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FDR to Joe Kennedy: "Drop Trou!"
Topic Started: Jan 12 2016, 03:35 PM (123 Views)
George K
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Finally
http://www.newsweek.com/when-franklin-roosevelt-asked-joe-kennedy-drop-his-pants-283146

Quote:
 
ONE AFTERNOON in the fall of 1937, behind the closed doors of the Oval Office, President Franklin Roosevelt asked his friend, the businessman, stock trader, and movie mogul Joseph Kennedy, “would you mind taking your pants down?” The request was met with a blank stare. “We couldn’t believe our ears,” recalled the president’s son, James, who had arranged the meeting. “Did you just say what I think you said?” asked Kennedy. The president replied, “yes, indeed.”

James Roosevelt recalled that “Joe Kennedy undid his suspenders and dropped his pants and stood there in his shorts, looking silly and embarrassed.” The president told Kennedy, “Someone who saw you in a bathing suit once told me something I now know to be true. Joe, just look at your legs. You are just about the most bow-legged man I have ever seen.”

According to the president, bandy legs were a deal breaker in Kennedy’s bid to become America’s top envoy in London. “Don’t you know that the ambassador to the Court of St James’s has to go through an induction ceremony in which he wears knee britches and silk stockings?” asked the president. “When photos of our new ambassador appear all over the world, we’ll be a laughing stock.”

Kennedy dearly wanted to become the first Irish-American ambassador to London and was not sure whether the president was kidding. After a moment’s thought, he said he could ask the Brits whether tails and striped pants would be acceptable to Buckingham Palace instead of the traditional fancy dress.

Roosevelt, by now chuckling as Kennedy pulled up his trousers, was not sure. “You know how the British are about tradition,” he said. “There’s no way you are going to get permission, and I must name a new ambassador soon.” If the Brits were prepared to bend protocol, and Kennedy could get a response within two weeks, the president suggested that perhaps Kennedy could after all go to the ball.

The Oval Office striptease was a typical FDR prank to let Kennedy believe he was an intimate, one of his inner circle. But it was also a humiliating ritual that showed who was boss.


"A humiliating ritual that showed who was boss."

Reminds me of that wonderful scene in "Boss" (which, sadly, lasted only 2 seasons), in which an alderman comes to the Mayor's office to ask a favor. As they talk, the Mayor (brilliantly played by Kelsey Grammar) has to go to the bathroom in his office.

"Keep on talking, I'll leave the door open."

Alderman talks while the Mayor sits down and takes care of business.

Mayor get up, wipes and pulls up his pants. He does not wash his hands.

After the alderman is done, the mayor extends his hand, saying that he'll do everything in his power to help. The alderman, understanding, shakes the mayor's unwashed hand.
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- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

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- Klaus, 4/29/18
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Mikhailoh
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
Like FDR had any room to talk about bandy legs.
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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Red Rice
HOLY CARP!!!
Regrettably, FDR resorted to childish taunts to humiliate Churchill in front of Stalin.
Civilisation, I vaguely realized then - and subsequent observation has confirmed the view - could not progress that way. It must have a greater guiding principle to survive. To treat it as a carcase off which each man tears as much as he can for himself, is to stand convicted a brute, fit for nothing better than a jungle existence, which is a death-struggle, leading nowhither. I did not believe that was the human destiny, for Man individually was sane and reasonable, only collectively a fool.

I hope the gunner of that Hun two-seater shot him clean, bullet to heart, and that his plane, on fire, fell like a meteor through the sky he loved. Since he had to end, I hope he ended so. But, oh, the waste! The loss!

- Cecil Lewis
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JBryan
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I am the grey one
Lyndon Johnson was known for inviting people into where he was taking a crap.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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George K
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Finally
JBryan
Jan 13 2016, 07:42 AM
Lyndon Johnson was known for inviting people into where he was taking a crap.
And talking to reporters while taking a whiz off the balcony of his bedroom.

Then there's that whole conversation with the tailor... :lol2:
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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