Matthew Maxwell Kennedy, Ethel’s ninth child, better known as Max and named after General Maxwell Taylor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs under JFK, has always been very interested in politics, having worked as a field organizer for family campaigns, including his brother Joe’s 1986 congressional campaign and his uncle Ted’s 2000 senatorial race. In 2001, much of the East Coast media touted Max as a possible candidate for Massachusetts’s 9th Congressional District, filling Democrat Joe Moakley’s seat. However, Max never declared his candidacy. Behind the scenes, his uncle Ted was concerned about his nephew’s chances. Max had recently given a speech honoring his father and had mumbled his way through the whole thing, looking very uncomfortable and not at all ready for a wide audience. Then word got out that, years earlier, he and his first cousin Michael Skakel (now in jail for the murder of Martha Moxley) had been arrested back in 1983 for assaulting a Harvard campus cop. It was a minor incident that hadn’t even made the news when it happened, but now it was suddenly a big story. Max began to experience firsthand what he had always known to be true, which is that as a politician his entire life would be up for scrutiny. He had given up alcohol at the age of twenty, attended regular AA meetings—still does—and had worked hard to have a good life. He didn’t want to see it judged so publicly, so he decided politics wasn’t for him—at least not at that time. After talking to his uncle Teddy about it, he dropped out of the running.
Years later, Max campaigned tirelessly for Barack Obama early in the primary season at about two hundred events in swing states. He is also the author of the bestselling book Make Gentle the Life of This World: The Vision of Robert F. Kennedy and the Words that Inspired Him. The title is from the Greek poet Aeschylus. RFK had recited it on April 4, 1968, in giving the news of Martin Luther King’s assassination to an audience in an Indianapolis ghetto. “The 1960s saw such terrible turmoil in this country,” Max says, “and I think that the phrase ‘make gentle the life of this world’ could, in many ways, have been the theme of the last few years of my father’s life.”
Max has been married to the same woman, Victoria Anne, since 1990. They have four children.
Max’s younger brother, Douglas Kennedy, who is sometimes a Fox News Channel reporter, is also a recovering alcoholic and has been married to his wife, Molly, since 1998. The couple has three daughters. “Most of the time, people don’t know who I am,” he has said, “and I don’t tell them. I value being part of my family, but I have a clear sense of who I am and what my job is.” It’s sometimes been easy for the media to paint all of Ethel and Bobby’s offspring with a wide brushstroke and suggest that they all have criminal records, but that’s just not true. In fact, though most of the brothers have had minor scrapes with the law, only Joe, Bobby, and David had truly problematic adolescences—the infamous Hyannis Port Terrors—and, later as an adult, Michael obviously had gotten himself into serious trouble as well.
Except for Ethel’s children Kathleen and Joe, perhaps no one in the family has had a more distinguished career in politics than Ted’s son Patrick Kennedy. He served as the U.S representative for Rhode Island’s 1st Congressional District from 1995 until 2011. He joined his father in sponsoring many pieces of legislation benefiting health care reform, such as the Mental Health Parity Act in 2008 that required group health plans to cover mental health issues in a way comparable to that provided for the physically challenged. Patrick has done so much for the advancement of health care reform in this country, many of his supporters felt it was a shame that his personal problems—such as his bipolar disorder, alcoholism, and an addiction to prescription medications such as OxyContin—have sometimes stood in the way of his political career. He has had numerous stays in rehabilitation centers over the years and said his recovery is “a lifelong process.” Patrick Kennedy married Amy Petitgout, a sixth-grade public school teacher from New Jersey, at the Kennedy compound in July 2011.
One fundamental difference between the second and third generations that most certainly came to bear as they were being raised was that Jack, Bobby, and Ted had one interest and one interest alone: politics. Whereas the third generation has a wide array of philanthropic concerns, the three sons of Ambassador Joseph focused only on holding public office, and they never wavered from that goal. They also never allowed their personal lives to interfere with their political ambitions—their father, Joseph, simply wouldn’t have allowed it. Another advantage the brothers had was that they weren’t necessarily famous as youngsters (though they were certainly known), and thus didn’t have to live their lives, and make their mistakes, under as much public and media scrutiny. “Our lives were relatively free of the spotlight,” Ted Kennedy once recalled. “That is totally different for my children’s generation. Even before they’ve had a chance to make important achievements and accomplishments in their lives, they have been public figures.”
Politics aside, many members of the Kennedy family’s third generation have made and are still making a big difference in the world. Obviously, one doesn’t have to be a politician to be the catalyst for great change, and it’s sometimes easier if politics can be taken out of the equation altogether. “My mom changed the world without being elected to office,” Bobby Shriver said of Eunice Kennedy Shriver. “Period. End of story.”
In fact, Ethel’s daughters Mary Kerry, Mary Courtney, and Rory have all gone on to important careers as human rights activists, as has Pat’s son, Christopher (who has also had what he views as a somewhat frustrating career as an actor). Of Ted’s children, Ted Jr. continues his work with the Marwood Group, advising corporations about health care and financial services. He is also on the board of directors of the American Association of People with Disabilities. His sister, Kara, continues to work for her aunt Jean’s Very Special Arts. She is also on the National Advisory Board of the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Others, including the sons of Eunice and Sargent Shriver, have become advocates for the mentally disabled and have also worked for a number of children’s charities.
Mark Shriver, for instance, is managing director of U.S. programs for Save the Children. (Incidentally, Shriver served as a member of the Maryland House of Delegates for two consecutive terms, from 1995 to 2003.) Timothy is chairman and CEO of the Special Olympics. Anthony created Best Buddies International to encourage students to work with mentally retarded children. Bobby is in the film business and has orchestrated many show business–related programs to raise money for charities. Interestingly, he is a Democratic member of the city council in Santa Monica, California, and has also served as mayor there. At this time, with the retirement of Patrick Kennedy in January 2011, Bobby Shriver is the only member of the Kennedy family in elected office. The Shriver brothers are incredibly close and have never really had the kinds of internal problems experienced by their cousins—Bobby’s children, specifically. All, of course, are very close to their sister, Maria.
Some of the third generation of Kennedys have stayed out of the public eye altogether, such as the children of Jean and Stephen Smith and, with the exception of Christopher, Pat Kennedy Lawford’s as well. (Amazingly, considering the Palm Beach scandal in which he found himself embroiled ten years earlier, William Kennedy Smith actually considered a run for Congress from the North Chicago district in 2001, but ultimately thought better of it.)
Though not directly related to politics, the work of Ethel’s third child, Bobby Kennedy Jr., as an activist certainly cannot be ignored. Oprah Winfrey, who interviewed him in early 2007, calls him “one of the country’s most passionate environmental activists.” “Our landscapes connect us to our history; they are the source of our character as a people, as well as our health, our safety, and our prosperity,” he told Oprah. “Natural resources enrich us economically, yes. But they also enrich us aesthetically and recreationally and culturally and spiritually.” As an attorney, Bobby specializes in environmental law, and has also written two books and many articles on ecological issues.
In 1998, Kennedy, Ch
ris Bartle, and John Hoving founded a water company that manufacturers Keeper Springs water, with all of its profits going to the Waterkeeper Alliance. In May 2010, he would be named one of Time.com’s “Heroes for the Planet” for his success in helping Riverkeeper to restore the Hudson River. As it would happen, his heroin addiction of the early 1980s turned out to be nothing but an unfortunate footnote in an otherwise truly extraordinary life story.
Would he run for office? “I’ve got six reasons [I haven’t] running around this house [his children],” he says. “But at this point, I would run if there were an office open because I’m so distressed about the kind of country my children will inherit. I’ve tried to cling to the idea that I could be of public service without compromising my family life. But at this point, I would run. I would run for the Senate or maybe for the governor’s office [in New York].”
Maria Shriver
It’s safe to say that no member of the Kennedys’ third generation is as famous and as high profile as Maria Shriver, the only daughter of Sargent and Eunice Shriver. As a television personality and the former First Lady of California, her face is instantly recognizable to most people. Certainly when she and her husband of twenty-five years, Arnold Schwarzenegger, announceed in May 2011 that they were separating, the story would dominate the news. It took people by surprise; there simply had been no recent rumblings of discontentment in the couple’s union.
Shortly before the 2003 gubernatorial election, allegations of sexual misconduct threatened to derail Schwarzenegger’s political career. 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. Though he admitted that he’d “behaved badly” in the past, he also said that many of the allegations were not true, “because that’s not my behavior.” Maria stood by him with unequivocal devotion. She later appeared on her close friend Oprah Winfrey’s program and denied that she, like many Kennedy women over the years, “always look[s] 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 back there in the green room straight on, eyes wide open, and I look at him with an open heart.” It should be noted that Maria’s mother, Eunice, never had to “look the other way,” either. “While Maria may have been exposed to such thinking from the experiences of others in her family—her aunts in particular,” noted one good friend of hers, “you have to remember that Sarge was completely devoted to Eunice. That’s how Maria was raised, that’s the example that was set for her by her parents. She was also taught that, as a Kennedy-Shriver, loyalty is paramount in a marriage. So, yes, she was loyal to Arnold, even when the rumors upset her terribly.”
A week after the split between Shriver and Schwarzenegger was announced, it would also be revealed that the former governor had fathered a child thirteen years earlier with the family’s housekeeper, Mildred Patricia Baena, who at the time was earning $1,200 a week. The child, a son, was born on October 2, 1997. Making matters seem somehow worse, if that’s even possible, Maria was pregnant at the same time with her and Arnold’s son Christopher Sargent, to whom she gave birth on October 12, 1997. It should be stated, though, that Schwarzenegger reportedly did not find out that Baena’s child was his until somewhere around the year 2000. He (and presumably Maria) believed the father to be the housekeeper’s husband, Rogelio Baena, whose name is on the birth certificate. (Photographs taken at the baby’s christening show Maria, Arnold, and their children happily posing with Arnold’s mistress, the infant in her arms.) The Baenas separated three weeks after the baby was born; they filed for divorce a decade later. It is said that Schwarzenegger secretly provided support for the child as soon as he learned the truth. The fact that he was able to hold his closely guarded secret while running for public office—twice!—is astonishing considering the close scrutiny to which most public officials are held. Somehow, though, Schwarzenegger was able to keep the secret throughout his campaigns and two terms in office. It was only after leaving office in January 2011 that he finally told Maria the truth. “He stayed quiet all of those years to protect his political career and also, in a sense, to protect his marriage because he knew that Maria had been such an incredible asset to him,” said a source close to the former governor. “She had stood behind him, and so publicly. I think he didn’t want to make her look like a fool.”
Privately, though, it would seem that Maria Shriver had been unhappy for some time in a marriage for which she had sacrificed so much. As a television personality and reporter, she had produced literally hundreds of hours of worthwhile programming, the hallmark of which has always been her extreme sensitivity to and understanding of the human condition as well as global concerns and history. Her career was one of her greatest passions. However, it came to an abrupt end in 2004 when Arnold became the thirty-eighth governor of California and she was forced to abandon her own professional goals. To her, it felt like her world was over, as she would recall it. “It all happened so quickly,” she recalled. “NBC felt there could be a perception of a conflict of interest between my news job and Arnold’s becoming governor. It was uncharted water. The producers said, ‘If we put you on the air while Arnold’s campaigning, it’ll look like we’re endorsing him.’ A lot of people were uncomfortable with that, so they took me off the air while he was running for office. I thought I’d return to reporting when the campaign was over. And then he won, and that was that. I realized how much I had identified myself with Maria Shriver, newswoman. When that was gone, I had to really sit back and go, ‘Well, actually, who am I today?’ That sent me off on a process of really, for the first time in my whole life, looking deep within myself and asking myself, ‘Who did I want to be?’ ”
Shriver attempted to view the surprising turn of events in her life as an opportunity to become involved in many different philanthropic endeavors as California’s First Lady, which she eagerly took on, as well as devoting more time to her children. For instance, in October 2009, she launched The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything, a national study that looked at the societal implications of working American women, now making up half of the United States. She also spoke out about her father’s Alzheimer’s and spearheaded a number of programs to further the nation’s understanding of the terrible disease. As she promoted ideals of service and volunteerism in California, she was inexhaustible in her work for the state, conceiving of many statewide programs and heading up numerous community organizations. However, those close to her say that without the television career she had so loved, Maria was never completely satisfied.
“She gave up a lot for Arnold,” said one of her intimates. “And, yes, I believe it took a toll on the marriage. It’s not that she resented it, but on some level I think she felt it wasn’t fair. Then her parents were both ill, and that took a lot out of her—especially Sarge’s Alzheimer’s. Maria finally had a chance to consider where she was in her own life and she realized that the only thing she and Arnold had in common was their shared history and their children. Maybe that would have been enough, but then at about this same time, she found out about his betrayal with the household staffer. This employee worked in Maria’s home for twenty years. Maria was friendly with her, and also with her son. They were at family functions together, holidays and other events. That she’d been betrayed in such a way, well… it was as if life just came tumbling down around her. To think that she had given up so much for her husband only to end up in this situation was very upsetting.”
The entire Kennedy family would be rattled by the stunning revelation. Maybe Ethel Kennedy best encapsulated the family’s feeling upon hearing the upsetting news from one of her children. “Arnold is such a part of the fabric of our lives, I don’t know how we can cut him out of the picture,” she said sadly. “But I also don’t know how we can keep him in it. I keep wondering what Eunice would say. I feel that I should now be that voice of reason for Maria, but I jus
t don’t have the words. There was only one Eunice, and God, do we need her now.”
Now that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s term is over and there is such a sea change under way in her personal life, it is hoped by many that Maria Shriver will find her way back to broadcast journalism. She’s a rare breed in a business where tabloid flashiness often trumps real substance.
Today as Maria Shriver grapples with the uncertainty of a future without Arnold Schwarzenegger as her husband, she continues to raise her family in Los Angeles—Katherine, twenty-two, Christina, twenty, Patrick, seventeen, and Christopher, twelve, as of this writing. Maria’s friends insist that she is not a naive woman, that she knew very well the man with whom she had spent a quarter of a century. She made a choice a long time ago, say those who know her best, perhaps not to look the other way but definitely to accept her husband’s faults, confront him about them when necessary, and then go on with her work and with the raising of her children, all the while hoping for the best. “It hasn’t always been easy, especially given that all she wanted was a marriage like that of her parents,” said a friend of hers. “To give up, though, and fall victim to the circumstances of what’s happened is not the way she was raised. Maria will doubtless go on with her life and career, probably made even stronger by the coming to terms with, and—who knows?—maybe even forgiving, Arnold. She is an incredibly strong woman who will rise above all of this ugliness.”
After Camelot: A Personal History of the Kennedy Family--1968 to the Present Page 60