She ran up the stairs to get Dad. The rest of us immediately sensed her fear. When Dad came down, he and Mother led the priests to a side room and closed the door. When they emerged, it was clear to all of us that they were stricken. Softly they told us that Joe was missing and presumed dead. It was impossible to believe. As the priests provided the details, the reality of the situation sank in. “I want you all to be particularly good to your Mother,” Dad said, voice shaking.
I did not want to believe it. I stood up from where I sat and dashed out the front door, jumped onto my bike, and pedaled down to the church. There I went to the pew in the front, where I cried and prayed by myself. I then went down to Hyannis Hospital, where I was a volunteer, and began to work. What else could I do? My adored brother and godfather was gone.
Mother and Dad sustained us in those days with their faith and perseverance. They charted our course back toward joy and hope.
“When young Joe was killed, my faith, even though I am a Catholic[,] did not seem strong enough to make me understand that . . . he had won his eternal reward,” Dad wrote a friend. “Rose, on the other hand, with her supreme faith, has just gone on and prayed for him.”
Later Mother recalled Dad telling her, “We’ve got to carry on. We must take care of the living. There is a lot of work to be done.”
Their courage and strength are still difficult to comprehend. Carry on they did, and we along with them.
16
A Long Way from Bronxville
The measure of a man’s success in life is not the money he’s made. It’s the kind of family he has raised.
—JOSEPH P. KENNEDY
One by one, we left the house to go to college, enter the military, work, and pursue futures of our own. I was honored to be chosen in 1945 to christen the USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., a naval ship named for my godfather, Joe. Soon afterward, I graduated from the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Noroton, Connecticut, and told Mother I wanted to follow in Eunice’s footsteps and attend college at Stanford University in California. But Mother was reluctant to allow me to go. She felt it was very important to continue my Catholic education for at least one more year. We struck a deal: I would stay on with the Sisters of the Sacred Heart at Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart, located in Harlem, New York, for a year. If I still wanted to go to California after that year, I could transfer. It seemed fair enough to me.
Me christening the USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. (Quincy, Massachusetts, 1945)
© Bettmann/CORBIS.
On my first day of college, I walked into my dorm room and met my roommate, Ethel Skakel. A friend of mine from boarding school had known Ethel and recommended that we room together. My friend felt we would get along like a house on fire, and how right she was. It was clear from the first second that Ethel and I would be fast friends.
Ethel and Bobby (Hyannis Port)
Miller Studio, Quincy, MA.
Ethel grasped my hand and shook it enthusiastically. “Great to meet you!” She also came from a big Catholic family, of seven children, in Greenwich, Connecticut, so we had much, perhaps too much, in common. As the school year progressed and Mother received my marks, she became concerned that our friendship was taking its toll on my education. She wrote to the head of the convent asking that a makeshift wall be put up between Ethel and me, so that we could not talk all night. It was a futile effort. We simply talked over the wall.
Steve and me at our wedding (New York City, May, 1956)
Beulah Harris Ingall Collection.
Ethel and I arranged our schedules just right so that on Friday afternoons both our classes ended at noon. That gave us the time we needed to take off and head to her house for the weekend, where I got to know her parents and brothers and sisters. I also took Ethel to Hyannis Port to meet mine. I introduced her to my brother Bobby, and the rest is history. So Mother was right again. I never did make it to Stanford, and I was not sorry for it.
From left: Stephen Jr., Amanda, Steve, me, Kym, and William
Frank Teti, Teti-Miller Collection. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
Bobby and Ethel were the first to marry, followed by Eunice. She found the perfect match in Sargent Shriver, who went on to found the Peace Corps and whom we all loved. Jack married next, followed by Pat. And then luck played its hand for me in the mid-1950s when I met a dashing young man, Steve Smith, just recently returned from service in the Korean War. We married in 1956 and had four children: Stephen, William, Amanda, and Kym. Steve ended up playing an instrumental role in both Jack’s and Bobby’s campaigns.
As my brothers grew into men, they became more and more interested in politics. Those early conversations at the dinner table became the daily occupations of their minds. Jack, always a lover of literature and words, had originally thought he would be a journalist, having written, among other pieces, the widely acclaimed book examining the British role leading up to World War II, Why England Slept. Yet after we lost Joe, he began to gravitate more and more toward the political sphere.
In 1947, Jack became the first of our family to run for office. He entered and won the race for Congress, representing the Eleventh District in Massachusetts. Six years later, he launched a statewide effort, vying for the U.S. Senate against the powerful Henry Cabot Lodge, a descendant of a Massachusetts political dynasty. Naturally, the rest of us fell in line to help.
In the campaign, like on the sea, we each had our role and responsibility. It was as if we had been in training for this race all our lives without realizing it. Our parents had taught us to stand up for what we believed, to support one another at every turn, to explore the world around us, and to love our country. Dad wholeheartedly agreed with Jack’s decision to choose Bobby to manage the campaign. My mother, my sisters, Ethel, and I attended tea parties that ladies in towns across Massachusetts hosted to get out the vote. Sometimes we would go together, but most often we split apart: Eunice and Pat off to one corner of the state, Ethel and I to another.
Visiting the households of Massachusetts was an incredible experience. We met women of every ethnicity and interest. We talked about our brother, about our days growing up, about his heroism at sea during World War II on the small torpedo boat PT-I09. Jack was the commander of the boat, which was rammed by a Japanese destroyer in the middle of the night in August 1943. Two crewmen were lost, ten others were in distress, some were terribly injured. Our wonderful older brother set about rescuing his men, towing them in to shore and helping them leave the wreckage and find safety.
Jack spent the nights swimming between islands looking for respite and help. He and his crew were finally saved when a native islander agreed to carry a message through the Japanese line to the American troops on the other side. Jack gave the man a coconut and scratched into its side 11 ALIVE. NEED SMALL BOAT . . . KENNEDY. It was a treacherous mission, a tremendous risk, but the man made it.
The imprint this story left on those groups of women at the tea parties was fast and permanent. They marveled at Jack’s heroism and pressed us to convey their support directly to him. They were all so enthusiastic, so kind and supportive. The ladies asked us questions about our families, our children, and our home in Hyannis Port, and we answered each one. Eventually the conversation veered toward more serious subjects: domestic policies and the political differences between the candidates. When they began to question us about the state budget, that was when we knew it was time to take our leave.
“Oh, we’re terribly sorry, they’re waiting for us at the next house. Thank you so much!” we said as we moved out the door. “And vote JFK!”
Upon his defeat, Lodge grudgingly observed, “It was those damn teas that killed me.”
It was all so much fun, and exciting. In fact, working on a campaign may be the most fun a young person can have. Over the years, as Jack continued to advance in politics, and Bobby and Teddy, too, we branched out from Massachusetts and across America, to Minnesota, Florida, Oregon. We met fascinating peopl
e, heard about their lives and their concerns, and visited remote parts of the country that we had only read about in books. Commentators and historians later said that our family’s efforts made a difference in my brothers’ campaigns, and I am certainly glad they did, since we enjoyed doing it so much. Looking back, I see that there was nothing more energizing or more important than playing a part in who would run the government, and I urge young people to do it today. Don’t just complain. Make your voices and your opinions heard.
One time, Bobby’s campaign asked me to make an appearance for him in Oregon. I boarded a plane for the West Coast. The trip was very rough. About twenty-five minutes outside the airport, the pilot’s voice came over the loudspeaker. I remember his words well.
“I have very good news. We are coming in, and it looks like mostly smooth sailing from here,” he said. “But on the way down”—and here he paused for a moment— “you may see whitecaps in your coffee.”
I looked up from the magazine I was reading. Did that pilot just say what I thought he did? This was not comforting news, to say the least. The last thing you want to hear if you are sitting on a landing plane is that you might see whitecaps, in a cup of coffee no less. I swirled the spoon in my coffee cup faster and faster until the cream rose up like waves. If that’s the type of twisting we were in for, I wanted no part of it!
The plane did indeed toss on the clouds on the way down, but in the end, we landed safely and all was well. With my feet firmly on the ground and the tension past, it immediately occurred to me that the pilot’s phrase, “whitecaps in your coffee,” would make the perfect title for a book about campaigns. You can be going along smoothly and then, suddenly, your opponent gets a great endorsement, or your staffer makes a mistake, or your speech falls flat, and your fortunes turn to dust.
Undoubtedly my brothers faced whitecaps along the way in their campaigns. But no matter the case, Mother and Dad never lost faith in them. Dad particularly had a way about him that buoyed you up even when you were feeling very low. At the 1956 Democratic Convention in Chicago, Jack made a fierce run to be nominated as the vice-presidential candidate on the ticket with presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson. The former governor of Illinois, Stevenson was making his second bid for the White House, and the nomination would have immediately catapulted Jack to the national stage. But the delegates chose Senator Estes Kefauver from Tennessee as the nominee instead.
Jack was despondent. We all were. He, Bobby, and I began to walk out of the stadium on the South Side of Chicago and, passing a phone booth, Bobby had an idea: “Let’s call Dad.”
Jack entered the booth and dialed Hyannis Port, where Mother and Dad were watching the convention at home. Dad picked up the phone, and though the door to the phone booth was closed, we all heard his booming greeting:
“Congratulations!”
We thought maybe he didn’t realize what had happened. But he most certainly did.
“Congratulations, Jack,” Dad continued. “Stevenson is not going anywhere. This frees you up to do what you want to do and chart your own course. This is the best thing that’s ever happened to you!”
Jack came out of the booth with an enormous smile on his face. Dad had turned the entire thing around. We all began to laugh and celebrate. Dad was right again.
In the late 1950s, Jack began thinking seriously about whether he would run for president of the United States. This was a question the family had discussed back and forth loosely for years. And it was a decision that Jack asked all of us to be involved in.
Among Catholics involved in politics, the candidacy of Al Smith, though some twenty years before, was still fresh in our minds. The first Catholic to receive the nomination of a major political party for president, Smith was pilloried by religious leaders, particularly in the southern United States, for his “anti-American” leanings. It was said that, if elected, he would answer to the Pope. There was even talk that the Pope would move to the United States. No one was surprised when Smith was soundly defeated by Herbert Hoover at the ballot box. So it was understandable that we were wary of Jack facing the same scorn.
After much deliberation, Jack finally declared his candidacy. And in fact there was a similar outcry, and he faced the same suspicion that Smith did because of his Catholic faith. It was not until September 1960, just a few months before the election, that Jack put the fervor to rest in an address before a group of Protestant ministers in Houston, Texas.
“If this election is decided on the basis that 40 million Americans lost their chance of being president on the day they were baptized, then it is the whole nation that will be the loser—in the eyes of Catholics and non-Catholics around the world, in the eyes of history, and in the eyes of our own people,” Jack said.
It was a great speech, very moving for all of us, and it gave us a good understanding of the bias. In my memory, it was one of his most defining and courageous moments.
Campaigning for Jack (1950s)
© CORBIS.
The race was intense. My sisters and I took our tea parties back on the road, once again fanning out across the United States. On the night of the election, we still had no idea if Jack or the Republican candidate, Richard Nixon, would win. We spent the night moving between “The Big House” in Hyannis Port, where we spent summers growing up and where Mother and Dad now lived year-round, and a house nearby that Bobby and Ethel shared with their nine children. Members of the media, campaign workers, family members—all of us were waiting to hear the winner announced, but the numbers were too close.
Our family had dinner together, and eventually we went to bed, with everyone nervous. At dawn, we awoke to have our fears allayed. Jack had won. There was much excitement. An official photographer took a picture of all of us standing before the fireplace. Jackie borrowed my coat to go down the driveway with Jack to speak with the press. Meantime, relieved and needing to move about, the rest of us started a touch football game on the lawn. When Jackie and Jack came back up the drive, he joined in.
After a while we heard Dad shout from the porch, as was his routine, “Lunch is ready!”
We broke into little groups and began walking up toward the house. Jack and I paired up and were walking a little bit behind the others.
Ever punctual, Dad went inside only to come back a few seconds later.
“Hurry up now, everybody’s ready and inside waiting for you two!”
Our family the day Jack won the election. Standing from left: Ethel, Steve, me, Jack, Bobby, Pat, Sargent Shriver, Joan Kennedy, Peter Lawford; Seated from left: Eunice, Mother, Dad, Jackie, and Teddy (Hyannis Port, November 9, 1960)
Popperfoto/Getty Images.
Jack turned to me with a mock seriousness and said, “Doesn’t he know I’m president of the United States?”
He had such a grin on his face that we both burst out laughing.
Jack and Steve at the White House (Washington, DC, 1963)
Robert Knudsen. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.
In her memoir, Mother wrote about being on the campaign trail with my brothers and listening to them speak before a large audience or take on a foe in a debate. She said she often thought back to those early days around the table, when we were encouraged to learn about the issues of the world and to defend our positions. I think, too, of the Beatitudes, Jesus’s lessons on love and service, which she and Dad pressed so firmly on our consciousness.
“If children are to develop into effective people, the process must begin when they are small,” Mother once wrote, remembering our childhood.
I am so grateful to our parents for being so focused in their child rearing, though little could they have imagined the life they were destined to lead when they first started out together in their tidy house on Beals Street in Brookline. Little could they have imagined that Dad would be appointed the first Irish American ambassador to the Court of St. James, or that, even later still, one of their children would become the firs
t Irish-Catholic president of the United States.
“It’s a long way from Beals Street,” Dad said to Mother in 1938, after they were received by Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace.
A quarter of a century later, Jack was in the White House. One day, he called me on the telephone. The president of Ireland, Sean LeMass, was coming for a state dinner. The First Lady, my dear friend Jackie, was in Europe visiting her sister, Lee. Jack asked if I would serve as the hostess for the event. Would I ever!
I excitedly began to prepare. I looked at photos of my elegant sister-in-law at other state dinners, to determine what to wear. Jackie was the essence of grace and style. Brilliant, beautiful, with a quick humor and enormous heart, she never put on airs or became self-important, even though she was arguably the most famous woman in the world. The idea of filling her shoes at a state dinner was daunting to say the least.
Irish President Sean Lemass, Mrs. Kathleen Lemass, me, and Jack at the State Dinner (Washington, DC, 1963)
White House Photographs. David Mager Photography.
I searched the stores and finally decided upon a lovely light blue gown with a lace collar. But what to do for the tiara that Jackie always placed so delicately in her hair? I did not have such a thing. So I searched my jewelry box and found a rhinestone bracelet and tucked it into my hair, perched precariously above my forehead, secured with two bobby pins. This would have to do the job.
I arrived at the White House and was escorted to the top of the stairs, where Jack waited for me. “You look great,” he said, taking my arm. I smiled back at him, making sure to keep my head perfectly straight so that the bracelet would not go crashing to the floor.
The Nine of Us Page 12