The summer that changed everything for the Kennedys
Leigh Straw takes listeners into the pivotal summer of 1944 at the Kennedys' Cape Cod summer home, where scandal and personal loss collided to reshape the destiny of America’s most famous political family
Historian Leigh Straw describes one pivotal summer in the life of the Kennedy family. With most of the family in their Cape Cod summer home, the summer of 1944 was marked by personal grief and political legacy. As eldest son Joe Jr flew dangerous missions in the Second World War's European theatre, and Kathleen 'Kick' Kennedy scandalised her parents with an aristocratic English match, the family gathered under the looming shadow of tragedy. Talking to Elinor Evans, Straw explores how this fateful summer reshaped the ambitions of younger brother Jack and steered the family’s destiny towards the White House.
Leigh Straw is the author of The Kennedys at Cape Cod, 1944: The Summer That Changed Everything (Bloomsbury, 2025).
Authors
Elinor Evans is digital editor of HistoryExtra.com. She commissions and writes history articles for the website, and regularly interviews historians for the award-winning HistoryExtra podcast