The Kennedy Heirs: John, Caroline, and the New Generation Read online

  Ted also championed his Civil Rights Act of 1991, which broadened the rights of employees in workplace discrimination disputes. “It was yet another political victory for a man who truly did care with everything in him, who was invested in public service like few before or after him,” said K. Dun Gifford—known as Dun—who had been his legislative aide, in a 2005 interview. “He was certainly revered and respected for all he’d done for the country; like him or not, people always knew Senator Ted Kennedy was someone who could reach across the aisle and get things done. He also had his hands full with responsibilities as a surrogate father to Jack’s two children and Bobby’s eleven. People didn’t realize, though, that he was also committed to the Shriver, Lawford, and Smith children.”

  “He was a big part of my life in many ways,” Maria Shriver said of her uncle Teddy. “He came to my graduations. He showed up in my life all the way through, and would check in on me. He was a great source of humor, of family stories, family lore, family trips and outings, and really worked hard at keeping the family together.”

  “Everything sort of trickled down from Ted,” Ethel Kennedy once also stated. “We, as a family, would not have made it without him after Jack and Bobby were gone. He was the one who kept us all together. I guess you could say he was the keeper of the castle.”

  Privately, though, Ted was in a lot of trouble. The PTSD he still suffered not only as a result of the murders of two siblings but his own near-drowning at Chappaquiddick had caused him to be erratic, unpredictable, and, in his abuse of alcohol and drugs, bordering on shameless. To add to his troubles, Ted’s brother-in-law Stephen Smith had recently died of cancer at sixty-three. Smith, the chief controller of the Kennedys’ finances, was considered invaluable to the overseeing of its political aspirations.

  Ted was as bereft about the loss of Stephen as his sister, Smith’s widow, Jean. Though she’d had a difficult marriage, Jean had two children with Stephen and had adopted two more. Finding purpose other than in her relationship to her husband, she went on to establish her own successful charity in the 1970s—Very Special Arts, dedicated to handicapped children and, in a sense, continuing Eunice’s life’s work. (In about two years’ time, President Bill Clinton would name her ambassador to Ireland, giving her an exciting third act in her life as a widow, aged sixty-five. Continuing a diplomatic family tradition, she would later help to broker the Northern Ireland peace agreement, ending eight hundred years of conflict between England and Ireland. She would serve until 1998.)

  Now, on this starry night in Palm Beach, Ted, Jean, and a few of their friends reminisced about their illustrious yet tragic lives and about those they’d lost along the way. Over the course of almost two hours of boozy nostalgia, the Kennedy siblings and their friends tossed back one cocktail after another while trying to hash it all out. By the time they decided to call it a night, Ted had fallen into a deep state of melancholy and self-pity. When his sister finally went to bed, he found himself still restless. That night, he wandered the large estate, room by room, until he found his son Patrick and Jean’s, Willie. “Say, do you guys want to get out for a drink?” he asked. Of course they did.

  If only they’d stayed home.

  Though he would find himself in the center of a storm, prior to this time William Kennedy Smith hadn’t really been a bad kid. At thirty, he was in his final year at Georgetown Medical School after graduating with good grades from Duke. Like most of the next generation of Kennedys, he, too, struggled in search of identity. Only for Willie, it was maybe more complex. Of course, he was a Kennedy by maternal birth, but he was never really viewed as one by the public. The Shrivers were barely thought of as Kennedys, which was fine with them. The Smiths? In the eyes of not only the Kennedys but much of the public, they truly were pretenders to the throne. Most people didn’t even know their names. Amanda Mary Smith, Willie’s sister, for instance, was all but unheard-of by even the most diehard of Kennedy aficionados. For the most part, the Smiths weren’t raised with their cousins; their parents, Jean and Steve, had built a summer home on the east end of Long Island ostensibly to give them distance from the turmoil and trouble of the compound. However, the Smith kids—William and his brother, Stephen, and his adopted sisters, Amanda and Kym, the latter from Vietnam—loved being around their cousins and always concocted ways to spend time with them at the Cape, their mother carefully parsing out such visits while keeping a close eye on things.

  Willie’s life changed that fateful night in March 1991 when he, Ted, and Patrick went out for a drink. Later Willie showed up at the manse with a young woman named Patricia Bowman. Eventually the two ended up on the beach, where, she alleged, he raped her. The next day, she filed charges. In the end, Willie would be found not guilty. However, a lot of people were outraged by the verdict, feeling that Willie had the best defense money could buy and that Bowman hadn’t stood a chance. Still, he was a free man.

  After the trial, Willie would return to obscurity. Little would ever be heard about him again other than the occasional mention of his work as an activist opposing land mines. It would be his uncle Ted who would take the biggest fall for that dreadful night. He became the butt of jokes on late-night television, and the press was even less kind. Newsweek called him “the living symbol of the family flaws.” Time dubbed him a “Palm Beach boozer, lout and tabloid grotesque.” After the case, his approval rating sank with more than half of Massachusetts voters now believing him unfit for office.

  It had been bad for Ted before 1991; certainly what happened at Chappaquiddick had not amounted to his finest hour. However, he’d never before sunk this low in the eyes of his constituency—nor in those of his own children.

  Little Soldiers

  The children of Senator Ted Kennedy—Kara, Teddy, and Patrick—were always perceived differently by the public and media than those of his brothers Jack and Bobby. Jack’s two children seemed preordained for greatness just by virtue of their parents’ distinguished place in history. Bobby’s offspring always appeared to be troubled, so much so that even the ones who weren’t prone to misbehavior—like the girls, Kathleen, Kerry, Courtney, and Rory—suffered in the public’s opinion simply because of their relationship with their troublesome brothers. Ted’s children had a much lower profile. It was as if they’d made a decision as kids to just keep their heads down, forge ahead, and make the best of the difficult circumstances posed by being raised by alcoholic parents. Occasionally, they would show up in photo spreads with their father, so tall and handsome and maybe the best-looking of the three brothers, and their mother, the ever-glamorous and perpetually blond Joan with the faraway, sad look in her eyes.

  In 1958, Ted married Virginia Joan Bennett, who had been born on September 2, 1936, to Henry Bennett and Virginia Stead Bennett. Kara was born in 1960, Edward Jr. (Teddy) in 1961, and Patrick in 1967. For more than twenty years, Joan would grapple with the disappointment and humiliation of Ted’s infidelities. In 1983, she finally found the courage to divorce him. By that time, she’d been in and out of many rehabilitation centers. Though she was mostly sober during the 1990s and into 2000s, unfortunately, as is often the case with alcoholism, milestones reached were not always milestones held. Within a year, Joan’s disease would take hold again.

  The fact that their mother was emotionally unavailable and their father so preoccupied with work usually meant that Kara, Teddy, and Patrick were left to fend for themselves. “Knowing that our dad was doing important work made it even harder,” Patrick would later admit. “How dare we feel anything but pride considering the historic marks he was making? Dad used to say of us, ‘They’re tough, my little soldiers.’ I don’t know how tough we were, though.”

  “Throughout the seventies, there was always a sense of foreboding in the household, the specter of Jack’s and Bobby’s assassinations casting a dark shadow over almost everything,” recalled Dun Gifford. “Ted said, ‘There is no safety in hiding.’ While he wanted to continue his work, he also didn’t want his kids to be t
raumatized by what had happened. Of course, that was impossible to avoid.”

  “It has taken me a long time to even begin to understand how we were affected by it,” Patrick observed. “I knew there was huge suffering going on in my family. But it was never spoken of. My father went on in silent desperation for much of his life, self-medicating and unwittingly passing his unprocessed trauma on to my sister, brother, and me.”

  “The one thing his kids knew about Ted was that, whatever his faults, he was a father who could always be counted on during times of crisis,” observed Ted Sorensen, one of JFK’s speechwriters and advisers, in 2008. At no time was that more evident than when little Teddy, at twelve, was diagnosed with a bone cancer so aggressive that few at that time survived it. It was thought that he’d likely die before he was fifteen. After Ted got past the shock, he spent many hours conferring with doctors, trying to figure out the best possible treatment plans. Always, whenever any of his children were in medical trouble, Ted’s choices would be precise and well-informed.

  As it happened, young Teddy had his leg amputated. While the operation was a success, the follow-up, eighteen months of chemo, was brutal. “Having a child with cancer reaches to the very depths of your soul,” Ted Kennedy said many years later when speaking of the ordeal. “We were fortunate to have access to good health care and insurance. Many of the parents I met at the hospital had children who were taking a similar treatment. Some parents sold their houses to pay for it. Some could only afford twelve or fourteen months. They were asking the doctors: ‘What percentage does that reduce my child’s chances of being able to survive?’ So you ask me why I’m for health care?” he continued. “That’s why.”

  Somehow young Teddy got through it all and went on to live a good life, for which he would always thank his father. He got his law degree from the University of Connecticut School of Law. Three weeks later, he quietly checked into the Institute of Living rehab center in Hartford. The media reported he was suffering from “suicidal depression and alcohol dependency,” but he denied wanting to end his life. He completed his treatment and became devoted to the twelve-step program. Par for the course, he would have one or two slip-ups along the way. However, as of about 1992, he has been sober. He then specialized in litigation having to do with disability issues, first at the New Haven law firm Wiggin & Dana before cofounding the Marwood Group, which advises corporations about health care and financial services.

  Teddy’s only sister, Kara, would chart her own path. “Growing up in my family, public service was part of our everyday life,” she recalled. “My father taught me and my siblings that we had a special obligation to help people because we were so fortunate. It was a value he inherited from his parents and which animated his extraordinary life of service.”

  In the 1980s, after getting her degree from Tufts University, Kara had a brief stint as a television producer for the Evening Magazine television program in Boston. In 1990, she married architect and real estate developer Michael Allen. Immediately thereafter, she dropped her middle name, Anne, and replaced it with Kennedy, officially making her Kara Kennedy Allen.

  It was always a little odd that as devoted a surrogate father as Ted was to the many children of his siblings, he didn’t seem to be able to be more generous of spirit to his youngest son, Patrick. “Pat’s father didn’t have much patience with him,” said Thomas Franken, who knew Patrick when the two were Boston teenagers. “I once heard him complain, ‘Goddamn. Even Teddy is better at football than Patrick, and he’s only got one leg.’ Another time, Patrick was trying to play baseball and was kind of stumbling for third base, confused as to whether to take the base or go back to second. He had this peculiar look on his face as he nervously shuffled back and forth. I heard Ted tell Joan, ‘Damn. That kid looks just like a confused dog.’”

  “I was born a fragile person,” Patrick explained. “I wasn’t strong, I had severe asthma. I remember feeling awkward, anxious, separate, like a loser. But my asthma attacks were the one time I could get the nurturing and undivided attention I craved from the person who was most important to me: my dad.”

  In 1988, Patrick was twenty and a sophomore at Providence College when he had a benign tumor removed from his spine. He fought hard, recovered, and was eventually cancer-free. By this time, though, he’d already been treated for cocaine abuse. “At around this same time, Patrick entered a phase during which he sought to finally make his father truly proud, and he says that this desire is probably the primary reason he ended up becoming a politician,” Dun Gifford noted. “I believe he’d lived in Rhode Island just a year and was only a college sophomore when he decided to take on a ten-year incumbent for the state legislature in 1988. ‘Who the hell is Patrick Kennedy?’ Jack Skeffington, his primary opponent, asked. ‘Is he a big deal?’ I know that gave Ted and Patrick a good laugh.”

  Ted was ebullient about Patrick’s life choice, especially since it was now clear that Kara and Teddy weren’t going into politics. If he could have just one child in government, he’d be happy. Amazingly, it was Patrick, the one he thought least likely. Once he realized his youngest had the desire, though, Ted was all in, totally committed to the new venture. “Pat thinks this world is worth fixing,” he said, “and that’s good enough for me.”

  Patrick’s platform had to do with protecting the rights of senior citizens, legal immigrants, and the underprivileged. “He’s idealistic, like his father,” said his mother, Joan, who went out of her way to campaign for him. When asked the difference between stumping for her son as opposed to the years she spent doing the same thing for her husband, Joan smiled and said, “Well, for one thing, Patrick says thank you.”

  Fully invested in seeing his son become a political success, Ted sent one of his top staff members out to campaign with him and was then on the phone with Patrick every day urging him to work harder and suggesting talking points for speeches. Patrick knocked on more than three thousand doors trying to solicit votes; the Kennedys spent a staggering—and at the time unheard of—$93,000 (which Time calculated was $73 for every vote that eventually came Patrick’s way) in order to win this position, which paid only about $300 a year. “On Election Day, Ted and Joan pulled out the big gun and recruited John Jr. to take Polaroid pictures with voters at polling stations,” recalled Ted’s former aide Richard Burke. “Then Joe came down to shake hands. Bobby Jr. posed with admirers. The Shriver cousins were also there to lend a helping hand. It was definitely an all-hands-on-deck kind of thing.”

  “We had always evaluated ourselves, and others evaluated us, on how Jack and Bobby and my father were and what was going on with the Kennedys in the sixties,” Patrick explained at the time. “Here we were, growing up, but our mind-set was turned backward. And this [his first foray into politics] was the first time we were starting to look forward and deciding what we could do as a family.”

  Maybe Jack Skeffington didn’t know who Patrick Kennedy was when he entered the race, but a lot of other people eventually did; Patrick was elected in a landslide, holding the distinction of being the youngest member of the Kennedy family, at twenty-one, to ever hold office. On election night, Ted telephoned Jackie and Rose and told them both it was his “happiest and proudest election.”

  After serving two terms in the Rhode Island House of Representatives, representing the Ninth District in Providence, Patrick—still single—chose not to run for a third term. Instead, he ran to serve the First Congressional District of Rhode Island, a seat he won in 1994. In the House, then, Patrick would serve on the Armed Services and Natural Resources Committees before being appointed to the Appropriations Committee. At twenty-seven, he would now be the youngest member of Congress, another incredible feat.

  Patrick Kennedy would be reelected seven times, serving from January 3, 1995, to January 3, 2011, winning more elections than any other Kennedy, ever. As earlier stated, he would also pass more than three thousand bills during his years in Congress, most often spearheading legislation having to do wit
h health care concerns, which was what his father had championed for much of his life, and mental health care, which was always an enduring family interest. His big moment, though, the one that would most define him in the public eye, happened on February 29, 2000. That was the day he appeared in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, at a senior center with Tipper Gore, wife of then–Vice President Al Gore. It had started out as just another run-of-the-mill appearance in front of senior citizens, during which Gore intended to talk about mental-health issues. She had recently disclosed that she suffered from depression.

  For years, Patrick had tried to keep secret his own addictions. However, he now felt a need to unburden himself. One reason was that having his mother at his side so inspired him. Joan had agreed to accompany him on this trip, which was a plus in that the senior citizens had so much respect for her. As he gazed lovingly at her, what crossed Patrick’s mind was that her many secrets as a Kennedy wife had contributed so much to her problems and were real triggers to her addictions. The same held true for his father. He felt it was now time to break the pattern. Also, as he later explained it, it dawned on him that he could do more valuable work in Congress if he prioritized mental illness and addiction concerns. The only way for him to support those causes and not worry about his own secrets relating to them was to just, once and for all, disclose them.

  “I myself have suffered from depression,” Patrick told the stunned audience. “I have been treated by psychiatrists. I’m here to tell you, thank God I got treatment, because I wouldn’t be as strong as I am today if I didn’t get that treatment.”