Reviewing the first volume of a new biography of JFK by the Harvard historian Fredrik Logevall, P.J. O’Rourke reflects on why a “distant, hazy, reminiscent glow lingers” in the air around the Kennedys. The dynasty’s founding patriarch, Joseph, Sr., was, in O’Rourke’s words, “a priapic, stock-jobbing, isolationist, defeatist, Hitler-appeasing anti-Semite,” who was recalled from his absurd posting as ambassador to Great Britain and resigned in disgrace in 1941. Yet, although his son John Fitzgerald would, as president, uphold the U.S.-Israel relationship, his earlier judgments were less inspiring:
Sign Up For Our E-Mail List Get the latest from Mosaic right in your inbox
More about: Anti-Semitism, Isolationism, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, John F. Kennedy, Nazi Germany