Joseph P. Kennedy: The Mogul, the Mob, the Statesman, and the Making of an American Myth [Hardcover]

Ted Schwarz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 11, 2003

Advance Praise for Joseph P. Kennedy

"Ted Schwarz gives us a darker, and truer, picture of the founding father (and only Kennedy to ever make any money) than the habitual family spinmeisters and hagiographers."
–Axel Madsen, author of Gloria and Joe: The Star-Crossed Love Affair of Gloria Swanson and Joe Kennedy

What price glory?

He is best known as the patriarch of America’s most loved, hated, and talked-about family. Long before the Kennedy name became synonymous with wealth, political idealism, and agonizing tragedy, however, Joe Kennedy was on the move. This unflinching portrait of the man who sired three major twentieth-century political figures introduces copious new information about Joseph Kennedy’s questionable financial practices, his Hollywood exploits, his tenure as ambassador to Great Britain, and his relationship with organized crime. Drawing on previously untapped sources, author Ted Schwarz provides a rare peek into Joseph Kennedy’s secret activities and public accomplishments, including:

• Baseball scams that Kennedy concocted as an adolescent
• Kennedy’s cynical manipulation of Franklin Roosevelt’s son
• His business dealings with Al Capone
• Kennedy’s very public affair with actress Gloria Swanson
• How he transformed Hollywood studios into product manufacturers
• His dismal performance as ambassador to Great Britain
• And much, much more

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Publicity for this bio says that Schwarz (The Peter Lawford Story; Rose Kennedy and Her Family) "reveals for the first time the true story of this larger-than-life patriarch." One wonders how this can be the case, as Schwarz appears to base his book heavily on very loosely referenced secondary sources (he mentions interviews with "invisible" Kennedy staff members, but this is vague). The star witness Schwarz breathlessly announces in his intro-Barbara Gibson, onetime personal secretary to Rose Kennedy-is hardly referenced at all, but then neither is anyone else. Schwarz's 22 chapters have a total of only 92 endnotes. Even more problematic is the fact that Schwarz repeats a number of myths about Kennedy-the majority of them long ago debunked by other researchers and writers. Example: As more than one recent scholar has deduced, Joseph Kennedy did not buy 40,000 copies of John Kennedy's Why England Slept in order to make the book a bestseller. Other small errors compound to make Schwarz's tome annoying for any reader familiar with the Kennedy saga-and there are many. For instance: Joe did not cooperate, as Schwarz implies he did, in arranging for Jack to get posted to the South Pacific theater during WWII. Quite the contrary. Jack (as has been documented in several recent books) had to go around his father's back and over his head to get the assignment he craved. In sum, readers interested in JPK would do better to consult Ronald Kessler's The Sins of the Father, granddaughter Amanda Smith's Hostage to Fortune or Michael Beschloss's excellent Kennedy and Roosevelt. Photos.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* As the patriarch of the country's most-scrutinized family, Joe Kennedy received more than a little media attention--much of it salacious--during his life. But with this balanced and scrupulously researched biography, longtime Kennedy watcher Schwarz delivers a man whose complex personality and wide-ranging ambitions never fit within the journalists' simplifying assumptions. In Kennedy's much-publicized, Prohibition-era bootlegging, for instance, Schwarz finds more than a notorious collaborator with gangster Al Capone: he finds as well a shrewd business manager quick to recognize marketing opportunities and adept at finding capable subordinates. Such skills served Kennedy well in his ventures in filmmaking and politics. But appreciation for Kennedy's versatile talents does not blind Schwarz to the dark underside of the Kennedy mystique: the compulsive womanizing, the underhanded stock deals, and the cruel deception of wife and family. Schwarz particularly details the way Kennedy drove and manipulated his son John, whose grave medical problems he helped hide from the public during JFK's drive to the presidency. Yet behind all of Kennedy's exploitative behavior, Schwarz finds a surprising personal insecurity: repeatedly humiliated by WASP prejudice against Irish Catholics, Kennedy never stopped waging a personal war of vindication. A convincing portrait of a giant whose influence still shapes American life. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (September 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471176818
• ISBN-13: 978-0471176817
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #855,165 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Nothing new, March 15, 2005

By 

Michelle White "t" (Chicago, Illinois) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Joseph P. Kennedy: The Mogul, the Mob, the Statesman, and the Making of an American Myth (Hardcover)

If you have never read anything in depth about either the Kennedy family or Joseph Kennedy (sins of the father, the founding father) you might go thru this book and discover a revelation or two. If you have, then this book will come across as trite, boring and a bit fraudulent. By the latter, I mean the book promises new revelations, and delivers nothing more than the usual information that any "light" student of the Kennedys and Joe in particular already know. Worse yet, some of the contentions are incorrect and almost none of them are backed up by source materials in the book's note section. For instance, the author suggests that JFK's doctors knew he would not live thru a second term, and further suggest that the assassin's bullet spared us-Citizens that is- from watching our president die in office post 1964. Yet, the author offers absolutely no source information for this contention. Yes, anybody who has read more than two Kennedy books knows that JFK was ill throughout most his life; but that same person would know that most of his life threatening ailments were under control by the time he was elected president. (The fact that these illnesses were kept secret from the general public does not make them fatal within the second term, as the author implies!). There are other points in this book where it is evident that the author just plain does not like Joe Kennedy. That's ok. A little odium dripped on a biographical protagonist as deserving as Joe Kennedy can be forgiven- after all the man did do a great many horrible things in his life time. But when that level of despise effects the quality of ones research and ultimately hobbles ones effort, than a little restraint might have been appropriate. Don't bother with this book.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Pretty thorough lambasting of an unlikable character., October 9, 2003

By 

MLPlayfair (Ravenna, OH) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Joseph P. Kennedy: The Mogul, the Mob, the Statesman, and the Making of an American Myth (Hardcover)

If you're a follower of the Kennedy saga, there may be little new material here in the biography, JOSEPH P. KENNEDY. But it's interesting and highly readable. It covers everyone from JPK's ancesters in Ireland to Caroline and John Jr.'s generation. Jackie comes off well. But there are a lot of unpleasant things about Rose I'd never heard before. And there are things I knew about but never knew the truth behind -- like the tragedy of Rosemary.

As I read the book, I thought he made statements that would be considered controversial. But as I read on, and looked at the notes and bibliography, I realized Mr. Schwarz did indeed appear to be well informed. It's oddly written, with some really long sentences and some anecdotes stuck in totally out of any time sequence. If only for the insights into the worlds of politics and Hollywood, it's well worth your time. And it's pretty enjoyable.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Biography, Told In Right Historical Context, November 28, 2003

By 

andres j. ledesma (New York City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Joseph P. Kennedy: The Mogul, the Mob, the Statesman, and the Making of an American Myth (Hardcover)

The book was a great insight into JPK and gives the reader a more solid understanding of his descendants. It also sheds a great deal of light on anti-Irish sentiments and gives an almost psycho-social explanation for JPK's actions based on the discrimination he encountered as a youth. One review stated that there was too much anecdotal information that is not properly accounted for. This may be true. However, i always enjoy a biography that explains the subject matter (i.e.JPK) in the historical context in which they lived in. This was done masterfully by Mr. Schwarz.