Susan Ronald - The Ambassador: Joseph P. Kennedy at the Court of St. Jamess 1938-1940

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1940

On the same day Adolf Hitler traveled south to the French border with Spain for talks with Generalissimo Francisco Franco, U.S. Ambassador Joseph Patrick Kennedy bid his farewells to senior members of his team at the American embassy in London. As staffers shuffled out of the ambassadors office, some were dabbing tears from their eyes while others sported half-hidden sly smiles. Despite their differences of opinion about the ambassador, each one recognized that it was the end of a turbulent era of American diplomacy in Europe. In his two years and seven months in England, Joe Kennedy had been taken to the peoples hearts, then widely loathed. From the outset, he was feared and deemed insufferable by both the White House and the State Department.

When Kennedy stepped out onto Grosvenor Square for the last time, the ever-present international newshounds barked: What will you do now, Mr. Ambassador? Kennedystanding ramrod tall in his homburg and overcoat, perhaps some pounds thinner than his normal svelte selfmerely smiled. The press generally remarked that old Joe wore a somber, even sullen face. Some mistook it as regret at being recalled for consultation by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. But this was no recall. And there were scores of people who knew it. Joe Kennedy was going home to put FDR out of a job.

Predictably, photographers begged the ambassador to turn this way and that. Jim Seymour, one of Kennedys stalwart Hollywood friends, was asked to shake his bosss hand one last time for the cameras. Flanked on his right by his most private Mister Fix-It, London Jack Kennedy, the ambassador obeyed, seething. Minutes earlier, Kennedys press handler, Harvey Klemmer, had given him a final warning: For Heavens sake, do not say anything before you see Roosevelt at the White House, for if you do, it will mean, politically, gravely damaging things. So Joe hung onto his quick Irish temper and thought of his sons futures.

Then the throng unexpectedly parted, making way for the giant figure of Prince Monoluluthe feted horse-racing tipster wearing his ostrich-feathered crown, black and gold waistcoat, multicolored silk trousers, and matching frock coat. Monolulu bellowed in a deep, honey-coated voice his famous strapline, I have a horse. The photographers snapped away while Monolulu whispered to Kennedy the name of his favorite Thoroughbred running that day. Of course the ambassador had made use of Monolulus tips during his leisure time at the races with Englands ruling elite. So, Joe gave Monolulu a smile, not quite hiding his irritability. When, at last, Kennedy turned away from the embassy, he also left behind the pinnacle of his public service career.

Joe Kennedy was both bitter and aggrieved. Everything had changed since his arrival in Great Britain on March 1, 1938. Former Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, Kennedys great friend, was dying. Winston Churchill, whom Kennedy never trusted, had become prime minister on May 10, 1940. Joe had made acres of friends in high places. Then he lost the esteem of all but a select few. The ambassador had a long memory, particularly when it came to grudges, and would never forgive Churchill, who in Joes opinion had laid his military blunder in Norway that April at Chamberlains feet. Just the same, as Kennedy was driven south to Bournemouth in thickening fog to catch his clipper flight home, he never thought that the brickbats hurled at him by the British predated Churchills rise by over a year. Undoubtedly, the shots that stung the most came from the big guns of the White House and the U.S. State Department.

BY OCTOBER 1940, Kennedys outrage was aimed at the two-term Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt, for how shabbily the president had treated his ambassador to the Court of St. Jamess. Joe was determined to wreak his revenge on the presidents bid for a third term in just ten days time by urging everyone to vote for the Republican candidate, Wendell Willkie. Months earlier, Joe had told Clare Boothe Lucehis lover and the wife of publisher Henry R. Luce of Time, Fortune, and Lifewhat he planned to do. While Clare smoothed his ruffled brow, Joe might have forgotten that she was a die-hard Republican and could have had an ulterior motive in fueling his flames of indignation against the president.

And yet, Kennedys wife, Rose, had written to her husband a few weeks earlier that she wanted to tell Roosevelt she would guarantee to chloroform you [Joe] until after the election. This is the true story of Joe Kennedys rise to the pinnacle of his public service career as U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. Jamess in London and his fall from grace.