[MUSIC] When you hold your baby in your arms the first time, and you think of all the things you can say and do to influence him. It's a tremendous responsibility. What you do with him and for him can influence not only him but everyone he meets. And not for a day or a month or a year, but for time and for eternity. >> The Kennedy family was an interesting combination of immigrant and success story. Essentially, when you look at John F Kennedy and his grandparents on his father's side, they came over to this country after the potato famine in Ireland in the 19th century. They were dirt poor. John F Kennedy's father, Joe Kennedy, was really the first Kennedy to make it big. He did so in the stock market. Some say it was bootlegging, but others dispute that. But he did have a knack for investing in the right things, and getting out when the getting was good. And sure enough, Kennedy sensed the coming stock market crash in 1929. And took most of his holdings out prior to that, and so the family was very well set. It was one of the richest families in America. That was on John Kennedy's father's side. I think one of the reasons why Joe Kennedy decided to marry Rose Fitzgerald was because her family was very very successful. They were also of course Irish Catholic, but Rose's father, had been a Congressman and Mayor of Boston. Honey Fitz, he was called, Honey Fitz, Fitzgerald. And, so you had a combination very early on, of money and political power. And, so, that was the atmosphere in which John Kennedy was raised. Now, he didn't have a stress free childhood. He was a very sickly child, and was hospitalized for long periods. He seemed to catch everything that was going around. He was thought at one time to have leukemia. There was a period in which doctors wondered whether he would live. The family joke was that when a mosquito bit Jack Kennedy, the mosquito died. But he managed to recover every time that he got ill. He was never particularly vigorous. Which is ironic because I think most Americans see him as exceptionally vigorous as president. Partly, that was an illusion that we'll discuss later on. Essentially, John Kennedy had everything growing up, everything but good health. He had the best schools, the best clothes, the best food, the best supervision, the best family. That is not to say that the Kennedy's were universally accepted. In Massachusetts while Kennedy was growing up, the dominant strain. The strain that controlled most public offices was actually British, old American, the Mayflower descendants. And Irish Catholics, in particular were looked down upon. And I think this caused the Kennedy family, particularly Joe Kennedy the patriarch to be determined to overcome that. To be determined to defeat the Brahmins. And that became one of his guiding principles throughout life. A principle that he communicated frequently to his children. Now of course Joe Kennedy himself had political ambitions. Not only was he very wealthy, he became Franklin Roosevelt's Chairman of the Security and Exchange Commission. Then he was appointed to the Court of St. James's. He was the United States Ambassador to Great Britain in the late 1930's. However, Joe Kennedy made a terrible mistake. He believed that Adolph Hitler would prevail, that the coming war, if war it was to be, would be won by the Nazi's. And he was entirely too sympathetic to the Nazi cause. >> Favorite device of an aggressive minority is to call any American questioning the likelihood of a British victory, an apostle of gloom. A defeatist. I always believed that when the American people sent an ambassador to a foreign country, they expected him to report the facts as he saw them: the bright side and the dark side, the good things and the bad things, the strength and the weaknesses. I never thought that it was my function to report pleasant stories that were not true. >> This ruined Joe Kennedy after war broke out. Even though he contributed two sons to the cause. He had always hoped that his eldest son, Joe Jr., would be the first Irish Catholic President. And he had groomed him to be such. Jack was the second son. So he was the backup in a sense, but really wasn't all that interested in politics. I think if left to his own devices, he probably would've gone into publishing or journalism. But a terrible thing happened in World War II. Actually two of them, but one ended well, and one didn't. In August of 1943, John F Kennedy, while commanding as lieutenant JG his torpedo patrol boat, PT-109, in the Pacific, he was attacked by the Japanese and the PT-109 was sunk. Jack Kennedy was able to gather his surviving crew members together, to keep them motivated. He, despite serious back injuries that plagued him all the rest of his life. He was able to tow one very injured crew member to two separate islands, by grasping the strap of the life preserver in his teeth. If you can imagine, something like that. That was true heroism. He also organized the writing of messages asking for rescue on a coconut shell. It was a very impressive performance of true leadership and real heroism. And sure enough, JFK while he had to recover from his injuries, was awarded awarded the Navy and Marine Corps medal, as well as the Purple Heart, and other decorations. He was a genuine war hero. Tragically, in August 1944, just a year after JFK's unfortunate PT-109 incident in the Pacific, Joe Jr., who had been somewhat jealous of his younger brother's heroism and wanted to make his own mark, was killed in action on a very dangerous mission carrying a large load of bombs in a plane. And the plane exploded. And there's not a trace of him left. There's a memorial in Europe to him, and to his crew mates, but this devastated Joe Sr., and the entire Kennedy family. And it re-ordered Jack Kennedy's priorities. He became the political son. He became the repository of his father's hopes and dreams. And he knew whether he really wanted it or not, that his goal had to be to become the first Irish Catholic president. >> Well as a matter of fact I wanted to go back to writing. I had an older brother who had been at Delegate to the Democratic Convention in 1940 at the age of 24, who I thought would be a politician. Well, he was killed as a flyer in Europe. And when I cam back, I went to work first for a newspaper, the Chicago Herald American. Then I worked for INS for a while. And then the Congressional seat where I lived became vacant. And I ran then and was elected, and now I'm a politician. >> World War II, of course, ended in August of 1945. The following year, long term Congressman James Michael Curly, a former mayor of Boston, decided to run for mayor again, and he left his congressional seat. Well, it was right in the heart of Boston, right in the heart of the Kennedy strength and the Fitzgerald strength, and John F Kennedy just claimed the seat. He was only 29 years old. He was virtually unopposed. He began his congressional career in early 1947, although in a Republican Congress. The Republicans had taken control of both houses of Congress in the election '46. So he was a freshman Democrat with very little influence and really didn't make much of a mark in the House of Representatives. When you look at John F Kennedy's career, you see above everything the 1,036 days that he had in the White House. That is really the best indicator of his future potential and his historic value. But I think there's another important lesson as you look at the earlier John F Kennedy. His rapid rise to power from 1946 to 1960 as a congressman and senator, a Vice Presidential candidate in 1956, and then Presidential candidate in 1960, teaches it's own special lessons about the 35th President. One thing that we really should stress is that World War II scrambled not just the world power equation, but the domestic power equation in the United States. Suddenly you didn't have to serve for 30 or 40 years. You didn't have to be a senior member of congress to be taken seriously as a national candidate. Richard Nixon had proven that in 1952, as the Republican vice presidential candidate. And John F Kennedy was to prove it in 1960 as the Democratic Presidential candidate. The World War II veterans who flooded Congress, and there were dozens and dozens of them who got elected to the House and Senate, governorships throughout the country. They were anxious to serve. They wanted to make a difference and they were unwilling to wait. And that was a major change in American politics.
