According to Harvey Klemmer , who served as one of Kennedy 's embassy aides , Kennedy habitually referred to Jews as " kikes or sheenies " . Kennedy allegedly told Klemmer that " some individual Jews are all right , Harvey , but as a race they stink . They spoil everything they touch . " When Klemmer returned from a trip to Germany and reported the pattern of vandalism and assaults on Jews by Nazis , Kennedy responded , " Well , they brought it on themselves . " On June 13 , 1938 , Kennedy met with Herbert von Dirksen , the German ambassador to the United Kingdom , in London , who claimed upon his return to Berlin that Kennedy had told him that " it was not so much the fact that we want to get rid of the Jews that was so harmful to us , but rather the loud clamor with which we accompanied this purpose . Kennedy himself fully understood our Jewish policy . " Kennedy 's main concern with such violent acts against German Jews as '' Kristallnacht '' was that they generated bad publicity in the West for the Nazi regime , a concern that he communicated in a letter to Charles Lindbergh
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.