The Kennedy Heirs: John, Caroline, and the New Generation

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  How far? Three blocks. Fine, Ted said, he’d walk over while Kara was in surgery. No, said Mary. It was in a rough part of town. She’d call a car service.

  An hour later, Ted and Vicki walked inside the ornate church, whose complete name was the Basilica and Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. For the next three hours, they kneeled and prayed, occasionally lighting candles. Finally, one of Ted’s aides came to the couple to tell them that Kara’s surgery was finished. They then raced back to the hospital.

  Ted, Vicki, Patrick, Teddy, and Michael Allen all got to Dr. Sugarbaker’s at the same time. Mary took the anxious family members into her boss’s inner sanctum. She left them there and closed the door.

  Five minutes later, David Sugarbaker, still in scrubs, came bounding into the suite, rushing right past Mary’s desk. He glanced over at his secretary and noted the concern on her face. Then, as he opened his office door to face the Kennedys, he flashed a smile and gave her a big thumbs-up.

  Strategy for Healing

  “Wow. Kara’s doing unbelievably well, isn’t she?”

  Ted Kennedy was talking to his sons as he sat in front of a heaping plate of pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon.

  “This man knows exactly what he’s doing,” Ted continued, motioning to David Sugarbaker at his side. It was eight in the morning, two days after Kara’s surgery. Ted was holding court in a far corner of Pat’s Place delicatessan—the hospital’s go-to for good food. He and his sons would have breakfast, lunch, and dinner here every day for as long as Kara was in the hospital. This morning, they were in the company of Dr. Sugarbaker. “I’m just the surgeon,” the modest physician told them. “Kara did all the real work.”

  “Kara was in the hospital for ten days after her surgery,” recalled Dr. Sugarbaker. “We kept her in ICU a couple extra days just to be safe. The Senator came every morning at seven. He’d received permission from the hospital to set up an office in a large room down the hall from Kara’s—desks, computers, printers, file cabinets, everything he’d need, with a secretary’s station … phone lines, the works. He couldn’t take a day off, he explained, yet he needed to be at the hospital. So we had government officials coming through every day, senators, congressmen. President Bush was about to declare the war in Iraq, so there was a lot of discussion about whether it was justified. There were serious things going on in the world, so I admired the way the Kennedys were able to compartmentalize and keep their focus on Kara. Teddy and Patrick would come to the hospital in the morning and would join their father in Pat’s Place. Then all three would go to Kara’s room. Later, I would follow with my own examination of her.”

  “I’m ready for the next phase,” Kara told Dr. Sugarbaker on that second day. Though still physically weak, she was anxious to get to her chemotherapy.

  After the diagnosis, Kara said she was paralyzed with fear, as was everyone else in the family. Patrick couldn’t even look at her without bursting into tears. They all felt helpless and didn’t know how to address it. For her part, she receded into what she called “a really dark place.” Because she’d been such a heavy smoker, she was swamped with guilt. After all, she had two small children at home—Grace was only eight and Max was six. Therefore the idea of leaving them without a mother was devastating. How, she asked herself, could she have been so stupid as to not have quit smoking years earlier? “I was paralyzed,” she said. “Fear will do that to you, I guess.”

  Kara said that loved ones kept telling her she had nothing to worry about because she was such a fighter. Her response to that observation was: Thanks very much, but what are you talking about? After all, she’d always had the luxury of a soft cushion provided by her family’s wealth and status. It had made everything possible for her, from a happy social life to a great education. Money was always at her disposal; she lived an entitled, privileged life. When did she ever have to fight for anything? She once recalled hearing one of her cousins declare, “We don’t have to worry about shit,” followed by the favorite refrain, “We’re the fuckin’ Kennedys.” She would remember being put off by the observation. Of course, the Kennedys had plenty to worry about, but Kara likely understood where her relative was coming from, even if he did have a pretty crude way of expressing it.

  It was Patrick who reminded Kara that her childhood had been no bed of roses. Raised by unpredictable, alcoholic parents, she spent most of her youth trying to figure out how to survive in a family in which behavior was always at odds with personal responsibility. Usually feeling abandoned by either Ted or Joan, she and her brothers had to turn to one another for strength. They certainly weren’t getting it from their mother, and the only time they got it from their father was when they were sick. Unlike her brothers, though, Kara had rarely been ill, at least not physically. However, she did feel desperate and anxious for most of her youth. How many times had she run away? When Patrick posed the question, Kara realized she couldn’t even count the times, there had been that many. “Every day, you had to fight,” Patrick told her. “All three of us had to fight. You are a fighter, Kara. We all are.”

  After she got her wits about her and was able to come to terms with her devastating illness, Kara decided that, yes, she would do battle against it, and not only that, but she’d win. She’d seen too much tragedy in her lifetime, she decided. “I refuse to allow myself to end up just another casualty of the so-called Kennedy curse,” she said. Her adamant declaration to trusted friends was: “The Kennedy curse ends here, with me.”

  For Kara, survival meant coming up with a plan. “To that end she devised what she called her ‘strategy for healing,’ said Meghan Strayhorn, one of her closest friends at this time. “She told me she realized that in order for her to heal, she had to believe—and have no doubt, whatsoever—that her body was capable of doing so. Then, and only then, would she be able to manifest a true and complete healing. She combined a new age philosophy of self-healing with her own Catholic faith—thus, her ‘strategy for healing.’

  “She explained to me that Jesus Christ is quoted in the Bible as having said, ‘Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have it and it will be yours’ [Mark 11:24]. He also said, ‘It is done to you as you believe’ [Matthew 8:13]. ‘It’s not as you think you believe or as you want to believe,’ she said, ‘it’s as you believe.’ To her, this scripture meant that the only way she could conquer cancer was to believe she’d already done so—and that in praying for a healing, it was already hers. ‘It’s the underlying belief that really shows up in your life,’ she told me. That meant she couldn’t allow herself to be infected by negativity.”

  In order to keep a clear mind about the outcome of her fight with such a deadly cancer, it was Kara’s decision not to attend medical strategy sessions. She knew these appointments would do nothing but plant negative thoughts in her head, especially since it had already been decreed by most doctors that she was terminal. Therefore she asked her father to attend all such sessions, to sift through the “bad news” and just give her the information she needed: which was, basically, when to show up for her surgery. Though Ted didn’t quite understand her reasoning, Vicki did. “Vicki got it right away,” said Megan Strayhorn, “and told Ted not to think about, not to try to figure it out, not to debate it, to just do what Kara asked of him. And that’s what he did.”

  After Kara explained her “strategy for healing” to her doctors, they were impressed. They’d actually wondered why she hadn’t been to any of the medical conferences. Now it made sense to them, especially to Dr. Sugarbaker. He couldn’t help but also notice that Joan had never attended any such meetings, either, and had never even been to the hospital. “So how’s your mom handling things?” he asked.

  Kara smiled. Then she changed the subject.

  Vicki Intercedes with Joan

  For Kara Kennedy, dealing with her mother’s precarious emotional state during this challenging time was complicated. When she would talk to her about her cancer, Joan would inevitably fall apart. She coul
dn’t handle the anxiety and fear of her only daughter’s battle with such a deadly illness. Kara would inevitably end up consoling Joan, not the other way around. In these, Kara’s darkest moments, her mother couldn’t give her hope—only more fear. Of course, this wasn’t Joan’s fault. No one blamed her. However, those in Kara’s life who understood her philosophy about healing—such as her cousins Caroline and Maria and her stepmother, Vicki—suggested that she discontinue trying to enlist her mother in her recovery. Of course, this would be easier said than done.

  Joan felt she had a right to be included in all decisions relating to Kara’s health care and resented it that Ted seemed to have commandeered the process. She campaigned hard for inclusion, enlisting her sons to act on her behalf and make sure she was not shut out. However, every time Joan was given even the smallest bit of information, she went into a panic, spinning out of control and, consequently, becoming the focus of attention. It was a big distraction.

  Ted’s position was that Joan was being self-involved. “It’s always about Joan,” he said at this time. “How is she taking it? Is she drinking? What do we tell her? How do we tell her? Sure, she has had a tough time,” he acknowledged, “and nobody is sorrier about it than I am. But it has to be about Kara right now, not about Joan.” Ted said he would talk to his ex-wife and ask her to back off. However, everyone thought that was a terrible idea. After so many years of doing battle with each other, the former spouses knew how to push each other’s buttons. No, Vicki said. She should be the one to speak to Joan. She had a rapport with her, she said, and felt she could reach her. “Now you’re thinking just like a Kennedy,” Ted told her proudly.

  It had been ten years since Vicki married into the family. At almost twenty years younger than Joan, who was sixty-six at this time, she was as gorgeous as ever, still smart and in control. She had somehow managed to do the one thing Joan had never been able to do, which was to be a strong partner for Ted on every level. Therefore, depending on her mood and what was going on in the family at any given time, Joan had mixed feelings about Vicki. Sometimes she had great respect for her. Other times she was more leery. Still, the two had shared many meaningful moments in the last decade, going all the way back to their first talk about the inherent lack of familial respect for women.

  Vicki had done her research on Joan. As much as she loved Ted, she’d recently come to the conclusion that he had been guilty of using Joan’s disease as a way to distract attention from his own misdeeds. Vicki couldn’t help but note that during his marriage to Joan, almost every time Ted was seen with another woman his office diverted attention from it by suddenly addressing the matter of Joan and her battle with alcoholism. It was just another function of Kennedy culture patriarchy. One afternoon over lunch, when Vicki told Joan that she’d come to this conclusion, Joan almost cried. That was exactly right, she said.

  “Joan had been saying this for years, yet no one would ever believe her,” Marcia Chellis confirmed. “‘All the messages about me are being put out there by men,’ she would complain. ‘They have complete control over my image.’ Sure, she had problems, she would always admit, but so much of what became known of them came from the Kennedy image-making machinery in an effort to protect Ted. Joan felt it also gave him license to cheat on her, because after all, what good was she? She deserved to be cheated on.”

  Joan told Vicki that eventually she had decided to start giving her own interviews to women’s magazines so that she could get her point of view out there. Then, of course, everyone was upset, she said, because it had become clear that she didn’t know how to keep the family’s secrets. That didn’t stop her, though. Once she realized people wanted to hear from her directly, she told Vicki, “I never stopped talking, and I didn’t care what anyone thought of it, either.”

  These kinds of conversations helped seal a bond between the two Mrs. Kennedys. Therefore, Vicki felt certain she could reason with Joan.

  “Vicki went to see Joan,” recalled one source, “and from what I heard she sat down with her and said, ‘Look, I understand how you feel. This is your daughter. You have a right to be involved in every aspect of her care. However, the selfless thing you can do right now is to let me and Ted handle things. I’m asking you this as a woman and as a mother. Can you please?’

  “I think maybe Vicki had underestimated what Joan’s reaction would be. She was upset. She felt disrespected, and she made sure Vicki knew it. There were a lot of ‘How dare yous?’ and ‘Who do you think you ares?’ Finally, though, she settled down. She took Vicki into her confidence by explaining that she was just trying to fix her mistakes of the past before it was too late. She feared Kara was dying and wanted the opportunity to be a real mom to her. She was also frightened of the unknown, whatever was to come. ‘Please don’t make me be alone in this,’ she begged Vicki.”

  Vicki’s heart went out to Joan; her concern for Kara’s well-being was obviously genuine. She assured her that there would be many years ahead for the two of them. “Forget the past and don’t worry about the future,” she told her. “Be here, now.” Vicki then promised to keep Joan posted every step along the way. She said that not one day would go by that Joan wouldn’t know exactly what was happening. “I am on your side,” Vicki told her. “I promise you that.” Finally, Joan agreed to recede into the background, at least, she said, “for a few weeks.”

  “Vicki Kennedy was present every day, at every meeting, at the hospital, all of it,” recalled Dr. David Sugarbaker. “If you had told me she was Kara’s mother, I would have believed you. The way she treated her was as if Kara was her own. I never once saw Kara’s real mother throughout the entire process. I supposed this was the result of an agreement that had been reached within the family, but I certainly didn’t ask too many questions about it.”

  In the end, Vicki kept her promise; she called Joan every day with an update. On those days when she couldn’t immediately reach her, she became persistent in tracking her down. She didn’t want there to be any doubt that she’d kept her word. Following the surgery, the two even had lunch so that Vicki could give Joan a full account of the doctors’ prognosis.

  After she was released from the hospital, Kara went to the Kennedy compound to recuperate at Ted and Vicki’s. She would then undergo chemo in Washington and in Boston; Vicki accompanied her to most of her treatments. Throughout this time, Ted continued to visit and pray at the Basilica and Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. “It’s not the biggest church, it’s not the most beautiful church, and it’s not in a good neighborhood,” he said. “But it’s my church now, because that’s where I got my miracle.” Seven years later, during another dark time for the family, when the Senator himself was battling cancer, he would make arrangements for his funeral be held at this same church. That final wish would be granted.

  In time, it would be understood that Kara’s surgery—and her “strategy for healing”—resulted in a complete success, one that was nothing less than miraculous; she would go into a full and total remission. Against all odds, this woman who most medical professionals thought was going to die would continue to raise her children and be able to enjoy a good and happy life.

  PART IV

  The Shriver Way

  Tradition

  July 2003. A couple walked along the sandy shore of Hyannis Port, her head resting comfortably on his broad shoulder. It was a gorgeous Cape Cod summer day, the clear blue sky dotted with the occasional white puffball cloud. They were followed not only by three children but also a woman who appeared to be a nanny, dressed in a crisp white uniform. Walking behind her was a trio of photographers who’d been allowed entrée to the Kennedy enclave for a story about the clan in Newsweek. Clumsy, with all manner of equipment, they stumbled along the beach while endeavoring not to be distracting but failing miserably at it. White gulls with black-tipped wings swooped all around them, almost as if trying to protect the beach’s serenity from their intrusion.

  Tall and model-thin with dark hair framing a
n angular face, the young woman in large sunglasses would stop from time to time and glance over her shoulder to check on her children. Under her diaphanous white one-piece cover-up, she wore a sexy, formfitting red swimsuit. At one point, the man, donning only a knee-length checkered swimsuit, his muscles bulging over a ripped torso, walked to one of the little boys, tossed him into the air, and caught him in his arms. He squealed with delight. The cameramen smiled as they clicked away. “Arnold, please don’t do that,” exclaimed the woman. “You know that scares me.” He flashed a toothy grin, nodded with confidence, and then leaned in and spoke to her, perhaps reassuring her that he had the situation under control. No doubt, he did. After all, he was Arnold Schwarzenegger, not just a famous actor but also one of the world’s leading bodybuilders. The child, his five-year-old son, Christopher, was probably all of forty pounds. He gazed up at Daddy with adoration and demanded, “One more time. One more time.” Again, Arnold popped him into the air as his wife, Maria Shriver, cringed and turned away.

  Parents playing with their kids on this picturesque shore had been a time-honored family tradition for pretty much as long as Maria could remember. At this time, Maria had four children—Katherine, thirteen; Christina, about to turn twelve this month; Patrick, nine; and little Christopher. Back when she was a young girl, her own folks, Sargent Shriver and Eunice Kennedy Shriver, would walk this same sandy span with their five offspring—Maria and brothers, Timothy, Anthony, Bobby, and Mark. Sometimes they would stop, lay out a blanket, and enjoy a little picnic. Eventually, though, they’d always end up in a game of touch football with Maria, her mother, and father on one team, all of her brothers on the other.