Scene: it's the Korean War, and the patriarch, Joseph Kennedy, doesn't want to lose another kid. His son Teddy considers his options. And promptly gets distracted planning a trip to Europe.
[The naval training exercises of the Navy ROTC program] might interfere with the plans he was crafting for a bigger, better version of the previous summer's escapades with [his friend Joseph] Gargan. His father's employees had hammered out a nine-week itinerary, and applied for the necessary visas, after asking Ted what he wished to see. Kennedy and Gargan would start in Paris and range across the continent—to Normandy and Bordeaux, then Spain and Morocco, and back up through Provence and Burgundy to Amsterdam, Berlin, and Scandinavia before sailing home on the luxury liner Ile de France. His father would buy a car for them and have it waiting in Paris. Did he prefer another convertible? European-made, or an American brand?
