How do folks feel about Joe Kennedy?

[theboss]

In the last month, old man Joe has been a mini-obsession of mine. I have a few books on him that I never really read before (including his letters), but I basically read everything this month. True, I re-read everything because I read a sleazy biography of Frank Sinatra that trashed Joe Kennedy, but it got me down that path. Interesting experience. And it made me re-assess some of my opinions on the Kennedys.

It was also interesting considering the brouhau that has resulted from the Bush-Hitler ads, and the discussions on the Bush's connections to the Nazis.

Basically, what do people think of Joe Kennedy, considering he created a Democratic dynasty, that ushered in changes that were in direct contrast to his own beliefs.

[SheilaT]

1. He was absolute scum as a human being.

What he did to daughter Rosemary is beyond contempt, and he'll pay for it in another life, I have no doubt.

He set a completely horrid example as a father and husband for his children, and that's why all the wives of the sons tolerated chronic and blatant infidelity. Of course, all those women were raised in an era and social milieu that also tolerated it.

[mlawson]

12. I don't disagree. Wasn't he also an extreme anti-Semite?? eom

[Zolok]

2. I thought you were posting about the Former Massachusetts

congressman....

As for "Old Joe" he was a thorough bastard in every way...but for the record he was poorly advised in regards to Rosemary's lobotomy.
Of course that does poor Rosemary no good.
Anyhow....he did one fine thing, he helped found the fabulous Harvard Film Archive back in 1929 and even wrote a prospectus (or possibly paid someone to write said item) outlining the academic possibilities for film.

Leave him to heaven I say.

[CatWoman]

6. Is Rosemary still alive?

[SheilaT]

11. As far as I know

she is.

[Loonman]

3. Sr? Jr?

Please be specific.

[theboss]

5. Sr

That's why I said Old Man Joe.

[Buffler]

4. Nazi sympathizer

who should garner no sympathy or support.

[dflprincess]

16. Not a Nazi sympathizer

but an isolationist and an appeaser. We hear more about him being a bootlegger than we do about Prescott Bush being in bed with the Nazis. If Old Joe had been a real Nazi sympathizer, I'm sure the Repukes would never have let anyone hear the end of it.

Overall, I think he was a mean SOB, but he seems to have loved his children and they, in turn, seemed to have loved him back.

[Touchdown]

7. He was good in The Naked Gun series.

:evilgrin:

[theboss]

8. That was his brother, Tito Kennedy

Get your facts straight.

[DrWeird]

13. You dingus...

that was O.J. Kennedy, related as an in-law, he's Arnold's father and formerly married to Elvis Presley.

[Loonman]

9. Sinatra was connected with the mob

Does he have any credibility regarding Kennedy?

[theboss]

10. Yes

Sinatra personally liked Jack and was dying to get involved in politics. He hated Peter Lawford, but Lawford was married to Pat Kennedy. So, Sinatra let Lawford back in his inner circle and got the rest of his celebrity cronies to support Kennedy. And Jack Kennedy got a free run of Hollywood in return - including Marilyn Monroe and Judith Campbell.

Frank was useful to Joe Sr in another way. Frank was in with Giancama. Joe Kennedy had connections too, but obviously the father of a candidate couldn't go directly to the mob for help. So he used Sinatra as his intermediary. The help was actually for the WV Primary, which Kennedy desperately needed. The idea was scratch Frank's back and then maybe Jack will scratch yours.

Then Jack won, Joe had a stroke, Bobby got involved, ostracized Sinatra, and went after Giancama. Sinatra despised Bobby Kennedy until the day he died.

[Zomby Woof]

14. Prescott Bush's twin nt

[Matilda]

15. He was willing to do whatever it took

first, to make his fortune, and then to back his sons in political office. No scruples, and no morals at all - he was a total user,
and tough as they come. But, in fairness, his children seemed to
revere him - he was the one they turned to if they needed help with
anything, not to Rose, who was emotionally cold as ice. I think he
must have been an appalling father - he would never tolerate second
best from any of his children - but it didn't seem to bother them
at all. They all looked up to him until the day he died. When
Kathleen married into the Hartington family, leading Protestants,
Rose was prepared to cut her off, but not Joe, he supported her right
to make her own decision. His attitude to women generally was
dreadful, and not least to Rose.

He wasn't really a Nazi sympathiser, but he was an appeaser - he
thought that if Hitler got what he wanted - Austria, Chzechoslovakia,
Poland - he'd leave the rest of Europe alone to get on with business
as usual, so Joe's advice was to let those countries go, it's not
worth a war. He totally misjudged Hitler, and again, there was a
total lack of moral scruples. He really didn't give a damn what
the Nazis did, as long as he could still do deals and make money.

I think he wouldn't have been a person you'd ever want to tangle
with, but nonetheless a very complex man, and an interestesting
psychological study.

[Octafish]

17. Joseph P. Kennedy was a good man.

Yes, it's clear the Kennedy patriarch was against World War 2. Joe Kennedy Sr remembered what happened during World War 1, where Europe and America millions of sons. He didn't like the idea of war. Later, he would lose his eldest son in the fight against the NAZIs. You may not know much about him. JPK Jr was a brave man:

Ensign Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. with his Navy flight trainer.



The President’s big brother was the one being groomed for a life in politics by The Old Man. He had served as a delegate from Massachusetts voting for FDR at the 1940 Democratic convention.

A very brave, athletic and conscientious man, he volunteered for service in the US Navy before World War II. After completing his training in multi-engine aircraft, JPK was assigned command of a US Navy B-24 Liberator on anti-submarine warfare duty, flying missions out of an airbase in the UK over the North Atlantic from 1943-44. On one mission, his aircraft was attacked by a Focke-Wulf 190, the German’s best prop fighter. Instead of hightailing it for a cloud bank, Kennedy turned his ship toward the fighter and ordered his crew to open up. The FW tore off.

After completing his tour, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. was ready to be rotated stateside. Instead, he volunteered for a top-secret mission in which he would pilot an experimental version of the B-24 bomber. The 4-engine plane had been converted from being a bomber capable of carrying sixteen 500 pound bombs and requiring a 10-man crew into into one giant flying bomb.

The plan was called: Operation Aphrodite. The objective was to knock out the V-2 sites along the coast of France.

One of Hitler's superweapons, the V-2 was developed by Werner von Braun and his team at Peenemünde. History's first ballistic missiles were used to rain death, destruction and terror upon London. The allies were worried that if the Nazis continued developing their super-weapons, the V-2’s descendants would be delivering bombs — possibly atomic — to New York City.

So the US Navy and Army Air Corps developed a secret weapon to use against the German V-2 sites along the coast of France.

Kennedy’s job was to get the ship airborne from its airfield in Great Britain, point it toward Europe, and bail out over the countryside. Sounds simple, but it was anything but. It was state-of-the-art science, engineering, and warfare. Joe Kennedy’s plane was among a few Liberators and Flying Fortresses modified for a very early version of remote control.

The ship, basically, was history’s first guided missile. The entire fuselage was filled with Torpex and gelignite, IIRC, and was to be armed by a rather elaborate, and untested, electronic arming panel.

Like something out of Buck Rogers, the Navy equipped the airplane with a primitive 2-channel remote-control pilot. One radio signal could make the plane dive and climb and another signal could make it turn left and right. A prototype video camera would also send information to the Mother Ship, where the remote pilot sat before a tiny TV monitor.

Joe Kennedy and his fellow volunteer pilots were needed to get the flying bombs airborne. One aloft, they were to turn on the radio-guidance controls and arm the flying bomb. Then, somewhere over the English countryside, the pilot and bombardier were to bail out at an altitude of about ONE THOUSAND FEET.

The scientists and engineers in the Mother Ship would take over and signal on two radio frequencies: One to turn the stick RIGHT or LEFT; or push the stick FORWARD or pull the stick BACK. Primitive today, they were the first remote-controlled weapon of mass destruction. The Mother Ship would follow two miles or so back and then fly it over the English Channel and guide it down into the rocket launch sites.

It was dangerous work. Because of the modifications to the B-17s, one pilot was killed and another lost an arm in the process. By the time it was Joe’s turn in the B-24 there was reason for concern about a plan that was seeming to look like a suicide mission.

For the Kennedys and the future of American politics, the tragedy was that the Navy ship used a rather primitive arming panel. The regular engineer/co-pilot refused to fly and instead the Navy sent aloft the engineer who designed and installed the system.

Over the English countryside, the ship exploded, killing the two flyers and changing American political history. Joe's younger brother John Fitzgerald Kennedy then became the heir to the family's political ambitions.

John F. Kennedy made an outstanding President, living up to his brother’s promise of greatness. JFK, it should be remembered, saved the world from nuclear annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

While he never lived to see the dream realized, JFK also stretched mankind’s imagination and reach to the moon. Ironically, he even used the NAZI rocket scientist who developed the V-2 to do so. The same von Braun who the allied air command sent his lost brother, Joseph, to destroy.

— Octafish

# # #

Two outstanding books on the subject of Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. and his service in World War II:

“Aphrodite: Desperate Mission” by Jack Olsen

and

“The Lost Prince: Young Joe, the Forgotten Kennedy” by Hank Searls.

[Matilda]

18. I don't think "good" is the right word to use about Joe Kennedy Sr.

There seems to be no doubt that he made a good part of his fortune
smuggling and selling whiskey from Europe during Prohibition, and
he also engaged in stock pools and insider trading on the stock
exchange - these practices weren't illegal at the time, but highly
dubious, and were later made illegal. He was also - like his sons -
a compulsive womanizer, and even brought his no. 1 mistress, Gloria
Swanson, into the family home to stay as a guest, a dreadful thing
to do to Rose. He also used to make passes at his sons' girlfriends
under their noses - not a crime, but not really a nice thing to do.

As I said above, I think he was a complex and interesting man, but
I wouldn't say he was good, or nice. There must have been another
side to him though, to have kept the loyalty of his children well
into their adulthood.