1888–1969, U.S. ambassador to Great Britain (1937–40), b. Boston, grad. Harvard, 1912, father of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Edward M. Kennedy (see separate entries). He engaged in banking, shipbuilding, investment banking, and motion-picture distribution before he served (1934–35) as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. He was (1936–37) head of the U.S. Maritime Commission until his appointment as ambassador. In London he supported the overtures of the Chamberlain government to Hitler and was generally noninterventionist. He resigned as ambassador in Nov., 1940. In his later years he continued to be successful in business (notably real estate) and devoted considerable time to philanthropic activities, especially the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., Memorial Foundation, dedicated to his eldest son, who died in World War II. He wrote I'm for Roosevelt (1936).

Kennedy's wife, Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1890–1995, was the daughter of U.S. congressman and Boston mayor John Francis "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald. They had nine children.

See A. Smith, ed., Hostage to Fortune: The Letters of Joseph P. Kennedy (2000); J. F. Dinneen, The Kennedy Family (1960); D. K. Goodwin, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys (1987); and biographies by R. J. Whalen (1964) and D. E. Koskoff (1974).

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