SEC Chairman (1934–1935) '' magazine cover, 1935 In
1932, Kennedy supported
Franklin D. Roosevelt in his bid for the presidency. This was his first major involvement in a national political campaign, and he donated, lent, and raised a substantial amount of money for the campaign. Roosevelt's brain trust drew up a list of recommended candidates for the SEC chairmanship. Kennedy headed the list, which stated he was "the best bet for Chairman because of executive ability, knowledge of habits and customs of business to be regulated and ability to moderate different points of view on Commission." In his address to the Boston Chamber of Commerce on November 15, 1934 Kennedy said, "Deplorable loss was the consequence of ill-considered conception, preparation, and execution. We don't want the staccato tempo of much of the frenzied financing of the late twenties." Kennedy continued, "We have the tremendous task of educating the American public to protect itself against high-pressure salesmanship. No law has ever been devised or administered which successfully eradicated crookedness. The Federal Government, however, hopes to fill a much needed want,hopes to be a vigorous factor in the relentless war on stock frauds." Kennedy sought out the best lawyers available, giving him a hard-driving team with a mission for reform. Notably, he selected
William O. Douglas and
Abe Fortas, both of whom were later appointed to the Supreme Court. Douglas eventually became SEC Chairman in 1937. The SEC had four missions. First was to restore investor confidence in the securities market, which had collapsed on account of its questionability, and the external threats supposedly posed by anti-business elements in the Roosevelt administration. Second, the SEC had to get rid of penny-ante swindles based on false information, fraudulent devices, and
get-rich-quick schemes. Thirdly, and much more important than the frauds, the SEC had to end the million-dollar maneuvers in major corporations, whereby insiders with access to high-quality information about the company knew when to buy or sell their own securities. A crackdown on insider trading was essential. Finally, the SEC had to set up a complex system of registration for all securities sold in America, with a clear set of rules, deadlines and guidelines that all companies had to follow. The main challenge faced by the young lawyers was drafting precise rules. The SEC succeeded in its four missions, as Kennedy reassured the American business community that they would no longer be deceived and taken advantage of by Wall Street. He trumpeted for ordinary investors to return to the market and enable the economy to grow again. Kennedy's reforming work as SEC Chairman was widely praised on all sides, as investors realized the SEC was protecting their interests. He resigned from the SEC in September 1935.
Chairman of U.S. Maritime Commission (1937–1938) In
1936, Roosevelt sought Kennedy's help on the campaign, and Kennedy responded with his book ''I'm for Roosevelt'', which he had published and made sure was widely distributed. The book presented arguments for why businessmen should support Roosevelt and the
New Deal, told from the perspective of Kennedy's own personal endorsement. The book had significant impact in the business community and after his re-election, Roosevelt appointed Kennedy as Chairman of the
United States Maritime Commission, which built on his wartime experience in running a major shipyard. Kennedy spent only ten months at the commission. Coughlin swung his support to
Huey Long in 1935, and then to
William Lemke's
Union Party in 1936. Kennedy strongly supported the New Deal (Father Coughlin believed that the New Deal did not go far enough, and thought that Franklin Roosevelt was a tool of the rich) and reportedly believed as early as 1933 that Coughlin was "becoming a very dangerous proposition" as an opponent of Roosevelt and "an out and out demagogue". In 1936, Kennedy worked with Roosevelt, Bishop
Francis Spellman and Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (later
Pope Pius XII) to shut Coughlin down. When Coughlin returned to the air in 1940, Kennedy continued to battle against his influence among Irish Americans. Despite his public disputes with Coughlin, it has also been acknowledged that Kennedy would also accompany Coughlin whenever the priest visited Roosevelt at Hyde Park. A historian with
History News Network also stated that Coughlin was a friend of Kennedy as well. In a
Boston Post article of August 16, 1936, Coughlin referred to Kennedy as the "shining star among the dim 'knights' in the [Roosevelt] Administration".
Ambassador to the United Kingdom (1938–1940) in London, 1939 In 1938, Roosevelt appointed Kennedy as the
United States ambassador to the Court of St James's (United Kingdom). Kennedy hoped to succeed Roosevelt in the White House, telling a British reporter in late 1939 that he was confident that Roosevelt would "fall" in
1940 (that year's presidential election). This move prompted
Randolph Churchill to say, "I thought my daffodils were yellow until I met Joe Kennedy". Kennedy developed a reputation as a
defeatist. His pessimism on the prospect of a
feared German invasion of England was reflected in that on 17 May 1940, the U.S. Embassy advised the 4000 Americans then living in Britain to return home "as soon as possible." A sterner message in June warned "that this may be the last opportunity for Americans to get home until after the war." Many Americans chose to remain, and on 1 June 1940, the 1st American Squadron of the
Home Guard was formed in London. They had average strength of 60–70 people, and were commanded by General Wade H. Hayes. Kennedy opposed the
mustering of citizens from a then-neutral power, fearing that in the event of invasion, a civilian squadron would make all U.S. citizens living in London liable to be shot by the invading Germans as
francs-tireurs.
High society According to the U.S. National Archives:In London, the American Ambassador and his wife soared to the heights of British society. In the spring of 1938...the couple luxuriated in the warmth of English hospitality, hobnobbing with aristocrats and royalty at the many balls, dinners, regattas, and derbies of the season. The highlight was surely the April weekend that they spent at
Windsor Castle, guests of King
George VI and his wife, Queen
Elizabeth. While getting dressed for an evening at Windsor Castle soon after he arrived, Kennedy paused in momentary reflection and remarked to his wife, "Well, Rose, this is a helluva long way from East Boston, isn't it?" On May 6, 1944, Kennedy's daughter,
Kathleen, married
William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington, the elder son of the
Duke of Devonshire. The union was disapproved by Rose Kennedy due to Hartington being an Anglican. Unable to reconcile their religious backgrounds, Hartington and Kathleen were married in a civil ceremony. Hartington, a major in the
Coldstream Guards, was killed in action on September 9, 1944.
Appeasement Kennedy rejected the belief of
Winston Churchill that any compromise with
Nazi Germany was impossible. Instead, he supported Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain's policy of
appeasement. Throughout 1938, while the Nazi persecution of the Jews in Germany intensified, Kennedy attempted to arrange a meeting with
Adolf Hitler. Shortly before the
Nazi bombing of British cities began in September 1940, Kennedy once again sought a personal meeting with Hitler without the approval of the U.S. Department of State, in order to "bring about a better understanding between the United States and Germany".
Anti-British sentiment When war came in September 1939, Kennedy's public support for American neutrality conflicted with Roosevelt's increasing efforts to provide aid to Britain. "Democracy is finished in England. It may be here [in the United States]", he stated in the
Boston Sunday Globe of November 10, 1940. With German troops having overrun
Poland,
Denmark,
Norway,
Belgium, the
Netherlands,
Luxembourg, and
France, and with daily bombings of Great Britain, Kennedy unambiguously and repeatedly stated that the war was not about saving democracy from National Socialism (Nazism) or from Fascism. In an interview with two newspaper journalists,
Louis M. Lyons of
The Boston Globe, and Ralph Coghlan of the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kennedy said:
Isolationism Kennedy's views became inconsistent and increasingly
isolationist. British
MP Josiah Wedgwood IV, who had himself opposed the British government's earlier appeasement policy, said of Kennedy:
Attitudes toward Jews and refugees According to Harvey Klemmer, who served as one of Kennedy's embassy aides, Kennedy habitually referred to Jews as "
kikes or sheenies". Kennedy allegedly told Klemmer that "[some] individual Jews are all right, Harvey, but as a race they stink. They spoil everything they touch." On June 13, 1938, Kennedy met in London with
Herbert von Dirksen, the German ambassador to the United Kingdom, who claimed upon his return to Berlin that Kennedy had told him that "it was not so much the fact that we want to get rid of the Jews that was so harmful to us, but rather the loud clamor with which we accompanied this purpose. [Kennedy] himself fully understood our Jewish policy." Kennedy's main concern with such violent acts against German Jews as
Kristallnacht was that they generated bad publicity in the West for the Nazi regime, a concern that he communicated in a letter to
Charles Lindbergh. Kennedy had a close friendship with
Viscountess Astor, and their correspondence is replete with anti-Semitic statements. According to Edward Renehan: By August 1940, Kennedy worried that a third term for President Roosevelt would mean war. Biographer Laurence Leamer in
The Kennedy Men: 1901–1963 reports: "Joe believed that Roosevelt, Churchill, the Jews, and their allies would manipulate America into approaching
Armageddon." Nevertheless, Kennedy supported Roosevelt's third term in return for Roosevelt's promise to support
Joseph Kennedy Jr. in a run for
Governor of Massachusetts in 1942. However, even during the darkest months of World War II, Kennedy remained "more wary of" prominent American Jews, such as Associate Justice
Felix Frankfurter, than he was of Hitler. Kennedy told the reporter Joe Dinneen:
"The Kennedy Plan" to help Jewish refugees In some cases, however, Kennedy proved more willing to help Jewish refugees than FDR. Shortly after Kristallnacht, he lent his name to a proposal by
George Rublee the chair of the London-based Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, to provide havens for German Jews in thinly populated areas in Africa, North America, and South America. He hoped to defray the enormous costs, including ships and temporary camps, through financing by governments and Jewish organizations. Publicity about the Kennedy Plan included a sympathetic front-page story in the
New York Times and an article in
Life which declared that if "his plan for settling the German Jews, already known as the ‘Kennedy Plan’, succeeds, it will add new luster to a reputation that may well carry Joseph Patrick Kennedy into the White House." Roosevelt quickly threw cold water on his enthusiasm by denying any knowledge of the plan. In private, he vented at Kennedy’s "grandstanding," and rebuked him by announcing that henceforth
Myron Taylor was to be the official spokesman on refugee issues. There is no indication that the president considered the plan on its merits.
Resignation From late 1939 onwards, Kennedy began to suspect that Roosevelt and the
State Department were excluding him from decision-making and communiqués pertinent to his ambassadorial duties. Roosevelt had started to communicate in secret with Winston Churchill (at this time First Lord of the Admiralty, later Prime Minister). In early 1940, Roosevelt also sent personal representatives (under Secretary of State
Sumner Welles, and General William Donovan) on fact-finding missions to London and other European capitals, without advising Kennedy beforehand, thereby causing the ambassador great embarrassment and annoyance. As a result, Kennedy was, for much of 1940, determined to resign his post, although Roosevelt insisted he remain in London. In late October 1940, Roosevelt invited Kennedy to return to Washington for a pre-election consultation, Kennedy used this visit to announce his resignation. Kennedy agreed to make a nationwide radio speech to advocate Roosevelt's reelection. Roosevelt was pleased with the speech because, Nasaw says, it "rallied reluctant Irish Catholic voters to his side, buttressed his claims that he was not going to take the nation into war, and emphasized that he alone had the experience to lead the nation in these difficult times." Kennedy finally submitted his resignation at the White House on December 1, 1940, but agreed to remain Ambassador until a successor was chosen in early 1941. For the rest of the war, relations between Kennedy and the Roosevelt administration remained tense, especially when Joe Jr., a Massachusetts
delegate at the
1940 Democratic National Convention, vocally opposed Roosevelt's unprecedented nomination for a third term, which began in 1941. Kennedy may have wanted to run for president himself in 1940 or later. Having effectively removed himself from the national stage, Joe Sr. spent World War II on the sidelines. Kennedy stayed active in the smaller venues of rallying Irish-American and Roman Catholic Democrats to vote for Roosevelt's re-election for a fourth term in
1944. Kennedy claimed to be eager to help the war effort, but as a result of his previous gaffes, he was neither trusted nor invited to do so.
Alliances Kennedy used his wealth and connections to build a national network of supporters that became the base for his sons' political careers. He especially concentrated on Irish-American communities in large cities, particularly Boston, New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh and several New Jersey cities. Kennedy also used
Arthur Krock of
The New York Times, America's most influential political columnist, for decades as a paid speechwriter and political advisor. A political conservative (John F. Kennedy once described his father as being to "the right of
Herbert Hoover"), Kennedy supported
Richard Nixon, who had entered Congress with John in 1947. In 1960, Joe Kennedy approached Nixon, praised his
anti-Communism, and said "Dick, if my boy can't make it, I'm for you" for the presidential election that year.
Alliance with Senator Joseph McCarthy Kennedy's close ties with
Republican Senator
Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin strengthened his family's position among Irish Catholics, but weakened it among liberals who strongly opposed McCarthy. Even before McCarthy became famous in 1950, Kennedy had forged close ties with the Republican Senator. Kennedy often brought him to his home in
Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, as a weekend house guest in the late 1940s. McCarthy at one point dated his daughter
Patricia. When McCarthy became a dominant voice of anti-Communism starting in 1950, Kennedy contributed thousands of dollars to McCarthy, and became one of his major supporters. In the
1952 U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts, Kennedy apparently worked a deal so that McCarthy, a Republican, would not make campaign speeches for the Republican ticket in Massachusetts. In return, Congressman John F. Kennedy, running for the Senate seat, would not give any anti-McCarthy speeches that his liberal supporters wanted to hear. He was one of four fathers (the other three being
George Tryon Harding,
Nathaniel Fillmore, and
George H. W. Bush) to live through the entire presidency of a son. Kennedy had been consigned to the political shadows after his remarks during World War II ("Democracy is finished"), and he remained an intensely controversial figure among U.S. citizens because of his suspect business credentials, his Roman Catholicism, his opposition to Roosevelt's foreign policy, and his support for Joseph McCarthy. Although his own ambitions to achieve the U.S. presidency were thwarted, Kennedy held out great hope for his eldest son, Joe Jr., to seek the presidency. However, Joe Jr., who had become a
U.S. Navy bomber pilot, was killed over the
English Channel in August 1944 while undertaking
Operation Anvil. After grieving over his dead son, Joe Sr. turned his attention to his second son, John, for a run for political office. ==Personal life==