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

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  What happened in New York had been brutal for Caroline; there was no denying it. However, she had to admit that there had also been something incredibly enlivening about it. It had felt … worthwhile. She now knew she needed to tailor any future role in politics in a way that would mesh with her own personality. She was more certain than ever that she wouldn’t abandon the family mandate to serve. She’d just put it on hold for the time being.

  As Caroline mulled over her future as a public servant, her cousin Patrick was preparing to walk away from his own role in government. In March 2010, his father’s and his own greatest cause, the Affordable Care Act, was passed into law. Patrick was at the signing ceremony, proud to finally see the legislation he and his father and colleagues had spent years developing made official by President Obama’s signature. With this work now done and his father now gone, Patrick felt that the time had come for him to make a new life for himself.

  On February 12, 2010, Patrick Kennedy announced that he would not be running for a ninth House term. At just forty-two, he’d been in Congress for sixteen years, the senior member of the Rhode Island delegation. Things just weren’t the same after his father was gone, he explained, and he’d been thinking about stepping down. He’d even discussed it with Ted. “For me, I had an audience of one,” he said. “That was my dad. As exciting and as meaningful as work is and as my career is, ultimately something clicked inside of me that there was something that was missing,” he concluded. “I want a fuller life.”

  Patrick said he was finished once and for all with politics. He would now advocate for mental health and addiction issues privately. It felt good. It felt right. He would make this decision about his life not based on what was best for anyone else. He had served at the public’s pleasure for many years. Now it was time to serve at his own and to be the one to make the decision about it. It would turn out that his father’s advice to his cousin Caroline had resonated for him as well: “A Kennedy always has the final word.”

  PART VII

  Betrayal of the Heart

  Bred to Look the Other Way?

  As is well known by now, becoming a Kennedy wife can be fraught with certain challenges, going all the way back to Rose Fitzgerald’s flawed marriage to the chronically unfaithful Joseph P. Kennedy and then her daughters-in-law Jackie’s and Joan’s troubled marriages to Jack and Teddy. Where Bobby was concerned, maybe he cheated on Ethel, but we don’t know for sure and, based on what we do know of his character, it’s doubtful.

  In terms of the third generation, the experience of each woman who married into the family has been, of course, particular to her upbringing and personality, as well as specific to the character of the man she took as a husband. Just surveying the RFK branch of the family, many of the women who took Ethel’s sons as husbands have actually had good marriages, especially worth noting considering the misogynistic leanings of Kennedy men. Sheila Sinclair-Berner has been married to Christopher since 1987; Victoria Anne Strauss to Max since 1991; Anne Elizabeth “Beth” Kelly to Joe since 1993; and Molly Stark to Douglas since 1998. It’s worth remembering that Sheila Rauch, Joe’s first wife, was no milquetoast; she found a way to fight back after Joe insisted on an annulment in the 1990s by writing her devastating memoir. Victoria Gifford made an empowered decision to divorce Michael after the Marisa Verrochi scandal. Unfortunately, Mary Richardson, Bobby’s second wife, would find herself in a torturous marriage to a man who seemed completely incapable of fidelity.

  While women who married into the family no doubt have interesting stories should they ever decide to tell them, so do those who were actually born Kennedy. After all, these young women were raised in a culture that generally accepted infidelity. Sometimes they were fortunate and never had to deal with it: Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, for instance, has been happily married (as of this writing) for forty-five years (since 1973) to a husband who, from all accounts, has always been good to her. The same holds true for her cousin Caroline Kennedy, married for thirty-two years (since 1986). Maria Shriver, though, wasn’t as fortunate.

  Despite sweeping changes over the years relating to feminism and women’s rights, Maria would somehow find herself stuck in the same kind of troubled marriage as some of her female relatives of the fifties and sixties. Her union with Arnold Schwarzenegger seemed to suggest that no matter the country’s climate, men of a certain character and sense of entitlement will still misbehave. It has to do with wealth and prestige and a sense of power. Maybe it has to do with politics, too. In Maria’s case, add show business to the mix and the result was truly toxic.

  Shortly before the 2003 gubernatorial election, Arnold’s political career was rocked by multiple allegations of sexual misconduct. The Los Angeles Times published a series of scathing articles in which sixteen women accused him of sexual harassment and humiliation over a thirty-year period. Arnold admitted to having “behaved badly” but insisted that most of the allegations were false. He waffled, though. “Some of it probably happened,” he said, “and some of it probably didn’t. But I apologize in any case to anyone I offended.” Considering all the women who’d been profiled, as well as later testimony from many people in the entertainment industry who claimed to have caught Arnold in compromising positions, it’s difficult to escape the conclusion that he was probably unfaithful to his wife. There’s simply too much evidence to believe otherwise.

  History shows that it didn’t matter to voters that Arnold might have been a sexual predator, no matter how many egregious complaints were lodged against him. Again, the Schwarzenegger trajectory reminds one of Donald Trump’s thirteen years later. During Trump’s presidential run and even after he was in office, complaints of sexual harassment were made against him with, again, as many as sixteen women coming forward. However, his base decided that even if these allegations were true, they had no bearing on whether he would be a successful leader.

  A big difference between Schwarzenegger and Trump would be the degree of their wives’ support. Of course, Melania Trump backed her husband. However, to say she was vociferous about it would be untrue, especially after she kept quiet when Trump was accused of having sex with both an adult film star and a Playboy playmate and then paying them both off to keep quiet. Unlike Melania, Maria didn’t just issue a few supportive comments about her husband and then smile mysteriously, causing people to wonder what was truly in her heart. To the contrary, she supported Arnold with everything she had, even putting her personal integrity and professional credibility on the line.

  Of the reams of newspaper articles about the subject, Myriam Marquez of the Orlando Sentinel put it best: “There was Maria, in stop after stop, never wavering, never once showing any sign that there could be an ounce of doubt in her mind about her husband’s ethical core. She asked voters: Whom are you going to trust? Anonymous women who are saying bad things or even those who give their names and talk about Arnold’s raunchy side, or this woman, the gal who has pledged to love him for better or worse? Trust me, she told voters. I’m his wife, the mother of his four children, the woman who knows him best.”

  Ultimately, of course, Arnold was elected, and, as we have seen, in the Shrivers’ world winning was everything, so in that respect, maybe everyone got what he or she wanted out of the deal. Still, outside of the political arena, in her private moments when she wasn’t trying to sway voters, one has to wonder how Maria was able to square it all.

  Maria’s mother, Eunice, never had to contend with infidelity from the deeply religious Sarge. With his strong moral compass, he wouldn’t have been able to live with himself if he ever strayed. He and Eunice were happily married for fifty-six years.

  Given her family history, one can understand that, at least at the start, Maria didn’t have the coping skills to grapple with her marriage to the cheating Arnold. According to her intimates, she had to figure it out on her own without Eunice’s help. As one person close to her put it, “she wouldn’t have discussed this kind of thing with her mother since she knew it
would have broken Eunice’s heart. Eunice adored Arnold. In the end, Maria was pretty much on her own when it came to dealing with him.”

  Also, it’s worth remembering that Maria was a woman who’d become a terrific success in the male-dominated television industry. She had to be tough. She could probably write a book about the many indignities she’d suffered along the way in television, or, at the very least, the demonstrations of disrespect from male colleagues in positions of power. In other words, she wasn’t a delicate, overly sensitive, or emotional person. She brought that toughness into her marriage. Though it obviously wouldn’t inure her from heartbreak, it would definitely imbue her with the resolve she needed to focus on the positive and have a good, quality life despite any marital adversities. She once told a friend, “I am well aware of Arnold’s limitations.” She’d created a happy world for herself as California’s First Lady, was respected and revered by many people. She also had her children.

  At one point, Maria appeared on her close friend Oprah Winfrey’s show to deny that she, like some of her Kennedy predecessors, “always look the other way.” She said, “Well, you know, that ticks me off. I am my own woman. I have not been, quote, ‘bred’ to look the other way. I look at that man [Schwarzenegger] back there in the green room straight on, eyes wide open, and I look at him with an open heart.” Reading between the lines, though, Maria suggested she knew the character of the man she’d married and had made a conscious decision to accept him and his flaws. In other words, she looked the other way—just like Rose … just like Jackie … just like Joan … and just like so many others.

  Where Arnold was concerned, he had his own way of viewing things. One person who worked with him closely in government recalled a conversation the two had about his behavior. “It was during the period when the Los Angeles Times was doing its greatest damage,” he recalled. “I sat down with Arnold and had a frank conversation with him about the women who had come forward.”

  The associate asked Arnold if he was worried about how the news might affect Maria. No, Arnold said. He said that Maria knew what she had signed up for when she married him. He’d never been a saint, he admitted, but he treated his wife and children well and that would have to be enough for them. In his view, they were all happy, so what was the problem? Was he afraid Maria might one day also stray? Arnold made a face and chuckled as if that was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. If she was unhappy, she would tell him so and, because he loves her, he would probably do something about it. “Like?” the associate asked. Arnold shrugged. Maybe he would divorce her, he theorized, if she said it would make her happy. However, he hastened to add, he didn’t think that this was what she wanted.

  “What does she want?” the associate asked.

  “To be married to me, obviously, and to give our children a nice life,” Arnold answered, getting testy.

  “And what do you want, Arnold?”

  “For this conversation to end.”

  A Secret Finally Revealed

  It’s likely that accepting her marriage for what it was made Maria Shriver feel somewhat in control of her own destiny. However, there was one aspect of her life that was not in alignment, and it had to do with the son of her longtime live-in housekeeper, a youngster named Joseph. With the passing of time, the resemblance between him and Arnold had become startling. This situation had been troubling Maria for years. When she’d least expect it, little Joseph would walk into the room with the same face as her husband’s—the eyes set wide apart, the strong chin, even the shape of his mouth—and it would stop her dead in her tracks. By 2010, she wanted—needed—to know the truth about this boy. Was he Arnold’s son? However, Maria had long ago gotten used to a certain way of being in her marriage with her husband; true candor was never their forte. In fact, when she’d asked Arnold a few years earlier if he was Joseph’s father, he hotly denied it. She didn’t quite believe him, but she decided to let it go. She was busy, anyway, and it was just easier to be avoidant.

  Maria, who would turn fifty-five in 2010, remained an extremely popular First Lady of California as she continued to promote the ideals of service and volunteerism passed on to her by her parents. She was deeply committed to many philanthropic organizations devoted to feeding the poor and finding ways to assist the disadvantaged. Meanwhile, at home, her children were growing up fast: Katherine was about to turn twenty-one; Christina nineteen; Patrick seventeen, and Christopher thirteen. Arnold was now sixty-three.

  Generally, Maria was content with her busy life, as complicated as it was; she was also dealing with her aging parents, which was not easy. Someone had said something to her recently, though, that hit her hard. She and some friends had been talking about a person’s bad marriage when one of them observed, “Unfortunately, women can get used to anything.” Maria immediately objected, saying not only was that an untrue statement, it was insulting. However, later it gave her pause: Was she guilty of doing just that? Had she just gotten used to a bad situation not only in her marriage but also where Joseph was concerned? It certainly seemed like the case.

  Though she was angry at herself for having waited so long to address the immediate concern of the housekeeper’s son, she knew there was still time to claim her power over it. To that end, she’d begun hinting to the household employee, a woman named Mildred Baena, from Guatemala, that she suspected something was amiss by offering ostensibly supportive statements such as “I’m here if you need to talk.” According to what Mildred would later remember, these entreaties made her feel uncomfortable and caused her to wonder if, as she later put it, “something was up.” Something was up.

  One day in the summer of 2010, Maria finally just cornered Mildred. “Tell me the truth,” she insisted, “is Joseph Arnold’s son?”

  For a second, Mildred didn’t know how to respond. Then the floodgates opened and the tears began to flow. “Yes, yes, yes,” she said as she fell to her knees in a dramatic moment that, when described by people with knowledge of it, sounds like something right out of a soap opera. “It’s true. He is. I’m so sorry.”

  Seeing this woman who’d worked for her as a loyal servant for twenty years on her knees, combined with the truth of Arnold’s deception, caused Maria to also begin to cry. So this is what it had come to? The same old worn-out story: a cheating husband whose actions now claimed two victims, the wife he cheated on and the other woman with whom he had cheated. It was nothing if not a tired cliché—especially as it related to Kennedy women. However, the emotional scene also provided a seminal moment for Maria, at least according to what she would later confide in certain of her friends. Recalled one of them, “It was the moment when she finally said, ‘You know what? Goddamn it, that’s enough. I am finished. Finally, I am truly finished with this bullshit.’”

  “Please get up,” Maria told Mildred through her tears. “You should never be on your knees, ever.” After the woman rose, she then promptly collapsed in Maria’s arms. “It’s not just Arnie’s fault,” she cried. “It’s mine, too. It takes two.” Maria then tried to comfort her.

  One has to marvel at the character of a person who is able to put her own feelings aside long enough to console someone guilty of such a betrayal. It says something about the way Eunice and Sargent raised Maria that her first response was to comfort Mildred rather than to lash out at her. It makes sense, though. The Shriver children had all been taught the virtue of selflessness; it was an important part of their Catholic upbringing. Of course, it’s one thing to be instructed to consider others first when one is a child and the situation is hypothetical; it’s quite another when one is an adult and the crisis is real. Maria, even in such a terrible moment for her, was able to remember who she was at her core: a Shriver, through and through.

  As it turned out, Mildred’s son, Joseph, had been born back on October 2, 1997, after she had a brief affair with Arnold. Her relationship with Arnold began one afternoon in 1996, as Arnold later explained, “when Maria and the kids were away on holiday and
I was in town finishing Batman and Robin. Mildred had been working in our household for five years, and all of a sudden we were alone in the guesthouse.”

  A friend of Mildred’s picks up the story:

  “Patty [Mildred’s nickname] had a crush on Arnold. When he expressed interest in her, she was swept away by him. It wasn’t just one night. It went on for a while under Maria’s nose. Then, when Patty became pregnant, she didn’t know what to do. She felt terrible. She actually loved Maria and knew that the bad choices she’d made with Arnold could ruin her [Maria’s] family. ‘Haven’t you ever done something you regret?’ she asked me when I challenged her. She also knew Arnold would never choose her; not only did she feel she had fewer advantages than Maria Shriver, she also knew he’d never break up his family for her. She was just the housekeeper. What was she supposed to do? So she decided to have the baby and keep quiet.”

  “At the time I was intimate with Arnold, I thought I loved him,” Mildred confirms. “But I knew he was married and had a family who I cared very much about, too. So, I decided I would just go on with my life and not hurt anyone.”

  “After Mildred gave birth” Arnold later recounted, “she named the baby Joseph and listed her husband as the father. That is what I wanted to believe and what I did believe for years. Joseph came to our house and played with our kids many times. But the resemblance hit me only when he was school-age, when I was governor and Mildred was showing her latest photos of him. The resemblance was so strong I realized there was little doubt he was my son.”

  Arnold finally confronted Mildred in 2000, when Joseph was three. (By this time, she and her husband had split up.) It was then that she broke down in tears and told him the truth. “From then on I paid for his schooling and helped financially with him,” said Arnold.

  Once he knew the truth, Arnold asked Mildred to keep Joseph’s paternity a secret … from Maria and from everyone else. She agreed. The fact that he was able to run for governor with such a scandal looming is astonishing in retrospect, especially considering that there had been so much controversy with women coming forward to allege sexual harassment. Maria had, of course, vigilantly supported him during that turbulent time, standing up for his character and insisting that all the stories about him were completely untrue.