"Good-By Joe"

These words appeared in the London Daily Herald one day last week: "Forever, in deeds if not in written words, we are Allies. Largely, that is Joseph Kennedy's work. Good-by Joe! Heaven bless you! Your job is done."

There had been no formal announcement that Joseph Patrick Kennedy was to quit his post of Ambassador to the Court of St. James's. But the finality of the Herald's farewell spoke what most Britons and Joe Kennedy's colleagues suspected: he was leaving England for good. Friends knew he wanted to get back in the swim of U. S. politics. He had been mentioned for the job of heading the Defense Commission, a job he would like.

Britons saw him off with sincere regret. They respect Joe Kennedy because he has run his Embassy as smoothly as a Wall Street office, and because he is the kind of American who could never become Anglicized. The King and Queen invited him to a farewell lunch at Buckingham Palace. Government bigwigs streamed in & out of the Embassy office at No. 1 Grosvenor Square. The Windsor horse-mounted Home Guards trotted around to say goodby. The Evening News declared gratefully: "It is Mr. Kennedy single-handed who has strengthened Anglo-American friendship in London." The Times paid him the frankest tribute: "Whether he comes back to us or not, he has earned the respect due to a great American ambassador who never for a moment mistook the country to which he was accredited for the country of his birth."

For a while Joe Kennedy had been in bad odor in London because he had declared himself against U. S. aid for England, was bluntly pessimistic about England's ability to defend herself. Later he changed his tune. Before he left London he conceded: "I did not know London could take it. I did not think any city could take it. I am bowed in reverence."

As a memento Britanniae, he took along an air-raid siren, which he intends to install at his Cape Cod home; he thought it would be a good way to call the swarming Kennedy children ashore from their boats.

From London he flew home via Lisbon, with delays for bad weather. This week, none too soon to suit him, he landed at LaGuardia Airport, where he was overwhelmed by five teary Kennedys: Mrs. Kennedy, daughters Jeane, Kathleen, Patricia, Eunice. First official visit was to the White House. He emerged in good humor, refused to answer any questions as to why he had come home. Later, still sphinxlike, he announced he would go on the radio and address the nation.

The words being spoken by Joe Kennedy's boss, as Joe Kennedy flew west across the Atlantic, indicated that the job of heading the Defense Commission might well become the biggest job in the U. S. in 1941.

Speaking to newsmen at the National Press Club in Washington "with no light heart," Secretary of State Cordell Hull declared: "Only once before in our national existence [in 1775] has as grave a danger from without threatened this nation as the danger which looms today on the international horizon."

His words were heavy with the conviction that the U. S. was perilously near war. He outlined what the country was doing to retain the mastery of its own destiny: "bringing our military, naval and air establishments to maximum practicable strength"; creating a "girdle of steel" along the Atlantic seaboard; seeking to limit the area of war;* sending supplies to nations "defending themselves against barbaric attack." Said Cordell Hull: "As I sense the will of our people today, this nation is determined that its security and rightful interests shall be safeguarded." Earlier in the week the U. S. Government had requisitioned 110 military planes built and building for the Swedish Government, had shipped some of them to the Philippines to bolster defenses in the Far East. The Government was determined not to let any war supplies travel any devious road to Germany. The U. S. also seemed determined to show its muscle to Japan.

Secretary Hull read the temper of the U. S. people aright. Tapping public opinion on international affairs, FORTUNE this week published its findings. Seventy per cent of the people it interviewed believed there was an even chance or better of the U. S. getting into the war; 33.3% thought it probable, 14.7% thought it certain.

Forty-one per cent believed the U. S. should become Britain's ally, send everything Britain needed but men; 15.9% would send "even men."

That the time had come to take strong measures against Japan was the opinion of 49.4%. Of the 49.4%, more than half favored "even military measures."

Said FORTUNE: "Coupled with a strong desire to send, as an ally, everything short of man power to Great Britain, this suggests complete collapse of the popular expectation that we might continue to live in peace and security within our own continental coast lines."

*This week the U. S. anxiously watched the area of war spread south through the Balkans, prepared to invoke the Neutrality Act in the new Greek-Italian conflict.

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