On the same day Adolf Hitler traveled south to the French border with Spain for talks with Generalissimo Francisco Franco, U. S. Ambassador Joseph Patrick Kennedy bid his farewells to senior members of his team at the American embassy in London. As staffers shuffled out of the ambassador's office, some were dabbing tears from their eyes while others sported half-hidden sly smiles. Despite their differences of opinion about the ambassador, each one recognized that it was the end of a turbulent era of American diplomacy in Europe. In his two years and seven months in England, Joe Kennedy had been taken to the people's hearts, then widely loathed. From the outset, he was feared and deemed insufferable by both the White House and the State Department.
-Susan Ronald, The Ambassador: Joseph P. Kennedy At The Court Of St. James, 1938-1940
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment