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TLS signed “Dad,” three pages, 7.25 x 10.5, personal letterhead, September 8, 1943. Letter to his son, John F. Kennedy, addressing him as "Jack," written a month after the PT-109 disaster and subsequent rescue. In full: "I feel very apologetic that I haven't written to you, but I'm sure you've got all the news and the clippings from here. I had hoped that I might have some assurance reasonably soon as to when they were going to ship you home. I haven't anything definite yet, but Admiral Wilson told me on the phone that he thought they would get you home quite soon.
Of course, I think the first thing you should do is to go around to Leif Erickson and the other two or three newspaper men and tell them that you can't buy them Scotch or Champagne in Guadalcanal but you'll owe them plenty when you get back here, and if they should come before you do, by all means have them contact me and I'll start them drinking those dozens that you'll have to buy them.
Well, it was a great show. There's no sense in talking about it—we'll talk about it when you get back.
We had a birthday party Monday night and we had all the old crowd here, Johnnie Burns and the rest. He suggested a toast to you and we all drank it. Joe and his Commanding Officer happened to be at Quonsett for the weekend and they were over. Joe said having been the hero of Banana River, Jacksonville and Virginia Beach, he now wants to take his place with brother Jack and sister Kathleen, who are fighting the war for him, so he'll be on his way before many weeks towards Kathleen's direction. When I looked at all those gadgets in his plane, it's a wonder to me he doesn't faint or get twisted up every time he goes in the air. Anyway, he's very happy and he was leading plenty of cheers for you the other night.
The play has gone into production, and outside of Eddie Goulding and Lonsdale having a fight, and Lonsdale throwing him off the set as Director and Goulding calling me up and telling me that he'll punch Freddie in the nose—at least everything is peaceful. We have a fine cast—at least we did have at noon today. I'm not sure what we'll have by dinner time tonight, but we open for three performances in Wilmington before we open in Washington on the 27th.
Pat returned from California last Saturday, after having done a very good job scholastically at Stanford and having had a great time in Hollywood with Will Hays and all the stars, but she's thoroughly convinced that this is the only place in the world to be, so she and Jeannie, Eunice, Bobby and their respective friends are picnicking today in the Senior Designer.
Teddy won the July and August series in the races but was beaten on Labor Day. He and Bobby go back to school next week and the girls go back around the 22nd.
I understand that you are part donor of a very handsome English saddle that I have for my new thoroughbred riding horse that Colonel Bradley is sending me from Kentucky. Thank you very much.
The political situation is still an uncertain one here. We are still eight or nine months away from the Convention and there's all kinds of talk about what kind of a platform the Republicans and Democrats should have on foreign policy, but to me it's all applesauce until they know what Russia's attitude is going to be, and they can write anything they want to write about it and it won't be worth the paper it's written on.
The Welles-Hull thing is a very simple matter. It is part of the entire system that the President himself is responsible for. He permits bureau heads and Cabinet Members to fight among themselves because somebody in the old days, either Machiavellian, or someone of his ilk said that was the best way to get service. Well, Roosevelt continually made Welles his operating chief in the State Department and he went over Hull's head time after time. To me there is no question but what Welles gets things done regardless of what they say. My experience with him was A-1. He was a good man with whom to do business and he always kept his word. That's my experience. Well, now the Fourth Term appears in the offing and Hull still maintains his strength as the topside man in the Cabinet politically. Hull has finally come to the point where he resents Welles' position in the country and the White House, so he says—Okay, Welles or me—and there's nothing for Roosevelt to do except to take Hull. So Welles is the result of a system of which he had no part except to be a friend of Roosevelt's, and now he's out on his ear. Of course, fellows like Drew Pearson and P.M. are trying to make it a fight between the Liberals and the Conservatives, but that isn't it at all. And they use the rotten story about Welles which was started by Bullitt and Offie, and for which I believe they will never have a day's look.
Well, that's about all the news that I can write to you because I'm hoping to see you very soon. I'm working on that job and I'll stay on it.
I heard from Frazier O'Leary and believe me, he'd like to be on his way home.
Well, that's about everything, except that I want to tell you that what you've done has really been a great contribution to the Kennedy tradition that may have been started in a small way by your Mother and me, but has gained great luster by your action." In fine condition.
Written exactly one month after Kennedy and the surviving crewmen of PT-109 were rescued on August 8, 1943, this remarkable letter captures the immediate family response to the episode that would become central to JFK’s public legend. After the boat was rammed and cut in two by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri, Kennedy helped lead ten surviving crewmen to safety, personally towing a badly burned sailor and repeatedly swimming through dangerous waters in search of rescue.
He refers specifically to Leif Erickson, an Associated Press war correspondent who accompanied the PT boat sent to recover Kennedy and the surviving crewmen; his firsthand account of the rescue was widely syndicated and prominently featured in the Boston Globe, helping bring the PT-109 story to national attention.
Joseph P. Kennedy’s understated pride—“Well, it was a great show”—is especially striking given how quickly news of his son’s heroism was spreading at home. The letter moves easily between concern over Jack’s return, lively Kennedy family news, wartime politics, and the activities of his older brother Joe Jr., before closing with a deeply personal acknowledgment that Jack’s actions had brought “great luster” to the Kennedy family tradition. As such, it offers an unusually intimate, near-contemporary view of the moment when John F. Kennedy’s wartime service began to assume the heroic stature that would follow him throughout his political career.
From the estate of Ann Gargan King.
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