The Kennedy Men_ 1901-1963 - Laurence Leamer [99]
Joe Jr. was a more vociferous isolationist even than his father. He opposed U.S. lend-lease aid to Britain, calling it a prelude to the sending of men and the inevitable entry of America into the war. “I urge you to consider … that convoys mean war. I support all aid to England but we must not throw away our greatest asset, our hemispherical position…. We will only sacrifice everything by going in,” he said.
Joe Jr. took the politically daring step of supporting James Farley as the Democratic candidate for president, in opposition to Roosevelt’s third term. Joe Jr. had gone as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1940, and even knowing that Farley could not win, Joe Jr. insisted on voting for him on the first ballot.
Joe Jr. was speaking out against intervention, but his was a voice that could hardly be amplified. Joe Sr., for his part, knew that the moment had arrived when he might stand at the epicenter of history. Henry Luce wired him that he should return to the United States to tell the truth about Roosevelt’s war plans, the “ordinary antiquated rules” of loyalty and protocol be damned. Clare Luce sent another cable: WHEN YOU LAND TELL THE PRESS
AND THE PEOPLE THE TRUTH AS YOU HAVE ALWAYS TOLD IT TO ME.
In one moment Joe would pay back all the rebuke, the humiliation, the misunderstanding that he felt he had suffered. Roosevelt had word of Joe’s plans, and he raised the ante by refusing Joe’s request to return to the United States for consultation. Joe decided that if he could not come back in person, he would send his words back instead. He wrote a devastating article that he called “an indictment of President Roosevelt’s administration for having talked a lot and done very little,” and he vowed that if he was not called home, he would publish his article the week before the election.
Joe had simply had it with London. In early October, he told Lord Halifax that he intended to give up his ambassadorship, going out with a bang, not a whimper. Joe confided to the British diplomat that he had sent his article attacking Roosevelt to the United States, where it was scheduled for publication just before the presidential election.
Roosevelt understood that in a close election the whole future of his administration and his alliance with Churchill and the British might stand or fall on the actions of one man, and he reluctantly agreed to call Joe back to Washington. Roosevelt prepared for the meeting with all the staging of a great director. The newspapers were full of rumors about Joe resigning or coming out for Willkie. Knowing Joe’s brash propensity for mirthless candor, Roosevelt knew that he might well make some intemperate remarks to the scribes who waited at the airport in New York.
Roosevelt stipulated that when Joe’s plane landed, he was “not to make any statement to the press on your way over nor when you arrive in New York until you and I have had a chance to agree upon what should be said. Please come straight through to Washington on your arrival.” That would give Joe no time to meet with the president’s opponents, and no opportunity to stoke the fires of his fury even higher. The president insisted that Rose be invited as well, a brilliant and crucial part of his strategy.
Rose’s years as an ambassador’s wife had been the happiest moments of her public life. As the plane flew south to the capital, Rose pleaded with her husband not to resign. “The president sent you, a Roman Catholic, as ambassador to London, which probably no other president would have done,” she argued. “You would write yourself down as an ingrate in the view of many people if you resign now.” Rose went on to tell Joe that he risked hurting not only himself but also his own sons and their political futures. If Joe’s remarks won the election for Willkie, Joe would have his moment of revenge, but the retribution would be meted out not on him but on his sons and their careers. As long as the Democrats held forth their banner,