The Patriarch (42 page)

—

T
hough the signs were there for the reading, Kennedy had refused to recognize that Roosevelt was the source of the story. Roosevelt had known for a long time that Kennedy was criticizing him behind his back, but he had let it go as long as Kennedy had been of use to him, as a campaigner, SEC and Maritime Commission chairman, and liaison with the business community. Roosevelt could tolerate a great deal, but not Kennedy’s presumption in believing himself a viable candidate for president. He had no intention of breaking formally with his ambassador, but neither was he going to allow him to position himself as the president’s dear friend, confidant, trusted adviser, and possible successor.

Kennedy either did not understand what was happening or, if he did, thought the break in his relationship with Roosevelt was easily repaired. Part of his confusion may have been caused by the president’s demeanor. When they met for dinner at the White House only a few days after the published reports of Roosevelt’s “coolness” toward him, the president not only evidenced no sign of displeasure or lack of confidence, but gave him a new and critically important assignment.

Roosevelt asked him to meet, on his behalf, with Thomas Lamont, who represented J. P. Morgan on the U.S. Steel board of directors. Under intense pressure from the White House, U.S. Steel had agreed to cut prices to stimulate the economy. The understanding was that it would do so without cutting wages. Only after the agreement had been reached did the company inform the White House that it was going to cut wages. The president was furious. Across-the-board wage reductions in a major industrial sector would inevitably lead to decreased purchasing power, declining consumption, and sustained unemployment.

Unbeknownst to the press, Kennedy met with Lamont at the Waldorf-Astoria the morning after his dinner at the White House. He brought along Arthur Krock, whom he was taking to Europe with him the next day. Krock did not write about the meeting in his newspaper, but he took notes that he published years later in his memoirs. According to Krock, Lamont insisted to Kennedy that U.S. Steel had no choice but to cut wages now that the government had pressured it to cut prices and that “John L. Lewis [then head of the CIO] understood its position.”

Kennedy suggested that the company hold off wage reductions for at least ninety days to ascertain what, if any, effect the price cuts were going to have on revenues. If, after ninety days, there was proof that the price cuts were destroying the steel business, the company might then with impunity declare that it had no choice but to cut wages. Kennedy shared with Lamont a memorandum, written by Tommy Corcoran and Secretary Ickes and approved by Roosevelt, that recommended that if U.S. Steel agreed to cooperate with the White House and keep wages stable, the government would provide it and its subsidiaries with additional contracts while simultaneously depriving Bethlehem Steel of whatever competitive advantages it enjoyed from importing Canadian raw materials.

“Lamont,” Krock observed, “turned pale. He said he would not ask the Steel Corporation to be a party to a deal of that sort. He said it was unfair and wrong. He asked what business was going to do in contention with a government holding such ideas.

“Kennedy answered, ‘Tom, you are a respectable man. You can’t understand these people. But you’ve got to. There they are. You don’t have to be a party to any deal. I’m just telling you what you can expect if you hold off these wage cuts and follow my suggestion. But, forgetting the deal, my suggestion has greater value and some moral quality.’”

If U.S. Steel waited ninety days before cutting wages and then did so only after significant revenue loses, it would seize the upper hand. Under these circumstances, Roosevelt could not accuse the company “of failure to cooperate.”

As he had at the SEC, Kennedy positioned himself as the corporate sector’s best friend and protector and a man whose business sense and moral standing were superior to those of the New Deal politicians on whose behalf he was negotiating. Lamont did not formally sign off on any deal with the government, but U.S. Steel did not cut wages. Once again, Kennedy had done the president’s bidding—and done it well.
¹²

—

W
hatever satisfaction Kennedy might have enjoyed was quickly washed away. On Tuesday, the day before he was to sail back to Europe, the latest issue of the
Saturday Evening Post
went on sale with an article by Alva Johnston titled “Jimmy’s Got It” about James Roosevelt’s insurance business, which, it claimed, earned between $250,000 and $2 million annually. Joseph P. Kennedy was identified as one of his boosters.
¹³

Johnston was not the first to suggest that there was something slightly sinister about Kennedy’s friendship with the much younger Jimmy Roosevelt, but he was the first to put the thought into print. His accusations reverberated through the daily press. Jimmy checked himself into the Mayo Clinic to avoid having to comment.

Kennedy dismissed Johnston’s charges as malicious nonsense. Questioned by reporters as he prepared to depart for Europe on the
Normandie,
Kennedy declared that he was “not at all perturbed by” the article, which among other things had asserted “that he was the premier Scotch-whisky salesman in the United States.” He joked with the reporters that while he tried to be the best in everything, he was not the nation’s number one whiskey salesman. “This magazine article,” he continued, “tries to make me out a phony, but if all of it is as true as the part I have read about myself, it is a complete, unadulterated lie.”
¹⁴

The next day Kennedy boarded the
Normandie
with his two oldest boys and Arthur Krock. Joe Jr., having graduated from Harvard only days before, was off to London to serve as his father’s secretary, as Felix Frankfurter had recommended he do. Jack was going to take a long summer’s vacation before returning to Harvard for his junior year—or at least that was what his father had planned for him. “You really should give yourself plenty of rest. You are almost 21 now and really should take very good care of your health and you can only do that by getting lots of rest. I don’t like to close a letter with an admonition, but it is for your own good, and I am sure you realize it.”
¹⁵

—

T
here remained at the end of Kennedy’s whirlwind nine-day trip the same confusion about its purpose that there had been at the beginning. Kennedy had told reporters that he had come home for his son’s graduation, which he had missed, and for frank talks about the European situation with the president. He had told the German diplomats in London that the objective of his trip home was to brief the president on Germany. Only after he sailed did Drew Pearson and Robert Allen report in their “Washington Merry-Go-Round” column that despite “those sensational dope stories giving the real lowdown for Ambassador Joe Kennedy’s hurried visit . . . the real purpose . . . was to confer with Roosevelt about the tragic German and Austrian refugee problem. . . . In his private talks with the President, Kennedy reported that the situation of German and Austrian Jews is extremely hazardous and that unless a plan for their migration is worked out at the Evian conference thousands of them are doomed. On top of all the other refugee complications, Kennedy reported that the secret policy of the Nazis is to demand ransoms for the release of these people whom they claim they are anxious to get rid of.”
¹⁶

Pearson and Allen had most likely gotten their story from Kennedy. In June, just before leaving London, Kennedy had warned Viscount Bearsted not to expect much from the Évian Conference or from Myron Taylor, the president’s representative. He had no faith in Taylor’s competence and inferred, in his talks with Bearsted, that he would tell the president as much when he saw him. And that was precisely what he did.

Few if any commentators were using language as stark as Kennedy was employing in the early summer of 1938; few understood, as he appeared to, the catastrophic consequences that would follow the failure to negotiate a viable plan for rescuing German and Austrian Jews. Still, he was optimistic.

Hitler, he believed—and this was still, in mid-1938, the dominant view in Washington and London—was not a madman but a calculating, rational actor. He would be willing to let the Jews emigrate with some portion of their assets, but only if Germany was given something in return. The proceedings at Évian were mere window dressing. Even if the nations assembled there agreed to offer safe havens for every one of the German Jewish refugees, which was not going to happen, no Jews would be rescued until Hitler gave them permission to emigrate.

Kennedy’s position was clear: the only way to save the refugees was to negotiate a comprehensive settlement of Germany’s grievances, one arrived at without sound and fury and certainly without the chorus of condemnation that Kennedy believed organized Jewry was mounting.

Seventeen

M
UNICH

I
n public, Ambassador Kennedy remained unfailingly optimistic. Times were tough, dangers lurked around every corner, but there was no need for concern, he insisted, certainly no reason to panic. Privately, he was more frightened of the future than he had ever been. Hitler, he expected, would sooner or later make a move to annex the Sudetenland, that part of Czechoslovakia in which three million ethnic Germans lived; the Czech government would resist; Hitler would invade; France, under treaty with the Czechs, would declare war on Germany; the British would fight to defend the French; the Americans would be drawn in to assist the British. And then the worst would come. World war, in the midst of depression, would lead to economic collapse and economic collapse to political upheaval and the end of democracy in Great Britain and the United States.

“Kennedy was much more worried and pessimistic than he was during my last conversation with him,” the German ambassador reported to Berlin on July 20, 1938. “The idea that Germany might go to war against Czechoslovakia, which would then result in the intervention of England and France and, first indirectly and then directly, of the United States appeared to have a pretty firm hold on him.”
¹

The only positive news was from Barcelona. The Sacred Heart nuns whose release he had sought were on a British warship bound for London. “I decided to let the newspapers know of the rescue of the nuns,” Kennedy wrote in his diary, “for a variety of reasons. I wanted to emphasize that the Jews from Germany and Austria are not the only refugees in the world, and I wanted to depict Chamberlain and Halifax as human, good-hearted men, capable of taking an active interest in such a bona fide venture. I also wanted to give them credit for sending the warship after the poor women.”
²

The fact that the British government had intervened to assist a handful of refugee nuns did not, as the
New York Times
cautioned its readers on July 31, signify that it was willing to help Jewish refugees. On the contrary, the Chamberlain government had made it clear, most recently at the Évian Conference, that it had no intention of opening any territory in Great Britain or Palestine to Jewish refugees, though it claimed to have under consideration “the possibility [of] the small-scale settlement of Jewish refugees” in the colony of Kenya or another of the East African territories.
³

—

I
n late July, Rose and the children left for Cap d’Antibes on the French Riviera. Kennedy remained behind in London until the end of July, when Parliament adjourned. Kick, now eighteen, stayed behind as well. She had accepted an invitation to weekend at Cliveden, where she hoped to spend some time with William Cavendish, the Marquess of Hartington, one of Britain’s wealthiest and most eligible young bachelors. Billy Hartington, as he was known, was not just another British aristocrat, but a member of the Cavendish family, which since the 1530s had made its fortune and fame dispossessing Catholics of their assets and, more recently, opposing home rule for Ireland. Although Billy had not an ounce of anti-Irish or anti-Catholic prejudice in him, the same could not be said for his father, Edward William Spencer Cavendish, the 10th Duke of Devonshire, whom he would succeed.
⁴

On August 3, twelve days after the rest of the family had departed, Kennedy flew with Kick to Paris, changed planes for Marseilles, and continued by limousine to Cap d’Antibes, between Nice and Cannes. The Domaine de Beaumont, which he had rented for the month, was perfect except for the pool, which was filled with water pumped from across the hills and (to Rose’s disgust) changed only every few weeks. “It looks and feels so stagnant, so cloudy, so uninviting. Of course, I do not like the children to dive or put it in their mouths.” Fortunately, the luxurious and exclusive Hôtel du Cap was nearby, with its rocky cliffs, saltwater pool, outdoor pavilion, and celebrated restaurant. Kennedy rented a cottage-sized cabana for the family. Among the guests and visitors at the hotel that season were Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau and his family; Elsa Maxwell; tennis star Bill Tilden; the Duke and Duchess of Windsor; socialite decorator Elsie de Wolfe; and Marlene Dietrich, who was vacationing with her entourage, which this year included her husband, her latest lover, Erich Maria Remarque, her husband’s lover, and her thirteen-year-old daughter, Maria, who would try to spend as much time with the Kennedys as she could.
⁵

While awaiting her husband’s arrival, Rose tried to find household help, reliable secretaries, and milk for the smaller children and Jack. A whirlwind of self-improvement schemes for herself and the children, Rose took the children on a “cook’s tour” of the area, tried to interest Pat and Eunice in collecting autographs, and prodded them all to keep diaries. Now that her children were under one roof, she was able to focus her attention on fattening up Jack and slimming down the others. In her weight loss campaigns, Rose had her husband’s full approval and gratitude. Kennedy, the son of an obese mother, could not countenance extra weight on himself or his children. He watched his diet, exercised, and kept slim. He expected his children to do the same.

For the next few weeks, the Kennedy world would revolve around the patriarch. His word was law, as it had always been. He didn’t yell or scold or argue with his children. They knew he had a temper, but they seldom saw it. He said what he thought, with the understanding that his thoughts were deeper and more often correct than anyone else’s. When Jack refused to drink the milk his mother gave him because it tasted sour, his father explained that it tasted that way because it was unpasteurized. He had had some like it in Wales and had gotten used to it, which he suggested Jack could do as well. Jack drank his milk. When Rose outlined her plans for returning to the United States so that Kick could make her formal debut at Thanksgiving, Kennedy quickly but gently vetoed the idea.

The older children were free during the day to do as they pleased. Rose and the governesses took the little ones to the hotel for swimming and lunch. The family reconvened for dinner at the villa at a long table, the youngest at one end, their table manners monitored by their mother, the older children, at the other end, discussing “topics and issues proposed by their father. He ran the discussions like a master conductor,” recalled Dietrich’s daughter, Maria, “posing questions about world affairs, politics, the economy. Most of the questions were directed at the bigger boys, but the younger children, boys and girls, were expected to listen and contribute if and when they had something to add. He drew them out, prodded them to back up their arguments, filled in the blanks.”
⁶

A strange twist of fate had that summer of 1938 placed the ambassador together in the South of France with the man he had hoped to replace in the cabinet, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr. Kennedy, supremely confident in his own charm—and his ability to disarm potential or past opponents—attempted to draw Morgenthau closer to him by running down his colleagues in the cabinet. His particular bête noire at the moment was Secretary of State Cordell Hull, whom he referred to only as “the old man.” That spring and summer, Hull had pushed Kennedy hard for assistance in negotiating a bilateral trade treaty with Great Britain. Kennedy had been less than helpful because he thought Hull’s demands ridiculous. “The old man” simply didn’t understand business or international trade and was making requests that no British official was going to take seriously. Morgenthau listened carefully, and no doubt gleefully, as Kennedy explained why he was doing less than he might have to follow the instructions that came out of the State Department. He made mental notes of every disparaging word out of Kennedy’s mouth, and as soon as he returned to Washington, he reported it all to the president.
⁷

The Kennedys were not the most famous vacationers in Cannes that season, but they dominated the scene by sheer force of numbers and personality. Henry Morgenthau III, who was Jack’s age, remembered him and Joe Jr. “chasing a shapely brunette in and out of the swimming pool.” Joe Jr. led the way, with near godlike self-confidence, charm, good looks, and a well-chiseled athletic body; Jack, Morgenthau recalled, held back a bit. The rumors circulating among the other hotel guests were that he was suffering from some incurable ailment and had only two years to live.
⁸

While Henry Morgenthau III was a bit cool toward the Kennedys, thirteen-year-old Maria, Dietrich’s daughter, was smitten at first sight by the “wonderful” Kennedy children. “I would have gladly given up my right arm, the left, and any remaining limb, to be one of them. They looked, and were, so American. All had smiles that never ended, with such perfect teeth each of them could have advertised toothpaste.” She found their father “kind of rakish. For a man with such a patient little wife, who had borne him so many children, I thought he flirted a bit too much, but outside of that, Mr. Kennedy was a very nice man.” She saw a lot of the ambassador that August. He was, Maria recalled, “a regular visitor to our beach cabana” and made sure that everyone knew it.
⁹

—

D
espite the president’s growing coolness toward the ambassador, John Burns, who was now in private practice but remained a friend and associate of Kennedy’s, and Arthur Krock were confident that he still had a chance of winning the Democratic nomination in 1940—if Roosevelt decided not to put his own name forward. Kennedy’s strength was with the party’s conservative wing.

Burns cautioned him to reach out to the liberals. “I think it is important that you have the good will of the liberals, the kind of good will which I believe Tommy [Corcoran] is attempting to build up through Rabbi Wise, [labor leader] Sidney Hillman and the 100% New Dealers.” He suggested that Kennedy, while pursuing “a policy of friendliness to the leftish group, but no identification . . . accentuate your New England [roots] rather than your New York association. . . . There is a surprisingly strong sentiment throughout the country, and particularly in New England, in favor of your designation.” Burns recommended that Kennedy seek out at once “an expert politician” to begin lining up convention support for him.
¹⁰

Krock’s political advice was different, though not contradictory. “Your publicity continues good,” he wrote Kennedy, “and on every hand one hears golden opinions of what you are doing.” The problem was that much of that publicity was of the wrong kind. Kennedy’s strength as a candidate—his down-home, plain-folk, blunt-spoken appeal—was being lost in the sea of photographs of him in top hat and tails, entertaining and being entertained by English aristocrats. “I don’t want the impression to get round that you are anything of a prima donna. . . . I urge you to keep away for a goodish while from the Royal Family. Today again you were boating (in the paper) with the Windsors. My instinct tells me there has been enough of that, and I can see how it could be misused and distorted by unfriendly persons. Get some very different kind of social publicity for a while, and soon, is my unsought counsel.”
¹¹

Krock may have been getting his information about Kennedy’s growing reputation as a prima donna from his contacts at the State Department. Less than six months into his tenure, Kennedy was already making a nuisance of himself with continual complaints about procedures and pay rates. “I really believe you must be the most patient man in the world,” he wrote George Messersmith, assistant secretary of state for administration, “to have to sit there and take all these letters from fussy Ambassadors and not lose your sense of humor or temper. It is an art I wish I had cultivated in my youth. However, maybe you will get your reward in Heaven.” He then asked Messersmith to see that Joe Jr. was “added to my staff as my private secretary at a dollar a year. He is a graduate of Harvard and I want to keep him with me this year, because of the tremendous amount of personal work I find myself called upon to perform here. . . . The reason I am asking for diplomatic status for him is that I can use him on a lot of small events where they want members of the family, and to build up good-will.”
¹²

When he didn’t get an immediate answer, Kennedy followed with an angry telegram. Messersmith replied a few days later that he could not grant Joe Jr. diplomatic status, as department rules precluded ambassadors from appointing family members to their staffs. Kennedy accepted Messersmith’s explanation and apologized again for his impatience. “I was mad as hell when I didn’t get an answer for a month [really two weeks] to what I considered a very simple request regarding young Joe.”
¹³

Instead of working for his father at the embassy, Joe Jr. would spend his year abroad between college and law school traveling from capital to capital, embassy to embassy, from Paris to Prague, Warsaw, and Moscow, then the Scandinavian capitals, Berlin, The Hague, then Paris again, and if it could be arranged, Madrid. Wherever he went, he was treated like royalty. In Warsaw, Ambassador Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle, Jr., allowed him to read “all his dispatches.” When it came time to visit Spain, he asked his father to “write some letters to famous pals, possibly the Duke of Alba might do it, so they could show me the works. Also some letters from newspaper men to correspondents down there.”
¹⁴

—

O
n August 28, Kennedy ended his vacation and flew to Paris to attend a meeting on the Jewish refugee problem with Ambassador Bullitt, Myron Taylor, and George Rublee, who on Roosevelt’s recommendation had been appointed director of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, the organization set up at the Évian Conference. Rublee wanted to visit Germany as soon as possible to negotiate terms for the emigration of German and Austrian Jews, but he could not do so until he had some idea as to the number of refugees that Great Britain, France, and the United States would accept. Bullitt and Kennedy agreed to inquire of the French and British governments what they were prepared to do for the refugees.
¹⁵