I don’t really think it was so JFK could do anything. Sadly it’s just what families who could afford it did with mentally disabled kids at the time. Sweep them under the rug in an institution, excise as much literature about them as possible, and move on. Often times not even telling future generations of the family. Having a handicapped kid was a dark secret. Definitely something society has done better with. Not saying what they did was good, it sucked. But it really had nothing to do with Jack.
Article is a side-slapper. I grew up near Boston. My family knew a lot more than we wanted to about the Boston Irish, and Joe Kennedy in particular. Joe’s father was a saloon-keeper with fingers deep in the liquor import trade, and a political lowlife. Joe himself didn’t actually drive the boats during Prohibition, but he received their cargoes with alacrity, and had close ties with the likes of Al Capone. But he made his real fortune by insider trading in the stock market, profiting hugely from the 1929 crash. In 1934 FDR inexplicably appointed him as the first Chairman of the new Securities and Exchange Commission, which was putting the fox in charge of the henhouse. Then he was posted as ambassador to the Court of St. James, during which time he vociferously advocated that the USA abandon Great Britain to Hitler. (Thankfully his hatred for Protestants was eventually ignored, and FDR was belatedly induced to sign the Lend-Lease act.)
“Boston businessman” indeed. Makes him sound like a grocer or a haberdasher.