The Kennedys at War by Edward J. Renehan Jr

Author:Edward J. Renehan, Jr.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography
ISBN: 9780385505291
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2009-05-18T16:00:00+00:00

16

Neither One Thing

nor Another

THE RADIO IN THE PARLOR of the Palm Beach mansion crackled once again with the voice of FDR on the evening of January 6, 1941, when the president enumerated the Four Freedoms in his State of the Union address and called upon Americans to be wary of the type of peace routinely dictated by tyrants—a peace from which no one could realistically expect the emergence of “international generosity, or return of true independence, or world disarmament, or freedom of expression, or freedom of religion—or even good business. . . . We must always be wary of those who with sounding brass and tinkling cymbal preach the ‘ism’ of appeasement.” The ambassador’s wife and others, including Jack, noted with some surprise the old man’s lack of anger as he listened to FDR’s remarks. They were even more surprised when they heard the ambassador speculate out loud, later in the evening, on the possibility that he might still play a role in the Roosevelt presidency. It seemed that—policy aside—he actually didn’t like the idea of being denied a place on FDR’s team.

A week later, flying from Palm Beach to New York, the ambassador serendipitously found himself seated beside naval officer Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr., to whom Kennedy loudly complained about FDR’s inept advisers, all of them too blind to see that England should be forced to make peace with Germany. At one point Kennedy became so agitated and loud that another passenger asked him to quiet down. Upon receiving agreement from young Roosevelt that the gentleman’s accent sounded British, Kennedy sneered: “I hate all those God-damned Englishmen from Churchill on down.” (The passenger in question subsequently reported Kennedy’s remark to British intelligence, which in turn reported it to Whitehall.)

Later in the flight, Kennedy mentioned Wendell Willkie’s recent endorsement of Lend-Lease, and speculated that Republicans would likely be in the market for a high-profile Democrat to denounce the measure and counterbalance Willkie’s desertion. The next day, the 14th, Kennedy telephoned Sumner Welles and told him he’d accepted an invitation from Rep. Hamilton Fish (R-NY)—FDR’s own congressman—to testify one week hence before the House Foreign Relations Committee on the topic of the Lend-Lease bill. While he had Welles on the phone, Kennedy also mentioned one other item: his intention to go on the radio the following Saturday, the 18th, to answer what he characterized as recent unfair criticisms of himself in public remarks by the president, and to give his views on current issues.

After consulting with FDR, Welles called Kennedy back on the 15th and—as Kennedy no doubt expected—invited the former ambassador to Washington for a meeting with the president. Kennedy met with Welles early in the morning of the 16th and subsequently went to the White House at ten-fifteen to see FDR. Interestingly, in what was either a gesture of familiarity, a sign of disrespect, or an intriguing combination of both, Roosevelt received Kennedy in one of the bathrooms of the family quarters. Wearing gray pajamas, FDR sat in his

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