NASAW: He did, but Kennedy was also so savvy politically, while he's part of the Roosevelt administration, he reaches out to people like Hearst, who have gone into the opposition to the New Deal. And he says to them: Look, I'm not one of those guys. I'm one of you guys. I'm a agent for, you know, banking and industry inside the New Deal. And I'm getting the best deal we can from Roosevelt and from these lefties. All in all a very good book. I very much enjoyed listening to this, and so it gets four stars regardless of the error mentioned and even if deeper analysis of disputed information could have been explored. Although he has published three biographies, Nasaw describes himself as an academic historian, rather than a biographer. [31] A historian, he says, "sweeps away the fables, the myths, the stories" and places scholarly subjects "in time and over time", while for biographers, the organization of the work is laid out in advance. "Writing history is not an art but a craft," Nasaw has said. [32] "It requires interpretation and fifty sources and integrating and assembling this material into a story told by an individual voice."

In Bobby and J Edgar, Hersh goes further. He advances evidence to show that the JFK and RFK assassinations were likely triggered by Mob outrage - Santo Trafficante, Carlos Marcello, Sam Giancana, the Los Angeles Mob - at Bobby’s drive to root out organized crime. In this theory, other government agencies, the FBI and CIA included, were likely involved as well. He thinks they're friendly. He gets into moving pictures exhibitions. He owns a couple of theaters, distributes films to New England, eventually ends up as the studio head of a minor studio, goes to Hollywood as the owner of FBO, which had been a British company, and immediately makes his mark. And Kennedy enters into a business relationship with her that soon becomes a romantic relationship. They form an intense relationship, which lasts only as long as Kennedy is in Hollywood. When he leaves Hollywood to go east again, he drops her like a hot potato. They remain in touch, but their romantic attachment is gone. And he's the one who ends it. I think some would look at the Kennedy family and say that these were kids that also grew up with a deep sense of entitlement and some moral shortcomings. And I'm interested in your take on that. The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy (Penguin Press, November 2012)

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.

Nasaw began this authorized biography after Kennedy’s two youngest children (Jean and Edward) approached him to assess his interest in the project. Once he was assured unrestricted access to Kennedy’s papers and complete editorial control he spent six years researching his subject’s life – documenting his personal and professional lives and investigating a variety of alleged misdeeds. Throughout Joe’s life, his primary focus was on the future success of his nine children. His stated purpose, early in his business career, was to make so much money that his children could devote their lives to public service. In this regard, his success was monumental. Three of his sons became U.S. senators, one became president. His daughter Eunice changed the way special needs children were viewed and treated throughout the world. Mari Rich, Olivia J. Smith, and Clifford Thompson, eds., World Authors, 1995–2000 (H.W. Wilson, 2003):592. Roosevelt, in a rather disastrous move, appointed Kennedy as ambassador to England. Perhaps one reason for this was Kennedy’s growing Presidential aspirations – so better to locate him a few thousand miles away. Whereas Kennedy excelled in the business world he never comprehended what it took to be a good politician. He could never keep his big mouth shut. He was not only for appeasement with Germany and Italy, but repeatedly urged France and England to meekly surrender to Germany. After the war started this strikes one as not only defeatist, but traitorous. Roosevelt, much to Kennedy’s anger, started to circumvent his ambassador in communicating to England. For instance, among other methods, he started a secret correspondence with Churchill at the time that he was Naval Minister, under Chamberlain, at war’s onset. Although the book (like most biographies) is told in a linear narrative, I felt at many times I was reading multiple biographies. There’s Kennedy the astute successful businessmen, Kennedy the Hollywood producer, Kennedy the ambassador to England, and Kennedy, the father to the famous JFK. Through all of these episodes, we’re constantly also kept in the loop with wife Rose and his nine children. There’s just enough ‘family’ here to keep the reader familiar with all of their comings and goings, but the majority of the focus is on Kennedy’s many different endeavors throughout his lifetime.

In this pioneering biography, Nasaw draws on never-before-published materials from archives on three continents and interviews with Kennedy family members and friends to tell the life story of a man who participated in the major events of his times: the booms and busts, the Depression and the New Deal, two world wars and a cold war, and the birth of the New Frontier. In studying Kennedy's life, we relive with him the history of the American Century. The Kennedys (especially John Kennedy) and Notre Dame both exerted powerful influences on my life. In The Patriarch, Nasaw provides the great service of detailing the origins of the Kennedy political juggernaut as well as the price Joe Kennedy paid for it. An added benefit of the book for me were those few but fascinating cases where the histories of both the Kennedys and Notre Dame intertwine. Of course, one must not treat the man too harshly when his oldest son, Joe Jr. was killed during the same war that Kennedy vociferously opposed while on a secret bombing mission. Most know that Joe Jr’s death would be the first of four of Kennedy’s children tragically killed, in addition to another child reduced to a vegetative state after a failed lobotomy. So as rich and powerful as he was, he definitely didn’t have an easy go of things. Nasaw’s even-handed judgments stem from a nuanced understanding of Kennedy’s complicated character and tumultuous times. His numerous warts, like womanizing and anti-Semitism, are thoughtfully examined. But there are minor flaws. Most notably, Nasaw dismisses the longstanding charges of bootlegging, despite persuasive arguments in journalist Seymour Hersh’s The Dark Side of Camelot.

Simonson, Robert (April 11, 2012). "Joseph Pulitzer, the "Villain" of Newsies, Illuminated". Playbill. Archived from the original on April 15, 2012 . Retrieved June 2, 2012. NASAW: Thirty-eight. Yeah. He goes in March of '38. A couple of his good friends tell him not to go. They say you're unfit in every way to be an ambassador. You don't understand history, you don't understand diplomacy, you're the least diplomatic man that's ever lived. Time and time again, Kennedy was wrong. Yet we learn in this bio that he was no Nazi-sympathizer. Instead, he was a businessman and congenital pessimist who did not understand the moral and political consequence of appeasement. He was also, it appears, an anti-Semite who blamed Jews for escalating the conflict with Hitler -- unbelievable, but that's what he thought -- even as he tried to persuade a reluctant Roosevelt and Chamberlain to pressure Hitler to allow Jews to leave Germany for safer ground. DAVIES: If you're just joining us, we're speaking with historian David Nasaw. His new book about the life of Joseph P. Kennedy is called "The Patriarch."NASAW: A little bit of both. He - he's grown up in a political family. He understands the importance of the press. And everywhere he goes, he is free and easy with information. He brings in the press. He makes friends with every Washington columnist, with every Washington bureau chief, with every major Washington reporter. DAVIES: If you're just joining us, our guest is historian David Nasaw. He's completed a biography of Joseph Kennedy called "The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy." In this Nasaw's highly cited history, Nasaw "unearthed the long-forgotten story of the Newsboy Strike." [37] The book inspired the Disney film Newsies and the subsequent Broadway musical. [38]

Kennedy could not see why anybody would seek out war with Germany, unless they were Jewish, or deceived by a vast Jewish conspiracy. (Interestingly, this led Kennedy to undertake considerable efforts on behalf of Jewish emigration from Germany, the better to buy off opponents of appeasement.) As war came over Kennedy's objections, he descended further and further into anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and as late as 1960 would be fuming that his own Catholic Church wasn't as ruthlessly efficient a lobby as 'the Jews.' David Nasaw’s “The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy” was published in 2012 and was a Pulitzer Prize nominee in 2013. Nasaw is an author and a professor of American history at City University of New York. Among his most widely-read books are biographies of William Randolph Hearst and Andrew Carnegie (which was a 2007 Pulitzer Prize nominee).NASAW: Well, you know, Kennedy believed that all's fair in business. You know, he's going to try to take advantage of you, you're going to try to take advantage of him. He's got his lawyers and accountants; you've got your lawyers and accountant. And, you know, may the better businessman or businesswoman win. In this case he won everything.