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John F. Kennedy TLS after Tragic Death of His Brother
John F. Kennedy TLS after Tragic Death of His Brother
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Kennedy John

John F. Kennedy TLS after Tragic Death of His Brother

 

John F. Kennedy writes to his brother’s friend and former Harvard roommate Richard Flood, on duty at the Naval Air Station in San Francisco, asking for Flood’s essay for As We Remember Joe, a small memorial book that Jack assembled for his distraught parents and Joe’s close friends.

 

JOHN F. KENNEDY, Typed Letter Signed, to Richard R. Flood, ca. December 15, 1944, Boston, Massachusetts. On Ritz-Carlton Boston stationery. Includes envelope with typed addresses and air mail stamp. 2 pp., 5.375" x 6.875" Expected folds; very good.

 

 

Complete Transcript

The Ritz-Carlton

boston

Dear Dick Dick:

            As I hadn’t received your essay - I called your brother Charlie. He said that you had told your family you were sending it along to them to be forwarded to me, but that they hadn’t ever received it. If you sent it any time ago – it looks as though its been lost. This thing has got to go to press within about three weeks so I was wondering if you could send along another copy as soon as you possibly can. Mail it to me at the Ritz will be the best bet I think. I know it is a pain in your big fat arse to have to do it again but as you knew Joe so well I want to get yours in it. I saw the Malden Tornado last week – He’s rooming with Bill Rome in Newport. With that highlight from the passing parade I’ll let you get cracking on that essay.

                                                                        Best

                                                                        Jack

Got one from Reardon and Downes. There is a report around that Big Dick Harlow is going to be collecting goose eggs at Harvard next Fall. If true, I’m counting on indignant letters from Oahu the first time Harvard loses demanding a new coach – this should be sometime in late Sept. Getting that bastard is no. I on my post-war plans.

 

Historical Background

Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. was the oldest son of Joseph and Rose Kennedy, and both he and his father expected him one day to be President of the United States. He graduated from Harvard College in 1938 and attended Harvard Law School but left before finishing to enlist in the Naval Reserve. His tragic death on a dangerous mission on August 12, 1944, shocked the Kennedy family.

 

Within weeks of his older brother’s death, and still recovering from his own back surgery after the destruction of his PT 109 more than a year earlier, Jack Kennedy wrote to his and Joe’s friend Dick Flood, who was then at the U.S. Navy Supply School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. When Flood first heard the news of Joe’s death, he wrote to Jack: “You have lost a brother, and I have lost my closest friend.” Flood later transferred to the fleet off San Francisco, where Jack sent this letter.

 

Kennedy edited a group of twenty letters or remembrances that appeared in As We Remember Joe in 1945, privately printed by the University Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Richard Flood wrote one of the essays. In his essay, Flood related the story of the Harvard freshmen’s annual smoker, which he had organized. Joe Kennedy had organized a very successful one the year before, and he rescued Flood when things began to go wrong. Of Joe’s many attributes, Flood focused on “his innate understanding of human nature.” “In his passing,” Flood concluded, “I lost one of the rarest of life’s blessings, a true friend. His community, his state, and his country lost one of its brightest and most promising sons.”

 

Others who contributed essays included Lieutenant Timothy J. Reardon Jr. (1915-1993) of the Army Air Force and Robert C. Downes (1915-1982), both Joe’s friends, football teammates, and roommates at Harvard; Dr. Payson Wild Jr. (1907-1998), Joe’s advisor and a professor of government at Harvard; Commander James Reedy, U.S.N. (1910-1999), a graduate of the Naval Academy and the commanding officer of Squadron VB110, who allowed Joe to volunteer for his final mission; Professor Harold J. Laski (1893-1950), who was Joe’s professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1933-34; Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy Cavendish (1920-1948), one of Joe’s sisters, whose wedding he attended in London on May 9, 1944, and whose new husband was killed on September 9, 1944, less than a month after Joe’s death; Joseph F. Timilty (1894-1980), Joe’s friend and the Boston Police Commissioner from 1936 to 1943; Grandpa (John Francis Fitzgerald) (1863-1950), mayor of Boston from 1906 to 1908 and from 1910 to 1914, and of whose nineteen grandchildren Joe was the oldest; and Arthur Krock (1886-1974), Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist and chief of the Washington Bureau of the New York Times.

 

In the Foreword, Kennedy wrote, “My only hesitancy in collecting these essays was that I doubted that Joe, if he had had a voice in it, would have approved. But I have disagreed with him before, so here they are.”

 

Although Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. found the book so sad he could only read one brief essay at a time, he told Arthur Krock that it was “a splendid piece of work” and was grateful to Jack for producing it.

 

The “Malden Tornado” was Torbert H. Macdonald (1917-1976), Kennedy’s roommate and captain of the football team at Harvard. Macdonald was from Malden, Massachusetts, where the high school nickname is the Golden Tornados. Like Kennedy, MacDonald served in the U.S. Navy as a PT boat commander in the Southwest Pacific theater during World War II. He served as a Democratic U.S. Congressman from Massachusetts from 1955 to 1976.

 

Kennedy’s postscript refers to Harvard football coach Dick Harlow (1889-1962). He was head football coach at Harvard from 1935 to 1947, though Harvard suspended its football program during World War II and played no official games in 1943 and 1944. Harlow had been selected as Coach-of-the-Year in 1936 and the Ivy League Coach-of-the-Year in 1937, but clearly Kennedy did not like him. One month before Kennedy wrote this letter, the Melville PT Boat team defeated Harvard in an informal game 13-0. Harlow was also an expert in oology, the study of birds’ eggs, and was curator of oology at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, providing Kennedy with the opportunity for a double entendre. Harlow had more impressive records at Penn State, Colgate, and Western Maryland before coming to Harvard. His overall record at Harvard was 45-39-7, and during Kennedy’s time there, it was 16-14-2. In the fall of 1945, the revived Harvard football program had a record of 5-3. Their only shut-out was an end-of-season loss to archrival Yale, 28-0.

 

Richard R. Flood (1914-1969) was born in Massachusetts and graduated from Harvard College in 1939 and from its law school in 1946 as of 1942. Flood served as a lieutenant in the Navy during World War II. He received a master’s degree from the Harvard Business School cum laude in 1947. Admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1948, he established a practice in Lowell, Massachusetts, and was a partner in the firm of Flood, Valentine, and Foisy until his death.

 

Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. (1915-1944) was born in Massachusetts, the oldest of nine children born to Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy.  He graduated from the Choate School in Connecticut in 1933 and from Harvard College in 1938. While at Harvard, Kennedy participated in football, rugby, and crew and served on the student council. He then spent a year studying at the London School of Economics before enrolling in Harvard Law School. Both he and his father had aspirations that Joseph Jr. would become President of the United States, and he planned to run for Congress in 1946. Kennedy left before his final year at Harvard Law School to enlist in the U.S. Naval Reserve on June 24, 1941. He trained as an aviator and received his commission as an ensign in May 1942. In 1943-1944, he completed twenty-five combat missions from Great Britain. He then volunteered for an Operation Aphrodite mission in which two crew members took off in a bomber, activated a remote-control system, and parachuted from the aircraft. A ground crew then navigated the unmanned, explosive-laden bomber to crash into a target. In the Navy’s first Aphrodite mission, on August 12, 1944, Kennedy and his co-pilot took off in a B-24 bomber, set the controls, and armed the explosive package, which detonated prematurely over southeastern England, killing Kennedy and his co-pilot instantly. Kennedy received the Navy Cross posthumously.

 

 

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