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

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  “I was an alcoholic; I was a drug addict; I had bipolar disorder and anxiety disorder, and I hadn’t been properly admitting or treating them,” he recalled. “And for the first time in my life, at the age of thirty-eight, I just wanted to stop lying about all of this.” Patrick would express all of it in a press conference the next day; he would fess up to his decades-long battle with addiction and his recent stay at the Mayo Clinic and explain that he was going back in for more treatment. He would detail his problems with bipolar disorder, anxiety, and depression, courageously addressing it all and ridding himself of the shame, humiliation, and the deadly need for secrecy. He said he now wanted to not only be a better congressman but, as his father had suggested, a better man. He asked his constituency for the chance to do just that. “I hope that my openness today and in the past, and my acknowledgment that I need help, will give others the courage to get help if they need it. I am blessed to have a loving family who is in my corner every step of the way. And I’d like to call, once again, for passage of mental health parity.”

  Ted tried to act supportive; he released a public statement of encouragement, lauding the courage of his youngest child: “I have the rare and special honor of being able to serve with my son in the Congress, and I have enormous respect for the work Patrick has done. The people of the First District of Rhode Island have a tireless champion for the issues they care about, and today I hope they join me in feeling pride and respect for a courageous man who has admitted to a problem and taken bold action to correct it.”

  The next couple of months would be a blur. Patrick did his stint at Mayo as planned. He seemed better when he was released in August and joined his family on the Cape, as he had every summer for most of his life.

  At the compound, it was as tense as ever between father and son. Now Ted was upset because a reporter from The New York Times had been pestering him to ask about his drinking habits. Apparently, the paper was preparing a piece on Patrick. Ted told the reporter he’d been “well” for the last fifteen years and that he only had an occasional glass of wine with dinner, which, at least according to most family accounts, wasn’t exactly true. He’d definitely cut back thanks to Vicki, but he was still drinking a lot more than just the occasional glass of wine. Some friends had recently been alarmed when, before a meeting, he poured himself a healthy glass of vodka … and then dropped two Alka-Seltzers into it! As they fizzed, he smiled and said something about it being the latest cure for a hangover. “I can’t stop this kind of transparency if that’s what you want for yourself,” Ted bellowed at Patrick. “But do not drag me into it. I am not compelled to discuss my private life with a reporter just so you can build yourself up in the court of public opinion. None of your relatives are.”

  That hurt.

  “Well, Dad, you could’ve just said ‘no comment,’” Patrick offered. While he didn’t want to poke the so-called Lion of the Senate, what else could he say? In response, Ted glared at him. “People keep secrets for a reason,” he said, “even from those they love. It’s not your place to reveal them.”

  Now that Patrick was on the road to recovery, he decided he wanted to share his own story openly, thus his cooperation with that New York Times piece. “I wanted to aggressively tie my personal story to my ongoing legislative fight for mental health parity—an effort to outlaw the rampant discrimination in medical insurance coverage for mental illness and addiction treatment,” he would explain. “Winning the parity fight would be the first step to overcoming all discrimination against people with these diseases, their families, and those who treated them. So I decided to go public exclusively to The New York Times.”

  The article on Patrick’s battle for sobriety and good mental health appeared on the Times’s front page on September 19, 2006. The timing couldn’t have been worse. Two days earlier, Pat Kennedy Lawford died after a battle with throat cancer; she was eighty-two. Still reeling from the loss of his sister, Ted now also had Patrick’s story with which to contend. “My God,” he exclaimed to him during a dinner in his late sister’s honor after the wake. “What have you done? What a disaster. When will you ever learn?”

  Patrick tried to explain that he was just trying to be honest. “Okay,” Ted said, angrily and loud enough for anyone to hear. “You want to take that dog for a walk? Fine. But if it bites me or one of your other loved ones on the ass … that’s on you. That’s on you.” Patrick then said, “‘Wait! Dad, I want to talk to you,’ to which Ted very loudly said, ‘No!’ as he walked away.”

  Vicki went over to Ted and tried to calm him down. He didn’t want to hear it, though. “This is none of your damn business,” he snapped at her. His comment set her off. “Really?” she asked, irate. “None of my damn business? Really, Ted? Really?” While this brief exchange made a few people wonder about the state of Vicki’s marriage to Ted, most recognized it for exactly what it was: spouses shooting off their mouths at each other in the heat of emotion. “Wow,” quipped one of Ethel’s sons, cocktail in hand. “Dinner and a show!”

  For the most part, Patrick spent the rest of the evening staying out of the line of Ted’s fire. Finally, though, he’d had enough of hearing him criticize him to anyone who would listen. He walked up to the Senator and, in front of witnesses, let him have it. “Better get used to it, Dad, because this is just the beginning. I want all the Kennedy secrets out, once and for all.” This was unusual; Patrick was usually too cowed by Ted to go after him like that.

  “That’s your problem right there,” Ted said, glaring at him.

  “I don’t think so, Dad,” Patrick said, meeting his father with his own angry gaze. “I think it might be yours.” He looked at Ted for a beat as if waiting for a reaction. Ted just stared at him. Patrick then patted him on the shoulder and walked away.

  For Ted, this was a tough moment, even if Patrick did try to take the edge off it. He stood in place, stunned. Instantly, tears came to his eyes. Patrick had never spoken to him like that before, ever. Sure, maybe he deserved it. But still, from Ted’s pained expression, it must have felt like a dagger in the heart. The next day, Patrick was filled with regret about it. He felt he’d let his emotions get the better of him. “You don’t talk to your father like that,” he told one person who had witnessed it. “Not in my family, anyway. It’s just not right.”

  Patrick Proves Himself

  In November 2006, Patrick was reelected by the largest plurality of his career. He had shown real courage by facing up to his problems as opposed to trying to cover them up, and voters respected his bravery with an outpouring of sympathy, empathy, and support. When his son was reelected, Ted—who had just easily won his eighth term in the Senate—had to stop and think about what it was his own constituency wanted from him in terms of addressing mental health issues and how to best fill those needs—especially now that Democrats had control of the Senate and the House.

  Trying to rise to the occasion of new public sentiment, Ted and his colleagues in the Senate continued working on their version of a new mental health parity bill at the same time that Patrick was working on one he felt was better legislation. Again, Ted’s vision was narrower, not addressing coverage for any but the most dire of mental illnesses, and no parity for substance abuse disorder treatment. Patrick’s was more sweeping, covering all mental illnesses and addictions. Father and son definitely disagreed. “In Patrick’s view,” recalled one lawmaker, “it was as if his father simply didn’t want to recognize the generational challenge in his own family. He thought maybe that if Ted actually acknowledged these issues in his own bill he would perhaps feel compelled to speak about them in relation to the Kennedys.”

  “If I couldn’t convince my father that he was not only backing the wrong bill but indulging in some strange form of legislative denial,” Patrick would later recall, “then all I could do was try to beat him.”

  Patrick spent the first few months of 2007 canvassing the country, giving speeches to explain his bill, talking to people who had suffered the
way he and his family had over the years with issues pertaining to mental health as well as substance abuse. He worked toward not only getting public sentiment on his side but also toward forging a deeper understanding of the issues and challenges that lay ahead.

  In March, Patrick formally introduced his bill and all its specifics on the House floor. At this same time, Ted’s bill was also slowly working its way through the channels of the Senate.

  In May, Patrick got his chip for one year’s sobriety, a major personal victory. In July he turned forty. To celebrate the occasion, a party was hosted for him on the Cape that was attended by many of his family members, including his brother, sister, and both parents. During the festivities, Ted had too much to drink, as did Joan. While their three grown children watched sadly from the sidelines, it became painfully clear to them that their parents were still trapped by their diseases.

  Both of his siblings were incredibly proud of Patrick. “You’ll be remembered for so much more than just your relationship to Dad and the rest of us Kennedys,” Teddy said in the company of other relatives. “You have a destiny all your own, Pat,” he told him as he put his arm around his little brother. It was nice to hear; Patrick just hoped it was true.

  * * *

  PATRICK KENNEDY HAD seen his father command the Senate floor more times than he could count. It was always a privilege for him; he never took it for granted, that’s how much respect and admiration he had for his father, no matter their differences. However, in all Patrick’s years in Congress—thirteen by this time—Ted had only come to the House floor to watch his son debate a bill maybe three times. Therefore, when the Senator approached his youngest on the floor in March 2008, Patrick felt the gravity of the situation: his most important bill finally the subject of heated debate for and against on the floor, so very close to actually becoming law … and his mostly disapproving father present for it. Ted smiled at Patrick, put his hand on his shoulder, and sat next to him at his desk as he watched one of the speeches. “I felt empowered and eight years old at the same time,” Patrick would later recall.

  As far as Patrick was concerned, Ted had come through for him when it mattered most. Though he’d had a different vision of mental health care, the Senator seemed genuinely proud of his boy for getting so far with his own version. It hadn’t been easy, especially given all that Patrick had faced in his personal life at the same time he was working on this legislation. However, Ted’s presence seemed to signal that he understood the fact that Patrick’s personal odyssey was about to become the catalyst for great change in the way the country dealt with mental illness.

  As one speaker followed the other, Ted whispered words of encouragement in Patrick’s ear, especially whenever someone spoke well of the legislation. Finally, Patrick was recognized. He took the mic and, at first, was nervous. However, as father and son locked eyes, Patrick found the confidence and resolve he needed to give one of the most—if not the most—impassioned of arguments he’d ever put forth for any bill. “It was one of the best days of my life,” he would later recall.

  The votes came in, 268 to 148—47 Republicans joining 221 Democrats.

  Victory.

  That night Ted and Patrick went to dinner. The two ran into an old friend of the family’s in the restaurant. Everyone shook hands. Then, putting his arm around his son’s shoulders, Ted proudly stated, “This one, right here? This one really did me proud today.” Patrick smiled. “He taught me everything I know,” he said, gazing at his father. “Yes, but not everything I know,” Ted added. There was a pause. Ted’s rejoinder seemed maybe loaded with meaning … or maybe not. Whatever the case, Patrick decided to just ignore it and not let anything ruin the moment.

  Patrick Kennedy’s crowning achievement as a congressman, the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008, would soon be signed into law by President George W. Bush.

  A President Like Jack

  During the second week of January in 2008, members of the Kennedy family came together at Ted and Vicki’s home on the Cape for discussions having to do with the upcoming presidential election. Who they threw their support behind in any election was still an important factor to any American campaign; a strong endorsement from a family as politically powerful as theirs could make all the difference between a win and a loss. The Kennedys, despite all their problems since the days of Jack and Bobby, still had a lot of persuasive power. Certainly, at the very least, Ted had the respect of millions, not to mention the value of what Patrick had contributed while in office. When it came to the presidency, obviously, the stakes were even greater. Certainly having Caroline or any of the other more high-profile Kennedys speaking at the Democratic convention in support of any hopeful pretty much guaranteed, if nothing else, a lot of media attention, a groundswell of base enthusiasm, and maybe even a history-making moment or two. Obviously, Joseph’s progeny didn’t take such decisions lightly. Up for discussion in January, then, were the merits for office of Democratic front-runners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. On this issue, as it would happen, the Kennedys would be divided.

  Because former First Lady and New York senator Hillary Clinton was a close family friend, three of Ethel’s children—Kathleen, Kerry, and Bobby—wanted to support her. They felt she had a strong platform having to do with human rights, especially women’s issues, and she certainly had the experience. The first woman President? How could anyone resist such a proposition, especially when the woman in question had Hillary’s experience in government? They were actually surprised anyone in the family would disagree. It wasn’t so much that they took issue with Obama as much as he simply wasn’t Clinton, and Kathleen, Kerry, and Bobby said they weren’t going to abandon someone who not only was a personal friend but who was obviously best qualified for the job.

  Ted wasn’t sure about Hillary. He’d enjoyed a pleasant enough relationship with her over the years but found her, as he put it, “a bit prickly.” For him, it wasn’t so much about policy as it was about personality. Sure, Hillary shared Ted’s and Patrick’s passion for health care reform, which was a plus for her in their eyes. However, both father and son felt that she lacked something vital to winning any important election: personality.

  Once, when asked about her uncle’s views about politicians, Maria Shriver observed: “Teddy was on a perpetual campaign his whole life. He so enjoyed people; he was interested in their struggles because he had struggled himself. People admired his human frailties, and he saw that in those who came to him for help. He liked the crowd, he liked talking about his brothers, he liked talking about his parents. Of course, he liked legislating and he liked power. But he also liked parties … and he liked all the people who worked for him on the Hill … and he liked the people he served. He liked everything about it … the whole Irish thing. But it was about people, about communication. I think the thing about Teddy is that whether you agreed with him or didn’t, on a personal level you had to at least like him, which is why he was always able to cross the aisle and be bipartisan.”

  Ted felt that, at least in the public arena, Hillary held back; she was reserved, maybe coming across as cold and detached. Also, she didn’t seem like she’d ever struggled or that she could relate to a common man’s challenges. She didn’t appear to be empathetic. Of course, she actually did have empathy and was a smart woman who understood important issues that affected people of all cultures. However, for Ted, the problem was her image and how people perceived her. He felt that she seemed disengaged and over-rehearsed.

  Many of Ted’s views about Hillary would be voiced eight years later by other critics of hers when she ran unsuccessfully against Donald Trump for high office. The view of her surprising loss at that time was that it had been because she somehow lacked whatever was needed to galvanize a large swath of America that felt overlooked and disenfranchised. It was thought that Trump had been better able to appeal to that faction. Despite his wealth and the fact that he was a person who’d actually never struggled a day in his li
fe, he was still able to convince millions of voters that he understood their concerns, that he cared about them, and that he, and only he, was the candidate who could provide the solution to their problems. He didn’t have much policy in place, unlike Hillary, who had clear principles on many important issues. He was a bombastic personality, a shoot-from-the-hip kind of man who made a great many promises people weren’t so sure he’d actually fulfill, but that was all he needed to win the presidency. One wonders what Ted would have thought of him. While he would no doubt vehemently disagree with most of his policies, certainly the man elected as the forty-fifth President would have at least been an example of Ted’s notion that personality could sometimes be more important than platform.

  Ted liked Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois. He said Obama reminded him of himself and, more important, of Jack and Bobby. Like those Kennedy brothers, Obama was a fiery and eloquent statesman. He had the kind of empathy Ted felt eluded Hillary. He knew how to express himself in a way that felt personal and meaningful. Also to his credit, Obama had important legislation planned having to do with human rights, which he said he fully intended to implement should he be elected.

  Just a few weeks earlier, Obama had expressed to Ted his hesitation about running, saying he feared that he needed more seasoning in government before he could be an effective President. Of course, Ted had a long history of vacillating where the presidency was concerned. The job had been his for the taking a number of times along the way. He told Obama that what he’d learned from his own experiences was that timing was everything in politics, and no time was better than the present to make an important decision. “In four years, who knows what things will be like for you, your wife, and your kids?” he warned Obama.

  Ethel agreed with Ted: Obama reminded her of Bobby, too; her son Max agreed. Jean Kennedy Smith also said she wanted to support Obama, a difficult decision for her because, after all, Bill Clinton had been the President to name her ambassador to Ireland. Patrick agreed, too; Obama was his man.