Perhaps sensing that there was no way they would ever be able to fill the shoes of their ancestors, many of the next generation of boys spent their adolescence trying to fit into a caricature-like mold of what they figured it was supposed to be like to be a Kennedy. Or as Chris Lawford explained, “From an early age, our purpose was to become more Kennedy. More brave, more reckless, more teeth, more charisma, better sailors, better football players, better with the ladies. This is what we were looking for, what we would have liked to re-create, but we never had a snowball’s chance in hell of doing it. The premature deaths of Jack and Bobby Kennedy elevated them to mythic proportions. Their greatness was undiminished, their human failings forgotten. They were our benchmarks, which on a deep unspoken level we knew we would never reach.”
“As adults, I think we made up for it, but as kids we were a handful,” Bobby Kennedy allowed. “Our mother did the best she could, but in her defense there was pretty much no way to handle us. We were pretty bad.”
On the night of July 10, 1970, Ethel and Eunice Kennedy were having dinner at Eunice’s home in the Kennedy compound when a maid came into the dining room and informed them that there was a team of police officers on the property looking for them. “Now, what in Sam Hill is this about?” Eunice said, using a popular slang phrase of the times. Ten minutes later, the officers showed up at Eunice’s front door and, much to the her and Ethel’s astonishment, announced that Eunice’s Bobby (Sargent III) and Ethel’s Bobby Jr.—both just sixteen—were being charged for marijuana possession.
In the 1960s and 1970s, rampant drug use among American youth had increased by troubling leaps and bounds. The list of fallen adolescents included a growing number of sons and daughters of prominent families, and the Kennedys were not immune to the trend. Sargent Shriver had always recognized that recreational drugs were widely used in the Cape Cod area, and at one point he and Eunice had considered sending their sons elsewhere for the summer for that very reason. However, Eunice had said that she felt doing so would be “copping out,” just to keep her children away from the temptation. “Nowhere is safe, really,” she’d said, “the country is riddled with drugs from one end to the other. I think protection has to come from within the family itself.” Eunice just hoped she had given her children the pride, guts, and the devotion to God and man that would keep them out of harm’s way. In fact, though, the two Bobbys—Kennedy and Shriver—had been smoking pot on and off for at least the better part of the last year. “How could I have misjudged things so badly?” Eunice now wondered.
That night, there were a lot of hysterics at the compound as Eunice and Ethel—mostly Ethel—lit into their sons. About two days later, Sargent Shriver, who had been in California, flew in to deal with the matter and to get more information as to exactly what had transpired.
“It’s a setup!” Ethel exclaimed when she finally heard the details about how the arrest happened. Eunice agreed. Apparently, a policeman from Boston had gone undercover as a hippie taxi driver named Andy Moes, and over the course of a couple weeks gave the two cousins and some of their friends free rides around Hyannis Port in order to earn their trust. He even drove them to parties and observed their behavior, drinking beer and scotch. Then, during the course of one evening, he asked if they had any pot they might sell him. He offered them ten bucks a joint. Not bad, the boys decided. They each had a little stash and gave Moes a couple of joints.
Eunice felt that the operation was illegal and constituted entrapment. Ethel agreed, saying that their boys had been targeted because they were Kennedys and that the family should not stand for it. Though Sargent did his best to reason with them, it was pretty useless. According to a family member in the home at the time, Sargent maintained that the police were simply doing their job and that the Kennedy youths shouldn’t be let off the hook, even if they had been tricked. Sarge also wasn’t convinced that they had been targeted, since twenty-seven other youths had also been caught by the same dragnet operation involving Andy Moes. “They shouldn’t be buying it, smoking it, or selling it, no matter what,” Sarge maintained. “These kids are smoking pot! That’s the issue here.”
Ethel became quiet, but not Eunice. “Well, I think we should sue!” Eunice angrily told her husband, standing toe to toe with him.
“For what?” Sargent wanted to know.
“My God. I can see that you are going to be totally useless in this thing, aren’t you?” a flabbergasted Eunice shot back at her husband. “This is not the time to be a nice guy, Sarge,” she said, obviously alluding to his reputation as a bit of a softie. “This is the time to get mad. This is the time to fight back.” Maybe that was the Kennedy way, but it wasn’t always the Shriver way. Sargent was determined to keep his head, saying that he felt it would set a bad example for the boys if the adults went up against law enforcement on this matter. Perhaps it was true that the boys’ names shouldn’t have been revealed, he conceded, since that seemed a violation of Massachusetts law. However, he saw no recourse other than for the family to just get tougher on the boys and deal with the real issue at hand: their recreational use of marijuana.
The family managed to keep the embarrassing story under wraps until early August, when a hearing into the matter was scheduled. On August 5, Ethel, Eunice, and Sarge as well as Ted accompanied their sons to Barnstable for private juvenile proceedings. Of course, the scene was pure pandemonium during the dreaded walk from the family’s car to the Barnstable district courthouse, with television cameras grinding, reporters calling out questions, strangers staring, and everyone shoving. For much of the time, Ethel seemed close to tears, while Eunice looked incredibly annoyed. Sarge and Ted seemed resigned to the moment. Both boys looked sheepish. “My uncle Teddy gets away with stuff, how come we can’t?” Bobby Kennedy had asked his mother earlier in the day. He was obviously referring to Chappaquiddick. “Don’t you dare bring your uncle Teddy into this,” she told him angrily. “This has nothing to do with him.”
Indeed, there was a consequence of Chappaquiddick that was very personal to the third generation of Kennedys. There was a pervasive feeling among many of that generation—especially some of the sons of John, Bobby, and Ted—that their uncle Ted had gotten away with a crime. Accidents happen, of course. However, there are usually consequences, especially if a death occurs. Yet in the case of the senator and Mary Jo Kopechne, it seemed to some of the younger generation that there hadn’t been much of a penalty. In their minds, the way Ted had ducked justice after the accident at Chappaquiddick only served to reinforce the notion that Kennedys were born with a sense of entitlement and were not always to be held responsible for their actions. Indeed, in years to come, this kind of warped thinking would wreak havoc in the lives of some of that next generation of Kennedys.
In the end, the judge gave the boys a year of probation—standard treatment for first-time offenders—and sent them on their way.
After the hearing, both Bobbys were quite embarrassed and feeling very guilty and sorry about the whole matter. Unfortunately, Bobby Kennedy didn’t have a father who might try to help him make sense of what had occurred. He just had Ethel, who was already pushed beyond her limits as a mother, and she wasn’t able to be much help to him. If Bobby thought he was going to have a meaningful dialogue with her about the temptations and perils of drug use, he was wrong. Instead, Ethel just ripped into him that night, chasing him all over the compound until finally catching up to him and pushing him headfirst into shrubbery. “Give me strength,” she screamed up at the sky as she headed back to her home. After that, Ethel didn’t want to talk about the matter at all. In fact, the subject never came up again, except for Ethel’s tearful declaration that “all these kids are bad kids and I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it.”
Of course, Eunice Shriver was also very upset with her son Bobby—“I am quite cross with you right now,” is how she put it. However, Bobby Shriver had something that Bobby Kennedy didn’t have, and it made all the difference in the wo
rld. He had Sargent Shriver as a father. Sarge took his son into his study, sat down with him, and told him that while this had certainly been a bad situation, it most definitely wasn’t the end of the world. “You are not a bad kid, and I don’t care what anyone says,” he told him. “In fact, you’re a great kid. I know you learned your lesson, and I’m not worried about it at all,” he told him, according to Bobby’s later recollection. “And I don’t want you to listen to a thing anyone else has to say around here, because you and your brothers and sister are not bad kids,” he added, maybe referring to Ethel’s comment. “We’re going to get through this thing, son, and I know it won’t happen again. I want you to know that I trust you,” Sargent said. And for Bobby Shriver, it never did happen again. In fact, he considers this troubling episode a defining moment in his life. He realized how lucky he was to have a father like Sargent, and how truly sad it was that his cousin Bobby didn’t have someone to guide him through this difficult terrain. True, Bobby had his uncle Ted, but apparently Ted wasn’t able to make much of an impression on him. Bobby Shriver vowed to never again let his dad down.
Sargent and Eunice Shriver also made a decision to try to keep their children away from Ethel’s three eldest, Joe, Bobby, and David. That wasn’t going to be easy. They were all great friends. But whenever possible, the Shrivers did what they could to separate, even if gently, the Kennedy boys from the Shrivers.
PART SIX
Jackie, Ari, and the Lawfords
Jackie Talks to Rose About Her New Life
By 1970, Jackie had comfortably settled into her marriage with Aristotle Onassis, despite an avalanche of public opinion about it. Onassis was a squat gray-haired man almost in his seventies with a large nose and slumping figure. He wasn’t exactly the kind of man most Americans, indeed most of the world, thought the queen of Camelot should end up with after having been with the dashing President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. There had been an immediate and perhaps not surprising reaction to Jackie’s marriage, and it wasn’t positive. In fact, it was one of outrage. Perhaps the headline from the Stockholm Express said it best for many people: “Jackie, How Could You?”
Though the relationship had certain limitations, there were none that couldn’t be accepted by both parties. For instance, Onassis, despite being exposed to Greek art and architecture while attending private schools, took little interest in the arts, in classical music, concerts, the theater, or in any kind of culture other than Greek mythology. Jackie knew she would have to live with it, because she would never be able to change him. There were plenty of men eager to accompany her to art galleries anyway. While she thoroughly enjoyed visiting Greece, she never really made friends there and never felt at home. She was never a big fan of the yacht Christina either, finding its decor overdone and gauche. She also disliked most of Ari’s private homes, including his prized villa at Glyfada. “It’s rather like a big motel, don’t you think?” she had observed. Skorpios, his private island, was, in her view, lovely but far too removed from civilization. “Of course, I cherish my privacy,” she told her brother-in-law Stephen Smith, “but that’s too much isolation, even for me!” When he and Jackie first married, Ari had told her he wanted to spend $4 million building an exact replica of the legendary palace of King Minos as a home for her. “Oh, please don’t do that,” she begged him. “I’ll never want to be there, and what a waste of money that would be!” New York was home to Jackie, therefore she and Onassis would spend a great deal of time apart. In their first year of marriage, they spent a total of 140 days away from each other. However, they seemed quite content during the other 225 days. “Jackie is a little bird that needs its freedom as well as its security,” Onassis famously said at the time, “and she gets both from me. She can do exactly as she pleases—visit international fashion shows, and travel and go out with friends to the theater or anyplace. And I, of course, will do exactly as I please. I never question her, and she never questions me.”
Secret Service agent Jack Walsh recalled meeting Aristotle Onassis in the lobby of Jackie’s Manhattan apartment building one day. “He refused to go up unless he was first announced,” Walsh recalled. “He said, ‘I never surprise a lady, especially a lady like Mrs. Onassis.’ So I would call up and announce him and Mrs. Onassis would always say, ‘Of course, send him up, Mr. Walsh. He is my husband, after all!’ Later, she said to me, ‘Honestly, Mr. Walsh, must you announce Mr. Onassis each and every time? I’m sure that makes him feel quite badly.’ And when I told her it was always at his very specific direction, she was surprised. ‘Oh, he’s such a dear man for not wanting to invade my privacy,’ she said.
“He would always have a gift for her, too. Once he showed up with a box and he opened it for me before he went up in the elevator. And in it was a diamond necklace that was about the biggest I had ever seen. ‘Do you think she will like it?’ he asked me. ‘Yes, sir,’ I said, ‘I suspect she will.’ He smiled and said, ‘Do you know how much this thing cost?’ Of course, I did not. He said, ‘One million dollars. But worth every penny, for my queen.’ ”
“Every time he took her out for a meal, he would hide some little bauble in a napkin worth, likely, hundreds of thousands of dollars,” reported a friend of Jackie’s. “She would say, ‘Ari, enough! You don’t have to get me a gift with every meal.’ He would laugh and say, ‘Oh, yes I do, my dear. You deserve it.’ He worshipped the ground she walked on, and from what I could see, she loved him too, very much.” The idea of costly trinkets as bribes or to assuage one’s guilt was also one that was practiced by Joseph Kennedy Sr. As JFK was fond of saying, “Every time Dad had another affair, he would pin another diamond brooch on Mother’s dress.”
Jackie’s cousin John Davis recalls, “She was truly happy even though a lot of people did not want to believe that. She became more outgoing, more accessible. As far as I was concerned, marrying Onassis was one of the best things that could have happened to her. He was so much fun, so unpredictable, he did her a world of good. She told me, ‘I never thought I would get over what happened to Jack in Dallas. Every day was joyless for me. I felt hopeless, and if not for the kids I would not have been able to go on. But Ari has made me feel that life is beautiful and should be enjoyed. He has filled my dark world with nothing but light.’ ”
While it wasn’t always easy for some of her family members and associates to accept that Jackie had remarried, the family’s matriarch, Rose, certainly had no reservations about Onassis. Jackie had invited Rose to celebrate New Year’s 1969 with her, Ari and John, and Caroline, and it turned out to be a wonderful holiday for all in Greece. Rose later said she found Ari to be somewhat coarse, pretty much what she had expected. Though he was brash, she liked his directness and found it refreshing, if also a little unnerving. After all, Kennedy men never said what they meant, or at least that had been her experience with her husband. Onassis was also extravagant. He liked to spend money and had plenty of it. “Rose didn’t see anything wrong with that, either—as long as it wasn’t Kennedy money!” observed Sancy Newman. “Though he was about fifteen years younger than Rose, it felt as if she and Onassis were of the same generation and they really did have a lot to talk about.”
For the Easter holiday in 1969, Jackie invited Rose to set sail for two weeks with her and Onassis and the children in the Caribbean. The only problem Rose had with Onassis on that particular cruise occurred when she became seasick. While she was sound asleep, Onassis slipped into her stateroom to check on her and make sure she was okay. When he later told her about it, she was taken aback. From that point on, she made sure her door was locked. That gaffe aside, she enjoyed Ari’s hospitality and it also gave her an opportunity to spend quality time with her former daughter-in-law. “The problem was that every time Rose looked at Onassis, she couldn’t help but remember why he was in their lives—and it was because Jack wasn’t,” said Sancy Newman. “Jackie couldn’t help but sense Rose’s sadness, which caused her to fall into despair as well.”
On May 21, 196
9, Jackie took Rose to see the Broadway show 40 Carats at the Morosco Theatre, starring Julie Harris, who won a Tony for her work in the show. Accompanying them was the noted architect Edward Larrabee Barnes. They had a fun time at the show, according to what he remembered many years later. Afterward, with everyone in a jolly mood, they decided to continue the night and enjoy a dinner at Sardi’s. Jackie and Rose got along as if they were the best of friends. Over the meal, Jackie talked about her new life and how lucky she was to have it. “I suppose it would surprise some people but I am very grateful for my life,” Jackie told Rose, according to Barnes’s memory. Jackie said that she believed she should now make the best of each day. “I’ve taken such a big bite out of life and I don’t take any of it for granted,” she said, sounding very upbeat. She added that she didn’t want to one day look back on this time and feel that she had missed out on any of it, that she hadn’t thoroughly enjoyed it. Rose smiled and said it was nice to hear Jackie talk like that. “After Jack died,” she said, “I didn’t think I would ever see you smile again.”
Jackie then said that Aristotle Onassis had given her and the children an amazing lifestyle, “more than I ever could have imagined.” However, she also said she wanted to make one thing clear. “Ed and I have already discussed this, so I feel free to talk in front of him,” she allowed, looking at the architect. Then she told Rose, “I want you to know that I would never allow Ari to legally adopt John and Caroline.” Jackie added that if anything were to ever happen to her, she wanted both children to be raised as Kennedys. “It was in my will, as you know, that Teddy and Joan should get the children if Jack and I died,” she added. “But I think they have enough problems now. However, I still would want the kids to be raised Kennedys.” Suddenly, the mood seemed to shift. Both Jackie and Rose became quite sad very quickly. Rose said that she had hoped Jackie felt as she did, “But I dared not ask.” At that, Jackie’s eyes welled with tears. “Just sitting here talking to you about this,” she said to Rose, “is so hard.” She then took a deep breath, got up, and, without saying a word, swept off in the direction of the ladies’ room. Ed later called it a “very dramatic exit,” calling to mind what William Manchester had recently written of Jackie: “My first impression of her, and it has never changed, is that I was in the presence of a very great, tragic actress.”
After Camelot: A Personal History of the Kennedy Family--1968 to the Present Page 17