After Camelot: A Personal History of the Kennedy Family--1968 to the Present

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  By 6 a.m. White House chief of staff John Podesta contacted President Clinton at Camp David to tell him that JFK Jr.’s plane was missing. Clinton said that he would authorize whatever was needed to find the missing plane, and by 7:45 a fleet of aircraft including fifteen Civil Air Patrol planes had taken off in search of any debris in the ocean or along the hazy and foggy coast. By about 1 p.m., debris began washing onto the shore of Martha’s Vineyard, very close to the home that Jackie had owned that now belonged to John and Caroline.

  Stephen Styles recalls, “I was home on Saturday morning and a friend of mine called and said, ‘Tell me that John’s not dead. Please tell me that John’s not dead.’ And I said, ‘What in the world are you taking about?’ He said, ‘Turn on the TV right now.’ I hung up the phone, ran to the television and turned it on, and all I saw was a screen full of blue ocean and blue sky with the words ‘JFK Jr.’s plane missing’ scrolling across the bottom of it. I immediately got sick to my stomach. I ran to the bathroom and threw up. And then I just started crying, kneeling in front of the toilet, bawling like a baby because I just knew. I just knew.”

  The phone at Ethel Kennedy’s home didn’t stop ringing all morning, of course, and Ethel would jump every time it did, hoping it would be good news. “Holly, they are going to find him,” she told her caterer Holly Safford when she called at nine in the morning to express her concern. She told her that as far as she was concerned, the wedding was not canceled. She reassured her that John would be found.

  “I told Mrs. Kennedy that I would stand by,” Safford recalled. “I hung up and called Rory. I told her how sorry I was that this thing had happened. ‘What a horribly unbelievable turn of events,’ I said. ‘I’m so terribly sad for you and your family.’ She carried herself with tremendous dignity. She was very, very concerned about her cousin… ‘It takes just one second for a moment to change the entire lives of a whole family,’ she said. It was a very sad conversation.

  “Then, it was the wedding is on. The wedding is off. The wedding is on. The wedding’s off—seesawing like that all day,” she recalled. “There was a glimmer of hope still late Saturday morning, even though it was waning. People were holding on to whatever they could hold on to that John had somehow gone off course and there had been weather or fog or the plane was disabled, or he was somehow, somewhere injured, but alive. When you don’t know, you hold on to the slightest thread of hope.”

  At Ethel Kennedy’s urging, deliveries for the wedding continued throughout the day on Saturday—the flowers, the food, the tables, the tents, and all of the other makings of another Kennedy wedding. The ceremony—with 380 guests, many from out of town—was to be at six, and it was as if Ethel felt that to cancel it would have been to give in to the tragedy at hand, and she wasn’t going to do it. Not yet, anyway.

  “We Need a Miracle Now More Than Ever”

  I still believe in miracles,” Ethel told her longtime secretary, Leah Mason, who was no longer working for her but was at the compound as a friend. “I believe God knows what He’s doing and that John, Carolyn, and Lauren will be found. I have to hold on to that belief, and I will.”

  “I believe that, too,” Mason said. She would recall years later that though determined to remain strong, Ethel seemed much older on that day than she’d ever before noticed, as if years of tragedy had finally taken their toll.

  Ethel told Leah that the Kennedy family had been dealing with the heartbreak of airplane crashes for years. It had first brought them sorrow in the 1940s with the deaths of the family’s first- and fourth-born children—Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr., twenty-nine, on August 12, 1944; and Kathleen, known as Kick, twenty-eight, on May 13, 1948. Years later, of course, Ted almost died in a plane crash. Prior to that, Ethel’s parents and her brother George were also killed in separate airplane accidents. It was impossible to imagine that yet another might now claim John Jr. “My poor Johnny,” Ethel said, her eyes filling with tears. “We need a miracle now more than ever before.”

  Finally, by noon on Saturday, it looked as if there would be no miracle. John was gone, along with his wife and her sister. In a blink of an eye, all of the problems with which he had been grappling in recent months—the many questions about his marriage; his cousin’s cancer (Anthony Radziwill would also die within just three weeks’ time, at the age of forty); the flagging sales of George—all of it was suddenly rendered moot. The many threads that had constituted the fabric of his life were unraveled and swept away in just a matter of minutes.

  At about one o’clock, Lynn DeLaney from the RFK Memorial Foundation called Holly Safford to tell her that the wedding was definitely off. She said that Ethel and Rory decided to invite all guests who were not in the immediate Kennedy family to the Sheraton Hyannis Resort and serve in the ballroom the food that had been intended for the wedding. It was an opportunity for those not in the Kennedys’ inner circle to come together and share their horrendous feelings of grief and loss. At the same time, a small gathering was planned on Ethel’s deck for family members and closest friends, and they would be served there by the remaining catering staff.

  Later that day, thirty-year-old Rory walked on the beach of the six-acre Kennedy compound, with the protective arm of her fiancé, Mark Bailey, also thirty and a book and film editor, draped over her shoulder. After a while, Ethel joined the couple on the long stretch of beach. Holding Rory’s hand, she spoke in her ear while intrusive helicopters swirled above, causing the kind of cacophony to which she and the rest of the family had long ago grown accustomed. The two were seen embracing, with Ethel stroking her girl’s blonde hair and, it appeared, consoling her.*

  At about five o’clock, the family gathered for a Mass performed by three fully robed priests on the porch of Ethel’s home, attended by about fifty family members. Ethel stood behind Ted and his wife, Vicki, during the service. Behind her was her sister-in-law Jean Kennedy Smith. Next to her, Eunice and Sargent Shriver. Following the Mass would be the family gathering on Ethel’s porch.

  “That family gathering had a very quiet, subdued, solemn tone, as you can imagine,” said Holly Safford. “There was a short cocktail hour and then dinner. They were devastated and stunned and in a state of disbelief, but also very dignified and very unified. It was not something they were unfamiliar with, that kind of shocking turn of events. It was heartwarming to see the way they clung to each other. You don’t want to intrude on their grief, and with each passing hour it was more and more clear that the news would not be good.”

  “It was very, very hard,” said one of Ethel’s sons. “I just remember my aunt Eunice and uncle Sargent, and Aunt Jean and my mom, all so heartbroken. Everyone was just devastated. Uncle Teddy was grief-stricken. John had been such a light in our lives, we couldn’t imagine how we would ever be able to go on without him.”

  By this time, Sargent was eighty-three and Eunice seventy-three. Both seemed physically unwell and emotionally unable to handle the unfolding turn of tragic events. Pat, who was seventy-five, had not yet arrived, but was on her way. One of the guests watched as Jean, who was seventy-one, was seen trying to console her sister Eunice. Eunice seemed to be crying—a rare display of emotion from a woman who had lived much of her life being stoic and strong. Eunice just nodded her head sadly in response to whatever Jean was whispering to her.

  Ethel, who as earlier stated was now seventy, joined Eunice and Jean and held both their hands. The three then talked quietly among themselves, Eunice repeatedly shaking her head as if in disbelief. Soon the little group was joined by Vicki Kennedy, Ted’s wife, who was only forty-five. She looked as if she were very concerned about the older women. For Vicki, who well knew all that they had been through in their troubled lifetimes, it must have been difficult to watch them experience such overwhelming grief at their advanced ages. “Please, ladies, let’s all go someplace else and take a little break from this, okay?” she said. Everyone agreed. The women then followed Vicki to another part of the house, all of them walking very sl
owly as if emotionally and physically exhausted, all except for Ethel. “I have something I must do,” she said, leaving the others.

  Ethel walked into the kitchen. There, she sat at the table and stared at the phone for a few minutes, as if trying to pull herself together. She went to a drawer and pulled rosary beads from it, and began fingering the beads. She then dialed the number of Clint Flagg, owner of Vintage Flowers in Osterville, Massachusetts, who had handled the floral arrangements for the wedding. In planning the wedding, Ethel had said that, more than anything, she wanted her daughter to have peonies for the ceremony. However, as it happened, that particular flower was out of season. Undaunted, Flagg had searched the world over and was able to locate peonies in England and have them flown to Hyannis Port. “Rory and I want to thank you so much for what you did for us,” Ethel told Flagg. “May I ask you for one more favor?” Ethel then requested that the petals from all of those peonies be placed in plastic bags. “I’m not sure, but I suspect John, Carolyn, and Lauren will be cremated and their ashes scattered at sea,” Ethel said sadly. “If so, I would like those petals to be scattered as well. I think Carolyn would like that very much, don’t you?”

  A Sister’s Grief

  As Ted Kennedy pulled up to Caroline Kennedy’s two-story wood-shingled weekend house in Sagaponack, Long Island, on Sunday morning, July 18, he saw hundreds of people congregating outside a long driveway barricaded by yellow police tape, more than a dozen state troopers, and a slew of squad cars. There were also at least a hundred reporters on the street, many of them positioned in front of TV cameras delivering what appeared to be live broadcasts, likely around the world. It looked like a crime scene. Inside, behind tall hedges and iron fences, Caroline sat in her living room, answering the telephone, talking to relatives, and trying, all the while, to be supportive of her three children, Rose, eleven, Tatiana, ten, and John, seven. With her were her cousins Maria Shriver and William Kennedy Smith, as well as, of course, her husband, Ed Schlossberg. President Clinton had called earlier to assure her that everything possible was being done to find John. The two spoke of the last time Clinton had seen John, in February 1998 when John attended a dinner honoring British prime minister Tony Blair. At that time, Clinton took John and Carolyn on a personal tour of the White House. John had said that some of it “looks vaguely familiar.” Of course, John had been there a few times in recent years, and the tour was mostly for Carolyn’s benefit. Clinton would recall her walking around with eyes as big as saucers trying to take it all in. It had been a very exciting day.

  As soon as Ted’s driver announced to the police that the senator was in the car, they released the tape and allowed the car to slowly roll through the entranceway and down the long driveway. Meanwhile, as the crush of people realized who was in the car, they pushed forward, almost causing a mob scene as they were shoved back into place by the officers.

  It had been earlier, on Saturday, July 17, when Caroline first learned that her brother’s plane was missing. She and her family had been in Idaho only a day, having arrived there to celebrate Ed’s birthday on July 19. The Schlossbergs’ plans for this trip were made before they knew the exact date of Rory’s wedding, and after Caroline and her cousin had discussed the matter, it was agreed that they were not to cancel their trip. Instead, Caroline and Ed would visit Rory and Mark as soon as they returned from their honeymoon. It had been John’s cousin and very close friend Anthony Radziwill who informed Caroline of her brother’s missing plane. He hadn’t been able to contact her because the telephone switchboard at the Mountain Village Resort, where the Schlossbergs were staying, in the sleepy resort town of Stanley, was turned off for the night. Desperate to reach his cousin, Anthony contacted the authorities at the Sun Valley Police Department and asked them to track Caroline down at the resort and have her call him. He said it was an emergency. It was about 4:30 a.m.

  Responding to Radziwill’s call, a police officer drove to the hotel and called Caroline to tell her that an emergency situation had developed and that she should call Anthony. When she did, Anthony told her the devastating news, though he could barely get the words out. He would later say it was the single worst telephone call he had ever made. Of course, Caroline was worried, but not as much as one might have thought. After all, she’d talked to John the previous Thursday and had made him promise that if he was going to fly to the Cape for the wedding, he would take along a flight instructor. Also, he would be sure to fly during the day. Since he hadn’t flown alone in some time due to his broken ankle, she had been concerned. Maybe just wanting to placate her, John agreed.

  In fact, John’s interest in flying had always been a point of serious contention between sister and brother. John had actually quit taking flying lessons ten years earlier, in 1988, when Caroline and Jackie sat down with him and begged him to stop. Jackie told him that if anything ever happened to him, she simply would not live through it. Caroline agreed with her mom that if John was killed in a plane crash, she would never recover from it. Moved by their emotional appeal, John stopped. But then, about two years after Jackie’s death, he decided he wanted to resume his flying lessons. He and Caroline actually had a falling-out about it because, as she told him, “Nothing’s changed except that Mother isn’t here. But I still am, and I’m afraid, John!” Caroline even appealed to her sister-in-law, Carolyn, to try to get John to stop, but Carolyn was unsuccessful. John kept insisting that he would be fine, that he knew what he was doing, and, moreover, he had even convinced Carolyn that the danger was minimal. So he started flying again.

  After Michael Kennedy’s death in 1997, Caroline appealed to John again. Her cousin’s sudden death reminded Caroline of the fragility of life and she begged John to please reconsider his flying lessons. He agreed, again, to stop. Three months passed. Finally, John called his sister to tell her that he really missed flying and would appreciate it if she would just support his decision and not give him any more grief about it. He said that Carolyn was “on board”—his words—and that she had even given him a Saint Christopher medal for protection. All of this was little comfort for Caroline, but she knew her brother and knew that his wife would have little influence over him once he’d made up his mind. Caroline therefore decided there was nothing she could do but accept John’s decision, even though she didn’t like it. She usually didn’t even want to know when he was going to be in the air because of the anxiety it would cause her.

  When Caroline called Ted after having spoken to Anthony, she told him that she felt that there must be some mistake and that she had spoken to John on Thursday and he had indicated that he would be flying during the day, not at night. But there was no mistake, Ted told her, John’s plane had indeed left New Jersey at night. He must have had a change of plans, Ted said. One can only imagine the feeling of dread that must have washed over Caroline at that moment. But Ted said to his niece that perhaps John did have a copilot and perhaps they were all safe somewhere. He told her to just stay put and not come to Hyannis. “When news of this gets out, it’s bound to be a zoo here,” he told her. “I promise to keep you posted.” Of course, there was no way Caroline and her family could stay in Idaho now. She just wanted to get home as quickly as possible. The Schlossbergs chartered a plane and returned to New York.

  Ted decided to leave Hyannis Port and fly to New York on Sunday morning to check in on Caroline. He was glad he did. She was of course very upset. Once Ted settled in, he and Caroline and Ed went into the yard and dropped the American flag on a tall flagpole to half-mast. They returned to the confines of the house and Ted then played basketball with the kids for a while so that Caroline and Ed could have some time with her cousins. Caroline had been insistent that she wasn’t going to cry in front of her children—which was very much the way her own mother had handled matters when her father was killed. Ted realized, though, that Caroline needed to break down, that what she was going through was overwhelming, which is why he took the kids. After about an hour, Caroline and Ed went for a bike
ride to relieve some of the anxiety.

  That evening, after Caroline went to bed, Ed and Ted spent a few hours talking, trying to come to terms with what had happened. Before leaving, Ted said he wanted to check on his niece. He went up to her room expecting to find her fast asleep. Instead, she was sitting cross-legged on her bed, looking at a scrapbook of photographs of her brother and her mother and weeping. He sat down next to her, took her into his arms, and rocked her, just the way he had done so long ago when Jack was killed.

  “Our Prince Is Gone”

  The next few days would be an awful blur.

  On Tuesday night, the wreckage of John’s plane was found at the bottom of the ocean. While it appeared that John’s body was still strapped in the plane, the bodies of Carolyn and Lauren seemed to be missing.

  A Navy ship, the Grasp, went out on Wednesday to collect what was left of the Piper Saratoga and also to recover the bodies. Sure enough, when divers went below, they found John in his pilot’s seat. Nearby on the ocean floor, they found Carolyn and Lauren, also still strapped to their seats. As Ted Kennedy and his sons, Ted Jr. and Patrick, watched in utter disbelief from the deck of the ship, the three bodies were brought to the surface and then placed on gurneys and taken away. There were very few dry eyes on the vessel as the emotion of the moment seemed to catch up with even the military personnel. It was decided that an autopsy would be performed on John, but not on his passengers. A decision had to be made about whether or not autopsy photos would be taken, as required by law. Ted was against it for fear that they would end up in the wrong hands and be published in some tabloid. It was agreed that photos would be taken but the film not developed unless there were some question raised about the investigation into the deaths.