The Greek is a fictional character on the HBO drama The Wire, played by actor Bill Raymond. The Greek is the head of an international criminal organization involved in narcotics and human trafficking.^[1] The Greek is a mysterious figure involved in numerous criminal activities. His given name is never mentioned on the show, and though he is known only as "The Greek", he has stated (in the episode Port in a Storm) that he is not actually Greek. A quiet and unassuming man, the Greek prefers to keep a low profile, operating all of his business through his lieutenant Spiros "Vondas" Vondopoulos. His smuggling organization operated from a small diner in Baltimore for years, and while Vondas would conduct business the Greek would listen in quietly at the counter. Nick Sobotka, upon seeing the Greek identify himself, was amazed that the shadowy figure had been in plain sight the entire time.

Despite his calm appearance, the Greek is cunning and ruthless, and only interested in facts that make him more money. Series creator David Simon has said that The Greek is an embodiment of raw unencumbered capitalism.^[2] Anyone interfering in this process is eliminated immediately, and he prefers to leave victims headless and handless to hinder identification.

The Greek's smuggling operation includes importing sex trade workers, illicit drugs, stolen goods and chemicals for drug processing. He bribes union stevedores to move containers through the Baltimore port for him and uses his muscle, Sergei "Serge" Malatov, to run containers back and forth from the port to his warehouse, a front managed by "Double G" Glekas. The Greek supplies the major drug dealers in East Baltimore with pure cocaine and heroin, using Eton Ben-Eleazer to move his drugs. His chief client is Proposition Joe, but he is also affiliated with smaller drug dealing organizations like those run by "White Mike" McArdle. His sex trade interests in Baltimore include a brothel run by a madam named Ilona Petrovitch, bringing in girls from eastern Europe. He manages to avoid prosecution for his crimes because an FBI counter-terrorism agent named Kristos Koutris tips him off if a criminal investigation gets too close. It is suggested he and Vondas may serve as federal informants.

Biography[link]

Season 2[link]

The Greek began to draw police attention in Baltimore when his contact at the docks, Frank Sobotka, became the target of an investigation. At the same time a container of thirteen dead young women intended for the sex trade was discovered at the docks, triggering a high-profile homicide investigation. The container belonged to the Greek and the girls were killed by a crewman onboard the vessel that had delivered them. The ship's crew had been paying the girls for sex and when one of the girls refused, she was killed. The crewman responsible dumped her overboard and collapsed the air pipe to kill the remaining women. The Greek had Sergei track the crewman down, interrogated him personally, and had Vondas kill him.

As the investigation continued the police were able to link Eton and Sergei to the drug smuggling operation. When police began tracking containers as they left the port, The Greek and Vondas began to close down the operation temporarily by dumping their cell phones and stealing "clean" containers. Persuading Sobotka to keep the smuggling operation going he bought further protection from Agent Koutris by betraying a load of Colombian cocaine, giving him time to destroy incriminating evidence in the warehouse and Glekas' store.

The Greek recognized that the investigation was too extensive to stop and made plans to leave, sending Vondas to assure Proposition Joe that supply of drugs would continue albeit with new faces. He attempted to buy Sobotka's silence with promised legal aid for his son, but when he learned from Koutris that Frank was planning to turn informant he had the union man killed. Although Frank's nephew Nick Sobotka was able to identify The Greek in a photo and Sergei was pressured to give up the location of his hotel suite, Vondas and the Greek had already boarded a flight to Chicago. Aware that the Greek and Vondas were gone, the police left the investigation behind and moved on to the drug dealers he supplied.

Seasons 4 & 5[link]

The Greek continued to supply "Proposition Joe" Stewart, who formed an organization with other drug dealers called the New Day Co-Op to provide The Greek's product to them in exchange for reduced violence and sharing of territory. When Omar Little steals an entire shipment of heroin from the Greek's men as it is being delivered to Stewart's people, Marlo Stanfield demands a meeting with Spiros "Vondas" Vondopoulos in order to allay his fears that Stewart was responsible.^[3][4] Once Stanfield is satisfied, he waits for the Major Crimes Unit's investigation into his activities to cease and then moves to establish a direct relationship with Vondas and the Greek. After getting in communication with Vondas through former soldier Sergei,^[5][6] Marlo eventually sells himself as Joe's replacement by convincing the Greek that he requires an insurance policy in the form of a replacement for Proposition Joe, in the event that anything should happen to him. Realizing that Stanfield will move against Stewart regardless of his approval, the Greek accepts Marlo's proposal to act as an "insurance policy," knowing that it will mean Joe's death.^[7][8]

After Stewart's murder, Stanfield meets with Vondas to initiate their new business relationship.^[9][10] Stanfield's tenure proves short lived when he is forced into retirement by an investigation, and the other Co-Op members purchase the connection from Stanfield. In the closing scenes of the series finale, Slim Charles and Fat-Face Rick take over meeting with Vondas while the Greek listens quietly in the background.^[11][12]

References[link]

Eben Moglen
Born	(1959-07-13) July 13, 1959 (age 52)
Occupation	Professor of Law and Legal history at Columbia University, Director-Counsel and Chairman, Software Freedom Law Center
Website
http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu

Eben Moglen is a professor of law and legal history at Columbia University, and is the founder, Director-Counsel and Chairman of Software Freedom Law Center, whose client list includes numerous pro bono clients, such as the Free Software Foundation.

Professional biography[link]

Moglen started out as a computer programming language designer^[1] and then received his bachelor's degree from Swarthmore College in 1980, where he won the Hicks Prize for Literary Criticism. In 1985, he received a Master of Philosophy in history and a JD from Yale University. He has held visiting appointments at Harvard University, Tel Aviv University and the University of Virginia since 1987.

He was a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall (1986–87 term). He joined the faculty of Columbia Law School in 1987, and was admitted to the New York bar in 1988.^[2] He received a Ph.D. in history from Yale University in 1993. Moglen serves as a director of the Public Patent Foundation.

Moglen was part of Philip Zimmermann's defense team, when Zimmermann was being investigated over the export of Pretty Good Privacy, a public key encryption system, under US export laws.^[3]

In 2003 he received the EFF Pioneer Award. In February 2005, he founded the Software Freedom Law Center.

Moglen is closely involved with the Free Software Foundation, serving as general counsel since 1994 and board member from 2000 to 2007. As counsel, Moglen was charged with enforcing the GNU General Public License (GPL) on behalf of the FSF,^[4] and later became heavily involved with drafting version 3 of the GPL. On April 23, 2007 he announced in a blog post that he would be stepping down from the board of directors of the Free Software Foundation. Moglen stated that after the GPLv3 Discussion Draft 3 had been released, he wanted to devote more time to writing, teaching, and the Software Freedom Law Center.^[5]

Freedom Box Foundation[link]

In February 2011, Moglen created the Freedom Box Foundation to design software for a very small server called the FreedomBox. The FreedomBox is an affordable personal server which runs only free software, with a focus on anonymous and secure communication.^[6] The foundation's purpose is to raise funds for the creation and expansion of software for the FreedomBox. Moglen hopes for upwards of $500,000 to be able to launch FreedomBox officially within a year.^[7]

Stances on free software[link]

Moglen says that free software is a fundamental requirement for a democratic and free society in which we are surrounded by and dependent upon technical devices. Only if controlling these devices is open to all via free software, can we balance power equally.^[8]

Moglen's Metaphorical Corollary to Faraday's Law is the idea that the information appearance and flow between the human minds connected via the Internet works like induction. Hence Moglen's phrase "Resist the resistance!" (i.e. remove anything that inhibits the flow of information).^[9]

Statements and perspectives[link]

This section of a biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (May 2007)

Moglen at GPL V3 conference in Bangalore, 2006

While speaking in New Delhi, India, in 2006, he remarked: "Anything that is worth copying is worth sharing." His other quotes: "The more we give away, the richer we become." And: "Note how even the smallest encounter with Free Software can make a man cheerful about the future of our judge" (said after hearing a judge of the Allahabad high court, India speak on the subject).^{[citation needed]}

Moglen believes the idea of proprietary software is as ludicrous as having "proprietary mathematics" or "proprietary geometry". This would convert the subjects from "something you can learn" into "something you must buy", he has argued. He points out that software is among the "things which can be copied infinitely over and over again, without any further costs".

Moglen has criticized what he calls the "reification of selfishness". He has said, "A world full of computers which you can't understand, can't fix and can't use (because it is controlled by inaccessible proprietary software) is a world controlled by machines."

He has called on lawyers to help the Free Software movement, saying: "Those who want to share their code can make products and share their work without additional legal risks." He urged his legal colleagues, "It's worth giving up a little in order to produce a sounder ecology for all. Think kindly about the idea of sharing."

Moglen sketches the history of copyright law as a form of industrial regulation, and analyses how the changes in technology have thrown the roles created by those laws into crisis. As part of an interview for Steal This Film in April 2007

Moglen has criticized trends which result in "excluding people from knowledge". On the issue of Free Software versus proprietary software, he has argued that "much has been said by the few who stand to lose". Moglen calls for a "sensible respect for both the creators and users" of software code. In general, this concept is a part of what Moglen has termed a "revolution" against the privileged owners of media, distribution channels, and software. On March 13, 2009, in a speech given at Seattle University, Moglen said of the free software movement that, "'When everybody owns the press, then freedom of the press belongs to everybody' seems to be the inevitable inference, and that’s where we are moving, and when the publishers get used to that, they’ll become us, and we’ll become them, and the first amendment will mean: 'Congress shall make no law […] abridging freedom of speech, or of the press […].', not – as they have tended to argue in the course of the 20th century – 'Congress shall make no law infringing the sacred right of the Sulzbergers to be different.'.".^[10]

On the subject of Digital Rights Management, Moglen once said, "We also live in a world in which the right to tinker is under some very substantial threat. This is said to be because movie and record companies must eat. I will concede that they must eat. Though, like me, they should eat less."^[11]

References[link]

External links[link]

more links can be found on wikisource

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Eben Moglen

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Eben Moglen

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Eben Moglen

Wikinews has related news: France : Open World Forum 2010

Free software portal

• Eben Moglen's webpage at Columbia University
• ‘A lawyer who is also idealist - how refreshing’, March 30, 2006 interview in The Guardian.

Lectures / papers[link]

• Why Political Liberty Depends on Software Freedom More Than Ever, transcript of keynote speech at the 2011 FOSDEM conference in Brussels on February 5, 2011
• Freedom in the cloud: Software Freedom, Privacy, and Security for Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing, transcript of speech given to the Internet Society's New York branch on February 5, 2010
• Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death of Copyright - August 1999 PDF
• The dotCommunist Manifesto: Video of talk at UNC-Chapel Hill, Howard W. Odum Institute, 51 min, November 1, 2001
  • Transcript
• The Future of the Net ISOC-NY talk (May 2002) (audio)
• The dotCommunist Manifesto - January 2003 PDF
• Opening keynote at Wizards of OS3, Berlin, June 10, 2004, 57 min
  • Video, 20 MiB and 131 MiB MPEG videos
  • Audio, 64 kbit/s 26 MiB, 96 kbit/s 39 MiB MP3, and 88 kbit/s 36 MiB Ogg Vorbis formats
  • Text version, 42 KiB HTML, also available in PDF and PostScript formats
• Free Software and Free Media ISOC-NY talk (May 2006) (video / audio)
• Framing the Debate: Free Expression versus Intellectual Property, the Next Fifty Years paper (February 2007)
• Patent Law at a Crossroads: Bilski and Beyond Cardozo School of Law, NYC (November 2, 2009) (video/audio)
• Freedom in the Cloud: Software Freedom, Privacy and Security for Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing ISOC-NY Talk (February 5, 2010) (video/audio)
• Making History: Israeli Law and Historical Reconstruction, (2000)
• Freeing the Mind: Free Software and the Death of Proprietary Culture (2003)
• So Much for Savages:Navajo 1, Government 0 in Final Moments of Play (1999)

v t e GNU Project History GNU Manifesto Free Software Foundation Europe India Latin America History of free software Licenses GNU General Public License GNU Lesser General Public License Affero General Public License GNU Free Documentation License GPL linking exception Software GNU (variants) Hurd GNOME Bash GCC GNU Emacs glibc Coreutils Build system GNUnet Gnuzilla (IceCat) Gnash more... Public speakers Alexandre Oliva Benjamin Mako Hill Bradley M. Kuhn Eben Moglen Federico Heinz Georg C. F. Greve Loïc Dachary Ricardo Galli Richard Stallman Robert J. Chassell John Sullivan Other topics GNU/Linux naming controversy Revolution OS BadVista Defective by Design

This article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling. You can assist by editing it. (February 2012)

Max Keiser
Max Keiser in a London taxi
Born	Timothy Maxwell Keiser (1960-01-23) January 23, 1960 (age 52) New Rochelle, New York
Education	NYU
Occupation	Journalist
Notable credit(s)	Hollywood Stock Exchange, People & Power, The Oracle with Max Keiser, Karmabanque
Relatives	German and Scottish Ancestry, Hugh Maxwell, V 1777-1860
Website
http://maxkeiser.com

Timothy Maxwell "Max" Keiser (born January 23, 1960) is an American broadcaster and film-maker. He hosts Keiser Report, a financial program broadcast on RT (formerly Russia Today).^[1] Keiser also anchors On the Edge, a program of news and analysis hosted by Iran's Press TV.^[2] He hosted the New Year's Eve special, The Keiser's Business Guide to 2010 for BBC Radio 5 Live.^[3] Keiser presented a season of The Oracle with Max Keiser on BBC World News. Previously he produced and appeared regularly in the TV series People & Power on the Al-Jazeera English network. He also presents a weekly show about finance and markets on London's Resonance FM, as well as writing for The Huffington Post.^[4]

In addition to his broadcasting work Keiser is known for his invention of "Virtual Specialist Technology", a software system used by the Hollywood Stock Exchange.

Early career[link]

Keiser has been involved with markets and finance for 25 years. He started his career as a stock broker on Wall Street after graduating from New York University.

Hollywood Stock Exchange[link]

Keiser is the creator, co-founder and former CEO of HSX Holdings/Hollywood Stock Exchange, later sold to Cantor Fitzgerald.^[5] Alongside Michael R. Burns, he co-created the Hollywood Stock Exchange, ^[6] which allows traders to exchange virtual securities, such as "MovieStocks" and "StarBonds", with convertible virtual currency, the Hollywood Dollar.

Keiser is also the co-founder of HSX films, which went on to make almost a dozen films including Mixed Signals, Six-String Samurai, Dancer, Texas Pop. 81 and Girl. The company was bought by Ignite Entertainment/Lionsgate.

Broadcasting career[link]

Keiser presented Rumble at the Box Office^[7] for NBC's Access Hollywood. He also produced and hosted the weekly talk show Buy, Sell, Hold for CBS radio's KLSX in Los Angeles. Currently, he presents The Truth About Markets on Resonance 104.4 FM in London and on RDU 98.5 in Christchurch, New Zealand.

[edit] People & Power

Keiser produced ten short documentary films covering aspects of financial markets for Al Jazeera's series People & Power.^[8] The films include Rigged Markets,^[9] Money Geyser,^[10] Death of the Dollar,^[11] Peaked,^[12] Extraordinary Antics,^[13] Savers vs Speculators,^[14] Banking On It,^[15] Private Finance or Public Swindle?^[16] and Focus on Locusts.^[17]

[edit] The Oracle with Max Keiser

A pilot episode was produced for Al-Jazeera English titled The Oracle. This was developed into a series for BBC World News.^[18] The series first aired on 9 January 2009 and ran for ten episodes. It explored financial current affairs from the perspective of prediction markets. It was intended to be a humorous take on financial news before it happens.

[edit] On The Edge

A weekly financial commentary show which started in 2009 and is broadcast on Press TV, featuring interviews with well known alternative economists.^[19]

[edit] The Keiser Report

Since September 2009, Keiser has hosted The Keiser Report with financial news and analysis, on the RT network. The 30-minute program is produced three times a week. Stacy Herbert is the co-host and banters with Max on headlines and commentary.^[20]

An episode broadcast in September 2011 featured an interview with comedienne Rosanne Barr who stated that her solution to the financial crisis was to "bring back the guillotine".^[21]

Financial punditry[link]

Keiser has appeared as a financial pundit on a number of news networks. Keiser called for a "fatwā" against Hank Paulson^[22] on Al Jazeera in response to the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). In a later broadcast Keiser said "Paulson stinks".^[23] Keiser has advised investors to buy silver bullion and physical silver, promoting the metal as a store of value.

Activism[link]

Karmabanque[link]

Keiser founded the hedge fund Karmabanque, which sought to profit from any decline in equity-value of companies that are susceptible to boycott from environmental groups.^[24] The hedge fund's progress was followed monthly in The Ecologist magazine.^[25] Its targets included Coca-Cola^[26] and McDonald's.

The Karmabanque hedge fund project was designed to simultaneously short-sell companies while funnelling profits into environmental and ethical-business pressure groups which further act to drive down the price. Describing the project Keiser stated, "The Internet allows people, activists, from all over the world to gather, or swarm, and hit a company where it hurts most - in their stock price".^[27]

Extraordinary Antics[link]

In the Al-Jazeera short film Extraordinary Antics,^[28] Keiser travelled to Milan and Venice to find out how CIA station chief Robert Seldon Lady and his fellow CIA agents spent $500,000 on a procedure known as extraordinary rendition - a practice which is illegal and caused an Egyptian citizen, who had been granted asylum in Italy, to be abducted in order to face torture in Cairo.

The CIA was prosecuted for the case and Mr. Lady was found guilty in a Milan court. He was sentenced on 9 November 2009 to nine years in prison according to the Guardian.^{[citation needed]} This verdict was upheld on appeal. The US refuses to extradite Mr. Lady to Italy.^[29]

Crash JP Morgan - buy silver[link]

Max Keiser has labeled JPMorgan "the biggest financial terrorist on Wall St" in relation to their alleged manipulation of the price of silver.^[30] Keiser started a campaign called "Crash JP Morgan - buy silver",^[31][32][33] whereby people buy silver, thus raising its price and leaving JPMorgan with a huge short position to cover, the margin of which are collateralized by JPMorgan's own stock price, bankrupting itself. Based on the collateralization of silver by the price of its shares and his allegation that JPMorgan's position is an overwhelmingly large naked short position, Keiser predicted that the a per-ounce silver price exceeding JPMorgan's stock price will not only crash JPMorgan but unsettle the underpinnings of the dollar, which he claims are essentially confetti.

Adweek magazine described Keiser as "the most visible character in an underground movement that has spurred hundreds of blog posts and videos, and played some small part in driving up the price of precious metals".^[34] However, Keiser's prediction that JPMorgan would go bust if silver hit 47 dollars has failed to materialise, drawing criticism from the financial community.

Criticism[link]

• The Guardian newspaper, in an item titled "Mad Max", described Keiser's Karmabanque hedge fund as a "fantastical scheme" and accused him of trying to exist "beyond the normal forces and controls of society".^[35]

• Keiser drew criticism at the 2000 ShowBiz Expo in Las Vegas when he said of media content that "Everything is inescapably going to a price point called free". In response Kevin Tsujihara, executive V.P. of New Media at Warner Bros., commented that "Piracy.com" will be the victor if superior content is available on sites supported by advertisements.^[36]

• In 2005 Steven Milloy, the "Junk Science" commentator, demanded that Keiser be removed from the panel of the Triple Bottom Line Investing conference, where he was scheduled to appear. Milloy accused Keiser of making threats against his organization^[37] and petitioned sponsors Calvert Investments and KLD Research & Analytics to withdraw from the project.^[38] Robert Rubenstein, founder of conference organiser Brooklyn Bridge, stated that Keiser's comments "do not constitute a threat to person or property and are not related to the conference or the content that will be presented there".

• Referring to Keiser's Karmabanque project, a spokeswoman for Ryanair said, "Since they put Ryanair on their list our share price has gone up by 10%. We are always delighted to be part of a list which includes Coca-Cola, Starbucks and Wal-Mart".^[39] However, on the same day The Hindu published an article in which Howard Millar, Ryanair deputy chief executive, admitted that his company may be vulnerable to environmental pressure groups, stating, "I am concerned that there is a continuing media campaign and the concern is that people might say 'maybe I will not fly on holiday and maybe I will make a different choice'".^[40]

See also[link]

Biography portal

• Error account - a term often mentioned by Max Keiser
• Central bank or Reserve bank
• Gold standard - where paper currency is backed up by the value of gold
• Hollywood Accounting

References[link]

External links[link]

• MaxKeiser.com Max Keiser's website
• chaostheorien.de Interview with Max Keiser at chaostheorien.de

Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.
44th United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom
In office January 17, 1938 – October 22, 1940
President	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Preceded by	Robert Worth Bingham
Succeeded by	John Gilbert Winant
1st Chairman of the Maritime Commission
In office 1936–1938
President	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Preceded by	Office created
Succeeded by	Emory S. Land
1st Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission
In office 1934–1935
President	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Preceded by	Office created
Succeeded by	James M. Landis
Personal details
Born	Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Sr. (1888-09-06)September 6, 1888 Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Died	November 18, 1969(1969-11-18) (aged 81) Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, United States
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Rose Fitzgerald
Children	Joseph P., Jr. Jul 25, 1915 – Aug 12, 1944 John F. May 29, 1917 – Nov 22, 1963 Rose M. Sep 13, 1918 – Jan 7, 2005 Kathleen A. Feb 20, 1920 – May 13, 1948 Eunice M. Jul 10, 1921 – Aug 11, 2009 Patricia May 6, 1924 – Sep 17, 2006 Robert F. Nov 20, 1925 – Jun 6, 1968 Jean A. born Feb 20, 1928 Edward M. Feb 22, 1932 - Aug 25, 2009
Alma mater	Harvard College
Profession	Businessman, investor, government official
Religion	Roman Catholic
Cause of death	Complications from a stroke
Signature

Joseph Patrick "Joe" Kennedy, Sr. (September 6, 1888 – November 18, 1969) was a prominent American businessman, investor, and government official.

Kennedy, an Irish American, was the father of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, United States Attorney General and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, United States Senator Edward M. Kennedy, naval officer Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., Special Olympics co-founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ireland Jean Kennedy Smith; and the grandfather of U.S. Representatives Joseph P. Kennedy II and Patrick J. Kennedy.

He was a leading member of the Democratic Party and of the Irish Catholic community. He was the inaugural Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), and later directed the Maritime Commission. Kennedy served as the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1938 until late 1940, including the early part of World War II.

Born to a political family in Boston, Massachusetts, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. was educated at Boston Latin School and Harvard University, and embarked on a career in finance, making a large fortune as a stock market and commodity investor and by investing in real estate and a wide range of industries.^[1] At the repeal of Prohibition, Kennedy and FDR's son James Roosevelt traveled to Scotland to buy distribution rights for Scotch whiskey. In addition, Kennedy had purchased spirits-importation rights from Schenley Industries, a firm in Canada.^[2]

During World War I, he was an assistant general manager of Bethlehem Steel and developed a friendship with Franklin D. Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Kennedy made huge profits from reorganizing and refinancing several Hollywood studios, ultimately merging several acquisitions into Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) studios. After Prohibition ended in 1933, Kennedy consolidated an even larger fortune when his company, Somerset Importers, became the exclusive American agent for Gordon's Gin and Dewar's Scotch. He owned the largest office building in the country, Chicago's Merchandise Mart, giving his family an important base in that city and an alliance with the Irish-American political leadership there.

His term as ambassador and his political ambitions ended abruptly during the Battle of Britain in November 1940, with the publishing of his controversial remarks suggesting that "Democracy is finished in England. It may be here, [in the US]."^[3] Kennedy resigned under pressure shortly afterwards. In later years, Kennedy worked behind the scenes to continue building the financial and political fortunes of the Kennedy family. After a disabling stroke on December 19, 1961, at the age of 73, Kennedy lost all power of speech, but remained mentally intact. He used a wheelchair after the stroke. Kennedy was one of three fathers (the other two being Dr. George Tryon Harding, Sr. and George H. W. Bush) to live through the entire presidency of a son. He died on November 18, 1969, two months after his 81st birthday.

Kennedy allowed surgeons to perform a lobotomy (one of the earliest in the U.S.) on his daughter Rosemary Kennedy in 1941. Various reasons for the operation have been given, but it left her permanently incapacitated.^[4][5][6]

Background and education[link]

Kennedy yearbook photo from Boston Latin School

Joseph Patrick Kennedy was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He was the elder son of Mary Augusta Hickey Kennedy and P. J. Kennedy, a successful businessman, ward boss and Irish American community leader. All of Kennedy's grandparents had emigrated to Massachusetts in the 1840s to escape the Irish famine. Kennedy was born into a highly sectarian society, where Irish Catholics felt themselves excluded by upper-class Boston Brahmins. Boston Irish became thus active in the Democratic Party, including P. J. and numerous relatives.

P. J. Kennedy's home was comfortable, thanks to his successful saloon business, investments, and an influential role in local politics. His mother encouraged Joseph to attend the Boston Latin School, where Joe was a below average scholar but was popular among his classmates, winning election as class president and playing on the school baseball team.

Kennedy followed in the footsteps of older cousins by attending Harvard College. He focused on becoming a social leader, working energetically to gain admittance to the prestigious Hasty Pudding Club. While at Harvard he joined the Delta Upsilon International fraternity and played on the baseball team, but was blackballed from the Porcellian Club.

Marriage and family[link]

The family at their home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts

On October 7, 1914, Kennedy married Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald, the eldest daughter of John Francis "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, a Democratic mayor of Boston and probably the most recognized politician in the city. The marriage joined two of the city's most prominent Irish-American political families. The couple had nine children. As Kennedy's business success expanded, he and his family kept homes in the Boston area, suburban New York City, Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, and Palm Beach, Florida.

Lobotomy[link]

Kennedy's daughter Rosemary was 23 years old when her father okayed an experimental prefrontal lobotomy, one of the first performed in the U.S. She has been termed "mentally retarded" and she may have been "mentally ill" (no treatment other than incarceration existed for that in the 1940s).^[7] The lobotomy went terribly wrong, and left her incapacitated for life (she died in 2005 at age 88). Rosemary's name "was never mentioned in the house", said Janet Des Rosiers, Kennedy secretary and mistress of Joseph for nine years.^[8]

Dr. Bertram S. Brown, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, said later that Joseph called his daughter Rosemary mentally retarded rather than mentally ill in order to protect John's reputation for a presidential run, and that the family's "lack of support for mental illness is part of a lifelong family denial of what was really so".^[9]

Business career[link]

Kennedy made a large fortune as a stock market and commodity investor and by investing in real estate and a wide range of industries. He never built a significant business from scratch, but his timing as both buyer and seller was usually excellent. Sometimes he made use of inside information in ways which were legal at the time but were later outlawed. He later became the first chairman of the SEC. After his death, various gangsters including Frank Costello claimed to have associated with Kennedy. According to some accounts,^[which?] Kennedy was associated in the "bear raid" that precipitated the Wall Street Crash of 1929, as well as much of the bootlegging activity that was common at the time.^{[citation needed]} When Fortune magazine published its first list of the richest people in the United States in 1957, it placed him in the $200–400 million band^[10] ($1.65–3.31 billion today^[11]), meaning that it estimated him to be between the ninth and sixteenth richest person in the United States at that time.

Early ventures[link]

Kennedy claimed to be America's youngest bank president.

After graduating from Harvard in 1912, he took his first job as a state-employed bank examiner. This allowed him to learn a great deal about the banking industry. In 1913, the Columbia Trust Bank, in which his father held a significant share, was under threat of takeover. Kennedy, borrowing $45,000 ($1,058,182 today^[11]) from family and friends, bought back control and at age 25 was rewarded by being elected the bank's president. Kennedy told the press he was "the youngest" bank president in America.^[12]

Kennedy emerged as a highly successful entrepreneur with an eye for value. For example, as a real estate investor, he turned a handsome profit from ownership of Old Colony Realty Associates, Inc., which bought distressed real estate.^[13]

Although skeptical of American involvement in World War I, he sought to participate in war-time production as an assistant general-manager of a major Bethlehem Steel shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts. There he oversaw the production of transports and warships critical to the war. This job brought him into contact with the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Wall Street and stock market investments[link]

In 1919, he joined the prominent stock brokerage firm of Hayden, Stone & Co. where he became an expert in dealing in the unregulated stock market of the day, engaging in tactics that were later labeled insider trading and market manipulation. He happened to be on the corner of Wall and Broad Streets at the moment of the Wall Street bombing on September 16, 1920, and was thrown to the ground by the force of the blast.^[14] In 1923 he left Hayden, and set up his own investment company, becoming a multi-millionaire during the bull market of the 1920s, and even more wealthy as a result of taking "short" positions in 1929.

David Kennedy, author of Freedom From Fear, describes the Wall Street of the Kennedy era:

[It] was a strikingly information-starved environment. Many firms whose securities were publicly traded published no regular reports or issued reports whose data were so arbitrarily selected and capriciously audited as to be worse than useless. It was this circumstance that had conferred such awesome power on a handful of investment bankers like J.P. Morgan, because they commanded a virtual monopoly of the information necessary for making sound financial decisions. Especially in the secondary markets, where reliable information was all but impossible for the average investor to come by, opportunities abounded for insider manipulation and wildcat speculation.

The Crash[link]

Kennedy formed alliances with several other Irish-Catholic investors, including Charles E. Mitchell, Michael J. Meehan and Bernard Smith. He helped establish the Libby-Owens-Ford stock pool, an arrangement in which Kennedy and colleagues created a scarcity of Libby-Owens-Ford stock to drive up the value of their own holdings in the stock, using inside information and the public's lack of knowledge. Pool operators would bribe journalists to present information in the most advantageous manner. Attempts to corner stocks were made that would cause the price to go up, and bear raids could cause the price to collapse downward. Kennedy got into a bidding war seeking control of founder John Hertz's company Yellow Cab.^[15]

Kennedy later claimed he knew the rampant stock speculation of the late 1920s would lead to a crash. It is said that he knew it was time to get out of the market when he received stock tips from a shoe-shine boy.^[16] Kennedy survived the crash "because he possessed a passion for facts, a complete lack of sentiment and a marvelous sense of timing".^[17] During the Great Depression Kennedy vastly increased his financial fortune by investing most of it in real estate. In 1929, Kennedy's fortune was estimated to be $4 million (equivalent to $54.1 million today^[11]). By 1935, his wealth had increased to $180 million (equivalent to $3.05 billion today^[11]).

Investments in movie production, liquor importing, and real estate[link]

Kennedy, along with fifteen others, signed a telegram warning that the release of Sadie Thompson starring Gloria Swanson would jeopardize the ability of the movie industry to censor itself. Swanson needed financing for her movie production company, and Kennedy began a three-year affair when he met her for lunch in New York after the film's release.^[18]

Kennedy made huge profits from reorganizing and refinancing several Hollywood studios. Film production in the US was much more decentralized than it is today, with many different movie studios producing film product. One small studio was FBO, Film Booking Offices of America, which specialized in Westerns produced cheaply. Its owner was in financial trouble and asked Kennedy to help find a new owner. Kennedy formed his own group of investors and bought it for $1.5 million ($19.9 million today^[11]).

Kennedy moved to Hollywood in March 1926 to focus on running the studio. Movie studios were then permitted to own exhibition companies which were necessary to get their films on local screens. With that in mind, in a hostile buyout, he acquired the Keith-Albee-Orpheum Theaters Corporation (KAO) which had more than 700 vaudeville movie theaters across the United States. He later purchased another production studio called Pathe Exchange, and merged those two entities with Cecil B. DeMille's Producers Distributing Corporation in March 1927.

In October 1928, he formally merged his film companies FBO and KAO to form Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) and made a large amount of money in the process. Then, keen to buy the Pantages Theatre chain, which had 63 profitable theaters, Kennedy made an offer of $8 million ($108 million today). It was declined. He then stopped distributing his movies to Pantages. Still, Alexander Pantages declined to sell. However, when Pantages was later charged and tried for rape, his reputation took a battering and he accepted Kennedy's revised offer of $3.5 million ($47.4 million today^[11]). Pantages, who claimed that Kennedy had "set him up", was later being found not guilty at a second trial.

It is estimated that Kennedy made over $5 million ($67.7 million today^[11]) from his investments in Hollywood. During his three-year affair with film star Gloria Swanson,^[19] he arranged the financing for her films The Love of Sunya (1927) and the ill-fated Queen Kelly (1928). The duo also used Hollywood's famous "body sculptor", masseuse Sylvia of Hollywood.^[19] Their relationship ended when Swanson wondered why an expensive gift from Joseph had been charged to her account.^[20]

James Roosevelt, son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, helped Kennedy start his liquor business after Prohibition.^[21]

A recurring story about Kennedy is that he made money in bootlegging, the illegal importation and distribution of alcohol during Prohibition. Although there is no hard evidence of this, Kennedy did have extensive investments in the legal importation of spirits. The "bootlegging" story itself may be traceable to Canadian distiller Samuel Bronfman and to New England bootlegger Danny Walsh and his crime syndicate, which did in fact smuggle spirits across the Canadian–American border during this period. Post-Prohibition, Bronfman had a bitter rivalry with Kennedy in acquiring North American liquor distribution rights.^[22] At the start of the Franklin Roosevelt administration, Kennedy and James Roosevelt founded Somerset Importers, an entity that acted as the exclusive American agent for Haig & Haig Scotch, Gordon's Dry Gin and Dewar's Scotch. They had assembled a large inventory of stock, which they allegedly sold for a profit of millions of dollars when Prohibition was repealed. (Kennedy himself drank little alcohol. He so disapproved of what he considered a stereotypical Irish vice that he offered his sons $1,000 to not drink until they turned 21.^[23]) Kennedy invested this money in residential and commercial real estate in New York, Le Pavillon restaurant, and Hialeah Park Race Track in Hialeah, Florida. His most important purchase was the largest office building in the country, Chicago's Merchandise Mart, which gave his family an important base in that city and an alliance with the Irish-American political leadership there.

SEC Chairman[link]

Kennedy's first major involvement in a national political campaign was his support in 1932 for Franklin D. Roosevelt's bid for the Presidency. He donated, loaned, and raised a substantial amount of money for the campaign. Roosevelt rewarded him with an appointment as the inaugural Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Kennedy had hoped for a Cabinet post, such as Secretary of the Treasury. After Franklin Roosevelt called Joe to Washington, D.C. to clean up the securities industry, somebody asked FDR why he had tapped such a crook. "Takes one to catch one," replied Roosevelt.^[24] Kennedy's reforming work as SEC Chairman was widely praised on all sides, as investors realized the SEC was protecting their interests. His knowledge of the financial markets equipped him to identify areas requiring the attention of regulators. One of the crucial reforms was the requirement for companies to regularly file financial statements with the SEC, which broke what some saw as an information monopoly maintained by the Morgan banking family. He left the SEC in 1935 to take over the Maritime Commission, which built on his wartime experience in running a major shipyard.

Disputes with Father Charles Coughlin[link]

Father Charles Coughlin was an Irish-Canadian priest in Detroit, who became perhaps the most prominent Roman Catholic spokesman on political and financial issues in the 1930s, with a radio audience that reached millions every week. A strong supporter of Roosevelt in 1932, Coughlin broke with the president in 1934 who became a bitter opponent of his weekly, anti-communist, anti-Semitic, anti-Federal Reserve and isolationist radio talks. Roosevelt sent Kennedy and other prominent Irish Catholics to try to tone down Coughlin.^[25] Coughlin swung his support to Huey Long in 1935 and then to William Lemke's Union Party in 1936. Kennedy strongly supported the New Deal and believed as early as 1933 that Coughlin was "becoming a very dangerous proposition" as an opponent of Roosevelt and "an out and out demagogue". In 1936, Kennedy worked with Roosevelt, Bishop Francis Spellman and Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) to shut Coughlin down.^[26] When Coughlin returned to the air in 1940, Kennedy continued to battle against his influence among Irish Americans.^[27]

Ambassador to Britain[link]

Kennedy's UK Ambassador nomination

In 1938, Roosevelt appointed Kennedy as the United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James's (the United Kingdom) in London. Kennedy hugely enjoyed his leadership position in London high society, which stood in stark contrast to his relative outsider status in Boston. His daughter Kathleen married the heir to the Duke of Devonshire, the head of one of England's grandest aristocratic families. Kennedy rejected the warnings of the prominent Member of Parliament Winston Churchill that any compromise with Nazi Germany was impossible. Instead, Kennedy supported Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's apparent policy of appeasement.

Throughout 1938, while the Nazi persecution of the Jews in Germany and Austria intensified, Kennedy attempted to arrange a meeting with Adolf Hitler.^[28] Shortly before the Nazi aerial bombing of British cities began in September 1940, Kennedy once again sought a personal meeting with Hitler, again without the approval of the Department of State, "to bring about a better understanding between the United States and Germany".^[29] It has been surmised that Kennedy also had personal reasons for wanting to avoid war; "He feared for the lives of his three eldest sons, Joe, Jack and Bobby, all of whom were or soon would be eligible to serve."^[30]

Kennedy also argued strongly against giving military and economic aid to the United Kingdom. "Democracy is finished in England. It may be here," he stated in the Boston Sunday Globe of November 10, 1940. With Nazi German troops having overrun Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and France, and with bombs falling daily on Great Britain, Kennedy unambiguously and repeatedly stated his belief that this war was not about saving democracy from National Socialism (Nazism) or from Fascism. In an interview with two newspaper journalists, Louis M. Lyons, of the Boston Globe, and Ralph Coghlan, of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kennedy opined:

It's all a question of what we do with the next six months. The whole reason for aiding England is to give us time ... As long as she is in there, we have time to prepare. It isn't that [Britain is] fighting for democracy. That's the bunk. She's fighting for self-preservation, just as we will if it comes to us ... I know more about the European situation than anybody else, and it's up to me to see that the country gets it.^[31]

His views were becoming inconsistent and increasingly isolationist; British MP Josiah Wedgwood, 1st Baron Wedgwood, who had himself opposed the British Government's earlier appeasement policy, said of Kennedy:

We have a rich man, untrained in diplomacy, unlearned in history and politics, who is a great publicity seeker and who apparently is ambitious to be the first Catholic president of the U.S.^[32]

In British government circles during the Blitz, Kennedy was widely disparaged as a defeatist. He retreated to the countryside during the bombings of London by German aircraft, at a time when the British Royal Family, Prime Minister, government ministers, and other ambassadors chose to stay in London. When the American public and Roosevelt Administration officials read his quotes on democracy being "finished", and his belief that the Battle of Britain wasn't about "fighting for democracy", all of it being just "bunk", they realized that Kennedy could not be trusted to represent the United States.^{[citation needed]} In the face of national public outcry, and pressure from the Roosevelt Department of State, which no longer wanted him, Kennedy submitted his resignation late in November 1940.^{[citation needed]}

Reduced influence[link]

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.^[33]

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 destruction, 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.

Claims of Anti-Semitism[link]

Kennedy's friend Charles Lindbergh was an antiwar spokesman for the America First Committee.

Joseph P. Kennedy was (for a while) a close friend with the leading Jewish lawyer, Felix Frankfurter, who became an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court in January 1939 and remained in this position until 1962. Frankfurter helped Kennedy get his sons Joseph Jr. and John admitted into the London School of Economics in the late 1930s, where they studied under Harold Laski, a leading Jewish intellectual and a prominent socialist.^[34]

According to Harvey Klemmer, who served as one of Kennedy's embassy aides, Kennedy habitually referred to Jews as "kikes or sheenies". Kennedy allegedly told Klemmer that "[some] individual Jews are all right, Harvey, but as a race they stink. They spoil everything they touch."^[29] When Klemmer returned from a trip to Germany and reported the pattern of vandalism and assaults on Jews by Nazis, Kennedy responded, "Well, they brought it on themselves."^[35]

On June 13, 1938, Kennedy met with Herbert von Dirksen, the German ambassador to the United Kingdom, in London, who claimed upon his return to Berlin that Kennedy had told him that "it was not so much the fact that we want to get rid of the Jews that was so harmful to us, but rather the loud clamor with which we accompanied this purpose. [Kennedy] himself fully understood our Jewish policy."^[36] Kennedy's main concern with such violent acts against German Jews as Kristallnacht was that they generated bad publicity in the West for the Nazi regime, a concern that he communicated in a letter to Charles Lindbergh.^[37]

Kennedy had a close friendship with Nancy Astor. The correspondence between them is reportedly replete with anti-Semitic statements.^[38] As Edward Renehan notes:

As fiercely anti-Communist as they were anti-Semitic, Kennedy and Astor looked upon Adolf Hitler as a welcome solution to both of these "world problems" (Nancy's phrase).... Kennedy replied that he expected the "Jew media" in the United States to become a problem, that "Jewish pundits in New York and Los Angeles" were already making noises contrived to "set a match to the fuse of the world".^[39]

By August 1940, Kennedy worried that a third term as the President for Roosevelt would mean war. As Leamer reports, "Joe believed that Roosevelt, Churchill, the Jews, and their allies would manipulate America into approaching Armageddon."^[40] Nevertheless, Kennedy supported Roosevelt's third term in return for Roosevelt's support of Joseph Kennedy, Jr., in the run for the Governor of Massachusetts in 1942.^[41] However, even during the darkest months of World War II, Kennedy remained "more wary of" prominent American Jews, such as Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter, than he was of Hitler.^[42]

Kennedy told the reporter Joe Dinneen:

It is true that I have a low opinion of some Jews in public office and in private life. That does not mean that I... believe they should be wiped off the face of the Earth... Jews who take an unfair advantage of the fact that theirs is a persecuted race do not help much... Publicizing unjust attacks upon the Jews may help to cure the injustice, but continually publicizing the whole problem only serves to keep it alive in the public mind.

Political alliances[link]

Kennedy used his wealth and connections to build a national network of supporters that became the base for his sons' political careers. He especially concentrated on the Irish American community in large cities, particularly Boston, New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh and several New Jersey cities.^[43] Kennedy also used Arthur Krock of The New York Times, America's most influential political columnist, for decades as a paid speechwriter and political advisor.^[44]

Alliance with Senator McCarthy[link]

Kennedy's close ties with Republican (GOP) Senator Joseph McCarthy strengthened his family's position among Irish Catholics, but weakened it among liberals who strongly opposed McCarthy. Even before McCarthy became famous in 1950, Kennedy had forged close ties with the Republican Senator from Wisconsin. Kennedy often brought him to his family compound at Hyannis Port as a weekend house guest in the late 1940s. McCarthy at one point dated Patricia Kennedy. When McCarthy became a dominant voice of anti-Communism starting in 1950, Kennedy contributed thousands of dollars to McCarthy, and became one of his major supporters. In the Senate race of 1952, Kennedy apparently worked a deal so that McCarthy, a Republican, would not make campaign speeches for the GOP ticket in Massachusetts. In return, Congressman John F. Kennedy, running for the Senate seat, would not give any anti-McCarthy speeches that his liberal supporters wanted to hear. In 1953 at Kennedy's urging McCarthy hired Robert Kennedy (age 27) as a senior staff member of the Senate's investigations subcommittee, which McCarthy chaired. In 1954, when the Senate was threatening to condemn McCarthy, Senator John Kennedy faced a dilemma. "How could I demand that Joe McCarthy be censured for things he did when my own brother was on his staff?" asked JFK. By 1954, however, Robert Kennedy and McCarthy's chief aide, Roy Cohn, had had a falling out and Robert no longer worked for McCarthy. John Kennedy had a speech drafted calling for the censure of McCarthy but he never delivered it. When the Senate voted to censure McCarthy on December 2, 1954, Senator Kennedy was in the hospital and never indicated then or later how he would vote. Joe Kennedy strongly supported McCarthy to the end.^[45]

Presidential ambitions for family[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2011)

Joe Kennedy was a fiercely ambitious individual who thrived on competition and winning. And, in his eyes, the ultimate prize was the American presidency. Joe Kennedy wanted his first son, Joe Jr. to become president, but after his death in WWII, he became determined to make his eldest surviving son, John, president.

Joe Kennedy was consigned to the political shadows after his remarks during World War II that "Democracy is finished...", and he remained an intensely controversial figure among U.S. citizens because of his suspect business credentials, his Roman Catholicism, his opposition to Roosevelt's foreign policy, and his support for Joseph McCarthy. As a result, his presence in John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign had to be downplayed. Having him in the spotlight would hurt John, making it look as if it were his father who was running for president.

However, Joe Kennedy still drove the campaign behind the scenes. He played a central role in planning strategy, fundraising, and building coalitions and alliances. Joe supervised the spending and to some degree the overall campaign strategy, helped select advertising agencies, and was endlessly on the phone with local and state party leaders, newsmen, and business leaders. He had met thousands of powerful people in his career, and often called in his chips to help his sons.

His father's connections and influence were turned directly into political capital for the senatorial and presidential campaigns of John, Robert and Ted. Historian Richard J. Whalen describes Joe's influence on John Kennedy's policy decisions in his biography of Joseph Kennedy. Joe was influential in creating the Kennedy Cabinet (Robert Kennedy as Attorney General although he'd never argued or tried a case, for example^[46]). However, in 1961, Joe Kennedy suffered from a stroke that placed even more limitations on his influence in his sons' political careers. Joseph Kennedy expanded the Kennedy Compound, which continues as a major center of family get-togethers.

When John F. Kennedy was asked about the level of involvement and influence that his father had held in his razor-thin presidential victory, JFK would joke that on the eve before the election, his father had asked him the exact number of votes he would need to win—there was no way he was paying "for a landslide". John's presidency was a victory for Joe. He saw it as a step forward not just for his son but for the entire Kennedy family. Joe was a family man and strategically constructed his family's image towards the public. He once said, "Image is reality", and the presidency framed the Kennedy family picture.^[47][48]

Illness and death[link]

Joseph and family celebrate his birthday in Hyannis Port in 1963 after his stroke.

On December 19, 1961, at the age of 73, Kennedy suffered a major stroke. He survived, but lost all power of speech, and was left paralyzed on his right side. Kennedy did regain certain functions with the help of therapies. Most notably, he went to The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential in 1964, a Philadelphia center that teaches therapies for people with brain injuries. Kennedy made gains with therapy, and began walking with the help of a cane. His speech also showed some improvement.^[49] However, being 75 years old and greatly weakened, Kennedy was soon confined to a wheelchair. Despite being severely disabled from the stroke, Kennedy remained aware of the tragedies that befell his family during that time until his own death, on November 18, 1969, two months after his 81st birthday.^{[citation needed]}

His final public appearance was with Rose and Sen. Edward Kennedy in a videotaped message to the country a few weeks after the death of Robert Kennedy, which showed his extremely frail physical condition. His widow Rose outlived him by 25 years, dying in January 1995 at the age of 104.

In fiction[link]

In the alternate history novel Fatherland by Robert Harris, set in 1964, Joseph P. Kennedy—not his son John F. Kennedy—is president of the United States and about to arrive in Berlin to conclude a treaty with Adolf Hitler. Joseph Kennedy also plays a significant role as a character in Michael Dobbs's fictionalized account of the rise of Winston Churchill, Winston's War.

Movies and Television[link]

Kennedy has been portrayed by:

• Stephen Elliott in the 1977 movie Young Joe, the Forgotten Kennedy,
• E.G. Marshall in the 1983 miniseries Kennedy,
• Lloyd Nolan in the 1985 film Prince Jack
• Barry Morse in the 1987 miniseries Hoover vs. The Kennedys
• William Petersen in the 1990 miniseries The Kennedys of Massachusetts,
• Terry Kinney in the 1993 TV miniseries JFK: Reckless Youth,
• Irish actor Dan O'Herlihy in the 1998 movie The Rat Pack,
• Tom Skerritt in the 2000 TV movie Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis,
• Tom Wilkinson in the 2011 miniseries The Kennedys.

Ancestry[link]