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

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  In considering the road ahead for Maria Shriver, the words of her father, Sargent Shriver—when he lost his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972—come to mind: “We don’t know what obstacles will come our way in this life, we only know that they will come our way. But we also know that as Shrivers and Kennedys we are genetically built to not only face challenges but to live great and wonderful lives despite them—and maybe even because of them.”

  Senator Caroline Kennedy?

  The years after her brother’s death were incredibly difficult for Caroline Bouvier Kennedy Schlossberg as she dealt with the loss of the sibling she had so adored. Immediately following John’s death, Caroline retreated to her country home in Sagaponack, New York, and isolated herself, with family members such as Maria Shriver spending as much time there as they could. “I think it’s safe to say she had a complete emotional breakdown,” said one of her close friends. “She stopped eating, she couldn’t sleep. She said that the grief was so overwhelming, there were days when she felt she couldn’t breathe. She kept waiting for the phone to ring and it to be John saying, ‘Hey, kiddo, what’s up?’ These were dark days for Caroline. Every little thing reminded her of her brother. It was heartwrenching. She simply could not accept John’s death. However, she had long ago accepted that life was not always fair and she knew that she had to go on, if only for the sake of her husband, Ed, and three children, Rose, Tatiana, and John.”

  During the week, when the kids were in school, Caroline and Ed would reside at their posh Park Avenue co-op apartment. Always the devoted mother, Caroline would walk the girls to nearby Brearley School on Manhattan’s Upper East Side every day. Then she and little John would go to St. David’s School, the same school his uncle John had attended. She was always there in the morning for breakfasts and at home at the end of the day to greet them. Often the family would eat at their favorite restaurant, Coco Pazzo, on East 74th. “She was very nice, very much a mom the way she dealt with her kids, fussing over them, ordering for them,” said Susan Morgan, who worked at the restaurant. “The children were extremely polite. It was a very nice restaurant, and the children seemed right at home, very mannerly. But Caroline, she was very, very private and she had her boundaries. One time, I went over to say how sorry I was about her brother. She didn’t say anything. She just looked at me with very sad eyes. Then her husband said, ‘Thank you,’ and he quickly shook his head at me as if to say, ‘Not now.’ ”

  Three months after John’s death, Caroline spoke at the twentieth anniversary of the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum. She looked incredibly thin, her shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair stranded with gray. She said that she wanted to salute John, who, as she put it, “brought his own sense of purpose and idealism to the public service, which I wish we can all continue.” After her remarks, she hurried backstage and collapsed into the arms of her uncle Teddy, her shoulders heaving, her body racked with wrenching sobs. Later she became angry at herself for the breakdown. “It’s not the way I want to handle it,” she said.

  Though very cordial when in public, privately she is guarded and protective. Many friends of the Kennedys who spoke publicly to reminisce fondly about John after his death found themselves no longer friends of Caroline’s. “She cut me and so many others out of her life when she saw us on TV talking about John, sharing our memories,” said one good friend. “I love Caroline so much. I’d known her for twenty years. But I guess I should also have known better. She considers it a terrible betrayal when people close to her speak to the media, even if what they have to say is positive. That’s how she was raised by her mother. Jackie was exactly the same way.”

  There would be many more public appearances for Caroline Kennedy over the years—she could always be counted on to present the annual Profile in Courage Awards at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, for instance. Of course, there were joyous family celebrations too, and some sad Kennedy funerals as well. She also began writing books on civil liberties and even edited a book that featured poems her mother enjoyed, The Best-Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. She took a job as an advocate and fund-raiser for New York’s public schools. In 2000, she appeared onstage at the National Democratic Convention, walking on to the strains of the theme to Camelot. “I thank all Americans for making me and John and all of our family a part of your family,” she said. “And for helping us dream my father’s dream.” When she turned fifty, she even appeared on the cover of AARP’s magazine. Then, of course, in 2008, she announced her endorsement of Barack Obama for president and played a key role in securing the support of her uncle Ted for Obama as well. Later in the year, she served as cochair of Obama’s vice presidential search committee.

  A very strange chapter in the life of Caroline Bouvier Kennedy began to unfold at the end of 2008. Now fifty-one, she suddenly seemed poised to become a serious political figure. “She spent a lot of her life balancing public service with obligations to her family,” her cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told the Associated Press in December 2008. “Now her children are grown, and she is ready to move onto a bigger stage.”

  After discussing the matter with Ted, Caroline decided that she wanted to throw her hat into the ring for the senatorial seat once occupied by her uncle Bobby. It was to be vacated by Hillary Clinton now that her confirmation as new secretary of state under President Barack Obama was imminent. A Marist poll of 503 registered voters showed Kennedy and New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo to be the top picks of New Yorkers, each favored by about 25 percent of those surveyed. New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg seemed to support Caroline when he said, quite simply, “Caroline Kennedy can do anything.” Barack Obama was said to be supportive as well, and in fact Caroline went on the record as saying he had been “encouraging.” It would seem, though, that he had no choice, in that Caroline and Ted had come out so strongly for him in his bid to be the Democratic nominee for president. Ted felt strongly that if Caroline could be appointed now, she would be able to secure the seat in a required 2010 election and then keep it in 2012 when Clinton’s term would end. It all seemed to make sense. How fitting would it be that Caroline would start her political career as a senator in her uncle’s old seat, and more than fifty years after her father, JFK, was elected to the Senate in 1952?

  An intense lobbying effort was quickly under way, with Ted leading the way to convince people with persuasive power over Democratic governor David Paterson, who had the sole responsibility for naming a successor to Clinton’s seat. However, there were many problems from the outset where Caroline was concerned. Her interest in politics probably sounded like a good idea when it was proposed, but the actual implementation of it was anything but smooth.

  The biggest problem of all was simply this: Caroline Kennedy is not a politician. It was an awkward fit for her. She’d never run for office before and little was known about her or her politics, other than her support for Obama which, in truth, had seemed to come out of nowhere. Gary Ackerman, who represents the 5th Congressional District of New York, put it best, even if somewhat cruelly, when he said that he did not know what credentials Caroline had for the job “except that she has name recognition—but so does J-Lo.” Ackerman had a plethora of great lines, such as this one, which he dropped on the television program Face the Nation: “One of the things that we have to observe is that DNA in this business can take you just so far. You know, Rembrandt was a great artist. His brother Murray, on the other hand? Murray Rembrandt couldn’t paint a house.” Maybe the congressman was inelegant in his critique of Caroline, but it made sense. Perhaps Patrick Kennedy had a more levelheaded comment when asked by Newsweek in 2001 what advice he would give to any of his cousins contemplating running for public office. “Disabuse yourself of the notion that there’s this machine out there that just kind of materializes when you say, ‘Yes—go!’ Growing up watching politics as my cousins and I did, you had this warped sense that that’s all you needed to do. That was the way it was
for my father’s generation.”

  Caroline’s first public appearance was in Syracuse, where she met privately with local politicians and then was trotted out to speak to the media—for about thirty seconds before an aide got her out of there quickly. In Buffalo later that day, she spoke for about two minutes. However, she had so much security and was surrounded by so much media that it was a wasted effort in terms of really getting a look at her, or coming to some understanding of her. “As a mother, as an author, as an education advocate, and from a family that really has spent generations in public service, I feel this commitment,” she said while in Rochester. “This is a time when nobody can afford to sit it out, and I feel I have something to offer.” She never said, though, what it was she had to offer. Since Paterson was to make his decision in January—perhaps February if it could be put off—Caroline didn’t have much time to reveal herself, and she was off to a bad start. Then a series of media interviews in December just made things worse. She was very vague in her answers and was widely criticized for repeatedly saying “um” and “you know.” In fact, she became famous for saying “you know” two hundred times in a thirty-minute TV interview. This was odd, because Caroline is ordinarily very articulate. As president of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, she’d given countless speeches since her mother and brother died, appearing at all sorts of Kennedy-related functions and acquitting herself quite well onstage. But now it just looked as though she was out of her element. By the time she was interviewed by the New York Times, she seemed defensive and snippy, or maybe just plain tired of the questioning. When a reporter from the Times asked her to describe the moment she decided she wanted to be a senator, she shot back, “Have you… ever thought about writing for, like, a woman’s magazine or something?” To which the reporter countered by asking what she had against women’s magazines. “Nothing at all,” she responded, “but I thought you were the crack political team here.”

  Perhaps even more surprising than Caroline Kennedy’s decision to try to fill Hillary Clinton’s vacated Senate seat was her uncle Ted’s encouragement of the idea. Some might argue that he should have known better. After all, he’d been in politics for so many years, he was well aware of what his niece would be up against in terms of the expectations of her, and he also knew and understood her temperament. It’s difficult to imagine that he truly believed she was up to the job. Back in 1992 when she turned down an offer to be chairwoman of the Democratic National Convention, he completely understood and said that no one should expect such a thing of her. Nothing really had changed, except perhaps that Ted was facing his own mortality. From discussions with his son Patrick, it had become clear to him that Patrick would not run for reelection to the House of Representatives in 2010. Perhaps Ted realized that with his death, there would not be a Kennedy in the Senate for the first time in fifty years. Bobby Kennedy Jr. had talked for years about possibly filling Hillary’s seat one day, but when it came down to it he decided against it. If he’d been interested, there’s little doubt that Ted would have encouraged it.

  Caroline Bows Out

  By 2009, despite the contributions of many of the third generation of Kennedys, it was clear that there wasn’t that one powerful leader in the family, the one who would most obviously continue a family tradition into the White House. Ted certainly knew as much, and maybe couldn’t be blamed for trying to convince JFK’s only daughter, Caroline, to take up the mantle. It probably at least sounded like a good idea. However, once the wheels were set in motion, the idea quickly betrayed certain weaknesses.

  One Kennedy family insider recalled a meeting at Caroline Kennedy’s home between her, Ted, Ed Schlossberg, and executives from the consulting firm Knickerbocker SKD, a political communications firm.

  “What is it you want to say?” one of the executives asked Caroline. “What is your message?”

  Caroline, dressed in slim black slacks and a smartly tailored yellow jacket, looked as if she’d drawn a blank. “I just think that a lot can be done, and I can do it,” she said, according to one recollection of the conversation. “I just need to figure out the best way to frame it.”

  “Well,” the executive carefully began, “we have to formulate some talking points and be… specific.”

  “Caroline and I will discuss all of this and get back to you,” Ted quickly interjected. He was rising to his niece’s defense, and she seemed to be appreciative of it, nodding and smiling at him.

  Ed Schlossberg just sat in a corner saying nothing. Caroline looked at him, then looked at Ted, then back to Ed. Finally she said, “Let’s not get into this now. Uncle Teddy and I will talk about it and we can reconvene at another time.”

  The meeting was adjourned, but the executives from Knickerbocker SKD were likely left with a few strong notions: Caroline didn’t have a clear rationale as to why she wanted the seat; her uncle was pulling for her anyway; and her husband was, to be charitable, ambivalent. The next day, one of the executives called Ted Kennedy to discuss the matter with him. In 2010, he recalled, “My conversation with the senator led me to believe that he felt this thing [Caroline as senator] was very important for the family. He suggested to me that there were very few Kennedys interested in holding office and the Kennedy dynasty was on its way out. He was really pulling for his niece to fill that void. I think it was a desperate attempt. What he said to me was, ‘If I knew I was going to live long enough, I could help her so much. But time is running out. I’m not sure how this is going to play out. I wish we’d had this idea many years ago.’ It was sad. I hung up feeling very hopeless about it all. It was as if he was trying to preserve something he felt would become obsolete with his passing.”

  By January 20, Caroline had had enough and decided to pull out of the running, citing “personal reasons,” just a day after Hillary Clinton’s position with the Obama administration was officially confirmed. Many explanations were put forth as speculation, such as that she was emotionally exhausted by her uncle Ted’s illness or, as the New York Times reported, there was some question about her taxes and a problem with the payroll of one of her maids. Some felt that she was reluctant to be forthcoming about her finances, estimated by some at more than $400 million. “Perhaps some of that was going on, but the truth is that Caroline just realized that it had been a bad idea, and she wanted out,” said one person close to Caroline.

  According to a reliable source, Caroline called Ted to tell him that she was afraid she had made a mistake in going after Hillary Clinton’s seat. He agreed with her, telling her that given the present climate, there was a good chance she would not get selected, which would prove embarrassing to her and the family. Besides, he now feared that if she did get the job, it would be too overwhelming for her. It was as if he suddenly remembered that she wasn’t cut out for politics. “Basically, he didn’t want her to further embarrass herself on his account,” said the source. “In the end, they said she pulled out for ‘personal reasons.’ Those ‘personal reasons’ were simply that she and Ted just decided they’d made a big mistake, that she really was not qualified.”

  While it would be poetic and fitting to see Caroline hold public office like her father and uncles and some of her cousins, capturing the public’s imagination as they had, wishing that it could be her destiny just wasn’t enough to make it so. The grace and quiet resolve with which she’s led her life in the face of such unimaginable heartbreak is what truly distinguishes her and defines who she is as a woman, not any passing interest she may have had in wanting to be a senator.

  No Regrets

  In 2003, Sargent Shriver, at age eighty-seven, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Even though Maria Shriver had referred to her father’s disease several times in speeches and interviews over the years, not much is known about its progression in her father’s specific case, or how the family dealt with it. It was an intensely personal matter. “It’s never easy to look at your parent and realize that he doesn’t know who you are,” Maria told Diane Sawyer
on Good Morning America in May 2009. “You have to recalibrate yourself every single time you see your father, and you have to introduce yourself to him.” Maria said that when she would walk into Sarge’s bedroom, she would try to stay upbeat and greet him by saying, “Hi, how are you doing? I’m your daughter, Maria.” Typically, his response would be, “Oh my goodness, you are?” And she would then answer, “Yes, isn’t that amazing? I’m your daughter.” Maria added, “It has taught me to accept a person for who he is in the moment, not for what he used to be or what I want him to be, but to just deal with the person in front of me, and that’s a pretty good lesson for life, just in general.”

  “So be it,” Sargent once said when asked about the so-called Kennedy curse. Considering who Sargent had been in his lifetime and his absolute devotion to his Catholicism, there’s little doubt but that his faith carried him through. “At the age of ninety-three, my dad still goes to Mass every day,” Maria said when she testified before Congress about the difficulties families face when dealing with the disease. “And believe it or not, he still remembers the Hail Mary.” For her part, Maria would use her father’s terrible illness as a catalyst to make people aware of the ravages of the disease, and also to eliminate the shame associated with it. In May 2009, she was the coexecutive producer of The Alzheimer’s Project, an HBO documentary series that won two Emmy awards. She also wrote a bestselling children’s book about Alzheimer’s called Grandpa, Do You Know Who I Am?