https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/05/05/author_qa_the_kennedys_in_the_world.html
I recently interviewed Lawrence J. Haas via email about his new book, subtitled “How Jack, Bobby, and Ted Remade America’s Empire” (Potomac Books). The exchanges have been edited for length.
Larry, hundreds of books have already been written on Kennedys, so what inspired you to write this one?
I knew a bit about Jack and Bobby from my readings over the years, and I watched Ted up close while I worked as a journalist in Washington. I became intrigued when I noticed how involved Ted was with America’s global role because, after all, he’s known overwhelmingly for his domestic achievements (civil rights, labor, health, and so on). I became further intrigued when I took a closer look at what Ted was doing on foreign affairs, which was sometimes consistent with what Jack and Bobby did and sometimes quite different. So, I began to do some research, and I discovered a new, rich, fascinating story about all three brothers.
Everybody knows that Joe and Rose Kennedy groomed their boys for success. But what nobody seems to know is that Joe and Rose pushed them toward a particular kind of success: not just to attain power, but to look beyond America’s borders — to learn about the world, to care about the world, and, once they attained power, to shape America’s role in the world. Joe and Rose led discussions about the world with the boys over breakfast and dinner; Joe invited prominent people, like Charles Lindbergh and Henry Luce, to dine with them and enrich the conversations; Joe wrote to the boys about global events when he or they were away; Joe sent them to travel overseas when they were old enough; Joe arranged meetings for them with the world’s leading figures; and Joe secured jobs for each of them as foreign correspondents when they were overseas so they could position themselves as global thinkers.
And, over time, the brothers developed a deep understanding of the world’s different peoples, and cultures, and ideologies; a keen appreciation for the challenges they presented for the United States; and a strong desire to reshape America’s response to them. Once the brothers assumed power, they each applied what they had learned from their education about the world, and their travels, to put a distinct mark on the American empire. They each shaped broad issues of war and peace as well as America’s response to almost every major global challenge of their times.
In the prologue, you relate an obscure incident from September 1939. Just days after World War II began in Europe, a British passenger ship was torpedoed by a German sub, killing 112 people and stranding some 300 Americans in Ireland and Scotland. The U.S. ambassador to the U.K. sent his 22-year-old son to console the Americans? What was Joseph Kennedy thinking?
Well, he certainly wasn’t thinking about who was the best, or most appropriate, person to send. Jack Kennedy, who was working for his father, the ambassador, in London at the time, was just 22, he looked even younger than that, and he held no official government position. So, all he could do was listen to the survivors and promise to relay their views to his father. To them, his arrival was as much insulting as reassuring.
But, as his highest priority, Joe Kennedy wasn’t all that interested in finding the best person to greet the survivors. He saw an opportunity to continue grooming Jack, as he would Bobby and Ted, for prominent roles on the world stage. As it turned out, Jack did a nice job as his father’s emissary. He visited the survivors in hotels and hospitals, and he charmed them with his warm smile and soft touch. The London newspapers labeled him the “schoolboy diplomat” and an “ambassador of mercy” who “displayed a wisdom and sympathy of a man twice his age.” After Jack returned to the embassy, he kept working for the survivors and clashed with the bureaucrats who didn’t seem to share his sense of urgency. Eventually, Joe Kennedy arranged for the survivors to return home safely on a U.S. merchant ship.
In 1937, shortly after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s second inauguration, the two youngest sons, Bobby and Ted, along with the five Kennedy sisters, met Franklin Roosevelt in the White House. Did those children grow up with an expectation of having that proximity to power?
