made clear the importance of developing and sticking to individual opinions if they believed it correct and rightful, as a telegram to his second daughter Kick Kennedy demonstrates. Writing to her while she was at school in Connecticut, he wrote that:

‘I have noted that with you, popular opinions are frequently accepted as true opinions … your own judgement is frequently better. So don’t bum rides on other people’s opinions. It’s lazy at best and in some cases much worse’.

Despite this intenseness, he was seen as the more loving and inspirational parent, as Rose’s staunch Catholicism was the cause of many tensions amongst some of their children. Instead, Joe spent the early years of the 1940s preparing his son Joe Jr. for a political career while he also served in the Second World War. However, this was cut short in 1944 when Joe Jr’s plane exploded mid-air during a secret bombing mission in England, killing him instantly and leaving his father devastated. The second opportunity to put a Kennedy in the White House was impossible. It was therefore the job of his second, sicklier son John to fulfil this role where his father’s immense wealth and connections was of great help to him to enter the Senate and Congress. As he had done for Roosevelt, Kennedy financed his son’s political campaigns, helping John F. Kennedy to win the 1960 presidential election.

JFK thus achieved the role his father had failed to do twenty years prior, but they were in ways both successful as Joe indeed witnessed a Kennedy sit in the Oval Office. He died in 1969 after suffering a debilitating stroke, outliving three of his sons — John, Joe Sr. and Bobby — and his daughter, Kick.