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Speaker 1: I'm George Severis and I'm Julia Clair, and this is

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Speaker 1: United States of Kennedy, a podcast about our cultural fascination

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Speaker 1: with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week we go into one

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Speaker 1: aspect of the Kennedy story, and today we are talking

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Speaker 1: about the man who quite literally started it all, the

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Speaker 1: patriarch of the Kennedy clan, Joseph Patrick Kennedy.

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Speaker 2: The big Bopper himself.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Joseph Kennedy was a banker, a Wall Street savant,

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Speaker 1: a real estate bearon, a liquor magnet, a Hollywood producer,

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Speaker 1: a Washington insider, the first ever chair of the SEC,

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Speaker 1: a disgraced ambassador during one of the most important times

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Speaker 1: in world history, and of course father to some of

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Speaker 1: the most consequential public servants in American life.

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Speaker 2: Joe's rise to prominence tracks some of the most consequential

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Speaker 2: historical events of the early twentieth century, and he had

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Speaker 2: a seat of the table for many of them.

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Speaker 1: So, all right, where did Joseph Kennedy come from? Let's

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Speaker 1: start there, because I think that one of the myths

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Speaker 1: of the Kennedy dynasty, you know which, of course, we

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Speaker 1: are here in the business of dispelling myths. But one

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Speaker 1: of the myths of Kennedy dynasty that I think you

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Speaker 1: and I have occasionally dabbled in is this idea that

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Speaker 1: Joe Kennedy was this rags to riches story that he

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Speaker 1: like created this huge fortune himself and then his kids

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Speaker 1: could after that dedicate their lives to public service. And

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Speaker 1: it is true that he multiplied his money immensely while

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Speaker 1: he was alive, and you cannot argue that he had

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Speaker 1: a real talent for making money, but he absolutely was

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Speaker 1: not rags to riches. I mean, we find here that

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Speaker 1: his father PJ. Kennedy Patrick Patrick Kennedy dropped out of

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Speaker 1: school at fourteen to support his family and worked his

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Speaker 1: way up to become a successful businessman and politician. Joe

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Speaker 1: Kennedy was a rich kid in sort of this like

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Speaker 1: East Boston aristocracy, which if you know the implication of

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Speaker 1: East Boston today, you know it sounds kind of like

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Speaker 1: a paradox or something. But he was it was this

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Speaker 1: like aristocracy that was on the one hand, incredibly wealthy.

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Speaker 1: On the other hand, he felt constantly excluded from the

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Speaker 1: sort of wasp beer sides of New England.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 2: So, Joe Kennedy was born in eighteen eighty eight to

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Speaker 2: Irish immigrant parents who came over during the Potato famine,

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Speaker 2: many such cases in the Greater Boston area. And you're right,

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Speaker 2: he was born into a very comfortable life of a

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Speaker 2: pretty significant level of wealth for the time. But his

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Speaker 2: Irishness and the fact that he is from East Boston

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Speaker 2: kind of made him excluded from the Boston Brahmin set

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Speaker 2: who controlled all the banking and the financial world in

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Speaker 2: massachuse of the time in the Greater Boston area. And

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Speaker 2: it didn't really, i think, become clear to him how

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Speaker 2: much discrimination he would face until he was in his

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Speaker 2: early twenties. Because again we should talk about his level

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Speaker 2: of privilege. He went to Boston Latin, which is the

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Speaker 2: best school in Boston. It is public, but it was,

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Speaker 2: you know, the most prestigious, the most academically rigorous school

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Speaker 2: in Boston, and then he went from there to Harvard.

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Speaker 1: To Harvard, of course, and just very quickly, I mean

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Speaker 1: in terms of specifics, his father made his first pile

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Speaker 1: of money with a whiskey importing business and a chain

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Speaker 1: of saloons and liquor stores. And he was not a

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Speaker 1: banker himself, but he was a founding shareholder in two

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Speaker 1: local Boston banks, Columbia Trust Company and the Sumner Savings Bank.

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Speaker 1: So that was his initial fortune. Then he became very

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Speaker 1: involved in politics. He was a major figure in the

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Speaker 1: Massachusett's Democratic Party. And when Joe was born, his father

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Speaker 1: was already serving his third term in the Massachusetts House

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Speaker 1: of Representatives and he was also elected in the state Senate.

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Speaker 1: So he was powerful in every possible. The only thing

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Speaker 1: you could not accomplish is being, you know, ethnically a wasp.

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Speaker 1: But he was powerful in every other possibility. He had money,

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Speaker 1: he had power, he had you know, locally he was

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Speaker 1: sort of the ward boss of East Boston and a

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Speaker 1: very prominent figure in the Boston I this is, you know,

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Speaker 1: not my words. I don't want to be accused of

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Speaker 1: anti Catholic bias. This is you know, this is from

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Speaker 1: our research document. But he was both powerful in the

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Speaker 1: traditional sense and also locally famous and respected as a

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Speaker 1: as a politician and as a figure of the Democratic Party.

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Speaker 1: And so as you're saying, Joe was able to go

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Speaker 1: to all the best schools. His family name was already

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Speaker 1: known in Boston. He did not, you know, obviously, he

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Speaker 1: made it a nationally known name eventually, but this wasn't

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Speaker 1: you know, he wasn't some nobody, all right. So fast

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Speaker 1: forward to you know, he graduates Harvard, he has everything

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Speaker 1: going for him, and yet because he was Irish Catholic,

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Speaker 1: Joe was excluded from the white shoe finance jobs on

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Speaker 1: Wall Street and all the bigger Boston banks. So he

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Speaker 1: had no choice but to start out in a low

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Speaker 1: paid civil servant job as the assistant state bank examiner.

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Speaker 1: The job only paid fifteen hundred dollars a year. Interestingly,

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Speaker 1: but it was kind of like an entry level job

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Speaker 1: that he could take and kind of, you know, it

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Speaker 1: was it was an opportunity for him to kind of

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Speaker 1: work his way up. That said, even then, when I

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Speaker 1: said work his way up, it implies that he was

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Speaker 1: sort of that he sort of you know.

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Speaker 2: Started to himself.

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Speaker 1: He started from the bottom, bulled himself for from his bootstraps.

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Speaker 1: But in fact, the next step in his career was

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Speaker 1: that he quit the bank examiner job and went home

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Speaker 1: to East Boston to quote unquote save one of the

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Speaker 1: banks that his father helped found. So basically, through a

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Speaker 1: series of machinations, he kind of borrowed money from In fact,

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Speaker 1: his mother's uncles, not as fathers, because his mother was

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Speaker 1: also rich, to believe it or not, and he bought

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Speaker 1: up the majority of the shares of the bank, and

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Speaker 1: with a controlling stake, he named himself president of the bank,

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Speaker 1: which turned out to be kind of more of a

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Speaker 1: pr move, which foreshadows his later dealings with the press,

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Speaker 1: because he was always so good with the press and

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Speaker 1: so good at making himself a central figure in the

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Speaker 1: day's news. So basically what that led to is this

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Speaker 1: title that he had. He was written up in the

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Speaker 1: papers as the youngest bank president in Boston, which is

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Speaker 1: just incredible pr when basically his father all but appointed

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Speaker 1: him to be president of this one of many banks

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Speaker 1: that he had control over, so in terms of his

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Speaker 1: wealth accumulation. After this chapter, he dodged the draft to

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Speaker 1: run a shipyard. Briefly, he convinced the draft board to

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Speaker 1: give him an industrial deferment to manage the Four River shipyard.

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Speaker 1: And after that this is for World War one. This

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Speaker 1: is World War one, yes, correct, And so business obviously

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Speaker 1: slowed after World War One at the shipyard. And then

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Speaker 1: he immediately made another amazing choice, which is that he

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Speaker 1: transitioned into working at Wall Street, And this is where

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Speaker 1: his incredible talents at making money really were able to shine.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we you know, talking about his various specific

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Speaker 1: dealings in Wall Street is not super interesting in audio format,

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Speaker 1: But I have never read about someone that for whom

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Speaker 1: it comes so naturally, yeah, to basically like run mini

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Speaker 1: scams constantly and be multiplying their fortune at all times.

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Speaker 1: I mean all the things you hear about, like, oh people,

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Speaker 1: you know shorting stocks and pump and dump schemes. Like

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Speaker 1: he was a pioneer. He's like the Michelangelo of like

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Speaker 1: Wall Street scamming.

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Speaker 2: Yes, And you know, during the stock market crash of

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Speaker 2: nineteen twenty nine, you can really call that his sisteine Chapel.

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Speaker 1: That's right, That's right.

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Speaker 2: If you've ever seen The Big Short, That's where I

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Speaker 2: learned about what shorting stocks means. Basically, Joe Kennedy was

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Speaker 2: kind of a pioneer of betting against the stock market,

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Speaker 2: betting against Wall Street. So not only did he come

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Speaker 2: out of the nineteen twenty nine market crash unscathed, he

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Speaker 2: made money off of it because for every dollar that

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Speaker 2: a stock lost, he gained it because he had bet

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Speaker 2: against those stocks.

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Speaker 1: And just in terms of even more simple kind of

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Speaker 1: scammy energy, even if you don't know what shorting means.

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Speaker 1: Like as one example, when he was president of Columbia Trust,

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Speaker 1: which is the bank that again his father gave to him,

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Speaker 1: basically he basically just used the bank's assets as his

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Speaker 1: personal assets. Like when we talk about how much money

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Speaker 1: he made on the stock market, it's like he was

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Speaker 1: able to basically use you know, kind of like play

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Speaker 1: with house money, you know, like use the bank's money

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Speaker 1: as an investment to then game and then he sort

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Speaker 1: of like occasionally would pay the bank back. Sometimes he

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Speaker 1: wouldn't pay the bank back. This was before major financial regulations.

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Speaker 1: So he was like an incredibly talented money guy that

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Speaker 1: was given basically unlimited resources, which is a crazy combination.

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Speaker 1: And to his credit, again he was good at it,

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Speaker 1: Like he was there are you know, we're gonna there's

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Speaker 1: some comparisons you can make to Trump, which we will

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Speaker 1: get to later. But one thing he has over Trump

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Speaker 1: is that he's genuinely talented at multiplying his money.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he was an actual businessman, a business savant. And

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Speaker 2: it is funny though, because he ran these little schemes

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Speaker 2: and he made a lot of his fortune, his massive

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Speaker 2: fortune by betting against the stock market that he then

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Speaker 2: later became the first president of the Securities in Exchange Commission,

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Speaker 2: which is an agency that was developed to protect investors.

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Speaker 1: That's right, I mean, who I would have thought. The

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Speaker 1: next chapter of this story is like, after being born

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Speaker 1: rich then multiplying his wealth by literally like committing what

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Speaker 1: we would now call financial crimes, he was appointed the

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Speaker 1: first ever head of the sec by FDR.

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Speaker 2: This country is beautiful, this is the American dream.

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Speaker 1: It really is great. And by the way, people in

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Speaker 1: FDR's orbit did tell him like what are you doing?

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Speaker 1: Why are you appointing this again basically financial criminal to

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Speaker 1: regulate the markets. And I mean I can't remember the

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Speaker 1: exact quote, but FDR basically said, like, you have to

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Speaker 1: appoint someone who knows how to be a criminal in

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Speaker 1: order to prevent more criminals.

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Speaker 2: It's like how in that movie Catch Me If you Can,

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Speaker 2: which is based on a true story. The real Frank

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Speaker 2: abag Nail was then hired by the FBI to do

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Speaker 2: check fraud because he was so good at it. So, yes,

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Speaker 2: the Frank Abagnail of his day.

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Speaker 1: Many would say, yeah, it says, you know when someone

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Speaker 1: asked FDR why he was higher, ring a quote crook

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Speaker 1: to Police Wall Street. FDR allegedly equipped, it takes one

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Speaker 1: to catch one, so it's literally catch totally.

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Speaker 2: Totally, totally. So let's talk about FDR. Because Joe Kennedy

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Speaker 2: was originally a hooverman. He was more of a Republican,

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Speaker 2: but so in kind of the same way that Joe

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Speaker 2: Kennedy treated stocks, he also made speculative assessments on politics,

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Speaker 2: and FDR was a perfect example of that. He was

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Speaker 2: originally a hooverman, a Republican, but he saw that the

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Speaker 2: national tide was turning and that the wind was at

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Speaker 2: FDR's back in terms of the New Deal style regulation

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Speaker 2: that he wanted to implement, So he poured tons of

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Speaker 2: money into FDR's campaign, and to George's point about being

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Speaker 2: an early master of the press and pr he really

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Speaker 2: made sure that his name was always in the same sentence,

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Speaker 2: mentioned in the same breath as FDRs, which you know,

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Speaker 2: was pretty transparently angling for a cabinet position, and he

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Speaker 2: wanted a much higher position than he ended up getting.

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Speaker 2: But you know, already he was a little bit too

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Speaker 2: mired and scandal and a little bit too known as

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Speaker 2: a high level crook to be Secretary of the Treasury,

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Speaker 2: so Joe Kennedy ends up being appointed as ambassador to

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Speaker 2: the UK.

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Speaker 1: So you mentioned obviously he very intentionally exaggerated his place

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Speaker 1: in the FDR campaign to the press and almost willed

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Speaker 1: himself into this kind of main character. And that's definitely

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Speaker 1: one element of why FDR was attracted him. But another

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Speaker 1: one was that he had all these connections that the

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Speaker 1: Democrats didn't have, I mean, because of his immense wealth power,

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Speaker 1: but also just like ability to schmooze and to entertain

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Speaker 1: people in in his various properties, to take people out,

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Speaker 1: to develop relationships with journalists and the media. I mean

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Speaker 1: he had He knew William Randolph Hurst, the newspaper publisher.

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Speaker 1: He had connections with Hollywood producers, who at the time

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Speaker 1: were all Republicans. Accord, according to Patriarch, which is the

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Speaker 1: biography of Joseph Kennedy, he had connections in Wall Street,

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Speaker 1: he had connections in the Irish Catholic communities. These are

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Speaker 1: all kind of communities and industries that the Democrats wanted

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Speaker 1: to make headway in. And so it was on the

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Speaker 1: one hand, he did in a way sort of like

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Speaker 1: scam his way into the FDR inner circle. On the

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Speaker 1: other hand, it was very quid pro quo.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, his presence was definitely advantageous to the FDR administration.

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Speaker 1: Also he was like glamorous, yes, completely, And before we

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Speaker 1: get to the ambassadorship, just a few more notes on

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Speaker 1: the SEC. Is like there was something kind of paradoxical

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Speaker 1: in his approach to the SEC because you would think

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Speaker 1: someone like him, who was such a capitalist who made

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Speaker 1: his fortune by you know, insider trading in pump and

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Speaker 1: dump schemes, you would think someone like him wouldn't want

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Speaker 1: the market to be regulated. But in fact, it was

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Speaker 1: because of his deep belief in capitalism that he felt

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Speaker 1: that in order for American capitalism to survive, the public

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Speaker 1: needs to have faith in the market and that will

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Speaker 1: only happen if normal, everyday people feel like they have

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Speaker 1: something to gain from investing in it. And that is

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Speaker 1: apparently how he sold the SEC to all these rich

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Speaker 1: people that otherwise would not have, you know, supported the Democrats.

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Speaker 1: So it's a fascinating place because you would think, why

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Speaker 1: is someone like this even engaging with FDR, who we

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Speaker 1: think of, as you know, such a generally progressive president. Someone,

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Speaker 1: you know, the New Deal, whatever else. And it is

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Speaker 1: this kind of strain of democratic politics that Julia you

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Speaker 1: were saying off Mike still exists, this sort of like

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Speaker 1: very pro capitalist, pragmatic strain of democratic politics.

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Speaker 2: Yes, and also I mean it shows up in Republican

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Speaker 2: politics as well, the idea that it's just it's not

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Speaker 2: as prominent, but the idea among some economists on any

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Speaker 2: kind of point on the political spectrum that in order

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Speaker 2: to protect capitalism we have to regulate it because the

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Speaker 2: average American needs to be bought in on the idea

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Speaker 2: that they could potentially get ahead via capitalism.

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Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. And just one final thing. He established so

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Speaker 1: many regulations when he was in the SEC that when

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Speaker 1: he left the SEC, he himself had to stop trading stocks.

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Speaker 1: So he actually switched to being more focused on real

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Speaker 1: estate when it came to growing his wealth, because he

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Speaker 1: actually had fucked himself over so much that he had

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Speaker 1: created enough regulations that he could not keep doing the

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Speaker 1: things he was doing before to make money. So that's

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Speaker 1: his that's his time at the SEC. But tell us

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Speaker 1: about his time.

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Speaker 2: Well, I was just going to say that that almost

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Speaker 2: seems kind of quaint today. The idea that he would

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Speaker 2: have to stop trading stocks after he left the SEC.

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Speaker 1: I know, because you would think today, you know, a

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Speaker 1: powerful politician, even God forbid, a democratic politician, still is

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Speaker 1: able to insider trade.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, times maybe times were better back then,

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Speaker 2: we don't know. But anyways, So after the nineteen thirty

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Speaker 2: two election in which FDR became president, Joe Kennedy, as

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Speaker 2: we said, was appointed as ambassador to the UK. The

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Speaker 2: early nineteen thirties, as we all know, were an extremely

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Speaker 2: consequential time in European history and in world history. Hitler

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Speaker 2: was coming to power, and there's just there are many

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Speaker 2: ways in which Joe Kennedy was not the right man

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Speaker 2: for this moment. He was a huge Neville Chamberlain supporter,

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Speaker 2: another man who was not right for the moment, a

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Speaker 2: man who thought Neville Chamberlin was the Prime Minister in

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Speaker 2: the early nineteen thirties, and he, you know, is now

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Speaker 2: infamous for basically thinking that he could appease Hitler, and

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Speaker 2: Joe Kennedy thought the same thing as well. Joe Kennedy

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Speaker 2: kind of saw Hitler as a fellow businessman who could

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Speaker 2: be reasoned with, who could be delayed Joe Kennedy was

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Speaker 2: for his whole life kind of a betting man, and

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Speaker 2: he thought that Hitler was going to win and that

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Speaker 2: Britain's defeat was inevitable. So he was actually there's there

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Speaker 2: are reports about how he was actually angry at the

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Speaker 2: Royal Air Force after the Battle of Britain, in which,

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Speaker 2: you know, all of these British air fighters held off

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Speaker 2: the German invasion because Joe saw it as kind of

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Speaker 2: forestalling the inevitable, which was he thought that Germany was

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Speaker 2: going to successfully overtake Britain. And I guess this is

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Speaker 2: where we can talk about Joe's anti Semitism.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the biggest stain on Joe Kennedy's legacy

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Speaker 1: is ultimately his appeasement of Hitler and really consistent view

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Speaker 1: that that was the right thing to do. Even after

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Speaker 1: the war ended, and it was it could not have

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Speaker 1: been more clear who the good guys and the bad

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Speaker 1: guys were, what major atroshit cities had happened, how many

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Speaker 1: people were killed. He really maintained that the right thing

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Speaker 1: was to have somehow negotiated with Hitler. And this is

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Speaker 1: also while the tides are very much turning back home.

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Speaker 1: I mean, one of the issues with him being an

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Speaker 1: ambassador is that his own community told him, this is

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Speaker 1: not a good job for you, because you are someone

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Speaker 1: who is very strong willed. You are someone who who

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Speaker 1: is very stubborn and has your own point of view,

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Speaker 1: and you're not good at following orders, and you're not

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Speaker 1: good at being someone else's messenger. And sure enough, he

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Speaker 1: was not good at that. And what happened was he

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Speaker 1: as ambassador, he had like his own ideas about foreign

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Speaker 1: policy and was not following the you know, official guidance,

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Speaker 1: and so this was just like the biggest sort of

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Speaker 1: stain on his reputation. And his relationship to anti Semitism

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Speaker 1: is interesting because on the one hand, he strongly believes

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Speaker 1: that Jewish people need to get out of Germany as

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Speaker 1: like a you know, in a humanitarian way. Let's say

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Speaker 1: he believes Jewish people need to leave Germany in order

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Speaker 1: for like the Allied powers to negotiate with Hitler, which

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Speaker 1: is I mean, it's obviously kind of misguided and unrealistic,

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Speaker 1: but you could argue that it comes from a place

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Speaker 1: of not wanting people to be massacred. So on the

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Speaker 1: one hand, there's that element of it, and then on

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Speaker 1: the other hand, there is the blatant anti Semitism that

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Speaker 1: he had, which is completely buying into every possible conspiracy

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Speaker 1: theory about Jewish people, every possible anti Semitic trope. He

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Speaker 1: became more and more paranoid about Jewish people controlling the

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Speaker 1: media and them in the media painting Hitler in a

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Speaker 1: negative light because they wanted America to go to war,

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Speaker 1: and that sort of just never ended.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and despite the fact that like the newspaper magnates

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Speaker 2: that he knew were not themselves Jewish, like William Randolph Hurst,

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Speaker 2: but he Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So.

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Speaker 2: David Nassau is the historian who wrote the book The Patriarch,

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Speaker 2: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy,

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Speaker 2: and he talks about this a lot. So Ultimately, from

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Speaker 2: a foreign policy perspective, Joe Kennedy believed that Jews globally

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Speaker 2: were pushing America towards war with Germany and kind of

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Speaker 2: held onto that belief, as George said, well into the

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Speaker 2: end of his life. In fact, he only became more

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Speaker 2: ardent in his isolation views on isolationism towards the end

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Speaker 2: of his life. There's also an anecdote that Nasau shares

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Speaker 2: about during this time, during the nineteen thirties Joe Kennedy

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Speaker 2: going to Hollywood and kind of scolding a group of

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Speaker 2: Jewish Hollywood executives, saying that they are going to be

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Speaker 2: part of the reason why the US is pushed into

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Speaker 2: war with Germany, and that Hollywood Jews need to stop

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Speaker 2: making all of this anti German propaganda in the form

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Speaker 2: of these things.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like after Charlie Chaplin had made The Dictator

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Speaker 1: like it was, and it just went against all logic.

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Speaker 1: I mean it really was. It really was rooted in

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Speaker 1: not only a a deep kind of hateful and resentful

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Speaker 1: anti Semitism, but also he had this kind of moral defeatism.

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Speaker 1: Like as much as as a businessman he had you know,

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Speaker 1: he was an iconoclass like he had the courage to

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Speaker 1: make like big moves and take big risks when it

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Speaker 1: came to moral issues, he really sort of had a

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Speaker 1: real cynicism about the world, like he right. I think that,

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Speaker 1: and I think that is like a big part of

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Speaker 1: why he failed as a politician, as an ambassador.

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Speaker 2: There is a.

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Speaker 1: Lot of.

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Speaker 2: Pessimism among Irish Catholics. I think that it makes a

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Speaker 2: lot of sense for him to have this kind of dark,

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Speaker 2: pessimistic worldview based on how he was raised. And I

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Speaker 2: also think that the anti Semitism is part of that

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Speaker 2: as well. I think culturally he was raised with a

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Speaker 2: sort of you know, he was raised in a culture

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Speaker 2: that was either explicitly or tacitly anti Semitic, and it

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Speaker 2: just happened to like manifest itself in this very concrete

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Speaker 2: way when he was ambassador to the UK, and yeah,

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Speaker 2: it was something that I think stayed with him until

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Speaker 2: he died. I think he really obviously the Kennedy family

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Speaker 2: is so mired in tragedy, and I think that probably

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Speaker 2: just fit into his worldview really nicely. That of course,

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Speaker 2: so many members of my family have met tragic ends.

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Speaker 2: There is almost a feeling of cursedness in any Irish

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Speaker 2: Catholic family. I feel no completely.

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Speaker 1: And in terms of the you would think there could

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Speaker 1: be some solidarity among groups that have been discriminated against.

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Speaker 1: You know, if he feels persecuted as an Irish Catholic,

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Speaker 1: you would think maybe that would translate into some sort

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Speaker 1: of you know, into him relating with people that are

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Speaker 1: in other kind of ethnic minorities. But I think There's

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Speaker 1: this passage in the New York Times review of the

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Speaker 1: of the Kennedy the Joekenney biography that really sort of

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Speaker 1: encapsulates his complicated relationship to anti Semitism, which is, it says,

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Speaker 1: Kennedy's Irish Catholicism, his outsiderness both paralleled and reinforced his antisemitism.

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Speaker 1: He identified with Jews to a degree. They, like the Irish,

403
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Speaker 1: were an oppressed people who had also been persecuted for

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Speaker 1: their religion. But in Kennedy's view, the Irish had fled

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Speaker 1: their holocaust in Ireland and found haven in the New World.

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Speaker 1: Now in the nineteen thirties, the Jews were trying to

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Speaker 1: draw the entire world into war. So pretty much by

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Speaker 1: definition kind of violent anti semitism there. But it is

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Speaker 1: an attempt to sort of draw a logical argument for it.

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Speaker 2: I think it's also just an exact trajectory of every

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Speaker 2: immigrant group in the United States completely. You think that

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Speaker 2: they would have solidarity with other oppressed immigrant groups or

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Speaker 2: just other oppressed ethnic groups in the United States, and

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Speaker 2: time and again it just never happens.

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Speaker 4: You saw it with like the way that the Irish

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Speaker 4: treated black people or Italians treated black people, or the

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Speaker 4: fact that you know, even today, some of the most.

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Speaker 2: Virulently anti immigration people in the United States are themselves

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Speaker 2: descended from immigrants completely.

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Speaker 1: As he beat the drum on you know, we have

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Speaker 1: to negotiate with Hitler. We can't go to war. Even

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Speaker 1: when they're at war, we're doing the wrong thing. Whatever.

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Speaker 1: As he beat that drum, he was of course more

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Speaker 1: and more marginalized within the FDR orbit because his opinions

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Speaker 1: were less and less popular, which then, in this you know,

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Speaker 1: kind of vicious cycle, made him more anti semitic, because

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Speaker 1: he assumed it was because FDR had, you know, Jewish

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Speaker 1: advisers in his ear that were telling him to not

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Speaker 1: listen to him.

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Speaker 3: And so.

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Speaker 1: The more he was marginalized, the more anti Semitic he became. Basically,

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Speaker 1: and I mean this is a quote from the Nasau biography.

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Speaker 1: The more he found himself on the outside, scorned and

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Speaker 1: criticized as an appeaser, a man out of touch with reality,

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Speaker 1: a traitor to the Roosevelt cause, the more he blamed

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Speaker 1: the Jews.

437
00:26:33,480 --> 00:26:34,800
Speaker 2: Classic it's a classic.

438
00:26:35,320 --> 00:26:37,480
Speaker 1: It's a classic. It's a classic, and it's a classic

439
00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:39,959
Speaker 1: that we see. I mean, you just see it with

440
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:43,760
Speaker 1: so many different groups happening now, it's like there are

441
00:26:43,840 --> 00:26:50,160
Speaker 1: parallels to be made around, like extreme racism in the

442
00:26:50,280 --> 00:26:52,679
Speaker 1: nineties and two thousands, are parallels be made around, like

443
00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:56,920
Speaker 1: the way people talk about the LGBT community and trans people.

444
00:26:56,960 --> 00:27:00,040
Speaker 1: Now it's just it's you get into this sort of

445
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:03,720
Speaker 1: like conspiratorial thinking and you think, you know, if people

446
00:27:03,760 --> 00:27:05,480
Speaker 1: are telling me I'm wrong, it must be because there's

447
00:27:05,480 --> 00:27:06,639
Speaker 1: a conspiracy against.

448
00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:10,800
Speaker 2: Me, right, And I think there is something that comes

449
00:27:11,040 --> 00:27:14,840
Speaker 2: from growing up in an ethnic group that had that

450
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:19,840
Speaker 2: sort of social precarity where you just like whatever success

451
00:27:19,920 --> 00:27:23,040
Speaker 2: you receive, you never feel like it's safe. You always

452
00:27:23,040 --> 00:27:28,359
Speaker 2: feel like it's under threat, which is just a perfect

453
00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:30,560
Speaker 2: recipe recipe for paranoia.

454
00:27:31,280 --> 00:27:34,600
Speaker 1: Yes, and I think that his Joe's status as a

455
00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:38,960
Speaker 1: sort of insider outsider kind of led to his undoing

456
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:42,280
Speaker 1: because he was he had a seat at all the

457
00:27:42,280 --> 00:27:44,880
Speaker 1: most exclusive tables in the world. He made his way

458
00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:49,640
Speaker 1: into every industry I mean truly, like finance, Hollywood, government,

459
00:27:49,880 --> 00:27:52,199
Speaker 1: and yet he always had this chip on his shoulder

460
00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:54,639
Speaker 1: and you always felt like there was something, you know,

461
00:27:54,680 --> 00:27:57,159
Speaker 1: they weren't telling him. And he always felt like there

462
00:27:57,240 --> 00:28:00,159
Speaker 1: was another step of the ladder that he needed to

463
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:02,640
Speaker 1: get to and I think that did lead to this

464
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:07,000
Speaker 1: kind of at paranoia, as you say, which you know,

465
00:28:07,040 --> 00:28:08,560
Speaker 1: you want to target your anger somewhere.

466
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:14,640
Speaker 2: We're going to take a short break, stay with.

467
00:28:14,720 --> 00:28:26,240
Speaker 3: Us, and we're back with more United States of Kennedy.

468
00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:29,680
Speaker 1: All right, So we really wanted to spend some time

469
00:28:30,040 --> 00:28:34,200
Speaker 1: talking about his fall from grace as a government official

470
00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:38,480
Speaker 1: and his just like deep, unambiguous anti semitism because it

471
00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:42,760
Speaker 1: is a hugely important part of his legacy. To sort

472
00:28:42,800 --> 00:28:46,280
Speaker 1: of go back to Joe Kennedy's pre FDR days. You know,

473
00:28:46,360 --> 00:28:51,000
Speaker 1: he made it big on Wall Street, but his wealth

474
00:28:51,040 --> 00:28:53,640
Speaker 1: and fame reached new heights when he started working in Hollywood.

475
00:28:53,680 --> 00:28:58,080
Speaker 1: So Joe's time in Hollywood was actually very it was

476
00:28:58,080 --> 00:29:01,000
Speaker 1: sort of very prescient because it's how you see people

477
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:03,720
Speaker 1: that work in let's say private equity or big tech

478
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:07,600
Speaker 1: firms that are getting into entertainment. Now. He sort of

479
00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:11,520
Speaker 1: operated like a private equity firm. I mean, he really

480
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:13,480
Speaker 1: was not in it because he was a lover of

481
00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:16,000
Speaker 1: the arts or because he had any interest in movies.

482
00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:19,840
Speaker 1: He was there to basically like buy businesses, cut them

483
00:29:19,880 --> 00:29:22,640
Speaker 1: up for parts, sell what he needed to sell, you know,

484
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:26,040
Speaker 1: combine the businesses he needed to combine take advantage of

485
00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:28,080
Speaker 1: the trends of the time in order to make more money.

486
00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:30,680
Speaker 1: So this is sort of from our research, doock. This

487
00:29:30,760 --> 00:29:34,960
Speaker 1: is an example of Kennedy's like business first strategy at work.

488
00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 1: So he bought in nineteen twenty six, his first major

489
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 1: move in Hollywood was to buy the Film Booking Office

490
00:29:43,480 --> 00:29:47,000
Speaker 1: of America FBO, a film distributor. He cut costs and

491
00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:50,800
Speaker 1: strong arm theaters into giving FBO better deals. Then he

492
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:54,480
Speaker 1: merged FBO with a larger distribution company, giving the combined

493
00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:58,640
Speaker 1: company more market share and leverage. Sort of echoes things

494
00:29:58,640 --> 00:30:01,760
Speaker 1: that are happening now in the entertainment. Then he bought

495
00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:05,120
Speaker 1: a theater chain so that he would have guaranteed venues

496
00:30:05,400 --> 00:30:08,840
Speaker 1: to show his movies. Then he made an investment in technology,

497
00:30:09,440 --> 00:30:12,360
Speaker 1: so he bought RCA's photophone division so that he could

498
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:14,760
Speaker 1: install the sound system in his theaters. And this is

499
00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:16,920
Speaker 1: when you know, silent films were on their way out

500
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:21,080
Speaker 1: and talkies were on the rise, so obviously having a

501
00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:25,360
Speaker 1: good sound system was a huge, a hugely beneficial investment.

502
00:30:25,640 --> 00:30:29,200
Speaker 1: And finally he merged all of these entities into a

503
00:30:29,240 --> 00:30:33,160
Speaker 1: new company called RKO Pictures and it became basically the

504
00:30:33,200 --> 00:30:38,840
Speaker 1: first vertically integrated Hollywood studio in history, so it had production, distribution,

505
00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 1: and exhibition. I mean, so that's when you when you

506
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:44,720
Speaker 1: say someone is a talented businessman. You know, regardless of

507
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:51,360
Speaker 1: my own views on art and on media consolidation, I mean,

508
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 1: to the to have the vision to understand that like

509
00:30:54,760 --> 00:30:57,080
Speaker 1: this would be the future of how entertainment worked, is

510
00:30:57,400 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 1: that is something that is some sort of talent.

511
00:30:59,800 --> 00:31:06,240
Speaker 2: He was a great talent of speculative assets. I guess

512
00:31:06,920 --> 00:31:12,360
Speaker 2: he you know, at the time when film was moving

513
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:19,960
Speaker 2: to the talkies, it wasn't guaranteed that sound was here

514
00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:23,840
Speaker 2: to stay. Even as crazy as that that sounds to

515
00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:27,880
Speaker 2: our ears now, but he really was like, no, this

516
00:31:28,040 --> 00:31:32,320
Speaker 2: is the future, and he bought up all of the

517
00:31:32,800 --> 00:31:39,000
Speaker 2: appropriate hardware and outfitted all the theaters for sound. And

518
00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:41,640
Speaker 2: it's kind of how he again, it's just like really

519
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:44,640
Speaker 2: how he did everything. He felt the same way about FDR.

520
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:50,320
Speaker 2: He felt the same way about certain aspects of the

521
00:31:50,360 --> 00:31:52,800
Speaker 2: liquor industry during Prohibition.

522
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:53,120
Speaker 4: And.

523
00:31:55,200 --> 00:31:57,840
Speaker 2: He was just good at being able to see the trends.

524
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:01,720
Speaker 2: And that's how he made a crazy amount of money.

525
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:04,239
Speaker 1: And he during this whole time, this was, you know,

526
00:32:04,280 --> 00:32:07,200
Speaker 1: before his sec days. During this whole time Kennedy was

527
00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:11,160
Speaker 1: swapping and trading and buying stocks while he was working

528
00:32:11,160 --> 00:32:14,160
Speaker 1: in Hollywood. You know, he hadn't stopped. And so according

529
00:32:14,160 --> 00:32:17,600
Speaker 1: to the Nasau book, he made in today's money seven

530
00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty million dollars basically like during his Hollywood

531
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:25,120
Speaker 1: era from the various mergers and acquisitions in stock sales

532
00:32:25,480 --> 00:32:29,880
Speaker 1: related to RKO Pictures. And as you mentioned earlier, he

533
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:33,240
Speaker 1: actually sold most of his high risk Hollywood stocks before

534
00:32:33,280 --> 00:32:35,320
Speaker 1: the stock market crash of nineteen twenty nine, so he

535
00:32:35,360 --> 00:32:39,200
Speaker 1: didn't even he didn't even lose money on it, which famously,

536
00:32:39,280 --> 00:32:42,200
Speaker 1: you know, the media business and the entertainment business is

537
00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:45,520
Speaker 1: not the most stable business to invest in if you're

538
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:48,000
Speaker 1: you know, a rich finance guy.

539
00:32:48,160 --> 00:32:53,160
Speaker 2: But somehow, even things are going well exactly, Hollywood is

540
00:32:53,160 --> 00:32:55,000
Speaker 2: not not usually a great investment.

541
00:32:55,880 --> 00:32:59,080
Speaker 1: So the last chapter of his Hollywood era that I

542
00:32:59,160 --> 00:33:01,400
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about, and then this will help us

543
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:05,280
Speaker 1: transition into talking about him as like a family man

544
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:08,560
Speaker 1: and as a husband and as a father, which is

545
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:11,760
Speaker 1: arguably the most interesting part of all of this. The

546
00:33:11,840 --> 00:33:15,400
Speaker 1: last part of his Hollywood era is his relationship with

547
00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:18,880
Speaker 1: Gloria Swanson. I think talking about Joe's relationship with Gloria

548
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:22,560
Speaker 1: Swanson is a perfect segue into his family life because

549
00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:27,160
Speaker 1: that relationship kind of combined his business dealings with his

550
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:30,280
Speaker 1: personal dealings, because, you know, spoiler alert, he had a

551
00:33:30,360 --> 00:33:33,800
Speaker 1: romantic affair with her while also helping her with her business,

552
00:33:34,400 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 1: and just to sort of show you the kind of

553
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:41,720
Speaker 1: cutthroat businessman he was, he helped her establish Gloria Swanson

554
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:45,400
Speaker 1: Productions or I think it was called Gloria Productions. Yes,

555
00:33:45,440 --> 00:33:49,880
Speaker 1: it was called Gloria Productions, and he would use company

556
00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:52,800
Speaker 1: money to buy her gifts and she had no idea,

557
00:33:52,920 --> 00:33:55,240
Speaker 1: so he would buy her these big, lavish gifts. And

558
00:33:55,320 --> 00:33:59,760
Speaker 1: only after they broke up and their relationship sort of disintegrated,

559
00:33:59,800 --> 00:34:02,120
Speaker 1: did she realized that he the entire time had been

560
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:05,840
Speaker 1: using her own business funds from her production company that

561
00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:08,880
Speaker 1: he helped set up. So if that's not sort of

562
00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:11,359
Speaker 1: like emblematic of Joe Kennedy's whole vibe, then I don't

563
00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:12,800
Speaker 1: know what it is. I mean, it's like he was

564
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:17,080
Speaker 1: unfaithful to his wife, he believed in business above all else.

565
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:21,959
Speaker 1: I mean, he was ultimately earnestly helping Glorious Swanson take

566
00:34:22,040 --> 00:34:26,000
Speaker 1: control over her, over her business dealings as someone who

567
00:34:26,080 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 1: was before that at the mercy of the big studios.

568
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:32,000
Speaker 1: And then he also just believed in like business ethics

569
00:34:32,040 --> 00:34:35,000
Speaker 1: over personal ethics, Like he really felt like all was

570
00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:38,000
Speaker 1: fair in business, Like if he's in business with you,

571
00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:39,680
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter, if your friends doesn't matter, if your

572
00:34:39,680 --> 00:34:42,480
Speaker 1: family doesn't matter. If you know you're having an affair

573
00:34:42,520 --> 00:34:46,839
Speaker 1: with him, that's up to the lawyers to figure out later.

574
00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:49,000
Speaker 1: Like he's going to do everything in his power to

575
00:34:49,560 --> 00:34:50,319
Speaker 1: come out on top.

576
00:34:50,560 --> 00:34:55,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, tell it to the judge was his basicm O.

577
00:34:55,640 --> 00:35:01,279
Speaker 2: But Glorious wantson. I mean, for those you who maybe

578
00:35:01,320 --> 00:35:05,000
Speaker 2: aren't super familiar with her, she was the biggest Hollywood

579
00:35:05,239 --> 00:35:09,880
Speaker 2: star of the twenties and thirties, So that was another

580
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:14,799
Speaker 2: way in which Joe kind of showed his character. He

581
00:35:15,160 --> 00:35:19,399
Speaker 2: was so drawn in obviously by her celebrity and her

582
00:35:19,560 --> 00:35:25,560
Speaker 2: power in Hollywood, which is again a lot of these

583
00:35:25,719 --> 00:35:30,279
Speaker 2: patterns that he had interpersonally would be replicated by his

584
00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:32,560
Speaker 2: sons in the decades to come.

585
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:34,520
Speaker 1: I mean, it is just crazy to think, I know

586
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:38,000
Speaker 1: that we have basically debunked the idea that JFK had

587
00:35:38,040 --> 00:35:40,719
Speaker 1: any kind of consistent affair with Marilyn Monroe, and it

588
00:35:41,280 --> 00:35:44,640
Speaker 1: was potentially one or two interactions whatever. But the parallels

589
00:35:44,680 --> 00:35:48,160
Speaker 1: between JFK and Marilyn, who was of course the biggest

590
00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 1: Hollywood star of her time, and Joe and Glorius Watson

591
00:35:51,640 --> 00:35:55,480
Speaker 1: are just I mean, it really is like fatherlike son. Yeah.

592
00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:58,360
Speaker 1: But his business owner with her were really substantial. I

593
00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:02,040
Speaker 1: mean he apparently freelized as a talent manager, which is crazy.

594
00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:04,280
Speaker 1: I mean, he had his hands in so many different things.

595
00:36:04,600 --> 00:36:07,920
Speaker 1: So she was his highest profile client. She hired him

596
00:36:07,960 --> 00:36:11,279
Speaker 1: to restructure her personal and professional finances, which was it

597
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:13,200
Speaker 1: was a very difficult time. Not difficult, but it was

598
00:36:13,239 --> 00:36:15,000
Speaker 1: a very dramatic time for her because she was one

599
00:36:15,040 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 1: of the biggest stars of the silent era, and of

600
00:36:17,640 --> 00:36:20,200
Speaker 1: course her star had dimmed with the advent of talkies.

601
00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:24,279
Speaker 1: And he also had a sort of disastrous brief stint

602
00:36:24,320 --> 00:36:28,200
Speaker 1: as a producer. He helped produce this movie with Swanson

603
00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:31,880
Speaker 1: called Queen Kelly, which was never released, but then scenes

604
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:34,160
Speaker 1: of it were actually used in Sunset Boulevard, which is

605
00:36:34,239 --> 00:36:37,200
Speaker 1: kind of a fun a fun Hollywood fact. To transition

606
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:39,880
Speaker 1: from the Swanson of it all into his family life,

607
00:36:40,560 --> 00:36:43,600
Speaker 1: you know, the question becomes did Rose know? What was

608
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:46,480
Speaker 1: the Obviously they were all devout Catholics. It's not really

609
00:36:46,719 --> 00:36:48,680
Speaker 1: the Christian thing to do to cheat on your wife

610
00:36:48,680 --> 00:36:55,280
Speaker 1: with the Hollywood star. But Gloria Swanson once said about

611
00:36:55,400 --> 00:36:59,080
Speaker 1: Rose quote, was she a fool I asked myself? Or

612
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:01,400
Speaker 1: a saint? Or just a better actress than I was?

613
00:37:01,920 --> 00:37:05,680
Speaker 1: Which is a great clerics sos in court? So I

614
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:07,440
Speaker 1: think this is a good time. I think we should

615
00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about his courtship with Rose, and

616
00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:16,960
Speaker 1: then maybe you know, later on his his relationship with

617
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:18,399
Speaker 1: his children when he became a father.

618
00:37:19,480 --> 00:37:23,640
Speaker 2: The Kennedys are probably the most famous Catholic family in America,

619
00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:29,719
Speaker 2: and it's both in Joe's case and in the case

620
00:37:29,760 --> 00:37:33,000
Speaker 2: of his children, and has been this kind of long

621
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:39,440
Speaker 2: held paradox that they are both so visibly and identifiably

622
00:37:39,480 --> 00:37:46,400
Speaker 2: Catholic and also so visibly and identifiably serial adulterers. But

623
00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:50,680
Speaker 2: and we talked about this a little bit in our

624
00:37:50,800 --> 00:37:54,600
Speaker 2: episode with Matt Siman about the Kennedys and Catholicism, is that,

625
00:37:54,800 --> 00:38:01,520
Speaker 2: especially with Joe, the connection to Catholicism was almost entirely

626
00:38:01,560 --> 00:38:06,600
Speaker 2: political and kind of identitarian and not religious at all.

627
00:38:06,680 --> 00:38:09,800
Speaker 2: It didn't really seem there's no evidence that he had

628
00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:16,920
Speaker 2: any particular deep and deep interior spiritual life that was

629
00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:23,120
Speaker 2: definitely more of Rose's domain. And George, if you want

630
00:38:23,160 --> 00:38:25,000
Speaker 2: to want to talk a little bit about his courtship

631
00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:27,359
Speaker 2: with Rose, I think this is a great time for that.

632
00:38:28,400 --> 00:38:32,120
Speaker 1: So we already mentioned that Joe's family was a very

633
00:38:32,160 --> 00:38:36,520
Speaker 1: prominent family in East Boston, but Rose, to her credit,

634
00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:39,520
Speaker 1: was the daughter of the mayor of Boston, so you know,

635
00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:43,720
Speaker 1: she was also kind of like royalty in the Boston

636
00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:45,920
Speaker 1: area at the time, in a very kind of like

637
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:50,520
Speaker 1: Romeo and Juliet way, their families were true rivals. So

638
00:38:51,320 --> 00:38:54,680
Speaker 1: Rose was born Rose Fitzgerald. Obviously, she was the oldest

639
00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:58,480
Speaker 1: daughter of John F. Fitzgerald, who was known as Honeyfits

640
00:39:00,239 --> 00:39:04,279
Speaker 1: Honey Fits and PJ. Kennedy. So the two fathers were

641
00:39:04,360 --> 00:39:08,760
Speaker 1: democratic political rivals. But you know, much like many wealthy

642
00:39:08,840 --> 00:39:11,880
Speaker 1: arrival families, they also intersected a lot in the social

643
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:14,200
Speaker 1: scene of the time, and the two families ones even

644
00:39:14,280 --> 00:39:17,879
Speaker 1: vacationed together in Maine. So Joe and Rose actually met

645
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:21,279
Speaker 1: as kids before they before they started a romantic relationship.

646
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:26,040
Speaker 1: So Rose's father served two terms as a very popular

647
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:29,359
Speaker 1: mayor of Boston, and Joe and Rose started dating when

648
00:39:29,400 --> 00:39:32,600
Speaker 1: they were in high school. The mayor didn't approve they

649
00:39:32,719 --> 00:39:36,480
Speaker 1: kept dating in secret. Their favorite spot was a Christian

650
00:39:36,520 --> 00:39:39,160
Speaker 1: science church in Boston when they would meet up in secret.

651
00:39:39,760 --> 00:39:41,600
Speaker 2: Was a sexy place in my opinion.

652
00:39:42,239 --> 00:39:44,440
Speaker 1: I was about to say, but that seems to be

653
00:39:44,480 --> 00:39:46,120
Speaker 1: sort of part of the appeal. You know, there has

654
00:39:46,160 --> 00:39:48,520
Speaker 1: to always be some sort of religious element that they

655
00:39:48,520 --> 00:39:53,000
Speaker 1: are disobeying. Rose we've talked about before. I mean, she

656
00:39:53,160 --> 00:39:55,600
Speaker 1: is someone who catches so many strays and so much

657
00:39:55,600 --> 00:39:59,600
Speaker 1: as this Kennedy research, like even the New York Times

658
00:40:00,320 --> 00:40:05,120
Speaker 1: review of the Nasau Joe Kennedy biography refers to Rose

659
00:40:05,160 --> 00:40:09,120
Speaker 1: as a priggish, pious, humorless and deeply boring woman.

660
00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:13,200
Speaker 2: Which I love. I loved that it's.

661
00:40:13,040 --> 00:40:15,480
Speaker 1: Not even a direct quote from the book. I mean,

662
00:40:15,600 --> 00:40:18,600
Speaker 1: she she really just catches so many strays. I mean,

663
00:40:19,560 --> 00:40:21,880
Speaker 1: I myself was referring to her as a cold and

664
00:40:21,920 --> 00:40:25,080
Speaker 1: distant mother right before we started working this episode, because

665
00:40:25,080 --> 00:40:28,360
Speaker 1: it keeps coming up, and she really dealt with so

666
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:31,120
Speaker 1: much being married to him during her life. But one

667
00:40:31,200 --> 00:40:34,759
Speaker 1: of her central disappointments in her life was that she

668
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:39,040
Speaker 1: really wanted to attend Wellesley College, but her father enrolled

669
00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:41,480
Speaker 1: her in the Convent of the Sacred Heart, which is

670
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:43,840
Speaker 1: to be Cleary Catholic School, not an actual convent, but

671
00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:47,440
Speaker 1: it was obviously a much more strict and less liberated,

672
00:40:48,160 --> 00:40:50,680
Speaker 1: you know, young adulthood she than she could have had otherwise.

673
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:53,680
Speaker 1: And she said, even when she was, you know, in

674
00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:56,160
Speaker 1: her nineties, she said that her greatest regret was not

675
00:40:56,239 --> 00:41:00,920
Speaker 1: attending Wellesley. So I think there were attempts for her

676
00:41:00,960 --> 00:41:05,759
Speaker 1: to have a more liberated kind of life. And I

677
00:41:05,760 --> 00:41:07,880
Speaker 1: think at every point, you know, it's like either she

678
00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:12,239
Speaker 1: was under the under the guidance of her father or

679
00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:18,759
Speaker 1: dealing with Joe's various indiscretions. So something that's interesting is

680
00:41:18,760 --> 00:41:20,880
Speaker 1: that they had a seven year courtship because of the

681
00:41:20,960 --> 00:41:25,120
Speaker 1: combination of obviously their relationship being secretive for a very

682
00:41:25,160 --> 00:41:27,480
Speaker 1: long time, and then both of them being in school

683
00:41:27,480 --> 00:41:30,279
Speaker 1: and her being in a Catholic school, and in that

684
00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:34,000
Speaker 1: time Joe was in no way faithful. But according to

685
00:41:34,640 --> 00:41:37,680
Speaker 1: Harvard student logic, this is what it says in our

686
00:41:37,719 --> 00:41:40,080
Speaker 1: research doc, you could sleep with a string of chorus

687
00:41:40,120 --> 00:41:42,920
Speaker 1: girls and still remain loyal to your best girl.

688
00:41:44,200 --> 00:41:47,279
Speaker 2: So well, that's just scientific, that's just I mean, that's

689
00:41:47,320 --> 00:41:50,200
Speaker 2: just facts. Those are just the facts.

690
00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:53,800
Speaker 1: So that was the courtship. They got married in nineteen fourteen.

691
00:41:54,080 --> 00:41:57,160
Speaker 1: Rose was twenty four and exactly nine months later she

692
00:41:57,239 --> 00:42:01,160
Speaker 1: gave birth to their first child. That's those strong Catholic

693
00:42:01,760 --> 00:42:06,120
Speaker 1: genes there, And so she was with him, you know,

694
00:42:06,200 --> 00:42:08,040
Speaker 1: during all of this stuff that we've been talking about,

695
00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:12,120
Speaker 1: during his time in finance, in Hollywood and politics, she

696
00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:16,400
Speaker 1: was right there with him. She was an incredibly opinionated

697
00:42:16,560 --> 00:42:20,680
Speaker 1: and devoutly religious woman. Depending on who you asked, she

698
00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:23,160
Speaker 1: was either a cold and distant mother or a mother

699
00:42:23,239 --> 00:42:26,160
Speaker 1: that just cared about her kids, you know, following rules

700
00:42:26,200 --> 00:42:27,240
Speaker 1: and getting into Heaven.

701
00:42:27,600 --> 00:42:31,560
Speaker 2: Right, or a terrible bore or a terrible bore.

702
00:42:33,360 --> 00:42:36,719
Speaker 1: So that was Rose. But then I think I think

703
00:42:36,719 --> 00:42:39,719
Speaker 1: it's I think it's appropriate to end on sort of

704
00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:43,160
Speaker 1: talking about Joe as a father because in many ways

705
00:42:43,239 --> 00:42:49,279
Speaker 1: his successes and failures as a father were so consequential

706
00:42:49,320 --> 00:42:52,080
Speaker 1: for American history. I think it's like he set his

707
00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:57,719
Speaker 1: kids up to basically do whatever they wanted. I mean,

708
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:00,680
Speaker 1: one of the most shocking parts of this research is

709
00:43:00,719 --> 00:43:03,320
Speaker 1: that he left each of his kids with a trust

710
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:06,640
Speaker 1: fund that would be worth one billion dollars today with

711
00:43:06,719 --> 00:43:09,040
Speaker 1: the bee. So each of the kids, each of his

712
00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:12,399
Speaker 1: nine children were equipped with a billion dollar trust fund.

713
00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:15,239
Speaker 1: So it's sort of like, well, he raised them and

714
00:43:15,280 --> 00:43:18,239
Speaker 1: then they have one billion dollars to do whatever they

715
00:43:18,239 --> 00:43:21,480
Speaker 1: want with that. But what is your take on what

716
00:43:21,560 --> 00:43:23,480
Speaker 1: he was like as a father based on what we've read.

717
00:43:25,280 --> 00:43:28,120
Speaker 2: We'll be back with more United States of Kennedy after

718
00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:39,360
Speaker 2: this break, and we're back with more United States of Kennedy.

719
00:43:41,440 --> 00:43:44,440
Speaker 2: So you know, we talked about the kind of Irish

720
00:43:44,480 --> 00:43:49,640
Speaker 2: Catholic fatalism that he had, specifically as it related to himself,

721
00:43:50,200 --> 00:43:53,279
Speaker 2: and the fact that he grew up with a chip

722
00:43:53,280 --> 00:43:56,600
Speaker 2: on his shoulder and felt like an insider and an outsider,

723
00:43:57,320 --> 00:44:01,719
Speaker 2: and I think he it's it's no secret that he

724
00:44:01,800 --> 00:44:05,360
Speaker 2: pinned all of his his hopes and dreams for true

725
00:44:05,560 --> 00:44:09,200
Speaker 2: insider status on his children. He felt like he couldn't

726
00:44:09,200 --> 00:44:11,319
Speaker 2: be a true insider. He was always going to be

727
00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:15,319
Speaker 2: a little bit on the periphery, but his children were

728
00:44:15,360 --> 00:44:21,280
Speaker 2: going to be the ones who could achieve true insider status.

729
00:44:21,320 --> 00:44:27,920
Speaker 2: And boy was he right about that. He was, I mean,

730
00:44:27,920 --> 00:44:33,360
Speaker 2: according to this biographer, and we should say that David

731
00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:39,480
Speaker 2: Nassau was actually contacted by Teddy Kennedy when he was

732
00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:44,920
Speaker 2: alive to do this biography of joll Nasa agreed on

733
00:44:44,960 --> 00:44:47,840
Speaker 2: the condition that he would be given full access to

734
00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:50,200
Speaker 2: all of his papers and also that he would have

735
00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:54,400
Speaker 2: kind of full journalistic independence, that there would be no

736
00:44:54,480 --> 00:45:02,120
Speaker 2: censorship of what he could say based on the things

737
00:45:02,120 --> 00:45:04,719
Speaker 2: that he uncovered in the course of his research. And

738
00:45:04,760 --> 00:45:10,400
Speaker 2: this book is by all accounts, kind of almost like

739
00:45:10,480 --> 00:45:13,080
Speaker 2: The Power Broker about Joe Kennedy.

740
00:45:13,160 --> 00:45:14,320
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's like.

741
00:45:16,719 --> 00:45:19,279
Speaker 2: The Yeah. The New York Times book review referred to

742
00:45:19,320 --> 00:45:23,200
Speaker 2: it as a cinder block of a book. But yeah,

743
00:45:23,239 --> 00:45:26,480
Speaker 2: he was given he was given really full latitude by

744
00:45:26,640 --> 00:45:31,160
Speaker 2: the surviving Kennedy children to do what he wanted with

745
00:45:31,200 --> 00:45:36,200
Speaker 2: the information they gave him. And it seems as though

746
00:45:36,880 --> 00:45:40,400
Speaker 2: he was a very attentive father. He had nine children

747
00:45:41,040 --> 00:45:43,720
Speaker 2: and was away from them very often, but wrote these

748
00:45:44,880 --> 00:45:51,440
Speaker 2: long and attentive letters to each of them and really

749
00:45:51,480 --> 00:45:55,800
Speaker 2: did seem to care about each of his children as individuals.

750
00:45:56,239 --> 00:46:00,640
Speaker 2: Now because of the time, he really obviously focused on

751
00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:03,160
Speaker 2: his sons. We talked about this in the Unice Kennedy

752
00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:10,239
Speaker 2: Shreiver episode. But he also kind of was clearly one

753
00:46:10,280 --> 00:46:14,360
Speaker 2: of those dads who, especially at the time like believed

754
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:18,320
Speaker 2: that his daughters were very capable as well. It seems

755
00:46:18,320 --> 00:46:21,960
Speaker 2: like he was this larger than life presence. He was

756
00:46:22,000 --> 00:46:25,359
Speaker 2: extremely animated, he was handsome, he was photogenic, he was

757
00:46:25,440 --> 00:46:28,120
Speaker 2: a very when he was present. He was a very

758
00:46:28,160 --> 00:46:33,319
Speaker 2: hands on father. And that kind of contrast to the

759
00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:36,239
Speaker 2: image we have of Rose, which, as you mentioned, is

760
00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:41,160
Speaker 2: very kind of cold, priggish, almost none.

761
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:43,160
Speaker 1: Like I think of Rose as sort of like a

762
00:46:43,200 --> 00:46:46,400
Speaker 1: strict nun in a Catholic school. Yes, like that is

763
00:46:46,440 --> 00:46:49,200
Speaker 1: the vibe that I get, which is not a that

764
00:46:49,200 --> 00:46:52,560
Speaker 1: doesn't mean she's a villain, it's she is very strict

765
00:46:53,080 --> 00:46:55,359
Speaker 1: and believes in what she believes in, and a sort

766
00:46:55,400 --> 00:47:00,200
Speaker 1: of you know, she's raising nine kids, many of us not.

767
00:47:01,360 --> 00:47:04,480
Speaker 2: I certainly couldn't. But I think a lot about the

768
00:47:04,520 --> 00:47:09,840
Speaker 2: scene that we referenced in a past episode, and I

769
00:47:09,840 --> 00:47:12,120
Speaker 2: think it was like on one of the ocean liners

770
00:47:12,200 --> 00:47:17,200
Speaker 2: that the Kennedys took, and like Rose had her own

771
00:47:18,080 --> 00:47:22,120
Speaker 2: bedroom that was kind of just this like austere, convent

772
00:47:22,440 --> 00:47:25,279
Speaker 2: like room, and it reminds me a lot of I

773
00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:28,759
Speaker 2: don't know if anybody, I don't know if this is

774
00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:31,719
Speaker 2: gonna relate to anybody who isn't Catholic. But if you've

775
00:47:31,719 --> 00:47:36,720
Speaker 2: ever seen, like I've never like been inside a priest quarters. Wow,

776
00:47:37,160 --> 00:47:39,879
Speaker 2: I know that this is gonna sound weird, but like

777
00:47:40,440 --> 00:47:43,520
Speaker 2: you just like when I was a kid, I like

778
00:47:43,719 --> 00:47:47,920
Speaker 2: peeked inside the house, the rectory where the priests live,

779
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:52,040
Speaker 2: and it's very sad and austere. It's like a single

780
00:47:52,160 --> 00:47:55,000
Speaker 2: bed with a white pet spread and one cross on

781
00:47:55,080 --> 00:47:58,640
Speaker 2: the wall. And that's just kind of how I imagine Rose

782
00:47:58,680 --> 00:47:59,360
Speaker 2: to have lived.

783
00:48:00,280 --> 00:48:04,759
Speaker 1: And she also, speaking of her secluded quarters, she did

784
00:48:04,800 --> 00:48:07,960
Speaker 1: have this need to occasionally not be with her family,

785
00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:12,120
Speaker 1: like she had this need for solitude and for extended breaks.

786
00:48:12,160 --> 00:48:15,920
Speaker 1: I mean, at some point in nineteen twenty three, she

787
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:18,640
Speaker 1: took a two month vacation in California with just her

788
00:48:18,680 --> 00:48:21,319
Speaker 1: sister and left Joe in charge of the five kids

789
00:48:21,320 --> 00:48:24,280
Speaker 1: at the time. I love legend. I mean, it's very

790
00:48:24,520 --> 00:48:25,320
Speaker 1: it's very now.

791
00:48:25,760 --> 00:48:29,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, she had nine kids. She earned it.

792
00:48:29,680 --> 00:48:31,319
Speaker 1: It's really like she you know, it's like a woman

793
00:48:31,360 --> 00:48:33,439
Speaker 1: that would now write a New York Times best selling

794
00:48:33,520 --> 00:48:35,920
Speaker 1: memoir about her two month vacation from her kids and

795
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:37,360
Speaker 1: how it helped her find herself.

796
00:48:38,520 --> 00:48:40,600
Speaker 2: Apparently during her Eat Pray Love.

797
00:48:40,760 --> 00:48:42,640
Speaker 1: It was her Eat Pray Love. That's right after having

798
00:48:42,880 --> 00:48:48,480
Speaker 1: five kids. Apparently, Young Jack Young JFK said at the time, Gee,

799
00:48:48,520 --> 00:48:50,360
Speaker 1: you're a great mother to go away and leave your

800
00:48:50,440 --> 00:48:55,759
Speaker 1: children all alone. So it should be said, you know

801
00:48:55,760 --> 00:48:58,680
Speaker 1: we're talking about we really are falling into the trap

802
00:48:58,719 --> 00:49:03,360
Speaker 1: of romanticizing Joe in some way. It should be repeated

803
00:49:03,440 --> 00:49:05,600
Speaker 1: something we have said many times throughout this podcast, that

804
00:49:05,680 --> 00:49:09,200
Speaker 1: he did lobottomize his daughter. I mean that it cannot

805
00:49:09,200 --> 00:49:12,080
Speaker 1: be overstated that, you know, yes, he was an attentive

806
00:49:12,120 --> 00:49:16,080
Speaker 1: father to some of his children in some ways, but

807
00:49:16,160 --> 00:49:20,440
Speaker 1: he also did he was the reason why Rosemary was lobottomized.

808
00:49:20,560 --> 00:49:24,640
Speaker 1: And this book is interesting because it sort of lets

809
00:49:24,719 --> 00:49:26,120
Speaker 1: him off the hook in a way. It sort of

810
00:49:26,200 --> 00:49:29,239
Speaker 1: it really like insists that he did it because he

811
00:49:29,360 --> 00:49:31,640
Speaker 1: thought it was the morally right thing to do, and

812
00:49:31,680 --> 00:49:33,240
Speaker 1: then it was like a botched operation.

813
00:49:33,600 --> 00:49:36,799
Speaker 2: I think it was the like approved treatment, yes at

814
00:49:36,840 --> 00:49:42,360
Speaker 2: the time, for someone like Rosemary who had intellectual disabilities.

815
00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:51,560
Speaker 2: That certainly is a description that contradicts other descriptions that

816
00:49:51,600 --> 00:49:56,000
Speaker 2: we have seen of this, which is that like Joe

817
00:49:56,560 --> 00:50:01,040
Speaker 2: was some said like kind of you know, felt that

818
00:50:01,160 --> 00:50:03,759
Speaker 2: Rosemary was a liability and kind of did this as

819
00:50:03,800 --> 00:50:07,680
Speaker 2: a way to kind of hastily fix the problem that

820
00:50:07,840 --> 00:50:10,840
Speaker 2: was Rosemary, and it didn't work completely.

821
00:50:11,640 --> 00:50:15,880
Speaker 1: I mean after it happened, he literally didn't see or

822
00:50:15,920 --> 00:50:17,400
Speaker 1: speak to her for the rest of her life or

823
00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:19,480
Speaker 1: the rest of his life. Yeah, for those of his life.

824
00:50:19,880 --> 00:50:22,960
Speaker 1: I mean, if it's one thing to make a mistake

825
00:50:23,200 --> 00:50:27,319
Speaker 1: and to have to live with that, but I mean,

826
00:50:27,440 --> 00:50:29,560
Speaker 1: I think you can only describe it as cruel to

827
00:50:29,640 --> 00:50:33,680
Speaker 1: then completely ignore the child that you, whether purposefully or not,

828
00:50:34,280 --> 00:50:35,320
Speaker 1: kind of incapacitated.

829
00:50:35,680 --> 00:50:41,960
Speaker 2: And I definitely think that we all know men like

830
00:50:42,000 --> 00:50:43,720
Speaker 2: there were men and women like this of a certain

831
00:50:43,960 --> 00:50:47,600
Speaker 2: generation who you know, there are some people who make

832
00:50:47,719 --> 00:50:49,759
Speaker 2: a grave mistake like this and spend the rest of

833
00:50:49,800 --> 00:50:53,160
Speaker 2: their life atoning and trying to like right the wrong.

834
00:50:53,239 --> 00:50:55,919
Speaker 2: And then there are other people who make a grave

835
00:50:56,000 --> 00:51:00,920
Speaker 2: mistake and just try to keep moving forward and putting it,

836
00:51:01,000 --> 00:51:03,239
Speaker 2: put it in their rear view and pretend that it

837
00:51:03,280 --> 00:51:08,880
Speaker 2: hasn't happened. And I think Joe absolutely fell into the

838
00:51:08,960 --> 00:51:11,279
Speaker 2: latter camp. He doesn't. It didn't seem like he was

839
00:51:11,320 --> 00:51:15,160
Speaker 2: a particularly introspective person. He was someone who was always

840
00:51:15,160 --> 00:51:17,399
Speaker 2: moving forward, always wanting to get to the next thing

841
00:51:18,680 --> 00:51:20,720
Speaker 2: and kind of a bulldozer.

842
00:51:20,800 --> 00:51:24,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is a Kennedy trait. Like when we

843
00:51:24,239 --> 00:51:27,680
Speaker 1: interviewed Aileen McNamara about Yuenis Kennedy, she had a quote

844
00:51:28,719 --> 00:51:30,880
Speaker 1: either in her book or in one of the interviews

845
00:51:30,880 --> 00:51:33,800
Speaker 1: that we read that was, like, one thing that Kennedy's

846
00:51:33,880 --> 00:51:36,839
Speaker 1: can't do is introspection and self reflection. Like it's just

847
00:51:36,880 --> 00:51:41,080
Speaker 1: like you find entire diaries written by Kennedy's and it's

848
00:51:41,239 --> 00:51:44,319
Speaker 1: descriptions of you know, their days, their relationships, whatever, but

849
00:51:44,600 --> 00:51:48,040
Speaker 1: such a lack of self reflection and of like understanding

850
00:51:48,040 --> 00:51:54,680
Speaker 1: their own motives and their own beliefs and questioning things

851
00:51:54,719 --> 00:51:56,960
Speaker 1: that they think and whatever else. So I think it

852
00:51:57,560 --> 00:52:00,960
Speaker 1: absolutely is fitting that he was never able to really

853
00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:04,640
Speaker 1: grapple with this incredible sin that he committed to one

854
00:52:04,680 --> 00:52:05,400
Speaker 1: of his own children.

855
00:52:05,719 --> 00:52:11,480
Speaker 2: And maybe that's part of the overall enduring fascination with

856
00:52:11,520 --> 00:52:14,879
Speaker 2: the Kennedys, is that we have to keep looking back

857
00:52:14,960 --> 00:52:17,320
Speaker 2: because they won't they completely.

858
00:52:17,400 --> 00:52:20,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very true. Well, no, and there really is,

859
00:52:20,320 --> 00:52:25,200
Speaker 1: just like you know, you're sort of here just pumbling forward,

860
00:52:25,480 --> 00:52:27,480
Speaker 1: like it's like and now here we are and it's

861
00:52:27,600 --> 00:52:30,160
Speaker 1: RFK Junior and it's Jack Schlassberg and don't look back.

862
00:52:30,400 --> 00:52:33,000
Speaker 1: Just you know, I want to be congressman. I want

863
00:52:33,000 --> 00:52:35,239
Speaker 1: to ban vaccines like it doesn't matter. Let's go.

864
00:52:36,680 --> 00:52:38,920
Speaker 2: Everybody on board, everybody on board.

865
00:52:39,520 --> 00:52:42,720
Speaker 1: There are two small things I want to mention before

866
00:52:42,760 --> 00:52:45,239
Speaker 1: we end, because we sort of didn't get around to them.

867
00:52:45,320 --> 00:52:50,759
Speaker 1: One is the whole bootlegger thing. So one of the

868
00:52:51,440 --> 00:52:55,279
Speaker 1: I guess persistent rumors about Joe Kennedy was that he

869
00:52:55,320 --> 00:52:59,320
Speaker 1: was a bootlegger during prohibition. That is according to the

870
00:52:59,400 --> 00:53:03,440
Speaker 1: NASA book, which again is called patriarch. Not true, but

871
00:53:03,560 --> 00:53:08,440
Speaker 1: he did make millions from alcohol. So it's one of

872
00:53:08,440 --> 00:53:10,360
Speaker 1: these funny things. It's like, well, the rumor is false,

873
00:53:10,400 --> 00:53:12,319
Speaker 1: but he actually made even more money than the rumor

874
00:53:12,320 --> 00:53:17,839
Speaker 1: would suggest, just in like slightly shadier ways. So, I mean,

875
00:53:19,239 --> 00:53:22,960
Speaker 1: the first of all, his father did make money in

876
00:53:23,320 --> 00:53:25,200
Speaker 1: legal booze. I mean, he was a whiskey importer, He

877
00:53:25,239 --> 00:53:28,640
Speaker 1: owned saloons and liquor stores whatever. And then in his time,

878
00:53:28,800 --> 00:53:34,239
Speaker 1: Joe used his connections with Winston Churchill to secure contracts

879
00:53:34,280 --> 00:53:40,279
Speaker 1: with British alcohol brands including Doors and Gordon's Gin after prohibition,

880
00:53:40,440 --> 00:53:44,920
Speaker 1: so he then had exclusive deals importing all these British

881
00:53:45,080 --> 00:53:48,760
Speaker 1: liquor products, so he must have made I mean, imagine

882
00:53:48,800 --> 00:53:51,319
Speaker 1: like prohibition is over and you're suddenly in charge of

883
00:53:51,320 --> 00:53:54,719
Speaker 1: Gordon's Gin and doers, and that's not even enough for

884
00:53:54,760 --> 00:53:56,840
Speaker 1: you. You have to go produce me now, I know.

885
00:53:57,160 --> 00:54:00,799
Speaker 2: And also going back to what we were what we

886
00:54:00,800 --> 00:54:02,759
Speaker 2: were saying about him being a betting man and him

887
00:54:02,760 --> 00:54:06,239
Speaker 2: being so good at seeing trends before they happened, or

888
00:54:06,320 --> 00:54:09,840
Speaker 2: just seeing where the winds were blowing. When it looked

889
00:54:09,920 --> 00:54:14,040
Speaker 2: like prohibition was kind of on the horizon, he invested

890
00:54:14,080 --> 00:54:19,759
Speaker 2: a lot in glass bottle manufacturers or glass manufacturers where

891
00:54:19,840 --> 00:54:22,000
Speaker 2: their products could be used to make bottles, because he

892
00:54:22,640 --> 00:54:25,600
Speaker 2: knew that if prohibition were passed that there was going

893
00:54:25,640 --> 00:54:27,160
Speaker 2: to be a run on glass bottles.

894
00:54:27,640 --> 00:54:30,560
Speaker 1: In fact, it's even darker than that, because other people

895
00:54:30,560 --> 00:54:33,600
Speaker 1: were investing in glass bottles, and he actually did a

896
00:54:33,640 --> 00:54:36,480
Speaker 1: whole pump and dumb scheme on a glass company that

897
00:54:36,640 --> 00:54:42,520
Speaker 1: wasn't producing bottles. He basically like invested like artificially increased

898
00:54:42,520 --> 00:54:46,720
Speaker 1: the stock price of this company that was producing glass plates. Yes,

899
00:54:46,760 --> 00:54:50,200
Speaker 1: because he trusted that people that were uneducated would be

900
00:54:50,280 --> 00:54:52,719
Speaker 1: confused and just be like, well, it's glass. And then

901
00:54:52,800 --> 00:54:55,799
Speaker 1: basically like sold all the stocks and made money from

902
00:54:55,800 --> 00:54:58,600
Speaker 1: this company that was not doing anything that weren't at

903
00:54:58,600 --> 00:54:59,600
Speaker 1: such a high stock price.

904
00:55:00,160 --> 00:55:02,520
Speaker 2: So he wasn't a bootlegger. He wasn't a bootlegger, but

905
00:55:02,560 --> 00:55:07,360
Speaker 2: he was like an evil genius who profited from prohibition.

906
00:55:07,400 --> 00:55:13,080
Speaker 1: Nonetheless, yes, no, he profited from every chapter of America's

907
00:55:13,120 --> 00:55:17,520
Speaker 1: relationship with alcohol pre prohibition, prohibition, and post prohibition. I

908
00:55:17,640 --> 00:55:21,960
Speaker 1: want to just very briefly mention this one anecdote from

909
00:55:22,120 --> 00:55:27,520
Speaker 1: the Nassau book, because apparently he is the one who

910
00:55:27,600 --> 00:55:31,160
Speaker 1: uncovered this. This was not known before the book, and

911
00:55:31,200 --> 00:55:36,600
Speaker 1: I think it really feels very relevant to the concerns

912
00:55:36,640 --> 00:55:40,719
Speaker 1: we have currently in terms of our politics and our

913
00:55:40,760 --> 00:55:44,200
Speaker 1: relationship to the media, which is that I don't know

914
00:55:44,200 --> 00:55:48,319
Speaker 1: if you clocked this, Julia, but so there was this guy,

915
00:55:48,520 --> 00:55:51,280
Speaker 1: this journalist, Arthur Krock. He was the New York Times

916
00:55:51,280 --> 00:55:54,080
Speaker 1: bureau chief in Washington, and he was like one of

917
00:55:54,080 --> 00:55:59,520
Speaker 1: the biggest, most successful political writers at the time. I mean,

918
00:55:59,560 --> 00:56:03,320
Speaker 1: everyone read his column. He was like the Washington reporter.

919
00:56:04,239 --> 00:56:08,879
Speaker 1: And Joe Kennedy puts Arthur Krock on his payroll as

920
00:56:08,920 --> 00:56:12,200
Speaker 1: a speech writer while he's working as a journalist. So

921
00:56:12,239 --> 00:56:15,359
Speaker 1: what happens is Kroc writes speeches for Joe Kennedy and

922
00:56:15,400 --> 00:56:19,239
Speaker 1: then literally writes about those speeches as a political columnist.

923
00:56:19,480 --> 00:56:24,000
Speaker 1: So he's like praising speeches he himself wrote for Kennedy

924
00:56:24,040 --> 00:56:28,279
Speaker 1: without like disclosing it to anyone. And there's something about

925
00:56:28,280 --> 00:56:31,560
Speaker 1: that obviously is so infuriating, But there's also something that's like, Okay, well,

926
00:56:32,200 --> 00:56:36,800
Speaker 1: there's always been this sort of like crazy corruption built

927
00:56:36,840 --> 00:56:40,480
Speaker 1: into American politics. And I don't know, if someone were

928
00:56:40,480 --> 00:56:42,480
Speaker 1: to tell you that that is something Trump was doing today,

929
00:56:42,480 --> 00:56:44,799
Speaker 1: we would be like, wow, a break from norms.

930
00:56:45,160 --> 00:56:47,279
Speaker 2: Well it is, I mean, it is kind of something

931
00:56:47,280 --> 00:56:49,800
Speaker 2: that Olivia Nutsie was doing with RFK Junior.

932
00:56:50,800 --> 00:56:54,960
Speaker 1: It's so crazy. The parallels, the parallels are so funny. Like,

933
00:56:55,320 --> 00:56:58,759
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, the whole Noisy scandal. Part of it

934
00:56:58,840 --> 00:57:03,480
Speaker 1: was that she was basically, in some capacity allegedly secretly

935
00:57:03,520 --> 00:57:08,440
Speaker 1: advising him during his presidential run while also being herself

936
00:57:08,520 --> 00:57:10,960
Speaker 1: a star political reporter for New York Magazine and even

937
00:57:11,000 --> 00:57:15,799
Speaker 1: writing a profile, yeah of RFCA Junior himself. But yeah,

938
00:57:15,840 --> 00:57:17,960
Speaker 1: I just thought that was such a fascinating little tidbit

939
00:57:18,560 --> 00:57:23,160
Speaker 1: and it just it really is, like the Kennedy way

940
00:57:23,280 --> 00:57:26,840
Speaker 1: is just like having your fingers and everything and just

941
00:57:27,760 --> 00:57:29,720
Speaker 1: doing so many things at once that you're sort of

942
00:57:29,720 --> 00:57:34,919
Speaker 1: hoping no one notices all these little elements of dishonesty

943
00:57:34,960 --> 00:57:36,880
Speaker 1: and corruption and whatever else.

944
00:57:37,280 --> 00:57:41,040
Speaker 2: And I think it's funny because you know, we really

945
00:57:41,080 --> 00:57:46,160
Speaker 2: haven't seen any of the Kennedys since able to capture

946
00:57:46,600 --> 00:57:52,160
Speaker 2: his business genius, yeah, and his level of acumen when

947
00:57:52,200 --> 00:57:55,080
Speaker 2: it came to things like that. And obviously he set

948
00:57:55,160 --> 00:57:58,680
Speaker 2: his kids up on a major path to success. But

949
00:57:58,800 --> 00:58:01,520
Speaker 2: as we talked about on the Art Junior episode, you know,

950
00:58:02,840 --> 00:58:06,439
Speaker 2: for certain branches of the family that money did dry up.

951
00:58:08,520 --> 00:58:10,200
Speaker 2: Which does happen?

952
00:58:10,920 --> 00:58:14,440
Speaker 1: Something I would really love is like an infographic of

953
00:58:14,560 --> 00:58:19,560
Speaker 1: the Kennedy fortune in some and how much it has, like, uh,

954
00:58:19,600 --> 00:58:23,160
Speaker 1: and how it has evolved throughout the various generations and

955
00:58:23,200 --> 00:58:25,479
Speaker 1: throughout the various sort of branches of the family tree.

956
00:58:25,520 --> 00:58:29,200
Speaker 1: Because now that I know that the one billion figure

957
00:58:29,240 --> 00:58:31,920
Speaker 1: has really rocked me to my core. Now that I

958
00:58:32,000 --> 00:58:34,240
Speaker 1: know that that's what we're starting with, I'm kind of like,

959
00:58:34,280 --> 00:58:35,240
Speaker 1: what is happening?

960
00:58:35,760 --> 00:58:42,280
Speaker 2: Yes, totally so, Joe Kennedy remained kind of almost a

961
00:58:42,360 --> 00:58:47,320
Speaker 2: daily presence in his children's lives as they themselves ascended

962
00:58:47,480 --> 00:58:51,760
Speaker 2: to the highest ranks of power. He was in very

963
00:58:51,760 --> 00:58:58,760
Speaker 2: regular communication with JFK and RFK as they were moving

964
00:58:59,440 --> 00:59:03,960
Speaker 2: higher and high in the US government. He was still

965
00:59:04,120 --> 00:59:07,200
Speaker 2: kind of to them the smartest guy in the room

966
00:59:07,280 --> 00:59:11,000
Speaker 2: and the person to whom they would confide and ask

967
00:59:11,080 --> 00:59:18,000
Speaker 2: for advice. Unfortunately, he in December nineteen sixty one, so

968
00:59:18,120 --> 00:59:25,640
Speaker 2: not even a year into JFK's presidency, Joe suffered a

969
00:59:25,760 --> 00:59:30,960
Speaker 2: massive debilitating stroke and it was so consequential that they

970
00:59:32,040 --> 00:59:34,440
Speaker 2: just assumed he was going to die. A priest performed

971
00:59:34,520 --> 00:59:40,920
Speaker 2: last rites, but he actually lived for another eight years,

972
00:59:41,320 --> 00:59:47,360
Speaker 2: but he was completely unable to communicate with speech and language.

973
00:59:47,400 --> 00:59:51,520
Speaker 2: The only thing he could say was no. And so

974
00:59:51,760 --> 00:59:56,280
Speaker 2: it's kind of it's really again, this very tragic end

975
00:59:56,680 --> 01:00:00,919
Speaker 2: to a man who was by all accounts extreme boisterous

976
01:00:01,000 --> 01:00:05,040
Speaker 2: and charismatic and able to convince people of things via

977
01:00:05,120 --> 01:00:09,000
Speaker 2: his personality and his way with words, that he ended

978
01:00:09,040 --> 01:00:13,160
Speaker 2: his life for almost a full decade unable to communicate.

979
01:00:13,960 --> 01:00:19,320
Speaker 1: It's a real operatic life story from beginning to end.

980
01:00:19,440 --> 01:00:23,080
Speaker 1: I mean it's and in fact, I mean it's not

981
01:00:23,120 --> 01:00:24,560
Speaker 1: gonna be an opera, but in fact, there is a

982
01:00:24,600 --> 01:00:27,640
Speaker 1: show starring Michael Fassbender as Joe Kennedy in the works,

983
01:00:27,640 --> 01:00:29,280
Speaker 1: and I think he's really going to get Yeah, he's

984
01:00:29,280 --> 01:00:32,760
Speaker 1: really going to get the I don't know, the sort

985
01:00:32,760 --> 01:00:38,000
Speaker 1: of like presidential biography treatment, like I think, I think

986
01:00:38,480 --> 01:00:40,240
Speaker 1: it will be interesting to see what they do with,

987
01:00:40,320 --> 01:00:43,600
Speaker 1: you know, a seven hundred page I mean.

988
01:00:43,560 --> 01:00:47,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, he he was in so many ways. Obviously he

989
01:00:47,280 --> 01:00:52,320
Speaker 2: was like complicated and kind of evil and but also

990
01:00:52,440 --> 01:00:57,160
Speaker 2: just like a very tragic figure. But he seemed from

991
01:00:57,360 --> 01:00:59,400
Speaker 2: the jump he knew that his life was going to

992
01:00:59,440 --> 01:01:02,680
Speaker 2: be tragic in some way. I think he didn't know how,

993
01:01:03,600 --> 01:01:08,560
Speaker 2: but he had that kind of Irish Catholic pessimism. And

994
01:01:09,320 --> 01:01:13,080
Speaker 2: even before his massive stroke, he had already buried two

995
01:01:13,120 --> 01:01:18,400
Speaker 2: of his children, Joe Junior, who died in World War

996
01:01:18,400 --> 01:01:23,200
Speaker 2: Two and then Kathleen Kennedy, who died in a plane crash, and.

997
01:01:23,120 --> 01:01:26,680
Speaker 1: Not to mention, of course Rosemary's tragic fate friend and

998
01:01:26,720 --> 01:01:27,600
Speaker 1: what happened there.

999
01:01:28,840 --> 01:01:32,040
Speaker 2: But when he you know, when he was paralyzed and

1000
01:01:32,800 --> 01:01:38,720
Speaker 2: unable to communicate, he had to witness two more of

1001
01:01:38,920 --> 01:01:44,960
Speaker 2: his sons being taken quite violently from the world, and

1002
01:01:45,000 --> 01:01:46,800
Speaker 2: he couldn't express himself about it.

1003
01:01:47,400 --> 01:01:51,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's this passage in The Times review of the

1004
01:01:52,480 --> 01:01:56,400
Speaker 1: of the Joe Kennedy biography that I think really sort

1005
01:01:56,440 --> 01:02:00,520
Speaker 1: of says it all, which is, in the end, Joe

1006
01:02:00,600 --> 01:02:04,280
Speaker 1: Kennedy's suspicion that the cosmic deck was stacked against him

1007
01:02:04,360 --> 01:02:08,120
Speaker 1: was weirdly and tragically validated when in nineteen sixty nine,

1008
01:02:08,240 --> 01:02:11,760
Speaker 1: this vibrantly alive man who over a lifetime generated more

1009
01:02:11,880 --> 01:02:15,600
Speaker 1: energy than a nuclear reactor, died after eight years as

1010
01:02:15,640 --> 01:02:19,640
Speaker 1: a drooling, stroke afflicted paralytic, able to utter only one word.

1011
01:02:19,880 --> 01:02:19,960
Speaker 2: No.

1012
01:02:20,880 --> 01:02:25,400
Speaker 1: He had outlived four if his beloved nine children. Yeah,

1013
01:02:25,520 --> 01:02:29,919
Speaker 1: so I'm looking forward to Michael Fassbender taking his teeth

1014
01:02:29,960 --> 01:02:30,600
Speaker 1: into this role.

1015
01:02:31,080 --> 01:02:36,720
Speaker 2: It is really fascinating, and I just I think, you know,

1016
01:02:36,840 --> 01:02:41,160
Speaker 2: as we're nearing our last few episodes of the United

1017
01:02:41,160 --> 01:02:44,520
Speaker 2: States of Kennedy, I think it's really appropriate to kind

1018
01:02:44,560 --> 01:02:49,520
Speaker 2: of end at the beginning. And Joe is really the

1019
01:02:51,240 --> 01:02:57,400
Speaker 2: original tree from which all of the Kennedy fruit has

1020
01:02:57,440 --> 01:02:58,320
Speaker 2: been born out.

1021
01:02:58,240 --> 01:03:02,720
Speaker 1: Completely, and he's just such He's just full of contradictions

1022
01:03:02,720 --> 01:03:07,960
Speaker 1: and so emblematic of the kind of frustrating and frustratingly

1023
01:03:08,000 --> 01:03:11,440
Speaker 1: opaque sort of Kennedy ethos. I mean, on the one hand,

1024
01:03:11,640 --> 01:03:16,640
Speaker 1: you know, he's a complete and utter anti semite and

1025
01:03:17,120 --> 01:03:20,160
Speaker 1: like a shark when it comes to business. On the

1026
01:03:20,200 --> 01:03:24,360
Speaker 1: other hand, he said himself that he wanted to make

1027
01:03:24,360 --> 01:03:26,800
Speaker 1: all this money so that his children could dedicate their

1028
01:03:26,800 --> 01:03:29,640
Speaker 1: lives to public service. You know, on the one end,

1029
01:03:29,640 --> 01:03:33,280
Speaker 1: he has this chip on his shoulder about assimilating and

1030
01:03:33,320 --> 01:03:35,880
Speaker 1: being on top. But on the other you know, he

1031
01:03:38,560 --> 01:03:41,760
Speaker 1: has some sort of belief in the act of giving back.

1032
01:03:42,280 --> 01:03:44,400
Speaker 1: I mean, he's obsessed with image, but he also is

1033
01:03:44,440 --> 01:03:48,520
Speaker 1: an incredibly hard worker. It's he he's a you know,

1034
01:03:48,640 --> 01:03:52,320
Speaker 1: he's a biographer's wet dream. Really like, he's someone that, like,

1035
01:03:52,360 --> 01:03:54,960
Speaker 1: if you are a historian wants to write about a

1036
01:03:54,960 --> 01:03:58,120
Speaker 1: complicated white man, you know, you really can't find a

1037
01:03:58,120 --> 01:03:58,800
Speaker 1: better subject.

1038
01:03:59,640 --> 01:04:02,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it really like it sounds a little hokey,

1039
01:04:02,440 --> 01:04:06,800
Speaker 2: but it's his story is so uniquely American. It is

1040
01:04:06,880 --> 01:04:11,240
Speaker 2: just like, you know, besides the robber barons and like

1041
01:04:11,320 --> 01:04:15,440
Speaker 2: Andrew Carnegie and people like Robert Moses, you're kind of

1042
01:04:15,440 --> 01:04:21,520
Speaker 2: hard pressed to find someone who is more emblematic of

1043
01:04:21,840 --> 01:04:29,320
Speaker 2: the particular rising and falling and neuroses of American success

1044
01:04:29,440 --> 01:04:30,520
Speaker 2: than Joe Kennedy.

1045
01:04:31,400 --> 01:04:34,840
Speaker 1: Oh it's crazy. I mean, I can't help but of course,

1046
01:04:35,040 --> 01:04:37,320
Speaker 1: and on thinking about Trump yet again, because I'm like,

1047
01:04:37,520 --> 01:04:40,720
Speaker 1: I know, it's almost like Trump is the camp drag

1048
01:04:40,880 --> 01:04:44,640
Speaker 1: version of Joe Kennedy. Like it's like it's so it's

1049
01:04:44,680 --> 01:04:49,280
Speaker 1: like it's like he's going through the motions of being

1050
01:04:49,320 --> 01:04:51,800
Speaker 1: a great American man without any of the any of

1051
01:04:51,840 --> 01:04:55,160
Speaker 1: the substantial things you have to do to be one.

1052
01:04:55,280 --> 01:04:59,720
Speaker 1: And it's or maybe it's just a reflection of his time,

1053
01:04:59,840 --> 01:05:01,840
Speaker 1: like for his time, this is what it takes to

1054
01:05:01,880 --> 01:05:05,000
Speaker 1: be like the most famous man in America, and it's

1055
01:05:05,000 --> 01:05:07,280
Speaker 1: emblematic of like the twentieth century versus of the twenty

1056
01:05:07,280 --> 01:05:09,680
Speaker 1: first century. Who knows. But we wanted to end on

1057
01:05:09,760 --> 01:05:15,520
Speaker 1: Joe Kennedy because, as Julia said, it's just it's it's

1058
01:05:15,520 --> 01:05:17,040
Speaker 1: where all of this, it's where all of this came from.

1059
01:05:17,040 --> 01:05:20,919
Speaker 1: It's where the Kennedy ethos came from. And so that's

1060
01:05:21,000 --> 01:05:24,480
Speaker 1: Joe and we will be back. We will be back

1061
01:05:24,520 --> 01:05:26,760
Speaker 1: next week with the final episode of the United States

1062
01:05:26,760 --> 01:05:27,280
Speaker 1: of Kennedy.

1063
01:05:27,760 --> 01:05:31,760
Speaker 2: You guys sad we can't get said yet.

1064
01:05:31,840 --> 01:05:35,160
Speaker 1: We have one more episode, we have one research doc

1065
01:05:35,480 --> 01:05:35,960
Speaker 1: to read here.

1066
01:05:35,960 --> 01:05:39,440
Speaker 2: You're right, you're right, I'll suspend my sadness.

1067
01:05:38,840 --> 01:05:41,600
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we will see you next week, So

1068
01:05:41,920 --> 01:05:44,280
Speaker 1: subscribe and follow to the United States of Kennedy for

1069
01:05:44,320 --> 01:05:45,880
Speaker 1: all Things Kennedy every week.

1070
01:05:47,360 --> 01:05:50,240
Speaker 2: United States of Kennedy is hosted by Me, Julia Claire

1071
01:05:50,400 --> 01:05:51,320
Speaker 2: and George Severies.

1072
01:05:51,680 --> 01:05:54,360
Speaker 1: Original music by Joshua Tipolski.

1073
01:05:54,040 --> 01:05:55,800
Speaker 2: Editing by Graham Gibson.

1074
01:05:55,640 --> 01:05:57,280
Speaker 1: Mixing and mastering by Doug.

1075
01:05:57,160 --> 01:06:00,080
Speaker 2: Bame, Research by Dave Bruce and Austin.

1076
01:05:59,800 --> 01:06:02,120
Speaker 1: To Our producer is Carmen Laurent.

1077
01:06:02,360 --> 01:06:04,520
Speaker 2: Our executive producer is Jenna Cagil.

1078
01:06:04,720 --> 01:06:06,000
Speaker 1: Created by Lyra Smith.

1079
01:06:06,240 --> 01:06:08,720
Speaker 2: United States of Kennedy is a production of Live Heart

1080
01:06:08,800 --> 01:06:09,280
Speaker 2: podcast