November 26, 1947: Boston's Jailbird Mayor Comes Home

November 26, 1947: Jim Curley is released from the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut, his prison sentence commuted by President Harry S Truman. Upon his return to his hometown that day, the quintessential Boston politician is met with an adoring crowd.

James Michael Curley was born on November 20, 1874 in Roxbury, then a mostly-Irish neighborhood south of downtown Boston. His immigrant father died when James was 10 years old, and he went to work at menial jobs.

In the 1880s and 1890s, Boston politics were marked by growing Irish political power in opposition to traditional Yankee Protestantism. Curley involved himself in the local Roman Catholic Church and the Ancient Order of Hibernians, a fraternal benefit society that assisted Irish immigrants.

He acquired a reputation as a hustler who was willing to help others get ahead. Curley gained experience in the traditional practices of ward politics such as knocking on doors, drumming up votes, and taking complaints. He ran for a seat on the Boston Common Council in 1897 and 1898, and finally won in 1899. He was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1901, and to the upper house of the city legislature, the Board of Aldermen, in 1904.

He won that last election while he was in prison. He and Thomas Curley, no relation, had each impersonated an applicant for postal service jobs by taking the civil service examinations for them. The Boston Irish saw him as a man who stepped up for his own people. In baseball terms, he took one for the team. Everybody else in Boston saw him as a crook.

In 1909, he wanted to run for Mayor. So did a former Mayor and former Congressman named John F. Fitzgerald. And "Honey Fitz" had more political I.O.U.s than Curley. Fitzgerald struck a deal with Curley: He promised not to run for re-election as Mayor, and would support Curley for the U.S. House of Representatives. Each man won his respective election.

But Fitzgerald did run for re-election in 1913, and in Irish-American politics, breaking your word was simply not accepted. Curley wasn't having it. Thanks to a campaign aide, he found out that Honey Fitz had fooled around with a cigarette girl known as "Toodles," and threatened to reveal it. Fitzgerald dropped out, and Curley won election as Mayor for the 1st time. It wasn't all a bad year for Fitzgerald: His daughter, Rose -- at 24, the same age as the cigarette girl -- married the ambitious son of a behind-the-scenes Boston political figure: Joseph P. Kennedy.

Curley ran things like many big-city political "bosses" did: Doing favors for those neighborhoods, or even streets, that voted for him, and not for those who didn't. If your block voted for him, you got your garbage picked up, your potholes filled, and your snowy street plowed, all on time. If not, not. He became known as "the Mayor of the Poor" for how he got jobs for them.

But an older Irish politico and the State's Republican Protestant establishment teamed up, and another Irish Catholic politician opposed him in the 1917 election, and they split the vote, and a Republican won. Then the State legislature passed a law saying no Mayor of Boston could succeed himself. So when Curley won a 2nd term in 1921, he couldn't seek a 3rd in 1925. He could in 1929, and took office just as the Great Depression took hold, and his underhanded dealings were a godsend for Boston's poor.

In 1934, he ran for Governor of Massachusetts. He won. The idea was that he would not only use the office to teach the State's Republican Yankee Protestants a lesson, but also that it would be a springboard for a Senate run in 1936, and that would be a springboard to make him, as President Franklin D. Roosevelt would no doubt be leaving office after 2 terms, to become the 1st Irish Catholic to be elected President in 1940.

Of course, Joe Kennedy had the same idea for himself. And as a local boy who made good with the establishment, a North Ender who became a Harvard graduate, and the 1st Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, he thought he could work his way into the 1940 nomination.

But while he was every bit the able administrator that Curley was, Kennedy -- unlike his father-in-law, and, as it turned out, like his sons -- was no politician. Curley was much better organized, and had the common touch that Kennedy simply didn't have. At the 1936 Democratic Convention in Philadelphia, Curley led the Massachusetts delegation in a parade, with signs for his Senate campaign, and some signs saying, "WATCH 1940." (At this point, the idea of FDR running for a 3rd term had occurred to no one, not even to FDR.)

But while Curley's political skills made him ideal for the office of Mayor of Boston, or a Congressman for a Boston-based District, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as a whole was a very different constituency, and his skills were not a match for the Governorship. His tenure was a disaster, and even Massachusetts Democrats knew it.

Despite FDR being re-elected with a record 61 percent of the vote, Curley got just 41 percent in the Senate vote against Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., grandson of a famed Republican Senator. Of the State's 14 Counties, he won only Suffolk, which includes Boston. He almost cost the Democratic nominee to succeed him as Governor, State Treasurer Charles F. Hurley, the election: He won by only 28,000 votes, compared to Curley's 109,000-vote win 2 years earlier.

Still, for the rest of his life, while everyone called him "Mayor Curley," he was entitled to be called "Governor." An aide named William Kelly became known as "Up-Up Kelly," because, at every rally, he would take the stage, and tell the audience, "Up, up, for the Governor!"

He ran for Mayor again in 1937, but lost to Maurice Tobin. He ran for Governor again in 1938, defeating Hurley in the Primary, but lost the general election to future Senator Leverett Saltonstall. In 1940, with Nazi Germany posing an existential threat to democracy all over the world, FDR ran for a 3rd term, and, due to various circumstances, it was clear that, if there was ever going to be a Catholic President, it wasn't going to be either Jim Curley or Joe Kennedy. With the City Charter having been changed again, allowing Mayors to succeed themselves, Tobin ran for re-election in 1941, and Curley ran him, but lost.

In 1942, Curley ran for Congress again, and won. He was re-elected in 1944. In 1945, he and Kennedy made peace: Kennedy agreed to support Curley in yet another bid for a 4th term as Mayor, and pay off some of his debt, if Curley would refuse to run for re-election to Congress in 1946, opening the House seat for Joe's son, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Curley's race came first, so Joe didn't have a chance to double-cross him the way his father-in-law, John F. Fitzgerald, did 32 years earlier.

Running on a campaign of "Curley Gets Things Done," 67-year-old Jim Curley won his race in November 1945. Running on a campaign of "The New Generation Offers a Leader," 29-year-old Jack Kennedy won his primary in June 1946, and his general election in November 1946 -- while Maurice Tobin was elected Governor.

In June 1947, Curley was accused of accepting $60,000 from the Engineers Group, a firm Curley headed which was under investigation for war profiteering. He was found guilty of mail fraud and sentenced to 6 to 18 months in federal prison. Under current conditions, the American media and the Republican Party would have demanded his resignation. Curley did not resign: He remained Mayor while in prison.

Under pressure from the Massachusetts Congressional delegation, and in consideration of Curley's poor health, Truman commuted his sentence after only 5 months, and he came home to a hero's welcome. He had beaten the system once again -- if not fully.

City Clerk John B. Hynes served as acting Mayor during Curley's time in prison. Hynes ran against Curley in 1949, saying, "We cannot afford the city bosses anymore," and won. A new city charter was passed, moving the mayoral elections to the year before a Presidential election, instead of the year after. Hynes was re-elected in 1951, beating Curley again. Curley had first run for public office at the age of 24; he last did so just short of turning 77. He died on November 12, 1958, 8 days short of his 84th birthday.

He outlived his 1st wife and 7 of his 9 children, 2 of them dying on the same day. And that wasn't due to childhood illnesses, either, because these 2 weren't children anymore: Leo became so distraught at the death of Mary from a stroke that he had one, too. Curley had groomed his son James Jr. as a successor, but, while a student at Harvard Law, in the days before antibiotics, he died from a postsurgical infection. Two sons, George and Francis, survived him, but neither had children of their own. Francis couldn't: He was a priest. When he died in 1992, the Curley bloodline ran out.

But the Curley legacy did not. Much of what he built, including the expanded City Hospital, remains. In 1956, Edwin O'Connor published a novel titled The Last Hurrah, about Frank Skeffington, an old big-city Mayor and Governor running for Mayor one last time, and dying shortly after his defeat.

The novel was widely presumed to be about Curley, who told O'Connor he enjoyed the book, especially "The part where I die." It featured a priest telling the Skeffington family that the old man had made his peace with God, and that, if he had it to do over again, he would do things differently. And the old man opens his eyes, and says his last words: "The hell I would!" A film version, starring Spencer Tracy, premiered on October 22, 1958, a few days before the real Curley died.

There are not one, but two statues of Curley outside Faneuil Hall, across Congress Street from the new City Hall that Curley did not live to see. One shows him standing up, the other has him sitting on a bench.

Mayor Fitzgerald got an expressway named after him; Mayor Hynes, the city's Convention Center; Mayor/Governor Tobin, a bridge. Kevin White, the 2nd man to be elected to 4 terms as Mayor of Boston, and the 1st one allowed to do so consecutively, has a much taller statue a few feet away from Curley's. Yet he seems to be looking over his shoulder at Curley and Curley.

Aside from Fiorello La Guardia in New York, few big-city Mayors from as far back as the 1940s are fondly remembered by their cities today. But then, that's Curley's 4th term. His 1st began in 1910. And yet those statues are there, to remind everyone that, while they aren't very tall, they represent a giant of the city.

*

November 26, 1947 was a Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. Roger Wehrli, a Hall of Fame cornerback for the football version of the St. Louis Cardinals was born on this day.

Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. Two games were played in the Basketball Association of America, the league that became the NBA 2 years later. The New York Knicks beat the Philadelphia Warriors, 81-59 at the Philadelphia Arena. And the Baltimore Bullets beat the Providence Steam Rollers, 76-61 at the Rhode Island Arena in Providence.

And there was 1 game in the NHL: The Chicago Black Hawks beat the Boston Bruins, 5-3 at the Chicago Stadium.

November 10, 1940: Joe Kennedy Blows His Chance

The Kennedy family, 1938. Joe Sr. at center, with Ted on his lap.

JFK behind him, Bobby behind Ted, and Joe Jr. at right of top row.

November 10, 1940: A quote in The Boston Sunday Globe turns Joseph P. Kennedy from a man with a political future into persona non grata.

Joseph Patrick Kennedy was born on September 6, 1888 in Boston, the son of a Massachusetts State legislator, the grandson of a man who fled the Irish potato famine of the 1840s. Joe didn't quite belong to the street-level Boston Irish, and he certainly didn't belong to the city's English Protestant "Yankee" establishment -- and both groups let him know. This put not just a chip, but an entire potato on his shoulder: He saw anybody who wasn't openly a friend as an enemy. The saying, "Don't get mad, get even" has been attributed to him.

He took advantage of his father's connections, and got into Harvard University, outdoing the old Yankees at their own games. He did so again by making a fortune in the stock and commodity markets. He became the youngest president of any bank in America. During World War I, he became the manager of a shipyard, where he met the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In the 1920s, he made money legally through the film studio that became RKO, and illegally through bootlegging liquor with Prohibition in effect.

Apparently, he started the family's fascination with actresses. His wife, Rose, daughter of former Mayor and Congressman John F. Fitzgerald, a.k.a. "Honey Fitz," found out about his fling with actress Gloria Swanson, and gave him an ultimatum: Gloria, or the kids -- at the time, numbering 8. Joe chose the kids, and there would be a 9th, Edward Moore Kennedy, later to be known as Ted.

When Roosevelt, recovering from polio and rebuilding his career by getting elected Governor of New York, ran for President in 1932, Joe Kennedy led New England's support for him. FDR rewarded him by appointing him to run first the brand-new Securities and Exchange Commission -- thinking, Joe had broken a lot of the old rules, so who better to enforce the new rules -- and then the U.S. Maritime Commission.

FDR was re-elected in 1936. At the time, no President had ever run for a 3rd consecutive term. And the Vice President, John Nance Garner, was from Texas, and no Southerner had been nominated by a major party since 1848. So it was widely thought that the Democratic nomination for President would be open in 1940. At the very least, it would come down to Garner against whoever could unite the North against him.

But there was another "None of these had ever... " going on: No Roman Catholic had ever been elected President. Alfred E. Smith, FDR's predecessor as Governor of New York, had been the only Catholic nominee of a major party, in 1928, and had gotten clobbered.

Two prominent Catholic politicians thought they had a serious chance for the Democratic nomination in 1940. But they were both Bostonians: Joseph P. Kennedy, and James Michael Curley, the once-popular Mayor of Boston, who had been a rival of Honey Fitz. In 1936, Curley had gotten himself elected Governor of Massachusetts. He was older, higher-ranking, and had a lot more of what would later be called "political I.O.U.s" than Kennedy. But he also had a criminal record, including a brief prison stint.

But by the dawn of 1938, Curley's Governorship had proven poor, and his bid to be elected to the U.S. Senate that year was doomed. In contrast, FDR appointed Kennedy to a post he had strongly lobbied for: U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain. He would be the 1st Irishman, of any faith, to be America's "Ambassador to the Court of St. James." It wasn't a Governorship, or a Senate seat, but it gave him a national profile. At the age of 50, it looked like he was a man with a big political future.

Joe reveled in his post, and so did the rest of the family. They went to balls, dinners, regattas, and horse racing derbies. King George VI and Queen Elizabeth invited them to spend a weekend in April 1939 at Windsor Castle, where the younger daughters, Patricia and Jean, played with the royal daughters, the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. This was a few weeks before the King and Queen went to America to visit the Roosevelts. Joe liked that he had met the Windsors sooner than FDR.

But Nazi Germany was on the march, and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain supported "appeasement" of Germany, letting them have what they wanted if it would avoid a World War II, because, at that point, both Britain and France still had fresh memories of World War I, and were terrified of going to war again, and were unprepared for it. And Ambassador Kennedy supported the Chamberlain government.

It didn't work, and on September 3, 1939, Chamberlain received a Declaration of War from Parliament. Kennedy had seen Germany's war machine, and wanted America to stay neutral. FDR wanted to aid Britain. In May 1940, the Nazis invaded and conquered the Low Countries: The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. In June, it invaded and conquered France.

If not for Hitler, it is unlikely that FDR would have crossed the Rubicon of running for a 3rd term. But he did, because -- due to the effects of Congressional elections on the Democrats in 1938, and on the Republicans in 1930, 1932, 1934 and 1936 -- he didn't see anyone in either major Party who could stand up to Hitler in case Britain fell. Garner still stood neutral, and so FDR wouldn't even take him for a 3rd term as Vice President. (He took Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace instead.) And he was not going to take a "defeatist" like Joe Kennedy, who saw what might have been his best chance taken by FDR.

Chamberlain, already sick with cancer -- he would be dead before the year was out -- retired as Prime Minister. Winston Churchill, the foremost anti-Nazi in the country, was named Prime Minister. He was determined to oppose the Nazis with everything Britain had, including (he was hoping) more aid from America.

The royal family stayed put in London: The Queen said, "The children will not leave without me, and I will not leave without the King, and the King will never leave." After Buckingham Palace took some bombing damage from German aircraft, the Queen said, "Now, we can look the East End in the face."

In contrast, Kennedy and his family retreated to the countryside during the bombings of London. In so doing, he damaged his reputation with the British people. This move prompted the Prime Minister's son, journalist Randolph Churchill, to say, "I thought my daffodils were yellow until I met Joe Kennedy."

In a London music hall, to the tune of "Disobedience" by Winnie-the-Pooh creator A.A. Milne -- with its refrain of "James, James, Morrison, Morrison," not exactly predicting the lead singer of The Doors -- someone sang:

Joe, Joe

Kennedy, Kennedy

went to the Court of St. James

where he was frequently seen

with the King and the Queen

at cricket and other games.

Said Joe, Joe

Kennedy, Kennedy

before England went to war:

"Swapping stories

with Dukes and with Tories

is what God intended me for!"

But when the bombs

began to fall

all over London Town

said Joe, Joe:
"I must go.

England has let me down."

Who let who down?

On October 22, FDR recalled Kennedy, ending his Ambassadorship. Still, Kennedy agreed to support FDR over the last few days of the campaign, in exchange for FDR supporting his son, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., in a run for Governor of Massachusetts in 1942. (Joe Jr. had been a Delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1940, but had not voted for FDR there.) Joe Sr. gave a nationwide radio speech, urging Irish-Americans, and Catholics of all ethnicities, to stand up and vote for FDR. FDR told Kennedy he was pleased with the speech.

On November 5, FDR won a 3rd term, defeating the Republican nominee, Wendell Willkie. The following Sunday, November 10, with the Battle of Britain seemingly still going -- the Luftwaffe had stopped attacking on October 31, for weather reasons, and this is now accepted as the end date of the battle, but nobody knew that in 1940 -- an interview with Kennedy, in Boston, by Louis M. Lyons, appeared in his hometown paper, The Boston Sunday Globe:

He said, "It's all a question of what we do with the next six months. The whole reason for aiding England is to give us time... As long as she is in there, we have time to prepare. It isn't that they are fighting for democracy. That's the bunk. She's fighting for self-preservation, just as we will if it comes to us... I know more about the European situation than anybody else, and it's up to me to see that the country gets it."

He added, "Democracy is finished in England. It may be here."

That was it: The nation as a whole turned on Kennedy for that statement, much as a similar statement killed the political career of aviation hero Charles Lindbergh the following year. If he was thinking that the U.S. could keep out of war, enabling him to be elected President in 1944, and enabling Joe Jr. to be elected Governor in 1942, such thoughts came to a crashing end. He had blown his chance: At the age of 52, he had never run for public office, and never would, and would never serve in public office again.

Kennedy's 3 older sons all enlisted in the U.S. Navy. Robert did not see combat. In 1943, John F. Kennedy became a hero in the Pacific Theater of the war. But the following year, stationed in England, Joe Jr. volunteered for a dangerous mission, and was killed in an accident before it could reach the enemy. He was 29.

Joe Sr. spent the rest of his life blaming FDR for the death of Joe Jr. Joe Sr. knew that his chance of being President was gone, so he had moved his hopes onto Joe Jr., as the eldest son. Now, he moved the hopes to the 2nd son, John, a.k.a. Jack. In 1946, Jack was elected to the House seat that had once been held by his grandfather, Honey Fitz -- and by Honey Fitz's old rival, Curley -- and had been intended for his brother Joe. In 1952, he was elected to the Senate.

When Jack ran for President in 1960, he enlisted the help of Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., and it proved invaluable. (Apparently, old Joe didn't extend his grudge to FDR Jr.) In the general election campaign, JFK frequently used FDR as a model for the kind of Administration he would run if elected, saying that FDR "got America moving again," and that he wanted to do the same.

FDR's successor, Harry Truman, wasn't as supportive. Since, still, no Catholic had yet been elected, the old line used on Al Smith, "If he wins, the Pope will take over America," was used. But Truman, from the old Kansas City political machine, knew what really went on in politics, and said, "It's not the Pope that worries me, it's the Pop!" Jack won, and, as an elder statesman of the Democratic Party, Truman paid proper respect to his Party's leader, and came to realize that he was, if a young man, then one of substance.

But Joe Sr. suffered a paralyzing stroke in 1961, and could do nothing as Jack was assassinated while starting his re-election campaign in 1963, Bobby was assassinated while running in the Primaries in 1968, and Ted damaged his chances with a car crash in 1969. Joe died 4 months after that crash, on November 18, 1969, at the age of 81.

Strangely, though there had been 6 Jameses, 5 Johns and 4 Williams, there had never been a Joe to become President until 2020. But when it did, with Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., it was with an Irish Catholic.

*

November 10, 1940 was a Sunday. These games were played in the NFL:

* The football version of the New York Giants lost to the Cleveland Rams, 13-0 at the Polo Grounds.

* The football version of the Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Washington Redskins, 16-14 at Ebbets Field.

* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 7-3 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.

* The Detroit Lions beat the Chicago Bears, 17-14 at Briggs Stadium (later Tiger Stadium) in Detroit.

* And the Green Bay Packers beat the Chicago Cardinals, 28-7 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

Baseball was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. There were 2 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers and the Detroit Red Wings played to a tie, 2-2 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* And the Chicago Black Hawks beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-1 at the Montreal Forum.

August 12, 1944: Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Is Killed In Action

August 12, 1944: Lieutenant Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., U.S. Navy, is killed in action in World War II. His father's plans for him died with him.

Joseph P. Kennedy planned to become the 1st Catholic President of the United States. He planned for his children to follow him into public service. Certainly, he expected it of his eldest son and namesake, Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr., born on July 25, 1915, outside Boston in Hull, Massachusetts.

In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Joe Sr. to be the U.S. Ambassador to Britain. He brought his wife Rose and their 9 children with them. The older ones seemed to revel in the attention. But in 1940, with Nazi Germany bombing London, Joe Sr. made some remarks about how the Germans were superior to the British, and that, instead of joining the war against them, America should make peace instead.

He added, "Democracy is finished in England. It may be here." That was it: The nation as a whole turned on Kennedy for that statement, much as a similar statement killed the political career of aviation hero Charles Lindbergh the following year. Whatever chance he had to become President -- and it wasn't much, since he had never even entered an election, having only served in appointive offices -- was gone. But one of his sons could make it.

By that point, Joe Jr. had graduated from Harvard Law School, and, while in London, took courses at the London School of Economics. He had dated a socialite, Athalia Ponsell, who would later become an early TV game show personality, but rumors of an engagement between them appear to have been exaggerated.

In 1940, he had been a Delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago -- but had notably cast his vote for Postmaster General James Farley, a fellow Catholic, not for FDR. In spite of their growing rift, Joe Sr. made a deal with FDR: The Kennedys would support him for re-election, if FDR would support Joe Jr. for Governor of Massachusetts in 1942. (He would be 27, but the minimum age for that office, believe it or not, is just 18. William E. Russell became Governor in 1891, making him the youngest, at 34.)

The U.S. entry into World War II made a campaign for Governor impossible. Joe Jr., and his younger brothers John and Robert -- a.k.a. Jack and Bobby, respectively -- enlisted in the U.S. Navy. Joe Jr. trained as a pilot, and made plans to run for the U.S. House of Representatives when the war ended. On July 1, 1944, he was promoted to the rank of full Lieutenant, and had completed 25 combat missions. He was now eligible to return Stateside.

But Jack's heroism in the Pacific Theater of the war, saving his crew of PT-109, stirred something within Joe. He had done his duty, but he thought a future President needed a story. And being the brother of a genuine war hero wasn't enough. The idea that the skinny, often sickly, introverted and somewhat nerdy Jack could be President, rather than the handsome, athletic, extroverted Joe, was then considered ridiculous. But now, Jack had a story -- as Theodore Roosevelt, the hero of San Juan Hill, would have said, the "crowded hour" -- and Joe didn't.

So Joe volunteered for Operation Anvil: The use of B-24 Liberator bombers -- the Army's version, Operation Aphrodite, used the B-17 Flying Fortress -- that were converted into flying bombs and deliberately crashed into their targets under radio control from an accompanying bomber. They were to be used for precision attacks on well-protected targets. These "drone" aircraft could not take off safely on their own, and so a crew of two would take off, and fly to 2,000 feet before they activated the remote control system, armed the detonators, and ejected and parachuted from the aircraft.

Joe and his co-pilot, Lieutenant Wilford Willy, flew a Liberator for the Navy's first Aphrodite mission. Initially, two Lockheed Ventura "mother planes" and a B-17 navigation plane took off from RAF Fersfield, in Norfolk, England at 1800 hours (6:00 PM, local time) on Saturday, August 12, 1944. Then the BQ-8 aircraft, loaded with 21,170 pounds of Torpex explosive, took off to be used against the suspected rocket development site at Moyecques, France. V-2 rockets had taken off from there, and it was suspected that a cannon, to be known as the V-3 and capable of reaching London from across the English Channel, was in development there.

(Although the D-Day invasion had happened 2 months earlier, allied troops had not yet reached Moyecques. As it turned out, while the V-3 was used on Allied targets in the Battle of the Bulge later in 1944, the ones that were pointed toward London were destroyed by Allied bombings before they could be used -- just not this Allied bombing.)

Following Kennedy and Willy in a U.S. Army Air Force photo-reconnaissance F-8 Mosquito, to film the mission, were a pilot, Lieutenant Robert A. Tunnel; and a combat cameraman, Lieutenant David J. McCarthy. As planned, Kennedy and Willy remained aboard as the B-24 completed its first remote-controlled turn at 2,000 feet, near the North Sea coast. They removed the safety pin, arming the explosive package, and Kennedy radioed the agreed code, his last known words: "Spade Flush."

Two minutes later, and well before the planned crew bailout near RAF Manston in Kent, the explosives detonated prematurely, destroying the Liberator, and killing Kennedy and Willy instantly. Joe Kennedy Jr. was 29 years old; Wilford Willy, 35. None of their remains was ever recovered.

Joe Kennedy Sr. spent the rest of his life blaming FDR for the death of Joe Jr.: "That son of a bitch, he killed my boy!" It seems not to have occurred to Joe Sr. to blame the man who started the war, Adolf Hitler.

Joe Sr. knew that his chance of being President, and Joe Jr.'s chance, were both gone. Now, he moved the hopes to the 2nd son. In 1946, Jack was elected to the House seat that Joe Jr. had planned on running for. While running, he was touted as a war hero. When asked how it happened, Jack, who didn't have a planned answer, blurted out, "It was involuntary: They sank my boat." As I said, he had the story.

That House seat had once been held by their grandfather, Rose's father, John F. Fitzgerald, a.k.a. Honey Fitz, who had also been a popular Mayor of Boston. Honey Fitz lived to see it, dying in 1950. In 1952, Jack was elected to the Senate. In 1956, he was considered for the Democratic Party's nomination for Vice President at their Convention, under the Presidential nomination of former Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois, but he saw that Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee was more popular, and bowed out.

By the time Jack ran for President in 1960, he had overcome his introversion, and embraced his inner politician. After all, both of his grandfathers had been in politics. (Joe Sr.'s father, Patrick J. Kennedy, had served in both houses of the Massachusetts legislature.) He enlisted the help of Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., and it proved invaluable in the Primaries. (Apparently, old Joe didn't extend his grudge to FDR's sons.) Jack won, achieving his father's dream, if not his own.

But at one of the congratulatory dinners, Jack made an interesting point. He said that, like him, Joe would have won the House race in 1946, and the Senate race in 1952. Like him, Joe would have married a glamourous young lady. And, like him, Joe would have been considered for Vice President in 1956.

But Jack suggested that Joe would have gotten the nomination, and then, the Stevenson-Kennedy ticket would have lost to incumbent Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon as badly as they actually did; and Joe, because of his religion, would have gotten some of the blame. And that would have eliminated not just Joe, but also Jack, Bobby and Ted, that entire generation of male Kennedys, for Presidential consideration thereafter.

Instead, having had his national profile raised, but not having been tied to Stevenson's defeat, Jack became a viable candidate in 1960, and became the 1st Catholic President. And yet, despite prejudice against Catholics having almost disappeared in America, there would not be another Catholic President until Joe Biden was elected in 2020. Indeed, there wasn't even another Catholic Presidential nominee until the Democrats nominated John Kerry in 2004. But, for all the Catholic candidates who ran in the interim, their faith was hardly considered an issue at all.

Jack became one of the nation's most beloved Presidents, before his assassination. Bobby would be his Attorney General, then a U.S. Senator from New York, and a candidate for President himself in 1968; but he, too, was assassinated. Ted would be elected to Jack's Senate seat, and ran for President in 1980, but fell short.

Members of the next generation of the Kennedy family would achieve public office. Bobby's son Joe II and Ted's son Patrick were elected to the House, from Massachusetts (the seat held by JFK and Honey Fitz, and Speaker Tip O'Neill) and Rhode Island, respectively. Ted Jr. was elected to the State Senate in Connecticut. Bobby's daughter Kathleen Townsend and Eunice's sons Mark and Tim Shriver would be elected to the State legislature, all in Maryland. In the next generation, Bobby's grandson Joe III has served in the House from Massachusetts, although not in the same seat.

But Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. died in World War II. He never ran for office. He never married or had children. And he never sat for an interview on television. As a result, he is something of a "lost" Kennedy: What he would have become, we can only guess. Maybe his brother Jack was wrong, and Joe could have become what Jack became: The 35th President of the United States.

Perhaps it all worked out for the best: Jack, with Bobby advising him, got the world through the Cuban Missile Crisis. Would Joe, with Jack as his chief adviser, have been able to? There's no way to know.

*

August 12, 1944 was a Saturday. These baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees lost to the St. Louis Browns, 8-3 at Yankee Stadium. Browns 1st baseman George McQuinn hit 2 home runs. The Browns went on to win the American League Pennant, for the only time in their history, before moving in 1954 to become the Baltimore Orioles. McQuinn would help the Yankees win the 1947 World Series.

* The New York Giants lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 8-0 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Max Butcher pitched a 6-hit shutout. Mel Ott, manager of the Giants while still one of the National League's top sluggers, did not put himself into the game.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the Chicago Cubs, 2-0 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Red Lynn pitched a 5-hit shutout.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-4 at Fenway Park in Boston.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Cleveland Indians, 4-3 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Washington Senators, 12-5 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Boston Braves, 5-4 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Ray Mueller singled Dean Clay home with the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning.

* And the Philadelphia Phillies beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-0 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Dick Barrett pitched a 4-hit shutout. Stan Musial went 2-for-4, and only ended up missing the 1945 season in war service.