When Joe was born in July of 1915, his grandfather announced, “This child is the future president of the nation.” At the time, Joe’s grandfather was the mayor of Boston, Massachusetts, and Joe’s father was the president of the Columbia Trust Bank in Boston. From a young age, Joe’s father groomed him for a career in politics with the presidency as his ultimate goal for his son. Joe’s eight siblings were all held to high standards, but Joe was the favorite child. If Joe had his own goals in life, he never acted on them.

In 1933, Joe graduated from the prestigious Choate School in Wallingford, Connecticut, and won the Harvard trophy, one of the most coveted of athletic prizes which was awarded annually to the member of the football team who best combined scholarship and sportsmanship. Although Joe was not the first person to win the trophy, his was the first name engraved upon it. Rather than going straight into college, Joe was one of 20 youths selected from over 900 applicants “for a year’s trip around the world on a four-masted schooner.” Joe and his group visited every continent and almost every European country on their tour. While in Germany, Joe praised Adolph Hitler and his forced sterilization program in a letter to his father. He said Hitler’s program was doing “away with many of the disgusting specimens of men which inhabit this earth.”

In the fall of 1934, Joe entered Harvard College and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree four years later. Joe then enrolled at Harvard Law School, the next logical step on his way to the presidency. With World War II looming on the horizon for Americans, Joe was among a group of Harvard students who formed the Harvard Committee Against Military Intervention in Europe and proclaimed, “Since, contrary to the assertions of the Committee for Militant Aid to Britain, there is every reason to believe that America is not now at war, it is incumbent upon us to consider the possibility of remaining at peace.”

War often brings opportunity. Despite his initial opposition to the war, Joe put his law studies on hold and enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve in June of 1944. Becoming a war hero would certainly help his political ambitions. The United States officially entered the war on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. As a pilot, Joe flew more than enough combat missions to allow him to return home. Fellow pilot Louis Papas said, “There was never an occasion for a mission that meant extra hazard that Joe did not volunteer. He had everybody’s unlimited admiration and respect for his courage, zeal, and willingness to undertake the most dangerous missions.” In August 1944, Joe volunteered to take part in Operation Aphrodite in which war-weary bombers were converted into radio-controlled missiles. The plan was that Joe and his co-pilot Wilford Willy would fly the “drone” bomber with over 21,000 pounds of explosives to an altitude of 2,000 feet at which point another airplane would gain complete radio control.

Joe and Wilford would then arm the explosives and parachute out of the airplane over England. The crew in the second airplane would fly the radio-controlled bomber to its target. At 6:18 p.m. on August 12, Joe radioed, “Spade Flush,” the code phrase for the second airplane to take radio control of the drone. At 6:20, while Joe and Wilford awaited the signal to bail out, the bombs detonated prematurely.

Joe’s father’s dreams of his son becoming president ended with Joe’s death. Well, only for a short time.

You see, had Joe not been killed during World War II, it is unlikely that his brother would have become president of the United States. Joe, Joseph Kennedy Jr., was the older brother of John F. Kennedy.

Sources:
Meriden Record, May 30, 1933, p.8.
Meriden Record, June 23, 1933, p.8.
The Boston Globe, July 20, 1934, p.3.
The Atlanta Constitution, December 18, 1940, p.28.
The Kansas City Times, August 15, 1944, p.3.
Meilan Solly, “The Top-Secret World War II Mission That Killed Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., the Heir Apparent to the Political Dynasty,” Smithsonian Magazine, August 12, 2024, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-top-secret-world-war-ii-mission-that-killed-joseph-pkennedy-heir-apparent-political-dynasty-180984857/#:~:text=Joe%20Jr.’s%20time%20in,Kennedy%2C%20who%20had%20intellectual%20disabilities.