http://time.com/3529756/kennedy-churchill-roosevelt-investment-deal/
Joe Kennedy was a crook as were others. Control of scotch whiskey in the 1930’s.
Sr. was just taking advantage of political connections to get something that would have otherwise gone to someone else (during Prohibition, that money was building organized crime). He used that cash to make his family rich. It’s amusing that his friendship with Bernard Baruch is mentioned in that article, since Sr was not far behind Henry Ford in his anti-Semitism, and basically blamed the Jews not only for the war itself, but for US involvement in the war. That’s attitude was the big reason Sr’s relationship with Churchill was “acrimonious”.