The Kennedy family was iconic, glamorous,
and very polarizing. They created as many enemies as friends,
and they saw many individuals as enemies. Here are some famous people the Kennedys couldn't stand.
While both John and Robert Kennedy became known throughout the 1960s
as supporters of the Civil Rights Movement, that didn't stop them from holding a lot of
animosity toward the face of the movement itself. According to the King Institute,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was the subject of FBI investigations from the Montgomery Bus
Boycott of 1955 until his assassination in 1968. The investigations during the
Kennedy Administration were carried out with their knowledge and approval.
Their relationship was, as described by The Christian Science Monitor, one of, quote,
"wary allies." In October 1960, then-candidate Kennedy made a call of support to Dr. King's wife,
Coretta Scott King, during one of his many imprisonments. Robert Kennedy, JFK's campaign
manager, called officials in the state of Georgia and a judge to help get the civil rights icon
released from jail. Many believe this public act helped shore up Kennedy's election chances.
Despite this, the Kennedys were wary of coming across as too strong on civil rights, while King
and the people in the movement constantly held the administration's feet to the fire.
According to The Atlantic, when the Kennedy administration learned of a connection between
King and New York lawyer and financier for the Communist Party USA Stanley David Levison,
RFK ordered the FBI to have wiretaps placed on King's phone.
The wiretaps introduced the Kennedys to King's extramarital affairs.
Jackie Kennedy followed her husband's and brother-in-law's beliefs about Dr. King.
According to Politico, the First Lady referred to King as, quote,
"phony" and "terrible" in a conversation with historian Arthur Schlesinger.
Talk about keeping your friends close and keep your enemies closer.
By 1963, President Kennedy had spoken privately with his wife
about his worries of an LBJ presidency and sought a way for his brother Bobby,
who was the attorney general, to take the White House following JFK's presidency.
"And my colleagues, including Senator Kennedy and Senator Symington,
and 62 other beloved Democrats have selected me as their leader."
Jackie remembers that her husband had no plans for selecting another
vice president during his administration but looked forward to the 1968 Democratic
Primary if he could influence the party to select another candidate aside from Johnson.
Still, JFK was willing to treat LBJ with respect during their time in Washington.
The same could not be said of Johnson and Robert Kennedy. According to Politico,
Johnson hated the president's younger brother to the point that, during his own presidency
following JFK's assassination, he signed a nepotism statute. The law was seemingly
a shot at Bobby, whose appointment as attorney general had sparked controversy.
In 1968, Johnson faced off against RFK one last time. The escalating Vietnam War
had made Johnson very unpopular, and in March, RFK announced that he would run for president.
"The history of conflict among nations, does not record another such lengthy and consistent
chronicle of error as we have shown in Vietnam."
Despite being the incumbent, Johnson saw the writing on the wall.
Two weeks later, he announced he would not seek a second term.
"And I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president."
It is almost ridiculous how many attempts on the life of Fidel Castro were made by the United
States government. According to CNN, the Cuban revolutionary survived over 600 assassination
attempts. Castro's reign in Cuba, just a stone's throw away from the United States,
irked both JFK and RFK, and the two obsessed over ways to topple the communist leader.
In just his third month in office, President Kennedy authorized an
invasion of Cuba made up of 1,400 Cuban exiles trained and armed by the CIA.
The plan, according to the JFK Library, started during the Eisenhower administration in March
1960, and the US hoped that local Cubans would join with the exiled invasion force
and overthrow Castro. On April 17, 1961, the Bay of Pigs invasion launched.
By April 19, 1961, it was over, the exiles were captured, Castro's popularity was increased,
and the Kennedy administration was left with egg on their faces for
attempting to topple a foreign nation. The administration exchanged $53 million
worth of baby food and medicine for the return of the captured soldiers.
While JFK questioned their ability to get rid of Castro, Bobby Kennedy took command
of the situation, and the administration organized "Operation Moongoose," which
sought to destabilize Cuba's economy and society in order to undermine Castro and his government.
J. Edgar Hoover was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935 and was its director until his
death in 1972. Hoover compiled files on seemingly every figure in DC, including the young Kennedys.
And he let them know it. When Hoover became the head of the FBI, he had a very close relationship
with both Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower, whom he saw as an ideological ally.
Throughout the 1950s, the FBI expanded their number of illegal microphones and wiretaps.
While President Truman didn't have the best relationship with Hoover and the FBI,
they were best friends compared to Hoover's relationship with the Kennedys.
Unlike previous administrations, during which Hoover could work directly with the president,
John Kennedy's attorney general and de facto protector Bobby Kennedy made it so
that Hoover had to go through him to get to JFK. In response, Hoover cut the number of political
intelligence reports to the White House and started to delve into JFK's personal life.
Hoover leveraged Kennedy's affairs to get his own agenda across. The Washington Post reported that
in 1963, Hoover told RFK that he'd discovered payments his brother made to a jilted lover.
Furthermore, it was also later revealed that Hoover blackmailed Bobby to wiretap
Dr. King with evidence of JFK's affair with Judith Campbell,
who also shared a relationship with infamous Chicago mobster Sam Giancana.
The Kennedy family's history of feuding started long before John and Bobby. The
two brothers followed in their father's footsteps, who, while working as the US
ambassador to the United Kingdom, had a tense relationship with President Franklin Roosevelt.
Joseph Kennedy Sr. originally had a great relationship with FDR.
In 1918, the businessman entered politics when he contributed money to the campaign of
his father-in-law, John F. Fitzgerald. During the same time, Kennedy started to support Roosevelt.
FDR did not forget Kennedy's support, and after he became president in 1933,
he appointed Joseph as head of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
However, Joseph Kennedy had other goals, like running for president following the end of
FDR's second term. In 1938, Kennedy took a major step toward the Oval Office when FDR made him the
ambassador to the United Kingdom. Kennedy entered into a political whirlwind as Europe was on the
cusp of war. Despite both English officials and FDR having given up on appeasing Hitler,
Kennedy believed he could pay Germany to end their territorial expansion throughout Europe.
Kennedy then met with a top Nazi economic adviser in London, thus going against FDR's orders.
By the autumn of 1940, Kennedy was forced to resign from his position
following controversial comments stating that democracy was dead in England and
questioning if it could survive in the US. The comments also ended his chances at the presidency.
Some feuds might end in a fistfight. Some feuds end in cutting a person out of one's life. This
feud, between Kennedy and the leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, nearly ended the world.
JFK's first year in office was a disaster from a foreign policy perspective.
When he and Khrushchev held a meeting at Vienna only two months after the failed Bay of Pigs,
Kennedy was overwhelmed by Khrushchev's experience and intelligence. Two months later,
the Soviets began construction on the Berlin Wall, separating East Berlin from West Berlin.
The next year, their feud almost reached apocalyptic levels during the Cuban
Missile Crisis, when the USSR placed nuclear missiles in Cuba. Bobby Kennedy had spent the
year following the Bay of Pigs preparing for the possibility of Cuba being used as a weapons hub.
In the early days, he kept the option of invasion on the table. However,
the Kennedy administration avoided nuclear war by agreeing to remove their own missiles
in Turkey and promising not to invade Cuba again in exchange for the Soviets
removing their own missiles from the island nation, thus ending the two-week situation.
The president of the United States is the commander-in-chief of the military.
Throughout the 1950s, the commander-in-chief was Dwight Eisenhower, a conservative, older
man who had built his reputation as the supreme Allied commander in Europe during World War II.
So it's not shocking that the men of Eisenhower's era clashed with the young JFK.
To his credit, Kennedy was a WWII hero himself, rescuing 11 of his Navy men and
swimming for hours to an island after their ship went down from torpedo fire. Still,
Kennedy wasn't as hawkish during his presidency as other officials in his administration.
Following the Bay of Pigs failure, JFK questioned the CIA and National
Security Council and concluded that he could not solely rely on them.
The administration's policy-making process changed, with a greater willingness to consider
the pros and cons of decisions and how they would affect allies. During the Cuban Missile Crisis,
this process helped prevent an invasion of Cuba, which would have led to nuclear war.
This was despite pressure from individuals such as Air Force
chief of staff General Curtis LeMay, who was recorded arguing with the president.
According to The Oregonian, when JFK was assassinated, Teamsters Union president
Jimmy Hoffa stood up in his chair and cheered at the announcement. Hoffa's anger was, however,
less directed toward JFK and more at his younger brother Bobby Kennedy, who was involved in a,
quote, "blood feud" with Hoffa, according to Kennedy's aide Pierre Salinger.
In 1957, the 32-year-old Bobby Kennedy was made chief council
of Senator John McClellan's committee,
whose primary focus was to investigate organized crime and corruption within labor unions.
History states that this was where Hoffa and RFK first came in contact and began their contentious
relationship, as Kennedy questioned the leader of the Teamsters Union. Hoffa took enjoyment in
antagonizing the young Kennedy, while Kennedy's profile was raised throughout the hearings.
Hoffa beat the charges levied against him during the 1950s, making him more popular
within the Teamsters, though when JFK became the president and Bobby his AG, the younger
Kennedy set up a "Get Hoffa" squad made of up 20 prosecutors in the Department of Justice.
In 1964, Hoffa's luck ran out. That March, Hoffa was found guilty of bribery and jury tampering,
and in July, he was found guilty of misusing the union's pension funds.
"I'm going to jail, you understand? I'm going to prison, because of you."
The relationship between Marilyn Monroe and JFK, while certainly not Kennedy's only affair, is
hands down the most discussed of the president's extramarital relationships, as Monroe and JFK
were two of the biggest sex symbols of their time. Because of this, it has become close to impossible
to nail down the extent of their relationship, as well as Monroe's relationship with Bobby Kennedy.
According to People, Monroe and JFK were introduced to each other in 1954 by actor
Peter Lawford, who was married to Bobby's and John's sister at the time. Monroe's biographer,
James Spada, said that Monroe and JFK had a relationship for a time, but after getting bored,
Kennedy, quote, "passed her off" to Bobby Kennedy. In May 1962, Monroe performed at
a birthday celebration for JFK, which involved her singing a sultry version of "Happy Birthday."
Understandably, Jackie Kennedy was fuming, though surprisingly not at Monroe but at
her brother-in-law, who had arranged for the performance. Four months after the performance,
Monroe would die of a barbiturate overdose. While the coroner concluded it was a,
quote, "probable suicide," unsubstantiated conspiracy theories have emerged that John,
Bobby, or someone in the government had Monroe killed.
Furthermore, just two years after her death and a year after JFK's assassination,
Business Insider reports that the FBI contacted Bobby Kennedy about
a book being made blaming him for Monroe's death and revealing their alleged affair.
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