What happened to Rosemary Kennedy? Was Joe Kennedy a bootlegger?

Two paths were going to converge, the Kennedy's and the Sinatra's. That convergence would impact the Cold War and become history. Let's begin with the Kennedy patriarch, Joseph Kennedy.

Rosemary Kennedy. She liked sex as much as the Kennedy men did. She would pay the ultimate price.

Rosemary Kennedy lay on the operating table, confused, drugged just enough to make her confused, but not enough to knock her out.

There were two men hovering over her, doctors wearing masks. She called out for her father.

"I'm here", said Joe, and she seemed to calm down. One of the doctors took out a knife resembling a butter knife.

" I want you to say the Lord's Prayer", the doctor said.

"Do you know the Lord's Prayer?", asked the other doctor.

"Yes", she replied, "Our father, who art in heaven" she spoke, as the knife went into her skull. The blood began running down her face.

"Hallowed be thy name" she spoke, her body jolting. The knife went deeper in.

"Thy kingdom come" she gasped, twisting her body on the operating table. "Thy will be done", she said gasping for air, "on earth, as it is, as it is, in heaven".

"Hallowed be thy ....", her voice trailed off.

She struggled with her words. "Hallow, hallowed, I don't remember, God forgive me", her words slurred together, "I don't remember".

"Ok, that's far enough in", said one doctor to the other. "We're finished Mr. Kennedy".

FRANK AND THE PREZ: JOSEPH KENNEDY DESTROYS A ROSE

Rosemary Kennedy had been misdiagnosed as mentally retarded which was common in the 1930's through the 1960's with all learning disabilities. By the 1940's and 1950's lobotomies were common for all people either considered mentally retarded or who had any kind of learning disability. Sterilization of women or little girls who seemed too friendly around boys were often given a hysterectomy.

Rose Kennedy had read about lobotomies and thought they were barbaric and told Joe not to subject Rosemary to that. But Joe was in a rage, Rosemary had been sent to a boarding school to live and had begun sneaking out at night to see boys. Kennedy men were allowed to conquer women, Kennedy women were not allowed to conquer men. She returned home in scandal.

Rosemary had to pay. She had to be punished. Joe snuck her out of the house late at night and drove her to the hospital telling her she was going in for tests.

When he returned home he told Rose to tell the family they were never to speak Rosemary's name in the house again. The message to everyone was clear, you can be ostracized from this family if you disobeyed Joe. No one spoke her name again. But the subject of mental illness came up a lot in the home, as Joe lectured the family that mental illness did not exist, it was just a weakness.

WAS JOSEPH KENNEDY A BOOTLEGGER?

Note the name Kennedy on the bottles. This has become the source of an urban legend.

Owney Madden, Joseph Bonanno, Frank Costello, and the Lower East Side’s Lansky-Siegel gang all claimed to have ties with Joseph Kennedy, father of the future U.S. President, during Prohibition. How did he make his wealth if not from bootlegging?

Joe Kennedy made a vast fortune on insider trading. Knowing when to buy and sell, knowing when to short, in later years he would have been sent to prison for his activities. Franklin Roosevelt made him the first head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) where he could really make money while prosecuting others for doing what he was doing.

FDR supposedly likened the appointment of Kennedy as an example of the adage “set a thief to catch a thief”

Joseph Kennedy and Gloria Swanson

His sexual affairs were barely hidden, his affair with Gloria Swanson, the top star of the era had been strained as he had financed a couple of her films and then began bleeding money from her. When she complained, he gave her a beautiful diamond jewelry piece. She was ecstatic until she got the bill for the "gift". She never saw him again.

Barbara Walters grills film icon Gloria Swanson about Joseph P. Kennedy affair - 1981:

He had a group of friends that would help him boost a stocks worth, and then he and his friends would sell the stock off before it collapsed. On the eve of the Wall Street collapse he sold off his stock, re-entering the market later to bet on a short. That means, to bet on the market crashing even further.

Over the years many gangsters would claim he had been a major bootlegger but with his wealth and aspirations for the White House it is silly to think he would get involved with bootlegging. Besides, if he had, the connections would have already been in place to make sure Virginia and Chicago went for JFK in his run for President. And he wouldn't have had to go to Frank Sinatra to get the mobs help.

Why did so many gangsters in New York believe he supplied them with booze? They saw the name on the bottles, never actually met the man putting the name on the bottles. If they had, they would have met Daniel Joseph Kennedy, who went by his middle name. This Joseph Kennedy developed Kennedy's Jazz Cocktails and, most popular, Kennedy's Silk Hat Cocktails. These drinks were produced in Canada and smuggled to the U.S. by Joseph Kennedy Limited, a Canadian company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, founded by D. Joseph Kennedy.

Not the patriarch of the Kennedy Clan.

Was Joe Kennedy Pro-Hitler?

When it came to Jews his hatred was unconcealed. He applauded Hitler's treatment of Jews and had to face FDR when a boycott of Jewish owned shops in Germany had erupted in violence. In Democratic run cities newsreels showing mistreatment of Jews in Germany were banned, unless it involved violence. "If it bleeds it leads" was the reality of local news then and now. Once there was violence the newsreels had to be shown, and the SA, the working class wing of the Nazi Party made up of ex- socialists and communists had turned to violence. Open violence the international press could see in the streets. Joe promised FDR he would get the word to Hitler to stop the violence.

Joe was stationed in London and did not hide his pro- Hitler leanings. On the night of the first Blitz, he made it clear to FDR that the British were doomed to fail, and a deal should be made with Hitler at once. This kind of talk irritated the British, and FDR would remove him from diplomatic work ending Joe's dream of being the first Catholic President.

Joe still had his kids. Kids who had been taught not to cry. Kids whose feelings had been blocked when they had to forget they had a sister. Kids who had been taught women only had 2 roles, as whores or mothers. Kids who had been taught that mental illness was imaginary, weakness was real and had to be cut out. They would be the way he could show the Protestants who had spurned him in college, the Protestants who had avoided him because he was Catholic and not let him join their clubs. He would show them he had more power than they did.

Coming: Dolly Sinatra, Democratic Party leader, mother of Frank and secret abortionist!

Behind the paywall: Inside JFK's Irish Mafia

The Kennedys' Irish Mafia tells the untold story of the Irish who surrounded the most charismatic political figure of the 20th Century – President John F. Kennedy: Who they were, how they supported their leader, and the price some of them paid for this unswerving devotion.