ROSE HAD REACHED THE PINNACLE OF HER LIFE AS SPOUSE OF the American ambassador to England. “I might have been overawed by being the wife of the Ambassador,” she admitted, “but I had traveled widely and had visited two or three United States Embassies where I had observed the manners and the attitudes of the wives of the Ambassadors. I certainly felt that in education and experience, I could fulfill the obligations creditably and I knew I would give all my mind and heart to making the position a successful one.”1
Her November 1938 calendar contained two historic ceremonies, and, as usual, Rose wanted to look her best. The first was Parliament’s annual opening. After two days of beauty treatments, she donned her diamond tiara, as well as her ruby and diamond bracelet and mink coat, for the short trip to Westminster. There she took her seat in the Peeress’ Bench and spotted the German ambassador, whose countrymen would launch Kristallnacht a few hours later. On “The Night of Broken Glass” ninety-one Jews perished, thirty thousand Jewish men were incarcerated in concentration camps, and nearly three hundred synagogues were ransacked and burned.2 The second major ceremony came on Armistice Day, when Rose attended a “very impressive ceremony at the Cenotaph, with the King laying a wreath at [the] Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.”3 Little did they know that “the war to end all wars” would be a colossal misnomer.
In mid-November, Rose, Joe, and Joe Jr., now back from his short stint at the Paris embassy, drove out of London for a dinner with colonial secretary Malcolm MacDonald, son of Ramsay MacDonald, Britain’s first Labour Party prime minister who took office in 1924. Malcolm was focused on the deteriorating situation in British Palestine, where Arabs were mounting a rebellion to protest the immigration of Jews, thousands of whom were flocking to their historic Promised Land to escape Hitler’s persecution.4 Rose found the dinner discussions “[i]nteresting … especially one about the ultimate solution of the Jewish question about which there is constant agitation now. Joe feels that some countries like Australia, for instance, might offer territory, other countries, U.S.A., offer money and we might find a haven for them. Some concrete thing should be attempted, instead of everyone deploring the condition but nothing definite volunteered. If England put it up to each nation what they would do, then the responsibility would be theirs and not entirely hers in the disturbance in Palestine. [Joe] [a]lso said conditions had improved since Jews went to Palestine due to increase of money and capital brought there by them.”5 Joe, the capitalist, undoubtedly knew the financial landscape in Palestine, and Rose accepted her husband’s stereotypes regarding Jews and money.
For Rose London life was quieter in the fall than the height of England’s spring social season. In mid-November, however, she and Joe attended a reception and dinner given by King George and Queen Elizabeth in honor of Romania’s King Carol. Rose slipped into a “glamorous” white satin dress and added her diamond and ruby accessories. Joe dined on bacon and eggs at the embassy before leaving for the palace, so as not to disrupt his bland diet. After the formal dinner, Rose tried surreptitiously to powder her nose and reapply her lipstick, a custom she had learned at home. She discovered, though, that the royals’ guests didn’t freshen their makeup, “especially in the presence of Queen Mary,” the king’s formidable mother.6
Just as Rose tried to redo her face, the Duchess of Northumber-land summoned her for a tête-à-tête with Queen Elizabeth. Meanwhile, the Dowager Lady Airlie asked Rose to converse with Queen Mary. Referring to Kristallnacht, the widow of King George V “deplored conditions in Germany,” where Jews now faced constant threats from Hitler’s regime. Rose then chatted with Queen Elizabeth about her trip to the States, scheduled for the following spring. The queen remarked that “she would like to go to America as a simple visitor without people suspecting she was going there with the intention of forming a political alliance, which is the trend of the newspaper world at present.”7
The next day Rose was photographed in her new gown for The Sketch, then flew to Paris for more shopping. While there, she learned that Queen Maud of Norway, King George VI’s aunt, had died in London. “There is court mourning for six weeks, and I must wear black,” Rose discovered. “Very difficult for me,” she complained, “as I have three parties this week, including Thanksgiving.” She then lunched at the Ritz with Schiaparelli’s public relations agent, who wanted to include her in the World’s Best Dressed Women competition. She later withdrew from consideration: “Less interested, as I was last year picked as Best Dressed Woman in Public Life in U.S.A.” She returned to her quotidian quest for fresh milk and cream, always a struggle in France. “So I usually lose weight and feel less peppy,” an unusual admission for the dynamic Rose.8
At age forty-eight, Rose could have entered menopause’s early stages that sapped some of her normal vitality. Or her sensitive stomach, body-image issues, and abstemious diet may have led to weight loss. Her niece, Mary Jo Gargan Clasby, believes that Rose may have suffered from food sensitivities that produced chronic digestive upset.9 If Rose was lactose intolerant, for example, dairy products would have been the last thing she should have ingested. Perhaps her physical problems were stress-related. She certainly faced tensions in her life—from international affairs to personal ones conducted by her husband. Rose’s nervous response to environmental stimuli such as noise reflects a low tolerance for anything that upset her preference for quiet routines.
Nevertheless, back in London she mustered enough energy to host a tea and preside over a traditional Thanksgiving family meal, but she then sent her boisterous children to the cinema while she rested. That evening, the whole family attended the American Society’s celebration at the Dorchester Hotel, where Rose sat with Lord Runciman, who had recently returned from Czechoslovakia. He told her that “Hitler was [a] fanatic and so could not be judged by ordinary standards.”10 Such an analysis couldn’t have eased Rose’s stress.
The next day Rose welcomed the archbishop of Canterbury to an embassy luncheon. Describing this social whirl to her well-preserved, seventy-three-year-old mother, Rose exclaimed, “No wonder I look young and beauteous with such a mother!” she confided that her London life could be difficult with the press hounding her: “They are still photographing us, and I wish they would stop.”11 “I do not mind having pictures when I am at leisure, when I can get my hair slightly waved and when I have the children’s clothes partly unpacked,” Rose explained. “But … there is a race and rivalry among newspaper men and the first one to arrive is the one who effects the coup for his paper and for himself.”12 Here was a dilemma that would confront Princess Diana five decades later. While both women reveled in media attention, each found it intrusive for herself and her children.
The press came under fire at a luncheon Rose attended at Lady Asquith’s home in late November 1938. Rose diplomatically used the passive voice in her journal, refusing to assign the opinions she recorded to any particular guest. The Englishmen in attendance complained that “everything was blamed on England and Chamberlain, but … it was he who sent Runciman to Czecho[slovakia], and it was Chamberlain who made all agreements. Also the influence of the Jewish columnists in U.S.A. in forming public opinion was remarked and caused surprise. Comment was that until Munich, England had a good press in America but not since then. Observation also made that the pros and cons regarding Munich were dividing English people into two camps almost as much so as the Dreyfus Case [and] the Irish question.”13 Indeed, the British aristocracy harbored anti-Jewish and anti-Irish sentiments similar to those Rose had been exposed to in parochial Boston.
AS DECEMBER DAWNED, Rose shopped for the family’s Christmas trip to Saint Moritz. Ambassador Kennedy planned to leave for the States early in the month to spend the holidays with Jack in Palm Beach and take a two-month vacation. Joe would have to be back in time for his wife to travel in March to Egypt, which she wanted to see “while I am so near.”14
On December 8 Rose attended Mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. She and Joe then drove to the Roehampton convent for its celebration in the Blessed Mother’s honor. Rose thrilled at the procession in which Eunice, Pat, Jean, and their classmates carried white lilies. Undoubtedly recalling her days at Blumenthal, Rose wrote that it “is always the most mystic, most beautiful, most inspiring ceremony in the [Society of the] S[acred] Heart [of Jesus].” She added that “Dad [Joe] lighted the candles on the altar as he told the [mother superior] he used to be an altar boy.” The students then marched to a hall where Rose observed “the Blessed Virgin in a sort of grotto … like Lourdes.”15 Rose didn’t write that she saw a statue of Jesus’s mother; rather, she discussed the BVM as if she were really there. Catholic tradition holds that Mary appeared eighteen times in 1858 to an impoverished girl, Bernadette Soubirous, in Lourdes, France. On December 8, 1933, Pope Pius XI canonized Bernadette, naming her the patron saint of healing. A Catholic shrine to Our Lady of Lourdes, where the sick are said to be miraculously healed by the waters, now dominates the small French Pyrenees town and attracts five million believers annually.
Some days earlier Joe had reported that Eunice was “going wild as it becomes nearer to time for her to receive the Child of Mary Medal on December 8th.”16 This was the most prestigious honor conferred by the Sacred Heart nuns, and one that Rose had worked assiduously to attain at Blumenthal a quarter century earlier. Oddly, in this instance Rose’s journal mentioned neither the award itself nor Eunice’s reaction.
The next day, Joe and Rose welcomed Spain’s former queen Ena to a luncheon at the American embassy. She and her husband, King Alfonso XIII, had gone into exile in 1931 when republicans came to power in Spain. During lunch, Rose sat next to the Duke of Devonshire, who was the undersecretary of dominions, “also father of Billy Hartignare [sic], one of Kathleen’s beaux of the moment.” Rose inaccurately recorded both the name of her future son-in-law (Billy Hartington) and his status with Kick. Also in attendance was John McCormack, the famous Irish tenor, whom the Kennedys had recently seen perform a farewell concert in the Royal Albert Hall. His lilting rendition of operatic classics and patriotic Irish ballads had brought Rose and her family nearly to tears.17 Despite their newfound Anglophilia, the Kennedys remained nostalgic for their Irish heritage.
Three days before Christmas, the Kennedy clan (minus Joe Sr. and Jack) departed for Saint Moritz amid the glare of flashbulbs. A massive snowstorm struck as they traveled across England, the Channel, France, and Switzerland, delaying their arrival in Saint Moritz until Christmas Eve. Once again, the media awaited them. Ten photographers demanded pictures, and Rose bristled at the intrusion:
Our trunks were delayed and my skiing costume, ordered especially from Schiaparelli, was missing and two children were minus ski pants. But, ting-ling-ling, along came the photographers ringing the phone for a picture early on our first day. I was saved because it was Sunday and I pleaded church, then the next day was Christmas. By that time we managed to fit up the nine [actually eight; Jack was in Florida] children to look properly clad for skiing. I borrowed the governess’s cap which photographed remarkably well, though the color clashed horribly with my own.… An astonishing awakening comes to us when we believe we look particularly enchanting, only to see our pictures and find that the hat which we thought very chic has turned out to be a complete failure in the photograph. It makes our heads look shapeless or perhaps huge.18
With photographs taken of her, Jean, and Teddy skating, as well as the family assembled for a sleigh ride, Rose could finally relax in the alpine splendor of Saint Moritz, eastern Switzerland’s winter playground for the rich, not far from the Italian border. She particularly enjoyed accommodations at Suvretta House, the palatial luxury hotel opened in 1912. It featured stunning views of lakes Champfèr and Silvaplana, on the Chasellas plateau. “It is incredibly beautiful,” she informed her mother. “From my window, I look across to the mountains covered with snow so white, so soft, so lovely. The fir trees are blanketed with the snow, of course, and when the sun comes up about 10:30 in the morning, everything glistens.” She proudly reported that Bobby won the New Year’s Day ski race for youngsters under sixteen. Joe Jr., however, enrolled in an advanced ski class, “was too daring, and ran into a rock and had to have four or five stitches in his arm, but he is at it again.” Rose took skating lessons and mastered the figure-eight maneuver. Jean “will be a good fancy skater,” her mother thought. Rose also embraced the opportunity to refresh her German language skills.19 Yet the priest at Mass spoke too quickly, making it difficult for her to comprehend his sermon auf Deutsch. As always when she traveled, Rose made notes about the locals. “Swiss children, people and houses all look clean, healthy with fat red cheeks, pleasant and smiling.…” She was especially impressed by their “good strong teeth, probably because I am told they eat black bread considerably.”20
From Palm Beach, where he and Jack were spending the holidays, Joe cabled Rose, “Associated Press today picked you as outstanding woman of the year for selling the world the American family. Jack and I are basking in your reflected glory. He has gained five pounds. My love to all, Joe.”21
After three weeks of winter sports and shopping in Saint Moritz, Rose shepherded her brood back to London. She continued her solo golf rounds, even if she had to slog through the “slime and muck” of wet British courses. Visiting Eunice, Pat, and Jean at the convent, she treated them to cake and ice cream, giving them a break from dieting. Rose spoke occasionally with her husband, and let Teddy and Bobby catch up with their father, by phone. She worried about Bobby’s studies. He had received low marks on an exam from his American school. Rose vowed to supervise his work “vigorously.”22 It was a daunting task. Like most of the young Kennedys, Bobby was orthographically and syntactically challenged: “I love allmost every thing, Cholcet,” the thirteen-year-old wrote. “I don’t like cricket very much I like baseball alot.… I can’t dive very well, but like it to a cirten exstant.”23
Despite her vow to oversee Bobby’s schoolwork, Rose embarked on trips at the end of January 1939 that would absent her from London and her two children at the embassy for six weeks. Although Ambassador Kennedy remained in the States until he set sail for England with Jack on February 9, she departed for Paris on January 31. She stopped for the latest styles at her favorite couturier, Molyneux. Muted tweed became her fabric of choice after a Scottish hostess told her that bright colors, like royal blue, “draw the attention … in your direction.”24
From the Ritz in Paris, Rose wrote to Joe, who was expected back in London soon, “Just to tell you how sorry I am not to be home to see you, and I am glad it will not be for long. I have enjoyed it here.… I saw Joe [Jr.] off to Spain.… I just keep on having fun and loving you. Devotedly, Rosa.”25 Like a number of adventuresome young Americans, Joe Jr. wanted to witness the Spanish Civil War at close range, causing his parents considerable anxiety. Young Kennedy indeed saw the ravages of war between Franco’s fascists and Spanish republicans.26 He didn’t realize, however, that Spain’s conflict was a dress rehearsal for the impending European war.
Rose simply couldn’t bear returning to England’s bleak midwinter weather, and from Paris she headed for the warmth of the Mediterranean sun, beginning in Cannes, then moving on to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Palestine, and Egypt. “I would love to see you people,” Rose wrote to her mother, “but Joe will not stay here [in London] for a very long time and I may as well see all the places around here.”27 Traveling with her was a new friend, Marie Bruce, whom she had met at a Paris luncheon just after Joe’s appointment as ambassador. Marie was rather stunned when Rose, a casual acquaintance, invited her to go along. Mrs. Bruce was recently widowed; perhaps her sadness had prompted Rose to reach out to her. “She is very perceptive to people’s unhappiness and reacts to it, tries to help,” Marie commented about her friend. “Young Joe was very much like her in this.… It is her humanity that is astonishing.”28
In Italy Rose and Marie explored Pompeii’s ruins, wrought by Mount Vesuvius’s AD 79 eruption. They viewed the macabre plaster casts of victims, contorted at their moment of death from searing lava. Rose found the red and green murals in excavated homes “exquisite.” “Wish I had seen them before I did the house at Palm Beach,” Rose declared. She failed to record her reaction to Pompeii’s infamous pornographic paintings. Then she was off to Greece, where she decried Lord Elgin’s removal of marbles from the Acropolis to the British Museum in the early 1800s. “It seemed to me really almost an act of plunder to remove these art treasures which have come down through the ages and which belonged to their own particular setting in Greece.” In Turkey Rose praised the reforms of President Mustafa Atatürk, who had died three months before her arrival. She particularly approved his promotion of Western dress, including abolishing fezzes for men and veils for women.29
Palestine was the most dangerous stop on the tour. Rose’s cruise ship was the first to dock there in a year. Landing at Haifa, she was met by the American consul and ferried by car to Jerusalem, accompanied by two armored vehicles. Fearing guerrilla attacks, her convoy went by way of Tel Aviv instead of Nazareth, which was completely isolated from routine traffic. The consul explained, according to Rose, that “Jews have immigrated in overwhelming numbers and are now numbering one to every two Arabs. If this continues, Arabs will no longer have [a] foothold in the country and so are revolting. Arabs sell land to Jews, then spend money in town, then have neither land or money. Naturally, Jews buy only good land and as they are given huge sums from America, they now possess [the] best of land. Jews [are] not self-supporting but are helped [with] $2,000,000 from U.S.A,” which may well be another example of Rose’s Jewish stereotypes or at least acceptance of them.30
After lunching with the British governor, she explored Christendom’s holiest shrines. Like many pilgrims to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Rose found the “whole effect of this church … rather confusing.… As different civilizations or sects had influence, they built chapels, also dark and difficult to see and distinguish.” In fact, after visiting Bethlehem, she was “[r]ather disappointed and disillusioned in Holy Places.” Devout travelers to the Holy Land often find that commercialism, as well as political and religious strife, taint the most sacred sites. Yet Rose understood her visit’s symbolism in light of the ongoing struggle between fascism and freedom. Having her photograph taken in Jerusalem was important “because it is good propaganda now for Jerusalem to advertise it is safe for me to be there. Bad propaganda for England to be having all this trouble as totalitarian States say democracies cannot control [their people].”31
By February’s end Rose and Marie had made their way to Egypt and toured, with an Antiquities Bureau guide, the ancient Temples of Karnak and Luxor, the Aswan Dam, and the Nile. Ancient magnificence and modern squalor collided, in Rose’s judgment. Dust, dirt, and flies violated her dedication to cleanliness and hygiene. Even worse, she saw no evidence of efforts to improve living standards. Everything that Rose had done to move her family far beyond their Irish ancestors’ peasant roots and the teeming tenements of Boston’s North End clashed with the undeveloped world’s poverty. Joe had made the Kennedys millionaires, but it was Rose who made them healthy and educated. In her Victorian worldview, to have done less would represent a weak character. As we have seen, responsibility and discipline were Rose’s most prized traits. She simply could not comprehend the “utter lack of civilization” that she discovered along the Nile’s banks. More disconcerting, even sickening to her, was that the Egyptian children “seem utterly indifferent” to flies that landed on their eyelids. Why didn’t they brush them away? She focused on proper diets for her family; how could a country allow poor nutrition to cause blindness among its children? And why so little milk available for them, Rose wondered.32
After her month-long grand tour, Rose welcomed a return to Italy, where she would soon rendezvous with the entire Kennedy clan except for Joe Jr., still in Spain. The family gathered in Rome for the coronation of their friend, Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, as Pope Pius XII, on March 12, 1939. Rose stunned the hotel clerk when she informed him that her family, along with their governess, nurse, maid, the Moores, and Joe’s friend Arthur Houghton would be claiming sixteen rooms. She felt run down from insomnia and lack of potable milk on her Mediterranean trip, which she again blamed for weight loss.
But the Church, as it often did, would provide a welcome diversion. She had to assemble her eight children by 7 a.m. for their trip to St. Peter’s Basilica. After inspecting her brood, she discovered that “Eunice’s sleeve was ripped out of her dress in the back.” No time for sewing repairs, they closed the torn seam with hairpins and covered it with a silver-fox scarf. As President Roosevelt’s official representatives to the spectacle, Joe and Rose sat in the front row. Placed next to Eamon de Valera, the American-born leader of the Irish Free State, Rose listened politely to his version of the “trouble in North Ireland,” where the British and Irish unionists refused to relinquish their Ulster counties.33 She knew that an ambassador’s spouse shouldn’t discuss political topics, especially one as controversial as the “Irish question,” at such occasions. Moreover, Rose must have experienced internal conflicts between her Irish heritage and her fervent desire to be accepted by British aristocracy.
The next day the entire Kennedy entourage returned to the Vatican for an audience with the new pope. Flanked by two Swiss guards, the family posed in their formal attire. Rose and the Holy Father reminisced about his 1936 trip as Cardinal Pacelli to Hyde Park and their Bronxville home. As Joe wrote later, “[The pope] talked to her so much and so kindly and intimately I thought she would faint.”34 Rose had achieved nirvana. From her childhood, she longed to be near famous and important people. From her days at the convent, she strove to be the most devout Catholic. Now she not only had witnessed the pope’s coronation at St. Peter’s Basilica, built on the bedrock of Roman Catholicism, but was conversing with her friend Pope Pius XII. Then Teddy became the first child to receive his First Communion from the new pontiff. Most Catholic children remember the pomp and solemnity of this sacramental ritual, but Teddy would recall with pride the extraordinary circumstances of his First Communion for the rest of his life.35 And his mother would cite this holy achievement when campaigning for him.
From Rome, Rose headed back to Paris, where Joe caught up with her a few days later. He arrived at the Ritz to see her but discovered that she was at church. Searching for his devout wife in La Madeleine Church, he found her engrossed in prayer, her eyes closed and head bowed.36 Starting at Blumenthal, where she rose earlier than the other students each morning to meditate, Rose found relaxation in quiet prayerfulness. The tactile and spiritual feel of rosary beads in her small hands brought peace and tranquility to her otherwise frenetic life. When maternal and spousal pressures impinged, she turned to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the rosary’s patroness, for solace and strength.
Finally back in London, Rose plunged into the bustling spring social season: luncheons, teas, receptions, and dinners, interspersed with golf. First came a gala Buckingham Palace dinner for French president Albert Lebrun, a tense affair “because of the political unrest everyone felt” in Europe and its unpredictable impact on the futures of England and France. Despite noting this tension as the world inched closer to war, Rose continued to focus on superficialities. She would have loved the evening to be filmed so that viewers could see the palace’s ornate rooms with their artistic masterpieces and the women guests, “very gorgeously gowned—tiaras and beautiful jewels.…” “[T]he men in their most elaborate uniforms with all their medals and decorations make a picture you wouldn’t find a duplicate of anyplace else in the world.… But whenever I mention it [a film] to any Englishmen they always rather think it undignified.”37 Although Rose’s preoccupation with such trivia seems misplaced in light of the impending war, she foreshadowed the British monarchy’s eventual embrace of modern public relations in presenting its pomp and circumstance to large audiences. The BBC and American networks are replete with royal weddings, jubilee celebrations, and documentaries on the House of Windsor, all contributing to twenty-first-century increases in public approval for the royal family.
April 1939 dawned with Rose attending House of Commons debates on British foreign policy toward Hitler and Mussolini. She continued to admire Prime Minister Chamberlain’s personal traits: “quiet, decisive, moderate in tone, never appealing to the dramatic or sensational, never raising his voice.” But Rose worried about the physical toll that concern over Germany and Italy was taking on Britain’s leader. During lunch at 10 Downing Street, she “asked him if Hitler died if he would be more confident about peace and [Chamberlain] said he would.” Perhaps because of Lindbergh’s alarming reports on the German air force, Rose wondered aloud if Britain had enough information on Germany’s preparedness for war. Chamberlain assured her that he received such reports.38
On April 7 Joe and Rose played golf, but the ambassador grew tense upon receiving word that Italy had invaded Albania, seizing the strategic Balkan kingdom as a response to Germany’s annexation of Austria and aggression toward Czechoslovakia. Joe Jr. returned from Spain with firsthand accounts of fascist victories, and the privations of civil war. In fact, Britain had already recognized Franco’s regime in February.39
Ambassador and Mrs. Kennedy spent another weekend as guests of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle in mid-April. FDR had just declared his intentions to achieve peace with Germany and Italy, so Rose reported that “everyone was so appreciative of President Roosevelt’s gesture and for us, being there at that particular time after the President’s gesture—we could not have been more welcome. Everyone was particularly interested in America and happy and optimistic.” Despite renewed optimism, the royals escorted their American guests to a display of barrage balloons in Surrey. Rose marveled that on “[o]ccasions like this the Queen always has a ready smile and a word for everyone, no matter how humble his position. It seems to me she must become tired and bored sometimes, but there is never any sign of flagging interest. The King of course is also very much interested, but for a woman it must be more difficult to go in for all sorts of mechanical things as she has had to do these last few months due to the war preparations.”40
Over lunch the next day, Rose conversed again with a haggard Prime Minister Chamberlain, this time about the more restful topic of birds and gardens. She also discussed women’s education, opining that more American coeds received schooling for careers than British girls did. The prime minister gently disagreed; his niece, for example, had attended lectures at London’s Monkey Club, which tried to stimulate intellectual pursuits among well-to-do young ladies. “The name of the Club sounds as though it were a completely different sort of thing,” Rose wryly observed.41 Located in a row of houses along Pont Street, and named for the iconic Japanese carving of Three Wise Monkeys, it was one of the poshest finishing schools in London. Its founder had decided in 1923 that “there must be some mean between the bluestockings at the universities and the empty-headed young things of the [social] season.”42
Meanwhile, Rosemary was thriving that spring, according to Mother Isabel. “We are very pleased, here, with Rosemary’s remarkable progress. There is a great change in her lately. We are so glad to learn that your Excellency is pleased too,” she wrote to Ambassador Kennedy.43 The exact nature of this “progress” is unclear. It is unlikely that Rosemary’s academics could improve beyond the developmental obstacles nature had placed in her way. The Kennedys’ goal was to see her active and content. Mother Isabel simply may have thought that Rosemary had achieved her parents’ modest expectations. Joe commended Rosemary: “You have worked very hard and I am very proud of you and I love you a lot.”44 In such a competitive family, his praise meant the world to her. Although Rose had spent considerable time with Rosemary during her childhood, Joe had now become her primary supervisor.
Rose was busy with her pursuits, including socializing with the royal family. After observing the two young princesses, she concluded that they were “natural, simple, solicitous of one another, and it does seem as though they have a difficult time always accompanying their parents now to some maneuver or public demonstration.”45 She also spent time with Lord and Lady Astor at their Buckinghamshire estate, Cliveden. Rose found the sometimes prickly American expatriate and member of Parliament Nancy Astor “inherently good.” She admitted, however, that Nancy had been said to dominate her offspring “too much so it’s difficult for them to be around her.”46
Rose continued to burnish the public image of her family, explaining to Reader’s Digest that Joe and she had decided “years ago … that our children were going to be our best friends and that we never could see too much of them. Since we couldn’t do both, it was better to bring up our family than to go out to dinners. My husband’s business often took him away from home, and when all of us had time to be together, we didn’t want to share it with outsiders.”47
ON APRIL 23 Joe informed Rose that Yugoslavia had signed a trade pact with the Axis powers. Nancy Astor considered the news disquieting, but Joe seemed “quite optimistic,” observing that “Germany will need more customers to trade with and all is well.”48 Such a tolerant view of Germany’s economic ambitions would soon run afoul of FDR’s foreign policy.
A highlight of Rose’s diplomatic spouse’s career came on May 4, 1939. The king and queen were coming for dinner, and her whole life had been preparation for the perfection and precision of such an occasion. Rose especially loved the table arrangements: white and purple Phalaenopsis. (But she didn’t utter the common name of the flower to the press, fearing that orchids “would sound too nouveau riche, or too extreme.”) She imported strawberries for the shortcake dessert, hoping that they would prove tastier than London fruit. She had hoped to have American shad roe for the main course, but a delay in shipment forced her to serve English sole. One particularly nerve-racking logistical element included security for the royal couple to protect them from IRA terrorists. Rose assured Scotland Yard that the embassy’s additional staff members had all served at Buckingham Palace. “Everyone seemed very calm and confident but I knew everyone in the house was terribly excited, including myself and the Ambassador.” Promptly at 8:30 p.m. Joe and Rose assembled in the entrance hall to greet King George and Queen Elizabeth and accompany them up the grand staircase to shake hands with a receiving line, including all of the Kennedy children.49
At dinner’s end, Rose and the queen adjourned upstairs to powder their noses and chat informally in Rose’s bedroom. “She asked me if I got up in the morning to see the children off and I said I used to in what I called the good old days, but that now I was usually up late at nights and rested in the morning. To my astonishment and humiliation,” wrote Rose “[the queen] said she usually got up, half-dressed, to see her children, and then went back to bed again.”50
For entertainment the hosts screened the 1939 film Goodbye, Mr. Chips. Even the queen wasn’t immune to Robert Donat’s Academy Award–winning performance as beloved English schoolmaster Arthur Chipping, who loses his wife, played by radiant Greer Garson, and his son, but devotes his life to boys at fictional Brookfield School. “After it was finished,” Rose observed, “it was very plain to see that the Queen had had a little weep, as had most of the people.”51 Mrs. Kennedy didn’t include herself in that tearful group. When thank-you letters poured in from guests congratulating her and reporting how much they enjoyed dinner with the monarchs on the eve of their departure for the United States, Rose felt deep satisfaction.52
Moving from the head of state to the head of government, Rose and Joe spent several days with Neville Chamberlain at the prime minister’s sixteenth-century mansion, Chequers. Located in Buckinghamshire, it had been the British premier’s official country home since its owners, Lord and Lady Lee, donated it to the nation in 1921. Enthralled by the centuries of history that surrounded her, Rose particularly focused on the mansion’s ties to Oliver Cromwell, whose grandson had lived there. Perhaps Puritan Cromwell’s persecution of Irish Catholics during his 1648–1660 reign as the British Isles’ lord protector drew her attention. Rose again turned to small talk about flowers, a relaxing subject for the “worn and tired” premier. She told Chamberlain about her trip to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in southwest London. Rose always took pride that, as a diplomat’s wife, she could find uncontroversial topics of mutual interest to VIPs. “We did not discuss the international situation,” Rose wrote, “because I know how loath Joe is to give his views, so, much as I would have liked to have an expression of opinion, I never introduce that particular subject. The prime minister also spoke about the immorality and the changes for which a war is responsible and cited the increase in divorce and the lack of morality following the last war.”53 Given that Rose’s religion banned divorce, she must have agreed with Chamberlain’s concerns.
On May 23 Rose hosted a lunch at the embassy “for people whom we wished to see but whom we did not feel had to be fitted into a dinner.” These included the Egyptian ambassador, to whom she spoke about blindness in his country. He reported that the condition was decreasing because of the country’s efforts to alleviate the ravages of sun, dust, and poor diet that Rose had seen firsthand. She had a more difficult time with Lord Londonderry, the Conservative member of Parliament for Northern Ireland’s County Down. He thought that “the conflict between North and South Ireland is kept alive by” Catholics and Protestants in the United States and Canada. “As he had told me last year that Mickey Collins [the Irish revolutionary leader, killed in 1922 during the Irish civil war] was a murderer, I am always a bit resentful of his point of view.”54 Once again Rose found herself caught between her Irish roots and her desire to gain acceptance among Britain’s elite and to exercise the discretion required of a diplomatic spouse.
In late May Rose departed for a stay in the United States after more than a year abroad. King George and Queen Elizabeth would be there at the same time, on their first trip to America. Rose had consulted with them and their staff regarding their itinerary, and Ambassador Kennedy had talked to them and the State Department about their visit.55 Joe “was certain that the gracious and easy manners of the king and queen would break through the formalities” and perhaps mitigate the Americans’ reaction to Edward VII’s 1936 shocking abdication to marry American divorcée Wallis Simpson. After all, the Anglo-American alliance was at a dangerous turning point as Hitler’s bellicosity increased.56 Rose didn’t meet with the monarchs during their contemporaneous visits to the States, and the State Department wouldn’t grant Joe the customary leave to welcome to his home country the head of state from his ambassadorial post, a sure sign of discord between Kennedy and the administration.57
From aboard the French Line’s SS Normandie, during the voyage to America, Rose described to Joe her mundane activities, including that she ate “a baked potato everyday, but I am still underweight about twelve pounds, according to statistics.” Because Rose usually erred on the side of thinness for herself, she didn’t seem alarmed by the weight loss, even on her already petite frame, and in photos on board ship she doesn’t appear gaunt or unwell. As always, she closed with warm wishes, “Much love to everyone and I miss you all terrific[ally].”58
According to writer Cari Beauchamp, Joe responded to his wife’s absence by spending time with beautiful playwright Clare Boothe Luce, former editor of Vogue and Vanity Fair. Thirteen years Rose’s junior, she was married to Henry Luce, publisher of Life, Time, and Fortune. A woman of sturdy libido, Clare, it was said, also included young Randolph Churchill (Winston’s son) and elderly New Dealer Bernard Baruch among her conquests.59 Her lovers’ ages clearly mattered not.
Rose docked in New York City on May 29, 1939. As usual, a troop of newspaper photographers greeted her. Honey Fitz and Josie visited their daughter at the luxurious Waldorf-Astoria before Rose attended the newly opened World’s Fair. Its theme, “the world of tomorrow,” was best illustrated by the General Motors exhibition. There Rose rode a miniature train that wound through roads, gardens, and factories as they might appear in 1959. “[L]anes will be wide, crossings will be made safe by upper and lower ramps, cars will be so cheap and can run so fast that houses can be built away from factories, the home dwellers can have gardens and lawns,” she reported. Rose really wanted to dine in the fair’s most popular destination, the French Casino, “but it was impossible to get [a] table even for me,” she lamented.60 King George and Queen Elizabeth also planned to visit the fair. Honey Fitz reported that the king’s Canada speech had gone well, with only one “almost imperceptible hesitation” from his “impediment.”61 This was the first mention Rose had ever made in her diary of George VI’s stutter.
After stopping briefly at the family estate in Bronxville, she headed to the Hyannis Port compound. Writing “Joe dear” that the water was “super,” she turned more serious: “All sorts of rumors about your departure from England, and no one seems much surprised.” Although First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt invited Rose to attend events honoring the king and queen, she declined, “saying Mother and Father would be too disappointed if I curtailed my brief visit.…” Perhaps the real reason was that, if the State Department didn’t want Joe to be part of the royals’ visit, then Rose wouldn’t take part without him. “Good-bye, darling,” Rose closed her letter to Joe, “and all my love to the little darlings. Am having a good rest—which is OK—for a while. Rosa.”62
Back in New York, Rose bid farewell to her parents before setting sail on the SS Washington. Even as an inveterate traveler, farewells could be painful for her: “Music playing furiously just before we sail which seems to keep our spirits buoyed up and distract us.”63 Perhaps the photographers in her cabin helped take her mind off leaving Honey Fitz and Josie, now in their seventies.
Rose reached London to join Joe in welcoming the king and queen home from their triumphant North American trip. They had solidified Britain’s alliance with the United States during a cordial visit with the Roosevelts at Hyde Park. The Kennedys attended the London Guildhall luncheon for the royal couple, where Rose ate a bit of roast beef, although it was Friday, when the Catholic Church required abstinence from meat. Chatting with the archbishop of Canterbury, she was struck by the British focus on history. Americans looked ahead to the future, as she had witnessed at GM’s World’s Fair exhibition. The king addressed the luncheon, “and everybody said it was his finest speech,” wrote Rose, adding that “his stuttering was not at all noticeable and most people thought he had gained such confidence from his visit to America from the approval and applause which had been bestowed on both” him and Queen Elizabeth. “[He] realized that he was much beloved and very much accepted for his own worth.… It was so delightful to see the charming smile of affection and approval the Queen gave him when he had finished speaking, as much as to say, ‘Well done.’”64
Rose’s social whirlwind continued with Eunice’s coming-out party at the embassy, featuring dinner and dancing. “About half-past two they all started doing the ‘big apple’ and everybody got very gay. I was quite surprised and even a little shocked because I had never seen the people reach that state. However, I was assured by some of the chaperones that the party was a huge success. About a quarter of four I asked Ambrose [the orchestra leader] to play ‘God Save the King’ and everybody stood as straight as a ramrod and the party was over.” The Big Apple dance craze peaked in 1939. With its roots in African-American jazz and religious circle dances, no wonder Rose felt somewhat shocked by the partyers’ rhythmic gyrations.65
That summer, at the All England Club for the Wimbledon championships, Rose had tea with Princess Helena Victoria, who reported that she could no longer afford to donate money to charities. “The race in armaments is taxing us all, and the future looks even bleaker,” Rose concluded, reflecting the opinion her husband had expressed in his controversial Trafalgar Day speech.66 In early July Rose finally wrote of her concern about the impending hostilities: “This is a difficult time because the papers are full of war.” Daily stories “about evacuation schemes and lists of supplies which should be stored at home.…” filled the British newspapers. Her friend Lady Astor began preparing Cliveden to become a military hospital, as it had been in the Great War, or to serve as an evacuation point for children. The Duchess of Marlborough took similar steps for Blenheim Palace.67
The Kennedys escaped London’s gloom, taking off for what would be their last prewar holiday, again on the Côte d’Azur. Marlene Dietrich and her family also took their vacation at Eden-Roc, and Joe may have renewed his amorous adventures with her.68 His audacity in doing so with his family nearby matched his brazenness in forcing Rose to associate with Gloria Swanson. Rose either didn’t know about the Marlene-Joe relationship or chose to turn her usual blind eye. This was her marital arrangement. With divorce never an option, she seized all of the positive perks of being married to the man she had fallen desperately in love with as a teenager. Fame, fortune, and the lifestyle they facilitated were her rewards for accepting an unfaithful husband.
The Kennedys’ vacation ended abruptly on August 24, when Germany and the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression treaty. It appeared that Hitler’s next target would be Poland.69 Ambassador Kennedy left Cannes for London, where he issued a dire press release advising “American travelers to leave England. We feel it is our duty to warn those Americans now in England that, by remaining any longer, they are running the risk of inconvenience and possibly danger.… All those who do not have any important reason for remaining are, therefore, urged to return to the United States without delay. Accommodations are now available on most vessels. The same may not be true in another day or two.”70
Rose’s journal, kept so faithfully during her eighteen months in Europe, now ended. “There was too much to think about, and too many plans to make.”71 She and the children truncated their Riviera holiday and raced back to the embassy after Joe phoned to say they were going home. Rose couldn’t know how the magic of their interlude abroad would utterly disintegrate. She would spend the rest of her life trying to recapture it.