6. Kennedy wanted a role in the Roosevelt Administration, and FDR found him one
In 1933, Roosevelt hastily passed a series of New Deal programs including among many the Securities Act of 1933. It offered some protections for investors, but lacked the enforcement mechanism necessary to ensure that the kind of manipulation and insider trading, as well as the propagation of false information to potential investors, was curtailed. The following year Congress passed the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. It established an enforcement arm for control of the nation’s financial markets, granted the authority to monitor trading and investigate irregularities, as well as the authority to subpoena witnesses and participants.
When FDR asked his advisors their recommendations of who was to lead the new agency, which was to be one of the most powerful of the federal government, he was provided a list, with Kennedy’s name at the top, “because of executive ability, knowledge of habits and customs of business to be regulated and ability to moderate different points of view on Commission”. FDR supposedly likened the appointment of Kennedy as an example of the adage “set a thief to catch a thief” though there are many different versions of the quote, in different times and places, and whether the president actually made the comment first is questionable, though the observation was certainly apt.