Kessler, Ronald. The Sins of the Father: Joseph P. Kennedy and the Dynasty He Founded. New York: Warner Books, 1997. 463 pages.

Joseph Patrick Kennedy (1888-1969) made big money by running booze during Prohibition with Frank Costello and other Mafia heavies, and by manipulating Wall Street with insider trading that would be illegal today. Next came $5 million from the movie business, using equally dubious methods, and a new girlfriend, Gloria Swanson. When the 1929 crash arrived, Joe made more money -- he had already sold off most of his holdings, and was selling short on the Street.

His political career began in 1934, when Roosevelt appointed him to head the SEC on the theory that it takes a thief to catch one. In 1938 Joe became U.S. ambassador to Britain, but resigned in 1940 due to his Cliveden Set sympathies for a policy of appeasement toward Hitler. After the war, Joseph Kennedy arranged favorable publicity and purchased votes for his son John. After JFK won in 1960, Joe instructed him to appoint Bobby as attorney general. Judging from this excellent biography, throughout his life Joseph Kennedy was a philanderer, an unprincipled manipulator, and a power-hungry wheeler-dealer, who supervised and financed the careers of his compliant sons. In 1961 he suffered a stroke. For the next eight years, he watched speechlessly from a wheelchair, with questionable comprehension, as one tragedy after another destroyed the dynasty he had created.
ISBN 0-446-60384-8

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