By the way, this bio of Joseph P. Kennedy is from a writer who says he got complete access to all of his papers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/30/books/...ed=all&_r=0This is the finding aid at the JFK Library:
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/JPKPP.aspx?f=1The author, like Okrent, claimed that J.P. Kennedy was no bootlegger, so maybe there wasn't anything incriminating in the material he had access to (assuming he really did have access to everything), but it's interesting that as soon as Prohibition ended in 1933, Kennedy went to England and obtained a contract to import alcohol from Somerset Importers. Funny that all of a sudden he had the necessary knowledge to do all this. Maybe we won't ever find Kennedy's signature on orders for booze during Prohibition as most bootleggers covered their tracks and we don't know about them until they were caught. If he was never caught, then no contemporary evidence. I think historian Stephen Fox in his book "Blood and Power" gathered some good evidence from what was available. Would really need an accountant to figure out if Kennedy amassed sudden unexplained wealth during Prohibition; after all, that's how they got Capone.
This review of the J.P. Kennedy book says it's a whitewash. He makes a lot of sense:
http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/155961
