As a mother, Rose was a tough disciplinarian and openly admitted to striking her children with wire hangers when the occasion called for it. She was usually not a soft, sentimental woman, and her daughters—Eunice, Pat, and Jean—would take after her in the way they raised their children. All three could be very tough, though there are certainly no stories of wire hangers where their second generation is concerned. (However, Rose and her wire hangers did become the stuff of family legend, so much so that once when Rose came to visit her daughter Eunice, the Shriver children went all over the house in search of hangers to either hide or throw away lest Rose got hold of them.) It would not be accurate to leave the impression that Rose’s children have bad memories of growing up with her, because from all accounts they have given over the years, they don’t. “Baby carriages are my earliest memory of Mother,” Eunice would say. “It seems there was always a big navy blue baby carriage out on the lawn, and there was always somebody in it. Mother would wheel the carriage, and we kids would hold on to the sides. When I was about four, I can remember Mother saying, ‘Hold on! Don’t run ahead! Just hold on.’ It seems like I never really let go.”
“I don’t think you really appreciate your mother until you have kids of your own,” Pat Kennedy said in 1990. “With us, Mother was always very understanding, and that isn’t easy when you have a lot of children. After [Rose’s sister] Aunt Agnes’s death, there were twelve [with the addition of the three Gargan cousins], and they fit right in. Mother said, if you can have nine you can always raise twelve. We were a very close unit, all of us together, and there was a lot of love…. Mother had a tremendous curiosity and we grew up with maps all around, in the dining room, in the kitchen, and if someone talked about an event in a foreign country or another state, we knew where it was on the map.”
Rose’s eighty-fifth birthday actually fell on July 22, 1975, but her party was postponed so that everyone could be assembled. Even at her present age, Rose was a formidable woman. She remained sharp, funny, and vigorous. If there is a distaff version of the Renaissance man, it would be Rose, with a vast knowledge and interest in art and literature, in gardening, music, the public libraries, the theater, ballet, languages, and politics, for which she had acquired an especial taste and which had proven so beneficial in the careers of her sons.
“She still played golf, her score in the 80s,” recalled Barbara Gibson, Rose’s secretary. “What’s also interesting about Rose is that as she got older, she became sweeter to her family—but not to her servants, I might add, with whom she was still very demanding. To her family, though, no longer was she the chilly, remote family matriarch she’d been as mother to her children. As a grandmother, she was much more emotionally available. She loved taking long walks on the beach with her grandchildren.” Also, while she had always played a significant part in the political successes of her boys and they were quick to acknowledge her role—giving speeches, hosting teas, organizing tours, and working the telephones—now she was more a sounding board to Ted, interested in his well-being, not really in his politics. Still, she remained politically savvy and always ready with an anecdote. Years later, her granddaughter Kathleen Kennedy Townsend would say that Rose used to pin quotations to her blouse as a precaution. “She’d say, ‘You never know when someone’s going to ask you to give a speech and you have to say something appropriate,’ ” Kennedy Townsend said.
“She changed our lives,” recalled Kerry Kennedy, Bobby’s daughter. “She was always the focal point; she was the one we all looked up to. Not just the grandchildren, but the whole family. She always pushed us as grandchildren to think, to dig a little deeper, to question everything, to ask why. We’d go to Mass, and afterward she’d ask, ‘What was the Gospel about? How did it relate specifically to your life?’ And this was to a seven-year-old.”
Indeed, her religion practically consumed her. She still attended Mass every single day in Hyannis or at her home in Palm Beach, usually wearing a knee-length white dress, white gloves, matching shoes, and a lace mantilla over jet-black hair. “She sat in the front and usually alone,” Barbara Gibson recalled, “and daily put one dollar—neither more nor less—into the collection plate.” She apparently had an ironic sense of humor about her religious image too. “One day she dipped her fingers in some holy water and sprayed it at my face,” added Gibson. “ ‘People say I’m a saint,’ she told me, then wryly added, ‘so this is my blessing.’ ”
“You just keep busy,” Rose told Life in the summer of 1975 while trying to explain her longevity. “Some people get bored and are boring. You keep interested in other people and in different activities. I’ve always had a mind that was probing and curious, and I’ve had the opportunity to use it.” She may have been eighty-five, but her son-in-law Sargent probably said it best when he said, “Mother can still whip all our butts whether in a good debate or on the golf course, so make no mistake about that!”
At the last minute on the Friday night before Rose’s birthday party, there was confusion as to whether or not Jackie would be able to attend the festivities, since she was just getting over a bad flu. With most of the family together in the living room on Friday night, talking and laughing, it was assumed that she would not be showing up. However, at one point after supper, Jean excused herself, saying that she had to run next door to Ethel’s to retrieve something she had forgotten there. Ten minutes later, she walked into the living room with none other than Jackie. “Surprise, everyone!” she exclaimed. “Look who I found wandering around out there!” Of course, everyone jumped to their feet and surrounded Jackie with hugs and kisses. Finally, Jackie walked over to Rose, who was sitting on one of the floral print chairs in the living room, knelt at her side, and whispered in her ear. When Jackie kissed her on the cheek, Rose lit up with joy.
“In preparation for this weekend, all of Rose’s grandchildren had participated in compiling a leather-bound volume of memories, anecdotes, poems, and drawings relating to their experiences with her, seven months in the making,” recalled Hugh Sidey from Time magazine. “As part of the big Saturday night celebration, they read passages of it to everyone in the parlor.”
Standing in the center of the room and holding the thick book, David—Ethel’s son—began, “This is dedicated to our grammar instructor and favorite linguist, the great golfer and consummate swimmer, our movie operator and manners authority, Florida propertier [sic] and midnight dancer, Parisian swinger and general leader.” Then Ted Jr.—Ted and Joan’s boy—took over from his cousin and read some of the riddles found in the book. “She always corrects your…?” he asked the group. Everyone in the room shouted out, “Grammar!” as Rose laughed. “Tardiness at her meals leaves you…?” he asked. Immediately, everyone chimed in, “Hungry!” as Rose nodded in agreement. Maria, Eunice and Sargent’s daughter, took over from Ted, reading, “She is slight and beautiful, yet her granddaughters have thunder thighs and boulder bottoms! Thanks a lot, Grandma.” Anyone present would have felt the love in the room and the sense of community as, later, the children and their parents danced to rock and roll music played by a band Eunice had hired for the evening. Caroline, seventeen, showed her cousin Doug, eight (Ethel’s son), and her mom, Jackie, how to do the Bump. Meanwhile, Bobby Shriver and his date, the flaxen-haired Judy Arbuckle, kicked off their shoes and did a barefoot dance for the guests.
Eventually, everyone gathered for a family portrait, all of the Kennedys together—except for Ted and Joan, who had to tend to Patrick, who had suddenly come down with a stomachache after having eaten too many clams at dinner. Later, Ethel’s daughter Rory, six, and Patrick, eight—now recovered—presented her with a large round cake that had been baked by Ethel and decorated by Jean. As well as an assortment of candles, it was festooned with an American flag and, around its perimeter, the names of each of her grandchildren in frosting. As everyone sang “Happy Birthday” to her, Rose beamed. Then she blew out the candles to raucous applause.
“Speech! Speech!” the family members
shouted out. Rose was never one to shy away from a good spotlight, but on this evening she was almost too choked up for words. “I am so happy this weekend,” she finally said, standing in the middle of the room and completely surrounded by loved ones, some on their feet, some sitting on the floor, others on chairs and sofas. “Having you all here means the world to me. We certainly have had our trials and tribulations, haven’t we?” she asked. Everyone nodded knowingly. “But we are here, still a family, still madly in love with one another,” she observed. “I want you to be well aware of who else is here,” she said. “Grandpa is here watching over all of us,” she announced to a big round of applause. Then, looking directly at Jackie, she added, “And, dear Jackie, Jack is here too.” There was more applause as Jackie wiped tears from her cheeks. Then, looking at Ethel, Rose said, “And Bobby too, my dear Ethel. Bobby is here too,” as the room burst with more cheers. “And Kick and Joe, and each and every one of our loved ones who have passed on are here with us, right now,” she continued as the applause continued to ring out. Rose let the noise die down. Then, after a moment of reflection, she said, “My wish for us all is a simple one. Let us never forget our precious yesterdays,” Rose Kennedy concluded, looking at one and all, “and let us always thank the dear Lord for our priceless tomorrows.”
PART ELEVEN
Shriver for President
Sarge Takes a “Leap of Faith”
An old saw alleges that once you dip your toe into the roiling waters of politics, the longing for a full-on dive into the swirling eddy is too difficult to resist. It turned out to be all too true with Sargent Shriver, as he announced his decision to seek his party’s nomination for president in 1976. However, as had always been the case, his affiliation with the Kennedy family did him no favors. Of course, Sarge first had to make sure the coast was clear where Ted Kennedy was concerned. As he did every four years, Ted vacillated between running and waiting, and, as also seemed to be the case every four years, expected Shriver just to wait for his decision. But eventually, Ted made a firm choice to not run in 1976, clearing the way for Sargent. When Shriver and Kennedy met to discuss Shriver’s entering the race, Sarge put it to Ted straight: “If you’re not going to run, what about me?” In a response that was one step removed from being niggardly, Ted said, “I wish you well,” hardly a ringing endorsement. Ted said he wouldn’t oppose Shriver’s running for president, but that Sargent shouldn’t expect a lot of help from him either.
Shriver had never before sought political office on his own, and he called his decision a “leap of faith.” However, he couldn’t seem to make up his mind about whether he wanted to play off the obvious Kennedy connection. “On one hand, I think Sarge hoped to establish his identity independent of his famous family’s,” recalled Hugh Sidey. “But on the other, he felt that the Kennedy name might go a long way toward helping reinforce his own credibility. In the end, he decided to go with the Kennedy connection.” Thus when Sarge made his announcement, the Kennedys showed up in full force to at least appear to be supportive—Rose, Ethel, Pat, Joan, and Jean were present and all had signed on as members of the “Shriver for President Committee,” with Jackie joining as well. “I’m fortified by my family—by my mother who has seen twenty-three presidential campaigns, by my wife, Eunice, and our sons and daughter, by my brother Herbert, by Rose Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy and Jackie, by Jean, and Pat, and Joan, and my most admirable sister-in-law, Willa Shriver of Baltimore,” Shriver said in his announcement speech, notably leaving out Ted’s name. “In peace and war, in public and private life, they know the demands and duties, the joys and sorrows of the kind of course I’m taking, and have encouraged me to take it.”
During his speech, Shriver also invoked the name of JFK and tried to establish a clear connection between himself and the late president’s ideals. “Let us remember there is no conservative or liberal remedy for the sickness of the national spirit,” he intoned. “The cure will come from honest, truthful leadership that summons the best in us—as we remember John Kennedy once did. His legacy awaits the leader who can claim it. I intend to claim it, not for myself alone, but for the family that first brought it into being, for the millions who joyfully and hopefully entered public service in those days in order to produce a better life for all, and to those billions of unknown, uncounted human beings who I’ve seen all over the world—in Asia, South America, Western Europe, and the Soviet Union—for whom the memory of those days and of John Kennedy is still an inspiration to their minds and a lift to their hearts. That’s what we must all be proud of once again.”
It was pretty stunning rhetoric but, as it would happen, perhaps a mistake for Shriver to connect himself so closely to JFK. The presence of the Kennedy women onstage as well as the reference to JFK suggested that Shriver didn’t have his own platform on which to stand but was instead trying to create some sort of allusion to Camelot. “It wasn’t like he had much choice, though, because when he tried to distance himself from the family, a reporter would inevitably corner Ted Kennedy to get a comment from him, and that comment would usually end up working against Shriver,” recalled Arthur Schlesinger Jr. “Though Ted watched the proceedings from a safe distance, I think maybe the idea that Sargent might become president was a little more than he could handle.” In fact, Ted couldn’t contain his professional jealousy. He still believed that if there were going to be a president or vice president in the family, it should be he, and if not he then no one else. At one point, Ted even told a reporter, “I can’t help it if Sargent wants to run.” When asked if he supported him, he said, “Sure I’ll support him.” The reporter wasn’t convinced. “If Mussolini was running, would you support him, too?” Ted laughed. “Yes, if he was married to my sister,” he answered. Indeed, the Massachusetts senator was always at the ready with a lacerating quip when the subject of a rivalry between Sargent Shriver and himself was broached.
Unfortunately, after Sarge made his announcement that he would be campaigning for a place on the Democratic ticket, the Kennedys made a hasty exit from his campaign and were rarely seen again. “I’m waiting for Ted to run,” Jean’s husband, Stephen Smith, told one politico when asked why he wasn’t more involved in the Shriver endeavor. When told that Ted wasn’t planning to run in ’76, Smith said, “I’m still waiting for him to run.”
“I think it’s just awful,” Jackie Kennedy Onassis told Stephen Smith in the presence of two mutual friends and two business associates during a meeting in New York. The small group was in Smith’s New York office discussing certain stocks her children had in common with the Kennedy family when the subject of the Shriver campaign was raised. Jackie was unafraid to speak her mind on such matters, especially when they involved Sargent. About a year earlier, in April 1975, Eunice thought it would be fun if Jackie allowed John and Caroline to go to Russia with the Shrivers for a vacation. Jackie agreed, but because Caroline had other summer plans, John went alone. While John was with the Shrivers, Sargent spent many hours telling him long and detailed stories about his father, the president, so much so that by the time John got back to the States he had a whole new respect and admiration for his dad.* That Sarge had taken so much time with her son made Jackie love him all the more. “This family is acting like some kind of cult and I’m very disappointed,” Jackie told Stephen Smith. “Sarge is such a good man,” she said. “It’s a real shame.”
Smith disagreed. “Obviously, Teddy does not want him to run,” he said, “so I don’t understand why Sarge keeps injecting himself every four years. He’s so stubborn. He wants what he wants,” Smith said, getting heated. “Well, it doesn’t matter,” he concluded, “because it’s Teddy who will always have the last word.”
Now Jackie was upset too. “It’s Teddy who wants what he wants, and at the expense of everyone else,” she exclaimed. Jackie added that it was well known within the family that, deep down, Ted did not want to be president, nor did he want to be vice president. But Sarge wanted it, badly, she said, and he was qualified
to do it and deserved to do it, at least in her opinion. “And not only that,” she concluded, “this country needs him.”
Stephen Smith just shrugged and said that the two would have to agree to disagree. “I can tell you this much: The family will never support Sarge running for president or vice president.” he added. “Even if Teddy runs, wins, and serves two terms and Sarge then wants to run, the family will still not support it.”
Jackie’s eyes widened. According to the witnesses, she stood up and demanded to know of Smith, “Since when do you speak for the whole family? I happen to be a part of this family, and you do not speak for me.” She then turned and walked out of the room without so much as a goodbye.
After Camelot: A Personal History of the Kennedy Family--1968 to the Present Page 27
