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wanted our son to understand the challenges he might be facing as put forth by a brilliant challenger, Professor Laski. He already had the same plan in mind for Jack. For after all, he said, ‘these boys are going to have a little money when they get a little older, and they should know what the “have nots” are thinking and planning.’ ” RK, Times to Remember, 170–71.

5. JFK to JPK, December 4, 1934, box 1, JPKP.

6. Quoted in Lasky, J.F.K., 70.

7. Perry, Rose Kennedy, 87; RK, Times to Remember, 200.

8. JPK to JFK, February 6, 1935, box 21, JPKP; Byrne, Kick, 40–41.

9. Quoted in Goodwin, Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, 482.

10. Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 126; Michaelis, Best of Friends, 138.

11. JPK to KK, February 20, 1935, box 1, JPKP.

12. Byrne, Kick, 41.

13. RK diary notes, box 1, RKP; JFK to KLB, September 29, 1935, quoted in Pitts, Jack and Lem, 40.

14. RK diary notes, box 1, RKP.

15. On these developments, see, e.g., Kershaw, Hitler: Hubris, 531–73.

16. See, e.g., Throntveit, Power Without Victory; Knock, To End All Wars.

17. The literature is large, but see, e.g., Steiner, Triumph of the Dark, chap. 3; and Kershaw, To Hell and Back, chap. 5. For a survey of the entire troubled decade, see Brendon, Dark Valley.

18. For an interesting contemporaneous assessment of Laski, see Schlesinger, Life in the 20th Century, 197–99.

19. JFK to KLB, n.d. (October 1935), quoted in Pitts, Jack and Lem, 41–42.

20. JFK to KLB, October 21, 1935, box 1, KLBP. According to Herbert Parmet, Joe Kennedy helped make the late matriculation possible: “Bending to Jack’s desire, his father used a contact to overcome the barriers to late admission. Lacking personal leverage with Princeton, Joe Kennedy turned to one with influence, Herbert Bayard Swope. The newspaperman talked Princeton’s Dean Christian Gauss into some ‘enlightened’ flexibility. In mid-October, Jack’s father received Swope’s wire that Gauss had waived the rule prohibiting such late admissions ‘in response to picture I painted young Galahad [sic]…Hurrah new tiger!’ ” Parmet, Jack, 42.

21. KLB to JFK, October 17, 1935, box 4b, JFKPP.

22. Quoted in Pitts, Jack and Lem, 42–43.

23. Torbert Macdonald OH, JFKL.

24. JPK to JFK, November 11, 1935, box 21, JPKP.

25. KLB to JFK, December 10, 1935, box 4B, JFKPP; Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 147.

26. Dr. William Murphy to JPK, November 30, 1935, box 21, JPKP; Murphy to JPK, December 16, 1935, box 21, JPKP; JPK to JFK, January 11, 1936, box 21, JPKP; JFK to JPK and RK, n.d. (January 1936), box 1, JPKP.

27. JFK to KLB, January 18, 1936, quoted in Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 149.

28. JFK to KLB, n.d. (January 1936), quoted in Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 148.

29. JFK to KLB, January 27, 1936, quoted in O’Brien, John F. Kennedy, 78.

30. JFK to KLB, January 27, 1936, quoted in Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 149.

31. JFK to KLB, n.d. (January 1936), quoted in Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 149.

32. JFK to KLB, n.d. (January 1936), quoted in Pitts, Jack and Lem, 45–46; Horton OH, JFKL.

33. Quoted in Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 205.

34. JFK to KLB, March 3, 1936, quoted in Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 153–54.

35. The initial notes were compiled by Kennedy’s successor at the SEC, James Landis, and by another SEC associate, John J. Burns. Krock then fashioned the various bits into a polished manuscript.

36. JPK, I’m for Roosevelt, 3. “Dear Joe,” FDR’s thank-you note began, “I’M FOR KENNEDY. The book is grand. I’m delighted with it.” Whalen, Founding Father, 186.

37. JFK to JPK, May 9, 1936, box 21, JPKP.

38. JFK to KLB, May 9, 1936, quoted in Collier and Horowitz, Kennedys, 67. Jack’s physician at Peter Bent Brigham had advised against the ranch sojourn, on the grounds that the young man would be too far away from medical assistance should he need it. Murphy to JPK, November 30, 1935, box 21, JPKP.

39. On this point, see Leamer, Kennedy Men, 100–101. The boasts were a standard feature of Jack’s letters in this period.

40. JFK to KLB, May 25, 1936, quoted in Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 157.

41. RK, Times to Remember, 155.

42. Searls, Lost Prince, 94–99.

43. JFK handwritten reapplication letter, July 6, 1936, box 2, JFKPP.

44. Admissions dean to JFK, July 9, 1936, box 2, JFKPP. For a time, father and son gave thought to the idea of having Jack try to complete the four-year degree in three years. Wrote Mr. Kennedy to the dean of freshmen, Delmar Leighton: “Jack has a very brilliant mind for the things in which he is interested, but is careless and lacks application in those in which he is not interested. This is, of course, a bad fault. However, he is quite ambitious to try and do the work in three years.” JPK to Leighton, August 28, 1936, box 20, JPKP. Nothing came of the idea.

45. Smith, Harvard Century, 124–31.

46. Parker, John Kenneth Galbraith, 43–44; Schlesinger, Veritas, 168, 181; Nell Painter, “Jim Crow at Harvard: 1923,” New England Quarterly 44, no. 4 (December 1971).

47. Conant, Man of the Hour, 117–32; Lemann, Big Test, 39–52; Schlesinger, Veritas, 175–78.

48. White, In Search of History, 41.

49. White, In Search of History, 42–43.

50. Myrer, Last Convertible, 42.

51. White, In Search of History, 42; Schlesinger, Life in the 20th Century, 115. White’s assessment of Schlesinger would in later years grow more mixed, a fact acknowledged by both men (see Schlesinger, 115). An excellent biography of Schlesinger is Aldous, Imperial.

52. Schlesinger, Life in the 20th Century, 108–12; Smith, Harvard Century, 125.

53. See the academic records in box 2, JFKPP.

54. James Farrell OH, JFKL; Blair and Blair, Search for JFK, 46.

55. JFK to KLB, October 21, 1936, quoted in Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 166; Gerald Walker and Donald A. Allan, “Jack Kennedy at Harvard,” Coronet Magazine, May 1961, 85; Meyers, As We Remember Him, 22.

56. JFK to JPK, n.d. (1937), box 5, JPKP; “JFK’s Harvard/Harvard’s JFK” (exhibit), Lamont Library, Cambridge, MA, 2017; Walker and Allan, “Jack Kennedy at Harvard,” 85; Graham, Victura, 50. In addition to Guadalcanal Diary, Tregaskis would also write an account of Jack Kennedy’s wartime experience aboard PT 109.

57. Walker and Allan, “Jack Kennedy at Harvard,” 85.

58. Galbraith, Life in Our Times, 53; Searls, Lost Prince, 98.

59. “JFK’s Harvard/Harvard’s JFK,” Lamont Library; Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 175. The program for Freshman Smoker, with a full-page ad from the men’s clothier J. Press, is in box 2, JFKPP. Joe Junior, who had run the event two years before, had lined up Rudy Vallée, the bandleader and actor.

60. Quoted in Parmet, Jack, 50; and Schlesinger, Veritas, 183.

61. JFK to KLB, January 27, 1937, box 1, KLBP.

62. Nigel Hamilton calls it “one of the most important documents of John F. Kennedy’s early life.” Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 170.

63. JFK, “Francis the First,” box 1, JFKPP.

64. JFK, “Francis the First.”

65. Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 170.

66. JPK to JFK, February 15, 1937, box 1, JPKP; JFK to KLB, n.d. (February 1937), box 1, KLBP.

67. Quoted in Perret, Jack, 51.

68. JFK European diary, 1937, box 1, JFKPP.

69. KLB OH, JFKL.

70. JFK European diary, July 8, 1937, box 1, JFKPP.

71. JFK European diary, July 9, 1937, box 1, JFKPP.

72. JFK European diary, July 10, 1937, box 1, JFKPP. Lem, who kept his own diary on the trip, wrote on July 10: “We are very careful to leave the car around the block & then apply for rooms looking as poverty stricken as possible.” KLB diary, PX 93-34, AV Archives, JFKL. See also Maryrose Grossman, “Jack and Lem’s Excellent European Adventure, Summer 1937,” jfk.blogs.archives.gov/2017/10/18/jack-and-lems-excellent-european-adventure-summer-1937/.

73. JFK European diary, July 13, 1937, box 1, JFKPP; Perrett, Jack, 54.

74. Gunther, Inside Europe. On Jack quizzing the French about their defenses, see Billings’s recollections in The New Yorker, April 1, 1961.

75. JFK European diary, July 19, 1937, box 1, JFKPP.

76. JFK European diary, July 25, 1937, box 1, JFKPP; Leamer, Kennedy Men, 132.

77. JFK European diary, July 26, 1937, box 1, JFKPP; KLB diary, July 26, 1937, PX 93-34, AV Archives, JFKL; Dallek, Unfinished Life, 50.

78. JFK European diary, July 26, 1937, box 1, JFKPP. Of Carcassonne, Jack wrote: “An old medieval town in perfect condition—which is more than can be said for Billings.”

79. Hamilton, JFK: Reckless Youth, 184.

80. JFK European diary, August 1, 1937, box 1, JFKPP; Perret, Jack, 57.

81. JFK European diary, August 3, 1937, box 1, JFKPP.

82. JFK European diary, August 9, 1937, box 1, JFKPP.

83. Quoted in Pitts, Jack and Lem, 62–63.

84. JFK European diary, August 17, 1937, box 1, JFKPP. Lem wrote in his diary: “Hitler seems very popular here—you can’t help but like a dictator when you are in his own country—as you hear so many wonderful things about him and really not too many bad things.” KLB diary, August 17, 1937, PX 93-34, AV Archives, JFKL. For a German account of the visit, see Lubrich, John F. Kennedy Unter Deutschen, 55–127.

85. JFK European diary, August 18, 1937, box 1, JFKPP; Perret, Jack, 60–61.

86. JPK Jr. to JPK, April 23, 1934, printed in Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 130–32; JPK to JPK Jr., May 4, 1934, printed in Smith, Hostage to Fortune, 133–35.

87. JFK European diary, August 20, 1937, box 1, JFKPP.

88. KLB diary, August 27, 1937, PX 93-34, AV Archives, JFKL.

89. Dallek, Unfinished Life, 51.