joesph p. kennedy. was he a bootlegger?

ive read many times that old joe was involved with frank Costello, and others in bootlegging. now, the kennedy family will never admit this. they continue to hold him in a saintly glow. however ive read that there is evidence proving that he was deeply involved with mobsters and bootlegging. the book I read was "sins of the father" by Ronald Kessler.
was old joe a bootlegger? what do you think?

Of course he was a bootlegger.

I still say the Bush dynasty left more collateral damage.

you will get no argument out of me on that post.

I think he was not only a bootlegger, but also a gangster.

I agree. It's just that being Irish, which lacks the traditional structure of LCN, coupled with the fact that he paid for his "legitimacy" at a relatively young age, it just wasn't as obvious. But Joe Kennedy had bodies under his belt. No doubt in my mind.

That's really the catch. The same structure (Cosa Nostra) that allowed Italians to dominate the multi ethnic organized crime world...also chained them to it. The Jews and Irish got out and assimilated far earlier in many cases. Just an observation.

And we're on the same page about Joe Kennedy.

Without a doubt a bootlegger.

Some people deny his bootleging ventures just because in the early 1930's,when Prohibition was repealed, Kennedy formed a partnership with high profile figures and opened a firm for importing legal whiskey and other kind of booze.I really dont see the point of that buecause there were also mobsters who opened legal firms after prohibition and sold legal booze...in other words they just stayed in the business and that was that.

They also deny Kennedy being a stock manipulator because at the time he was too busy with other problems lol

I belive that he was a bootlegger and had mob ties because there were several contracts put on his head by rival bootleggers and mobsters.

I also used to read somewhere about reports that he had a full support for the nazis as well and that made big problems with one of his campaigns or something

Well if anyone believes in Karma here, then he got it 2 fold watching both his kids getting clipped.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_P._Kennedy,_Sr.

In the 1920s Kennedy made huge profits from reorganizing and refinancing several Hollywood studios, ultimately merging several acquisitions into Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) studios.[2]

After Prohibition of alcohol ended in 1933, Kennedy consolidated an even larger fortune when he traveled to Scotland with FDR's son, James Roosevelt, to buy distribution rights for Scotch whisky. His company,× Importers, became the exclusive× American agent for Gordon's Gin and Dewar's Scotch. In addition,× Kennedy purchased spirits-importation rights from Schenley Industries, a firm in Canada.[2] He owned the largest office building in the country, Chicago's Merchandise Mart, giving his family an important base in that city and an alliance with the Irish-American political leadership there.

There is no evidence that Kennedy Sr. was a bootlegger

Rather he used his friendship with Roosevelt and his political connections to do business after Prohibition, flooding the usa with quality liquor, in the 20s became rich thanks to the stock market.

Scalish about his sons, Kennedy Sr. had ties with the Patriarcas, and in any case don't think to the karma, if you do business with certain people and you promise certain things, it's normal that if you don't keep your promises, it's normal that you should expect a reaction.

John and Bobby knew that his father had made certain promises to the Mafia?
if yes,they thought to be safe and untouchable? they didn't know that had been killed three presidents before JFK?
John, Bobby and their father have sinned omnipotent thinking they are invincible and we know what happened.

He didn't have full support the Nazi's, he identified with Hitler and his views on Democracy.

And Joe Kennedy was a bootlegger/racketeer. There's numerous circumstantial proofs of this such as testimony from other Bootleggers at the time. Majority of his fortune came through prohibition and profiting off the illegal transport and distribution of alcohol. There was a special on the History channel called Rumrunners...About guys who were in the trade during prohibition, a lot of them were still alive when the documentary was filmed and many of them, say Kennedy was a bootlegger, a handful claimed to have even been runners for him. This has become one of the worst kept secrets in history, in regards of the Kennedy's. That much is clear, as far as him being a killer and a straight up gangster, I've never heard of that.

vanity fair magazine, had a story about his dealings in Hollywood and they made no bones about the fact that he was a stock swindler when he was the holder of movie studio stock.

the book " sins of the father" by Ronald Kessler. debunks all the kennedy family myths about this guy. if jfk ran today in the information age, the kennedys could not cover up his criminal activities. as they did in 1960.

furio from naples. there certainly is evidence he was a bootlegger. you are wrong.

What I noticed about wikipedia is that many times, controversial information about people is omitted. It could be conspiracy. It could be simply fear of lawsuits.

alfa, yes, and I think that is " yellow journalism"
they do the same thing with hoover, the people are dead now.

tell the truth!! they cant' be sued if it's true.

In the Five Families Selwyn Raab says that Joe Kennedy also set up liquor deals through Frank Costello.

Wikipedia is yellow journalism? .

Hint: It's not journalism AT ALL when anyone can sign on and alter the page .

I read that book also, and Selwyn raab is as good of a source that you can find, this man was just as big a bootlegger as any of them.

and he never had the honor that Italians had, he proved that during the second world war.

Raab is tops in that field.

Also, the nature of Irish OC and the nature of political machines in northern cities at the time (1860s-1920s) married Irish OC to "legitimate politics". Joeseph P. Kennedy's father was almost archetypal in this, he went from Saloon-keeper/grocer and nieghborhood "fixer" who held-sway over the neighboerhood toughs to politician millionire.

It's rare you see actual cosa nostra members engaging in politics, they prefeered working with arms-lengh associaties whom they owned. I can only think of one, Pat Marcy, and that's if you beleive Bill Roemer that he was actually made into the Outfit. Maybe some more knowledgable Chicago people know more than I do.

I think the book is still out on Kennedy's bootlegging. A few rumors and tales told by career criminals doesn't amount to much evidence. Joseph P. Kennedy was definately a dirty guy who manipulated the stock market among other things. But I find it hard to beleive that even during prohibition that a man who was already a millionaire and harvard grad with political asperations and apirations of "respectability" would risk it all to do some bootlegging and being associated with some super-violent mob people. Stranger things have happened but it doesn't make much sense.

Though I do concede that his winning an exclusive contract Dewars and the whisky importing right after prohibition is suspicious, suspician isn't direct evidence of fact.

There's no debate, he WAS a bootlegger.

Well, when you try to look into Joe Kennedy's past, you get the distinct impression that he used his political influence to whitewash his history.

There really isn't that much you can find on the man.

After reading over this thread, I went and dug up my old dusty copy of Five Families. Joe Kennedy is implicated as a mob associate or mob connected individual on page 126.

Does being mob connected make him a bootlegger from the old days? Not necessarily.

Are you serious? telling that you use FIVE FAMILIES as your research source?? And then wonder why there isn't much in it?

I do not wanna live on this planet anymore.

Haha. I think what a lot of people, esp on this thread, would like, is definitive final proof that Joe Kennedy the patriarch of the Kennedy dynasties, was an old time bootlegger.

The standard of proof might be much lower here too. Even a quote from a gangster might suffice for some.

I think he was a bootlegger. I said so earlier on. But the key word is think, not know.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/04/26/the-kennedy-bootlegging-myth.html

Well, either way, Joe Kennedy was a scumbag. When you give your daughter a lobotomy just because you're afraid that she'll embarrass you, you forfeit your right to call yourself a member of the human race. No matter how many of your scumbag descendants con their way into government office. It's a shame, though. If there was any justice in this world, Old Joe would have caught a bullet in the head back in the '40s. Then maybe the so-called "Kennedy Curse" would have ended with him.

Were Robert and John really that bad? I mean, were they scumbags? I admittedly know very little about 'em.

different times then. iam quite sure that joe kennedy wasn't 100% playing to the laws. But nearly nobody was back then, right? It was all about making money

Of course. I don't care if he ran booze or not. I just don't like the Kennedy-Camelot myth, and I don't like what Joe Kennedy did to his daughter. It was inhuman.

they dont ask where it came from. they ask do you have it.

Ain't that the fuckin truth .

Pizzaboy's Old Man: Is his money green?

the book " sins of the father" goes into the lobotomy,
it was a horrible thing to do to one of your very own children.
it was done because rosemary was slow, and joe kennedy wanted perfect children,

in the book, its mentioned that he never told his wife rose, that he took rosemary to a doctor, a man who won't tell his wife the shameful thing he did to his daughter!
he was a viscious, mean spirited, myth maker. I refuse to believe his myths, when facts prove him wrong.

I always hated the kennedys.....

What old man Joe did to his daughter was as bad as it gets, From what I've read she wasn't even that bad. Basically she was rebellious, She smoked and dated around a little.

After the frontal lobotomy back when they actually used an ice pick like device and went in above the eye socket that poor girl never spoke again and was unable to feed herself.

She was just a little wild by 1930's standards and for that they turned her into a living dead person.

Very sad....

And Bobby....with his bug fucking mouth. Pissing off LCN and Hoover. Then you have JFK who totally fucked those poor Cubans at the bay of pigs.

Then John John.....Flying in a storm before he was instrument certified killed not only his wife but the little sister. With all his fucking money he could have easily chartered a plane or hired an instrument certified co pilot...pure Kennedy ego.

Then you've got Teddy and William Smith. I used to play gigs in the Au Bar. I heard a ton of drunk uncle Teddy stories. And then theres Mary Jo Kopekne who was ALIVE for something like 40 minutes breathing from the air pockets in the submerged car. But no, Teddy had to call his lawyers first the next morning to get his story strait.

I could go on.....but why???

Sal

salvi,62,.. im like you, ive read about them extentsively,
and they all have this sense of privilege, and they all hold themselves above the law.

they are shameless, and everything about them is covered up. I am definetly no fan of the kennedys!!

That's my pal, Salvi .

Binnie or Pizzaboy, how do you do that? How do you show a post of someone else within a post of someone else?

Hit the quote button.

I guess I'm making it more complex than it really is. Other people post threads within their message, and it can scroll up and down. Never done that. Is that more than one set of quote unquote commands?

Just hit quote, and when you see this [/quote] at the bottom of the portion you want to quote, hit return and start typing underneath. When you're done, hit preview to make sure you did it right. Then hit submit.

Thanks PB

I'm getting there. The way you guys do it and make it scroll up and down in it's own window is not as obvious as one might think. I'm intermediate on computers and this actually takes some consideration.

No problem. Any time, buddy.


Same here. I was very late to the Internet party. I bought my first computer in 2004. I was 45 years old at the time. And I'm completely self taught, but I get by okay.

I was stubborn. I didn't even get my first cell phone until 2006. Didn't want to get married to a gadget...which is basically exactly what eventually happened.

Well, I lived in Detroit and I heard that Joe was importing booze from Canada, which is only across the Detroit River.

I zipped across the Ambassador Bridge on my Vespa anytime I liked to go to Canada. So safe compared to Detroit, LOL.

That way, you don't have to manufacture booze, just buy and then re-sell the stuff distilled in Canada.

In the early 1920's Kennedy clashed with Detriots Purple gang.Reports say that he smuggled booze through their turf with out their permission.Sotry goes that the gang issued a contract on Joe's life and it was Chicago's Diamond Joe Esposito who cancelled the contract.Diamond Joe had the power to that because he was running a big part of the sugar business in the mid west and had close ties with the Purple gang

but this does not mean necessarily that he was bootlegging. only that he was not willed to pay the gang

If it was in the early 20's,during prohibtion.He smuggled booze into the U.S. which was illegal

as i said, not necessarily! it was possible under legal medicinal permits, which he had.

It may be possible.Gambling lord Jim O'Leary made the same trick,by having a pharmacy licence for distributing alchohol.In fact he was bootlegging

but this does not mean necessarily that he was bootlegging. only that he was not willed to pay the gang [/quote]







Joseph Kennedy imported booze from Canada through Detroit, which was illegal, regardless of how you put it, if you got caught you were labeled a bootlegger. But it's not just that, it's almost public record now that he sold that booze through Italians who were connected to various Crime Families all over America, the Detroit Families being one of them. He also had deals set up with Frank Costello in NY.

Iam sure you have some substantial proof to backup your claims. For example, the one and only source who stated that Kennedy had deals with Costello was - Costello. Later, Bonanno claimed the same, Kennedy was in Business with him during Prohibition. Do i have to say that this is no proof? At least for me.

Actually the source for the Costello thing, isn't Costello. It was Doris Kearns, an historian who had access to some of Kennedy's papers and discovered evidence that supported Costello's claim and that of Meyer Lansky's that he also had illegal dealings with Kennedy during prohibition. Kennedy had already gone into prohibition with stocks of liquor from his father, also on the day Prohibition ended, like the exact day, he'd already had three franchises of British Whiskey & Gin, and a company to import them. Is it just coincidence that he was able to accomplish such a thing on the exact day prohibition ended, possibly, but unlikely. He probably had inside dealings. And he guarded those closely until his death, then somehow these papers came into the hands of Kearns.


And the term "smuggling" insinuates a crime within itself, so if he was smuggling anything in Detroit, in all actuality he was a bootlegger. He imported and distributed liquor to the States, while it was illegal to do so. What does that make him?

Right on. It would be great if we could post Doris Kearns' materials to this website....to put the issue to rest once and for all.

A little known fact about him is that he owned 3 Hollywood film studios in the late 1920s just as the talkies were taking off. I read about his ventures in a book about the early years of the movie industry in LA. He doesn't come across as a very pleasant individual and some 'strongarm' tactics are hinted at when it comes to dealing with rival studios.

like what he did to alexander pantages, who owned a chain of movie theatres that ole joe wanted, so, what did he do?

he gave 10.000 dollars to a woman who had a ten year old daughter, who claimed that pantages raped her, it was a lie.

the girl later admitted her mother was given 10,ooo dollars by joe kennedy. the accusation ruined pantages, he also stole money from Gloria swanson she tells her story in her book.

the pantages story comes from "sins of the father" by Ronald Kessler. and that's just the tip of the iceberg with this guy.

If Joe Kennedy was capable of those kinds of actions, I wouldn't be surprised if bootlegging was one of the less serious laws he broke.

alfa. yes, if you can, find out what the british people thought of him, when he was ambassador to England in the 2nd world war.

It's just typical that the Kennedy's catch all the shit for their alleged misdeeds yet nobody obsesses over that hayseed podunk hick Jimmy Carter's buffoonery in the Iran Hostage Crisis and the nepotism over his brother, the downright evil shit the Bush dynasty has been involved in over the last 50 years not limited to their friendship, funding and enabling of Bin Laden and those bastions of moral fortitude Tricky Dick and Ron Reagan.

GTF over it like.

@Moe: You're sticking up for an Irish scumbag the same way that some of these kids stick up for Italian thugs. And you're not wrong in calling them out for it. But you have to be consistent, son.

Jimmy Carter's an asshole, and a rabid anti-Semite to boot. But again, Jimmy Carter being an inept Jew hater, and John Gotti being an Italian American sociopath, doesn't make the Kennedys squeaky clean by any stretch of the imagination.

Two wrongs don't make a right. Ever.

good post. p.b. you are sooooooooo right!

the irony that he was a bootlegger and his son was a criminal buster. yea i think he was a bootlegger.

Jimmy Carter was a rabid anti semite?

No, Jimmy Carter is a rabid anti-Semite.

No such thing- the Bush are living it up!

John & bobby Kennedy were taken out because they didn't follow how the game is played..

How?

Joseph P. Kennedy's two most recent biographers have cleared up the myth of his "bootlegging" career. It's based in the fact that, in 1933, as Prohibition was about to be repealed, Kennedy formed a partnership called Somerset Importers, to bring in two brands of Scotch and one of gin from the UK. His partner: Jimmy Roosevelt, son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. They started operations, legitimately, after Prohibition was repealed.

Joe Kennedy's father was a saloonkeeper and liquor wholesaler before Prohibition, when Joe was making his first fortune as a banker. During Prohibition, Joe was a stock manipulator and Hollywood mogul. He was also a near-teetotaler.