A Knighthood For The Last Kennedy

This past week, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown knighted Senator “Teddy” Kennedy. Actually, the queen knighted him—at the British government’s request—but the PM brought the news and the accolade when he visited Washington.
How the circle goes around. That’s one of the things I find so fascinating about history. Here’s the queen of England—old enough to well remember—knighting the son of Joseph Kennedy. In many ways this has to be a very definition of the word “irony”.
Perhaps it’s proof that if enough time goes by even the most offended of cats can learn to appreciate a dog. Or vice versa. What makes it all the more delicious is the fact that a great part of the knighthood honors the senator for his behind the scenes work in making peace between England and Ireland.
I’m an admirer of the senator. If you ask me he proved to be the best and most useful of the four Kennedy brothers. So I have nothing against him being knighted—for all of me they could have made him an honorary Grand Duke. It’s just the irony of it.
His father, Joe, a Roosevelt stalwart and a member of FDR’s administration finally was finally offered the job that comes to a lot of wealthy political supporters—ambassador to the court of St. James. It takes money to do that job; Joe had it.
So, on the eve of World War II, he arrived in London as our ambassador. There was only one negative and, unfortunately, it was a big one. Joe Kennedy sprang from that wave of Irish immigrants who had eight centuries of memories to remind them of how much they hated the British.
As they used to say in Chicago, with its large Irish population, you ran for mayor of Chicago by running against the King of England. Things were little different in Boston where Kennedy came from. There were long and bitter memories of the potato famine that left so many Irish to starve.
Memories of the Battle of The Boyne where so many Irish were killed by the English that the north of Ireland was repopulated by Scotch immigrants (thus the northern counties that remain loyal to England). Memories of the more recent “Troubles” in which Irish revolutionaries fought three long years to oust the hated English “Black and Tans” after World War I.
As the war began, Ireland immediately turned on lights as beacons to guide German bombers to British cities. Rather than take the risky route home through the North Sea to Germany, German submarines were welcome to refuel and rearm in Irish ports. German seamen took their leave on the streets of Irish cities.
As if that were not enough trouble for beleaguered Britain battling its way through the “Blitz”, they had to put up with a pro-German American ambassador. After the British were driven out of France in June, 1940, and the bombing began, Churchill and Roosevelt struck up a close relationship.
They would call each other nearly daily to update each other on the war effort. American and British general staffs had been collaborating on long term war strategies since the fall of 1939—and this required collaboration at the very top. (The allied general staffs would not sign off on the final version of American strategy in World War II until April, 1941, only a few months before Pearl Harbor.) This collaboration had to be conducted behind the back of the American ambassador.
In fact, Churchill and Roosevelt made a joke out of finding ways to communicate with each other without involving Joe Kennedy. Finally in November, 1940, Kennedy went on record saying that England wasn’t fighting to save Democracy—that “Democracy was about finished in England”, and that it didn’t have much future in America either.
He was politely removed within weeks. The threat from Ireland continued until a month after Pearl Harbor when two divisions of American troops were sent to Northern Ireland as a very explicit threat to Ireland proper. German subs were suddenly no longer welcome and the Irish turned off the beacon lights.
Ireland became the first Hitler ally to quit. She was out in January, 1942. Kennedy’s political hopes lay in ruins and he had to turn to his sons to fulfill his ambition to see an Irishman in the White House. The son who made it paid homage to Mr. Churchill by making him an honorary American Citizen in 1961.
And now, the same English Crown that Mr. Kennedy hoped so fervently would fail and fall has reached out to his youngest son and made him an honorary knight of the realm. For finally making some kind of peace between England and Ireland.
Ireland really ought to turn those beacon lights back on in salute.