Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  Bobby began reading the results of recent promising polls. With every “win,” the family would raise a cheer and someone would make a toast. “Jacqueline did not applaud politely, as she usually did,” recalled nurse Rita Dallas, who was also present. “She led them all.”

  When Bobby had finished reading the results, he grinned broadly. “Well, looks like we just may make it,” he said.

  “Three cheers,” Rose said. “Hip, hip…”

  And everyone joined in—“Hooray!”

  “Hip, hip…” Ted added.

  “Hooray!”

  “Hip, hip…” Eunice shouted.

  “Hooray!”

  Jackie, caught up in the jovial spirit of the moment, called out, “Won’t it be wonderful when we get back in the White House?”

  “What do you mean, we?” answered a female voice from across the room. All eyes turned. It was Ethel.

  The room fell silent. Rita Dallas remembered that Jackie “looked as if she’d been struck. She flinched as though a blow had actually stung her cheek.”

  Ethel’s comment seemed to beg an explanation, something along the lines of “Oh, I was just kidding. Let’s have another drink.” However, Bobby’s wife just shrugged her shoulders at the deafening silence her remark had caused, then disappeared into the kitchen.

  Jackie looked about the room helplessly, waiting for someone to come to her rescue. But everyone, it seemed, was too stunned. Without saying a word, Jackie stood from her chair, head high, and walked over to Bobby. She kissed him on the cheek. Then she walked out of the front door.

  During her years as First Lady, Jackie had enjoyed sharing her glory with all of the Kennedys. Even though Ethel clearly resented the attention Jackie got, Jackie had done what she could to make Ethel feel as if she were a part of Camelot. She had never snubbed her, never intentionally set out to hurt her. It was difficult to reconcile Ethel’s callous remark, but its effect on Jackie would force a defining moment in the former First Lady’s relationship with the Kennedy family.

  The next morning, Jackie arrived early at Rose and Joseph’s to visit Joe. “Her hair was tied back with a silk scarf,” Rita Dallas recalled. “She looked somber and very tired.” Dallas said that Jackie stayed for just a few minutes before telling Joseph that she had some “thinking to do.” Before leaving, she stopped to talk to Rita Dallas. Sitting at a chair in front of Rita’s desk, she fidgeted with a paper clip and then asked Rita, “You’ve been a widow for a long time, haven’t you?”

  “Almost twenty years,” Rita said.

  “It’s hard, isn’t it—being alone, I mean.”

  Rita Dallas recalled telling Jackie that widowhood had been difficult for her. However, she took it upon herself to suggest that Jackie should not make the same mistake that she had made—devoting all her time and energy to the Kennedy family, only to find that her hard work was barely appreciated.

  Without wanting to seem presumptuous—but since Jackie had brought up the subject—Rita suggested that Jackie consider moving on, forging a new life for herself, and perhaps breaking some of her close ties to the Kennedys in the process. It would be impossible to end her relationship with the family completely, Rita reasoned, and Jackie shouldn’t even attempt to do such a thing. She had her children to think of, after all, and they would always be Kennedys. Moreover, Jackie would always feel a sense of responsibility to keep Jack’s memory alive through the Kennedy Library, the many exhibit showings, or in any other way she thought appropriate. No doubt, in keeping Jack alive in the hearts of those who loved him, Jackie felt that a part of herself continued to live on in her so-called “Camelot.” She could never give that up completely. But perhaps a little distance would do her some good, Rita advised.

  The nurse chose her words carefully, hoping that Jackie would not be offended. She wasn’t. Rather, she listened carefully and said she would give thought to all that Rita had said.

  Jackie spent the rest of the day walking to all the places in the area that had been special to her and Jack: the patches of beach in front of the compound that they had most enjoyed together, Squaw Island, the horse barns, the private picnic areas. She must have thought about her life at Hyannis Port with her husband and children and wondered how it had all turned out the way it had. “Life is all about change, isn’t it?” she had rhetorically asked her friend Joan Braden. “The only constant we can count on, I guess, is that nothing is constant, and you can’t depend on anything or anyone, just yourself, which I have learned the hard way.”

  “I think she was beginning to find an inner strength she didn’t even know she had,” said Braden. “She wasn’t a religious person, not really. Mostly, I think, Catholicism was, for her and most of the Kennedys, a family ritual rather than a true belief system. But in the years after Jack’s death, she found strength where she least expected it, within. She told me that she felt that God was most certainly pulling her through the ordeal, ‘sometimes kicking and screaming all the way,’ she said, laughing.”

  When Jackie returned to the house, she found that Joseph had been waiting for her, concerned about the hour. She apologized for having worried him and explained that “I’ve had a lot of thinking to do today, some decisions to make.” Joseph raised his eyebrows as if to ask what Jackie had decided. She grabbed his paralyzed hand and put it to her cheek. “Well, you know that no matter what happens, I’ll always love you,” she said. With those words, she kissed him on the cheek and left quickly. There were tears in her eyes.

  For the next few days, no one at the Kennedy compound saw Jackie. Before leaving Hyannis Port, Joan had a brief moment with Ethel in front of some of the other sisters-in-law and a few friends. She could see, as could everyone else, that Ethel was jealous of Jackie, and she decided to address the issue head-on. It must have taken a great deal of courage for Joan to do this, however, since she and Ethel were not known for their heart-to-heart conversations.

  “Bobby is very complicated,” she told Ethel. “Not just one person can be everything to him. He needs a lot of different people in his life, and Jackie is just one of them. But when it comes down to it, Ethel, you are his wife, not Jackie. You’re the one who matters most.” Ethel stared at Joan, seemingly stunned by her uncharacteristic candor with her. She hugged her sister-in-law warmly and whispered something in her ear which made Joan smile broadly. Then Ted took his wife by the arm and walked out to the car with her.

  Later, Ethel decided to go to Jackie’s home to speak to her about what had happened the night of the party, but the agent guarding Jackie said she didn’t want to talk to anyone. “But I want to apologize to her,” Ethel said. “I didn’t mean it. I swear. It was just—oh, I don’t know why I said it. I would never want to hurt Jackie, not after what she went through. You must believe me.”

  Clearly distraught, Ethel babbled on. “How could I have been so thoughtless? You know, I was drinking. I mean, we all were. We were having a party.”

  When Ethel apparently realized that she was apologizing to a Secret Service agent—opening her heart to someone who was in what she considered a subservient position—she stopped herself short. “What in the world am I doing?” she asked. “Look, just tell Jackie that I must see her. Please. It’s urgent.”

  “Will do, ma’am,” the Secret Service agent said to Ethel, as she walked off, shaking her head in distress and muttering to herself.

  The next day, Jackie left Hyannis Port for her apartment in New York, without seeing Ethel.

  Another Tragedy

  There was the sound of gunfire, six shots in all, like firecrackers popping, and then, amid the aftermath of chaos and confusion, the life of another Kennedy hung in the balance—Bobby’s.

  It was Tuesday, June 4, 1968, voting day for the presidential primary in California. Bobby Kennedy had won the Democratic primary in the state of Nebraska, but despite this and other victories, he still trailed Hubert Humphrey two to one in the race for delegates. He had pushed on to Oregon; and after he lost there, he d
ecided that the state “just doesn’t have enough poor people, black people, or working people.” Everything would now depend on the California primary. Bobby had campaigned throughout the state, drawing huge crowds. But by Election Day it was still too close to call, and much depended on the black and Latino neighborhoods, where the turnout was usually low. With this election, though, the response from those groups was particularly high; Latino voters would go for Kennedy fifteen to one. In the end, Bobby won California with almost 50 percent of the vote.

  Bobby walked onto the speaker’s platform in the Embassy Room of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles to wild applause from two thousand elated supporters. Ethel was at his side, basking in the moment. For her, it was a feeling of great excitement, happiness, and joy. Ethel looked out at the adoring crowd and waved giddily to familiar faces.

  Bobby’s victory speech was a short one. “We are a great country, an unselfish country, and a compassionate country,” he told the cheering crowd, “and I intend to make that my basis for running. My thanks to all of you, and now it’s on to Chicago and let’s win there.”

  There was an effortlessness and grace in the way that Bobby appeared before the throng, which had been missing in recent speeches. He had always had great passion and strong ideas but was often awkward in his presentation. On this evening, though, he seemed more at ease with himself than ever before. He was confident and ready for the future, or as one observer remembered, “I looked at him and I said, ‘My God. The guy looks like a President.’ ”

  After giving the victory sign, Bobby jumped from the podium and headed to an impromptu press conference in the nearby Colonial Room of the hotel. Having been told that there was a shortcut to his destination through the kitchen, he decided to take it. Bobby passed through the kitchen area as the employees there, energized with excitement about the presence of the famous Kennedy, reached out to touch him as if he were a deity. Just as the presidential car carried his smiling, waving brother past throngs of admirers in Dallas five years earlier, a jubilant Bobby made his way toward the press room through an adoring crowd, smiling and shaking hands, unaware that an assassin lurked amongst the worshippers.

  Bobby relied on his bodyguard Bill Barry, a former FBI agent, for protection. The unarmed Barry was Bobby’s only trained security. To assist in crowd control, Kennedy enlisted the help of Rosey Grier, a former Los Angeles Rams lineman, and Rafer Johnson, an Olympic decathlon gold medalist. He didn’t want to be surrounded by police, he said, because he felt it created a barrier between himself and his constituency. No one pushed the issue with Bobby. It was as if, with the assassination of John F. Kennedy, everyone but Jackie felt that the worst had occurred, and now they could relax under the umbrella of protection that bad luck could never strike twice in the same family.

  He turned to look for Ethel. Rosey Grier brought Ethel down from the podium and was leading her through the door at the back of the stage that led to the pantry. Though she was only about fifteen feet away from Bobby, they were separated by a crush of supporters and hotel staff. About seventy-five people in all had crowded into the small pantry to try to get a glimpse of Bobby, pushing forward to shake his hand, slap him on the back, wish him well.

  Then gunshots rang out, followed by pandemonium. In a flash, joy turned to horror. Hysterical screams and shouts filled the air as terrified onlookers reacted in disbelief, causing mass hysteria. The hotel ballroom had quickly become what reporter Roger Mudd later called “something out of Hades.” Not sure of what was happening, Rosey Grier threw Ethel to the ground, covering her petite frame with his hulking 285-pound body.

  Unnoticed among the zealous admirers had been a dark, slight, twenty-four-year-old Palestinian, Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, carrying a .22 caliber handgun. Sirhan, who had been crouched by the ice machine waiting for Bobby, had approached the senator, pointed a gun at his head, and started firing. Bobby had thrown his hands to his face, stumbled back, and collapsed on the dirty concrete floor. Five others were wounded. Now a crowd of people swarmed around Bobby’s crumpled body. Juan Romero, a seventeen-year-old busboy who, just moments before the shooting, had been chatting with Kennedy, now placed his rosary beads in Bobby’s hands. The pandemonium continued as a crush of men tried to wrestle Sirhan to the ground. Finally, after a struggle, they managed to get the gun from him.

  Roger Mudd helped the trembling Ethel to her feet and tried to shoulder her through the crowd to get to Bobby. “Let Ethel through,” he said as he forcefully pushed forward, “let Mrs. Kennedy through.” The crowd cleared a narrow path for Ethel and, as they did so, the shifting bodies revealed her worst nightmare. Bobby was hit. He lay on the floor, his eyes staring vacantly, muttering a steady stream of unintelligible babble. His head was oozing a stream of blood. His cheeks were a deathly white. “Oh my God,” she gasped, kneeling down in the pool of blood by his head. “Oh my God.”

  Ethel cradled Bobby’s head in her lap. Gently, she unbuttoned his shirt and rubbed his chest, all the while talking tenderly to him. Jean Kennedy, the sister who, years earlier, had introduced Bobby to Ethel, knelt down beside them. Spectators gawked, flashbulbs popped, people screamed. “Get back,” Ethel pleaded to the crushing throng. “Give him room to breathe.”

  “This is history, lady,” one cameraman barked back at her. Another television newsman pleaded with his own cameraman to keep rolling as the candidate lay on the floor.

  Over the hotel’s address system, Ethel’s brother-in-law Stephen Smith frantically called for a doctor. Dr. Stanley Abo, a diagnostic radiologist who had been in the ballroom, responded and found his way to Bobby. He saw the senator sprawled on the floor, his legs twisted underneath him, blood rushing from his head and neck.

  One of his eyes was now closed, the other open and staring vacantly, but there was still a pulse—slow but strong. At this point Bobby turned to Ethel and, with his one open eye, recognized her. “Ethel. Ethel…” he said weakly. Tears streaming down her face, she leaned very close to his face and whispered, “It’s okay, Bobby. It’s okay.” He lifted his hand and she took it, both of their hands clasping the rosary. Grimacing as the pain increased, Bobby then sighed deeply as his wife tightly held him. He started to say something else, and then went limp in her arms.

  Twenty minutes later the police arrived and took Sirhan away. Apparently, the gunman, who had immigrated to the United States from Jerusalem, blamed Kennedy for the problems of his people. “I did it for my country,” he shouted. While they were leading him down the stairs, the ambulance arrived for Bobby.

  Two ambulance attendants, Max Behrman and Robert Hulsman, fought their way toward Bobby with a rolling stretcher. “Don’t lift me,” Bobby said weakly, as they wrapped him in a blanket. “Don’t lift me.” Ethel, hovering over her husband’s body, had become what some witnesses described as a lioness protecting her young. “Keep your hands off of him,” she screamed, trying to push the attendants away. “I’m Mrs. Kennedy!” she added with authority.

  The medics were there to do a job, however, and didn’t want anyone, including a Kennedy wife, telling them how to do it. They proceeded to lift Bobby onto the gurney.

  “Gently, gently,” Ethel called out as they placed him down.

  “No, no, no… don’t,” Bobby said. These were the last words Bobby Kennedy ever uttered in public. Then he lost consciousness.

  The two ambulance workers were brusque and professional as they quickly rolled Bobby toward the elevator with members of the Kennedy entourage, including Ethel, Jean, and the campaign aides Fred Dutton and Bill Barry running alongside them. Behrman wheeled the stretcher so quickly that, at one point, he almost lost control of it. “Gently, gently,” Ethel again called out. Barry became furious at the sight. “That attendant handled the stretcher like a madman,” he said later, “bouncing it around, pushing it hard, with a wounded man on it.”

  By now relations between the Kennedy party and the ambulance attendants were volatile. When they were all in the elevator, Behrman loudl
y barked out orders. Ethel didn’t like his attitude and told him to keep his voice down. Tempers flared, an argument ensued, and one of the women in the Kennedy entourage slapped Behrman. “If you do that again, I’ll crush your skull,” the enraged medic exclaimed.

  When they finally reached the ambulance, Behrman ordered that “Only Mrs. Kennedy is allowed in the ambulance with us.” Ethel brushed him aside, however, and allowed Fred Dutton into the car. Bill Barry and Warren Rogers, a correspondent for Look magazine, both climbed into the front seat. It was only a two-minute, one-mile drive to the hospital, but during the trip there, tension continued to build in the ambulance. When Behrman attempted to put an oxygen mask over Bobby’s face, Ethel screamed at him, refusing to allow the medic to touch her husband.

  As the banshee sirens of the ambulance wailed and its red lights flashed, an emotional Ethel, seemingly out of control, continued to rage, at one point becoming so angry at Behrman she threw his log-book out the window. “I tried to check his wounds and she told me to keep my hands off him,” Behrman later said. “I tried to put bandages on him and she wouldn’t let me.” When Bobby’s breathing became very heavy, however, Ethel relented and let Behrman put an oxygen mask on Bobby.

  Dr. Vasilius Bazilauskas, the emergency doctor on call at Central Receiving Hospital, had been alerted that Bobby Kennedy had been shot and that he might be on his way to that hospital. As Bazilauskas waited on the ramp leading to the emergency room, he could hear the blaring sirens. The ambulance turned a corner, pulled in, and backed up to the platform. “Somebody ripped the back door open, and there was Ethel,” recalled Bazilauskas. “She looked frightened, and her eyes were very wide.”