The ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy at the Court of St. James's 1938-1940

Review by Booklist Review

As America's ambassador to Great Britain, Joseph P. Kennedy played a prominent role in the run-up to WWII. Appointed to the position by President Roosevelt, Kennedy sought to use the office to further his own Presidential ambitions. He played fast and loose as diplomat, ignoring directives from the State Department and criticizing FDR to others. As a result, Kennedy was both distrusted by other diplomats and often used by them. Known to spew anti-Semitic rhetoric, he doubted Britain's ability to prevail in any armed conflict with Nazi Germany, and he naively sided with defeatist Britons, too readily swallowing German diplomats' blustering. Moreover, he and his sons nakedly pursued their own financial and political interests and gave full rein to their insatiable libidos. Prolific biographer Ronald (Condé Nast, 2019) paints an unflattering portrait of Joe Kennedy, and details how FDR outfoxed him, ruining Kennedy's maneuvering to be the first Roman Catholic U.S. President. Ronald surveys the vast network of politicos and lovers whose lives intersected with Kennedy during his eventful and disastrous diplomatic career.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Biographer Ronald (Condé Nast) delivers a dense and unflattering portrait of Joseph Kennedy's tenure as the U.S. ambassador to the U.K. in the early years of WWII. Casting Kennedy as an anti-Semite and a dangerously inept diplomat, Ronald details his "burning" political ambitions, his role in wrangling the Catholic vote and "turning the tide of public opinion" in favor of Roosevelt in the 1936 election, and his push to become ambassador ("I will certainly be glad to have him out of Washington," Roosevelt said). Once in London, Kennedy enraged his Washington, D.C., overseers by repeatedly passing off personal opinions as official State Department stances, and angered his hosts by predicting a decisive defeat if Britain went to war with Germany. His resignation in 1940--after a disastrous visit to the U.S. in which he attacked Jewish film producers for making anti-Nazi movies and claimed the situation in England was "hopeless"--ended his public career, but Kennedy would eventually see his sons reach the political heights he had not. Ronald overstuffs the narrative with extraneous details (dinner party seating charts, accounts of Rose Kennedy's travels), lessening the impact of her subject's dangerous diplomatic blunders. Readers will wish this sprawling history had a sharper focus. (Aug.)

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Review by Library Journal Review

British American biographer Ronald (Condé Nast: The Man and His Empire) employs her transatlantic perspective in this unblinking narrative focusing on the ambassadorial years of a consequential founder of a political dynasty. Competitive, quick-tempered, ambitious, and financially brilliant, Joseph P. Kennedy (1888--1969) became the first Irish Catholic emissary to the United Kingdom from the United States. He intended this conspicuous position to clear a path to electing the first Irish Catholic U.S. president (either himself or one of his sons, he hoped). He also served the Franklin D. Roosevelt presidency by keeping the votes of his fellow Irish Catholics in the Democratic party column. Ronald spares readers the particulars about Kennedy's extramarital affairs, beyond mentioning the names of some of his paramours. Instead, she meticulously details other activities of Kennedy--frequently absent, and holding both pro-Fascist and isolationist views--during a harrowing time in U.S. diplomacy. Mining the requisite primary source materials, Ronald concludes that Kennedy supplied the money and motivation to fuel his sons' political campaigns. Readers might wish for more about the reactions of Kennedy's children (especially daughter Eunice) to their father's opinions. Ronald opines that Eunice's exemplary work for disability advocacy may have been inspired by the neurological and mental illness of her sister Rosemary. VERDICT Fans of popular history and biography should appreciate this addition to the ranks of books about the Kennedy family.--Frederick J. Augustyn Jr., Lib. of Congress, Washington, DC

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

A close look at a devastating diplomatic failure. British American biographer and historian Ronald examines two calamitous years in the life of business mogul, serial philanderer, and overbearing patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy (1886-1969), during which he served as America's ambassador to the Court of St. James's as Europe became engulfed in war. The coveted ambassadorship was a position Kennedy had lobbied for and believed he deserved as a reward for backing Franklin Roosevelt's election bids in 1932 and 1936. Roosevelt wanted to count on Kennedy's loyalty--and the 25 million Catholic votes he could bring if the president decided to run for a third term--while at the same time getting the opinionated businessman out of the U.S. Drawing on biographical and archival sources, Ronald portrays the gruff, egotistical Kennedy as spectacularly unsuited to a diplomatic post. Blunt, outspoken, and tactless, he was adept at films and finance but knew little about foreign policy. The author's detailed, well-populated narrative traces Kennedy's daily doings, family relationships, self-serving projects, womanizing, and fraught service, in which he repeatedly proved to be an embarrassment, making public statements, for example, without government approval. Quickly, he was "deemed insufferable" by the White House and the State Department. British officials called him "the worst sort of self-promoter." As German aggression intensified, Kennedy remained staunchly isolationist, partly because he wanted to keep his eldest sons out of combat, partly because of his fascist and antisemitic sympathies. He insisted that war could be averted by making sweeping economic and political concessions, such as letting Germany take over Europe. He backed Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policy and loudly insisted that Britain would be roundly defeated. Once Britain entered the conflict, Ronald writes, Kennedy "seemed incapable of understanding that Britain was at war for its very existence." A well-researched history of an egotist who toyed with world affairs. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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