To barbers and professors he was amiably reserved. To coaches and students he was a good athlete, but not outstanding. At the end of his sophomore year he seemed to have changed little from the Choate graduate who had exhibited a certain indecisiveness concerning Princeton and Harvard.
On October 1 the Panzer divisions rolled into the Czech Sudation land. Anxious to see for himself a continent on the brink of war, Kennedy received permission to spend the Spring term in Europe. Staying at American embassies, he chatted with politicians and citizens in Poland, Russia, Palestine, Turkey, the Balkans, Berlin, and Paris.
From each capital he sent his father an extensive report on people, undercurrents, and events. At the end of the summer he came back to Cambridge for the last round.
Outwardly he had changed very little. A passage on the editorial page of the CRIMSON caused editors to speculate as to which of their number might be the protagonist. One of those suggested was JFK.
THE CRIME
Dear Diary
Sunday: John turned out to be a typical Harvard glamour boy with a crew haircut, broad A accent, short trousers, and all the fixing... After three ales he kept mumbling something about sticking to his ideals and keeping away from the "wolff" even if it meant flunking out next semester."
Escort
(The "wolff" was the head of a controversial tutoring school operating at the time.)
Perhaps because he had spend the previous year abroad JFK never entered the ranks of CRIMSON executives, as FDR had done. He devoted most of his senior year to an Honors thesis founded to a great extent upon his experiences in Europe.
After two years of scholastic mediocrity, Jack had finally come up with a Dean's List average. His field was International Government, his topic: Appeasement at Munich (the Inevitable Result of the Slowness of Conversion of the British Democracy from a Disarmament to a Rearmament Policy).
Kennedy fixed the blame for the situation that had led to the Munich Agreement of 1938 on the same sort of complacency that he has criticized in the present campaign. The trouble lay, he wrote, not merely in "the failure to judge the dynamism of the German movement," not merely in "mis-judgement of the relative industrial outputs of England and Germany," but also in the "calm acceptance that the democratic way is the best way."
"They [the democracies] forgot to consider the advantage that geographic position gave England in getting control throughout the world while the countries of the world were still small warring states. They have forgotten all this and have been content to sit back in complacent satisfaction and trust that the virtues of their system of government will finally triumph over the menace of barbarianism."
In the thesis Kennedy exhibited a touch of the pedant, replete with myriad footnotes and obscure statistics. There were also a few flagrant rhetorical and grammatical errors: "Even Churchill's speeches... was not the vigorous demand that it was come to be."
However, the professors approved and honored Kennedy--Magna Cum Laude. Later, after some revision, the thesis, entitled Why England Slept, became an overnight best seller.
From an amiable but unimpressive athlete, John F. Kennedy had grown into a political theorist who had been able to see the makings of war. In June, 1940, he was admitted to the fellowship of educated men.
Said Ronald M. Ferry '12, former Master of Winthrop House: "Kennedy? He was reasonably inconspicuous. When he spoke at the House as a Congressman, he said that nothing at Harvard had been useful to him in politics."
Excerts from "Appeasement at Munich" reprinted through the courtesy of John F. Kennedy.