Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. - Reduced Influence

Reduced Influence

Throughout the rest of the war, relations between Kennedy and the Roosevelt Administration remained tense (especially when Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., vocally opposed President Roosevelt's unprecedented nomination for a third term, which began in 1941). Kennedy may have wanted to run for president himself in 1940 or later. Having effectively removed himself from the national stage, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., sat out World War II on the sidelines. However, Kennedy did stay active in the smaller venues of rallying Irish-American and Roman Catholic Democrats to vote for Roosevelt's re-election for a fourth term in 1944. Former Ambassador Kennedy claimed to be eager to help the war effort, but as a result of his previous gaffes, he was neither trusted nor invited to do so.

Due to his philanthropy and a close friendship with Francis Spellman, Archbishop of New York (later Cardinal), during this time, Joseph Kennedy was invested as a knight of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, an honor which at that time he shared with just a few dozen Americans.

With his own ambitions to achieve the White House in self-inflicted ruins, Joseph Kennedy held out great hope for his eldest son, Joseph Kennedy, Jr., to seek the presidency. However, Joseph Kennedy, Jr., who had become a U.S. Navy bomber pilot, was killed over the English Channel while undertaking Operation Aphrodite, a high-risk, new way to use heavy bombers to strike German missile sites in France, in 1944. His bomber accidentally detonated early, before Kennedy could bail out. After grieving over his dead son, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., then turned his attention to grooming his second son, John F. Kennedy, for a run for the presidency. After serving as a member of the House of Representatives beginning in 1946, and then a U.S. Senator beginning in 1952, the younger Kennedy entered the Presidential election in 1960, and won it.