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

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  All of the frivolity ended, though, when the Lawfords split up. An inside joke among the family was that Pat so thoroughly cleaned out the mansion of all its valuables when she left that Peter had hundreds of five-gallon containers of water delivered to her by truck to New York, along with a note that said, “Pat, you forgot to drain the swimming pool. Peter.”

  In early 1966, however, Pat was determined to get on with her life, and she moved into a co-op at 990 Fifth Avenue at just about the same time Jackie moved to New York from Washington. (One block away at 950 lived Jean Kennedy Smith and her husband, Stephen, and their family.) “Jackie’s children loved Pat and thought she was a hoot,” said Jeanne Martin. “So they all became very close. Pat’s daughter, Sydney, was Caroline’s age and they would both end up going to the same Catholic girls’ school together, Sacred Heart in Manhattan. They’re still as close as sisters today. Meanwhile, Pat’s son, Chris, became one of John’s best friends.”

  The Lawford children always had a live-in nanny, but when the children were older Pat would give the nanny one week off a month so that she could be a full-time mom to them. (She would also turn the clocks ahead an hour so that the kids would go to sleep a little earlier and give her a much-needed break). In fact, Pat wasn’t always the greatest mother. Like her sisters Eunice and Jean, she could be remote and distant—a trait all three women inherited from Rose. “After Peter and I had Christopher, Peter was very unhappy because the baby cried all the time and the house smelled like shit,” Pat told Jackie at one dinner party in front of others. “So we decided it would be best if little Christopher had his own apartment down the street in Malibu. He was about two months old, actually, maybe a little young for his own place,” she said with a grin. “But we rented a very nice apartment for him anyway, and he and the nanny slept there. It was just a lot easier on everyone.”

  The problem Pat’s children faced was that, unlike their cousins, who had their fathers Sargent Shriver and Stephen Smith to turn to for parental affection and validation, Pat’s children had no one after Peter Lawford was out of the picture. It would be Pat’s only son, Christopher, who would suffer the most. Pat’s daughters would somehow survive their troubled adolescences, but Christopher very nearly would not, as he became addicted to alcohol and drugs. Thanks to Joan Kennedy, who took her nephew to his first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in the mid-1980s, Christopher would eventually be able to clean himself up. He remains sober to this day.

  “I guess the paradox was that those kids really were Pat’s life,” said Patricia Brennan. “She kept scrapbooks of everything they ever did. She kept every note, every photo. She treasured every moment with them. But there was always something that just kept her from truly connecting with them, and it had to do with Peter. She was so hurt by what she went through with Peter that something in her just clicked off. She wouldn’t let anyone in, even her children. She became very protective of her emotions, very guarded, even in her friendships. She was aware of it, too. In fact, she was always a very self-aware person, even if she was emotionally damaged by her circumstances. I think the same could be said of a lot of Kennedy women who had been so very hurt by their unfaithful husbands. I remember Pat once saying, ‘Something vital in you dies when you know for a fact that your husband is a cheater. And that thing, whatever it is, can never be brought back to life. I think it’s your soul,’ she told me. ‘I think it kills your soul. At least I think it killed mine.’ ”

  PART SEVEN

  Sargent Tries Yet Again

  Always in the Way

  Despite their utter disappointment about what happened in 1968, Sargent and Eunice Shriver made the very best of their lives in Paris as he began his work as ambassador there and Eunice continued her philanthropy with organizations for the mentally retarded, even starting some of her own charities in France. Of course, the Shrivers would still spend a great deal of time in America, but they worked to make Paris feel like home. As soon as they showed up in Paris, the estate where the ambassador and his family customarily lived was transformed into a mini-Timberlawn. On any given day, one might find mentally handicapped children running all over the place mingling with important diplomats, with Eunice chasing after them and trying to get them into the pool for swimming lessons. Sargent, always good-natured, could only shrug and say, “Welcome to my world.” Within a very short time, Sargent and Eunice became a sort of royalty in Paris, attending all of the most important galas, rubbing elbows with the society’s crème de la crème—international celebrities and governmental officials—and representing America as only they could. One year, Paris Match even named Sargent one of the “Five Most Popular People in France.”

  It wasn’t to last, though. In 1970, Sargent resigned his position as ambassador, due in part to his growing dissatisfaction with President Richard Nixon’s politics and his policy on Vietnam that kept the war raging on with seemingly no end in sight. Of course, as soon as Shriver announced his resignation, Democratic leaders began circling to discuss the chances of his running for president in 1972. In what by now seemed like a well-rehearsed script, the Kennedys quickly began spreading the word that if Shriver did in fact run, it would appear to them—and to their constituents—that he was taking advantage of Ted Kennedy’s recent scandal at Chappaquiddick. “It never ends,” a frustrated Eunice said at the time to a friend of many years. “There is always going to be some reason Sarge shouldn’t run. I am just so tired of it.”

  “It had gotten to the point where Sargent and Eunice didn’t even feel comfortable at the Kennedy compound,” Senator George Smathers would recall. “Whenever they were present, there always seemed to be contention about one statement or another Sargent had made in some speech that might have telegraphed his interest in running in 1972. Ted hadn’t made up his mind about whether or not he was interested in a ’72 campaign. In fact, he was still sure that there was no way America would allow him to forget Chappaquiddick long enough for him to run a successful campaign. However, he wanted to keep the option open, just as he wished to keep it open for ’76, too. In other words, Sargent Shriver was still in the way.”

  “I think Ted and some others might have liked it if Shriver just got out of politics altogether, to be candid,” said Pierre Salinger. “His presence being an issue every four years had begun to cause serious problems in the family.” In fact, Eunice and Ethel weren’t even on speaking terms for much of 1971 because Eunice was convinced that Ethel still harbored a resentment against her husband and was working behind the scenes to help orchestrate a campaign against him within the family.

  “Another issue was that Sarge had a lot of unanswered questions about Chappaquiddick,” said someone who knew him very well. “He felt that Ted got away with something there and maybe he should have had just a little more humility going forward. He said to me, ‘The fact that he didn’t go to the very first house with lights on and say, “Jesus Christ! A girl is drowning, come and help me,” is very suspicious to me. It looks like he was just trying to save his skin. I just think he could be a more gracious person considering how lucky he was to get out of that mess.’ ”

  In the end, Sarge felt the whole Chappaquiddick matter was badly handled, anyway. He thought that the arrival of all the Kennedy acolytes, of which he wasn’t one, to the compound was a terrible idea that “overdramatized the matter,” as he put it. If it were him, he said—not that he ever would have found himself in such a jam—he would have sat down in the privacy of his study, come to terms with what happened, prayed about how to proceed, and then he would have written a heartfelt speech himself. He would have then delivered it to the American public in as sincere a manner as possible. “The fact that he had to have all those people writing that speech for him, I think that was insane,” he later said. “I just don’t understand that.” Making matters worse, as far as Sarge was concerned, was that a few weeks after the Chappaquiddick accident, Ted flew to Paris to visit with his sister Eunice at the ambassador’s residence. “Was he the least bi
t contrite, or humble, or sad or apologetic or anything?” Sarge asked. “No. He drank the whole time, was drunk and disruptive.” As it happened, the Shrivers had another visitor at the same time, Herbert Kramer, a publicist and speechwriter with whom they were working on a Special Olympics project. Eunice and Sarge were embarrassed by Ted’s behavior in front of Kramer. “Here we had a man Ted didn’t even know who was a guest in our home, and Ted was treating the place like a big frat pad. I swear I wanted to punch his lights out,” Sarge said to his friend. He was definitely not a big fan of Ted Kennedy at this time.

  Sargent now felt that he needed some time away from the political arena—and away from the Kennedy family too—which is why he decided to go into private law practice in 1971 with the large corporate firm of Strasser, Spiegelberg, Fried, Frank & Kampelman (which, with the addition of Shriver to its ranks and the subtraction of a few others, became Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson). While he was with the firm, Shriver’s biggest client was the billionaire financier Armand Hammer. Still, politics was in Shriver’s blood and he couldn’t deny it. “I felt that he wasn’t in his element,” said one of the attorneys who worked with Shriver at the firm. “I had known Sarge for a number of years. He’d always had a glint in his eye, but I noticed it was gone when he was with the firm. ‘I feel that God has a bigger mission in mind for me than what I can do here,’ he told me one day. ‘I’m a public servant. That’s who I am. I have to get back to it or I’m not going to be happy.’ He said that Eunice was fine with him being out of politics, though. ‘It has put her in a bad position with her family for such a long time, I can’t blame her for wanting a break from it,’ he told me. ‘But she’s a tough bird,’ he added. ‘Can you imagine her as First Lady?’ he asked, laughing. ‘The entire country would be volunteering for one thing or another, or she’d be at their doors dragging them out of bed in the morning!’ ”

  As it would happen, Sargent Shriver would get his moment in the sun in 1972. That was the year the Democratic presidential ticket—George McGovern and Thomas Eagleton—would self-destruct with the revelation that Eagleton had battled manic depression for much of his life, had been hospitalized for it, and had even undergone electroshock treatments. He had to drop out of the race. It was then that the party turned to Sargent Shriver.

  Of course some felt that Ted, as the last remaining Kennedy brother, should have been the logical choice to head the ticket. But he opted out of the primary process, saddled as he was with the negative fallout from Chappaquiddick. His absence left the field wide open for McGovern at the Democratic convention. Though he was an effective politician in the halls of Congress and on the floor of the Senate, McGovern was a dour, colorless candidate. He needed that ol’ Kennedy magic, that much was certain. Therefore, he was relentless in his pursuit of Ted to join the ticket as his running mate when he had to get rid of Eagleton. In rejecting the offer, Ted insisted he still needed “breathing room” to gain more experience, and also to help raise his murdered brothers’ children. He didn’t publicly cite memories of Chappaquiddick as being an issue, but privately he said he believed Americans had still not gotten over any of it. George McGovern knew he needed a spark for his uphill run for the White House, but the truth was that pretty much no one of merit wanted to be on the ticket with him—five politicians had already turned him down. When Sargent Shriver’s name was floated as a possibility, it certainly seemed valid, but as it happened, the main reason he ended up on the ticket was because he was one of the only people who’d been approached who would agree to do it.

  From the start, it seemed like a bad idea to those who truly cared about Sargent Shriver. The ticket was such a hopeless cause, no one could understand why he would ever want to hitch himself to its wagon. Still, it was his decision to do so.

  Now, as ever, the question remained: What would Senator Ted Kennedy do? And how would the Kennedy family work for—or against—Sargent Shriver?

  Shriver for Vice President

  Eunice Kennedy Shriver had to admit to some ambivalence about Sargent’s decision to join the McGovern ticket as vice president. Yes, it was his time; as far as she was concerned, it had been his time for many years. But was this particular race worthy of him? It was all so troubled and hopeless-seeming, she wasn’t certain he should even be involved in it. In fact, she felt just barely inspired enough by it to appeal to Ted to please stay out of Sargent’s way this time. In her meeting with Ted about the matter at his home in Boston, Ted nonchalantly said, “Okay, fine. I’ve got no problem with it, in fact. Tell Sarge he has my blessing.” Though Eunice said she appreciated Ted’s approval, in truth it must have felt like a bit of a hollow victory. Of course Ted had “no problem with it.” He and just about every Kennedy loyalist was certain that George McGovern would lose the race anyway, so what did they care? In fact, if that happened, it could very well not only taint Shriver in ’72 but make him “damaged goods” for ’76, too—and all the better for Ted. Therefore, in a very real sense, Ted was getting exactly what he always wanted—which was, at long last, Sargent Shriver finally out of the way. “It felt unfair,” said Eunice’s former assistant. “Not surprisingly, considering her loyalty to the senator, we also learned that Ethel Kennedy felt the same way about Sargent’s running—her feeling being, sure, why not? Suddenly, both key Kennedys were okay with Mr. Shriver in a campaign? And then we also heard that Kennedy advisers [Kenny] O’Donnell, [Ted] Sorensen, and the rest had also said, fine, no problem, lotsa luck. It was all so transparent.”

  While it may have seemed a bad decision to some observers, Sargent Shriver had his own reasons for wanting to join the Democratic ticket that year. First of all, he was as much a loyalist as he was an idealist. He could see very clearly the Democratic Party going down in flames, and he didn’t want that to happen. He believed his party needed him, and anytime Shriver was truly needed he wanted to be of assistance. Also, he reasoned that perhaps his party would repay his loyalty in 1976 and might see fit to nominate him that year on his own merits—and that, if so, maybe the “Kennedy factor” wouldn’t then matter as much. Moreover, he felt that by entering the race he could prove himself to be a strong campaigner, and that the reputation he built in 1972 might work to his political advantage in 1976. He felt he needed more visibility among his constituents, never having held elective office before, and that the campaign with McGovern might assist him in that regard. Moreover, he actually thought it possible that McGovern could win. Yes, the poll numbers were weak and the press had been terrible. Yet stranger things had happened in politics, he reasoned, and besides, there were three months left before the election. That could be time enough to galvanize the support the ticket needed. “He wasn’t so naive as to think that Ted Kennedy’s approval was based on anything other than Ted believing Shriver was going to go down in defeat, but it was an approval just the same,” observed Senator George Smathers. “So he wanted to run with it.”

  And so it was that Sargent Shriver and his impeccable, blue-ribbon credentials as a social activist entered the presidential campaign in 1972 hoping that he might be elected to the second highest office in the land—the office which Adlai Stevenson first described in 1952 (referring to Richard Nixon) as “being just a heartbeat away from the presidency.” After the official nomination, Shriver’s acceptance speech was filled with the kind of optimism and dynamism that had characterized his personality for years, not to mention the humor. “I am not embarrassed to be George McGovern’s seventh choice for vice president,” he said. “We Democrats might be short on money, but we’re not short on talent. Ted Kennedy, Ed Muskie, Hubert Humphrey, Abe Ribicoff, Tom Eagleton—what a galaxy of stars. Pity Mr. Nixon—his first and only choice was Spiro Agnew.” Sargent also couldn’t resist cracking a joke about Ted Kennedy, who was sitting nearby. “Look at him with that pensive look,” Shriver cracked. “The great Ted Kennedy. I wonder what he’s thinking about.” A lot of other people wondered, too, especially when promises of campaign funding from the
Kennedys did not come through as expected. The ticket was in serious financial straits from the very beginning, and it was clear that the Kennedys were not going to help at all.

  In retrospect, it would seem that George McGovern’s campaign was pretty much doomed the moment he flip-flopped on Eagleton. “One day he was for him ‘1,000 percent’—even in light of the revelations about him—and five days later, Eagleton was out,” Hugh Sidey recalled. “It made McGovern look as if he didn’t know what he was doing—and why hadn’t he more thoroughly checked out Eagleton’s past history, anyway? It was a sore subject that colored the entire campaign.”

  Of course, there were other significant problems too, not the least of which was just a general sense of disorganization in the ticket. Sargent Shriver was a multitasker—long before that term became part of the pop culture vernacular—who never knew how to prioritize his schedule, and no one who worked for him was able to assist him in that regard. “He was hard to manage,” said Donald Dell, who worked for the campaign in its earlier days, maintaining the schedule of events. “He was a wonderful man who wanted to do good things and be all things to all people, and that kind of politician is difficult to control. I could never get him where he needed to be because he was always off doing something else he felt important. I used to say, if we had ten Sargents, that would work. But one is not enough. There was constant disarray.