Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  These sleeping arrangements lasted for the entire year, whenever Andy would visit Hickory Hill. However, it would seem that Ethel wasn’t comfortable with even the illusion of closeness to Andy Williams, that she felt that she was somehow betraying Bobby’s memory by moving ahead with her life. Friends remember seeing Ethel and Andy together on the patio, holding hands and kissing, but they hasten to add that it did not seem like a happy, lighthearted experience for Ethel to be close to another man while still wearing her wedding ring—which she refused to take off—at Hickory Hill, in front of Bobby’s children. Ethel, with one foot firmly planted in the past and the other tentatively feeling for the future, could never commit herself to Andy Williams under the circumstances.

  “Andy Williams cared deeply for Ethel,” Lem Billings once told a journalist. “Maybe enough to know that she was not ready for romance in her life—and maybe never would be ready. Her devotion to Bobby wouldn’t allow it. No matter how hard he tried, and I saw him try on several occasions, he couldn’t break through. Since he couldn’t wear Ethel down, I think he began to feel he wasn’t man enough to fill Bobby’s shoes, that he was inadequate.”

  Bobby Kennedy was still the center of Ethel’s world; no one—not Andy Williams or anyone else—was ever going to replace him. One associate of Ethel’s remembers overhearing a telephone conversation between Ethel and Jackie, during which Ethel said, “Listen, Jackie, just forget it. Andy and I tried it, and it just didn’t work. Nobody can replace Bobby. You should know that by now.” To that associate’s knowledge, Jackie then abandoned her matchmaking efforts.

  “I thought it was sweet that she [Jackie] cared,” says Leah Mason. “But Ethel didn’t. She said to me, ‘How dare she try to match me up with Andy Williams! It could never work.’ Then she shook her head sadly and said, ‘He deserves better, anyway.’ She seemed so very alone as she walked out of the room. I thought to myself, ‘Such a sad woman, with no one in her life.’ I wondered how this had happened to such a lively, effervescent person. It seemed unfair.”

  (In the end, sixteen years after his divorce from Claudine Longet, Andy Williams married a hostess who was some twenty-five years his junior. Through the years it seems that Andy and Ethel remained what they always were: good friends.)

  Like Andy Williams, the gentlemen Ethel would see socially after Bobby’s death were all men left over from her friendships with Bobby who happened to be widowers or who were going through marriage difficulties and divorces. Ethel often needed an escort to social events, and the men with whom she felt most comfortable were naturally her choices. Such was the case with Frank Gifford, who had been a friend of Ethel and Bobby’s dating back to the days when RFK was Attorney General. During the mid- and late seventies, while he was going through a divorce with his then-wife Maxine, Gifford became a frequent escort of Ethel’s. The relationship, from all appearances, looked serious enough for Maxine to cut off Ethel, a woman she once considered a friend.

  But, as with Ethel’s other relationships, nothing seriously romantic developed between Ethel and Frank. (Gifford eventually married TV personality Kathie Lee Gifford. Then, in 1981, Gifford’s daughter Victoria married Ethel’s son Michael—they would later divorce—bonding Ethel and Frank together as in-laws.)

  The fact is that Ethel enjoyed men simply for the sake of their company. Always the jock, she preferred playing doubles with her male friends and rarely hit the courts anymore with other women. “Women’s tennis bores the tears out of me,” she declared. (In the mid-seventies, though, she would become an ardent fan of female tennis pro Martina Navratilova, dubbing her “magnificent.”) She also said that she would never become involved with anyone who was not Catholic or who was divorced, though everyone who knew her well felt that this was just an excuse.

  Recalls Frank Mankiewicz, “She would often joke with me and say, ‘What am I going to do if the Pope one day says that it’s okay for a Catholic to marry a non-Catholic? Or it’s okay for a Catholic to marry someone who’s been divorced? With my luck,’ she would add, ‘the Pope would say, “And guess what, everyone? It was okay all along!” ’ Seriously, though, I never felt that Ethel was interested in anyone; not that I would ever presume to know what she was thinking when it came to her personal life.”

  Ethel Pushes Jackie Too Far

  After Bobby’s death, thirty-eight-year-old Ethel Kennedy’s main interest seemed to lie in keeping Bobby’s memory alive. She put most of her energy into the RFK Foundation, and would continue to talk to Bobby and about him to friends, as if he were still alive. This is precisely how she felt Jackie should live her life, after Jack. In her view, Jackie should devote the rest of her life to Jack’s memory out of a sense of duty and obligation. She was adamant about it: Once married to a Kennedy, always married to a Kennedy, whether he was dead or alive.

  Also, she resented Aristotle Onassis—just on principle. Ethel, as a Kennedy widow, was completely devoted to the Kennedy legacy now and thought Onassis was a crook who would somehow taint the family’s image. She couldn’t imagine why Jackie wanted to be involved with him in any way.

  One afternoon in September 1968, Jackie, a Secret Service man, a nanny named Susannah Walker (who was temporarily replacing the vacationing Marta Sgubin), and Jackie’s children went to Ethel’s Hickory Hill estate for a visit—rare in 1968, because the two women were angry with each other about Onassis’s intentions. However, Jackie had a gift for Ethel’s soon-to-be-born baby and wanted to give it to her personally.

  “Where are all the kids?” Jackie asked when she arrived. Usually, as soon as she walked through the front door at Hickory Hill, she was besieged by excited children lunging at her and screaming, “Aunt Jackie! Aunt Jackie!”

  “What kids?” Ethel answered, joking. “Oh, those kids. Bobby and I just had those to get into the papers. I farm them out now.” The two women laughed and greeted one another with a hug.

  After settling in, Jackie went with Ethel out onto the well-manicured, flower-bedecked grounds to talk. As they walked along, exchanging polite generalities, a great black Newfoundland dog leapt into the air between them. Ethel kept repeating “Down, Brumus! Down, Brumus!” while Jackie pretended the animal did not exist. Soft music played in the background, seemingly from nowhere (actually there were camouflaged speakers placed all along the pathway).

  During the course of their discussion, the two women apparently became embroiled in a heated argument. As Jackie stormed into the house to retrieve her children, she said to Ethel, “You cannot tell me how to live my life. I deserve to be happy. If you choose not to be, that’s your choice.”

  “Just the same old selfish Jackie Kennedy,” Ethel observed bitterly as the Secret Service agent and nanny looked on, no doubt with discomfort. “Poor Jack. He’s probably spinning in his grave right about now.”

  According to the agent, at the mention of her late husband, Jackie stopped struggling to get John into his coat. Her control slipped another notch. Standing to face Ethel, she raised her hand as if she were about to strike her. Perhaps thinking better of it in front of the children, Jackie instead ran her fingers nervously through her shoulder-length hair. Behind her on the wall was a framed letter from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to young Robert Kennedy, giving advice about Bobby’s stamp collection.

  “After all these years, and all we have been through,” she said, spitting out the words in a harsh, guttural whisper so as not to frighten John as she finished putting his coat on him, “how dare you say that to me?” She further stated that she would never speak to Ethel again, that Ethel was “no longer a part of” her life.

  Ethel’s eyes opened wide. She had gone too far and, judging from her expression, she knew it. “But…” she began.

  However, before Ethel had a chance to collect her thoughts, Jackie hurried her entourage from the house. They were followed out of the vestibule and down the flagstone path by a contrite Ethel who, by now, was apologizing in every possible way. “I’m so sorry, Jackie,” she
said, stammering. “I didn’t mean it. Come back. Let’s talk. Please.”

  The thought that Jackie would never again speak to her was, it seemed clear, more than Ethel could bear. After all, for the past fifteen years, she could always count on Jackie. No matter how unkind Ethel had been to her, Jackie was always there for her. However, it now seemed that their relationship was going to change forever as a result of Ethel’s temper, and she couldn’t allow it to happen. She wanted to take it all back, start over again, act as if the last five minutes had never occurred.

  “Jackie, you know me. You know how I get,” she said, according to what the agent would later recall. “Forget what I said. Thank you for the gift, Jackie. The baby will love it. I’ll open it later, Jackie. I’ll love it, too.”

  Now, she was speaking almost incoherently through her tears. “I love you, Jackie. Bobby loved you, too. Please…”

  But Jackie was too angry to stop and console Ethel, be there for her, take care of her. In fact, it seemed as if she wasn’t hearing a word of Ethel’s apologies. “You just leave me alone,” she hollered back at her.

  Once outside, Jackie got into the passenger seat of her automobile as the Secret Service man and the nanny positioned the children in the back. The nanny sat next to Caroline and John Jr., the agent got into the driver’s side, started the ignition, and began to drive off. As they drove away, they could see a pregnant Ethel Kennedy with tears streaming down her face, standing in the driveway, mouthing the words: “I’m sorry.”

  “Bobby’s Little Miracle”

  As her due date crept up on her, Ethel Kennedy began to become more anxious about the notion of giving birth. The child she was carrying was all that remained of her husband, kept safe inside of her. Its safe journey into the world was her priority. Since her last baby, Douglas, had been born premature, Ethel feared that the stress of the last few months would cause this new child to be born prematurely as well. In fact, on October 12, two months before the baby was due, she awoke with a start, feeling that she was possibly having contractions.

  By noon, she was certain she was going into labor. Panicked, she immediately telephoned Joan to tell her what was occurring. Joan put Ted on the extension, and it was decided that Ethel should telephone her doctor, John Walsh. By six that evening, Ethel was in the labor room at Georgetown Medical Center. Ted arranged for the Kennedy family nurse, Luella Hennessey, to be at Ethel’s side. “The whole family was afraid she’d go into premature labor,” Luella Hennessey remembered. “Senator Kennedy said to me, ‘I don’t know what will happen to Ethel if anything happens to this baby.’ ”

  By the time Hennessey got to the hospital, though, the crisis was over. It had been a false alarm. Still, to be safe, Walsh suggested that Ethel spend the rest of her pregnancy on bed rest. Hennessey, who stayed with Ethel during this time, told Laurence Leamer, author of The Kennedy Women, “She had very strong faith and believed that if this is what the Lord had planned for her, he would also provide for her. She was truly an optimist. Ethel talked as if Bobby was away. She never said, ‘Oh, he’s never going to come back, isn’t it awful?’ ”

  On December 11, 1968, Ethel checked back into the hospital for a planned cesarean. She hoped her arrival would go unnoticed, but of course it did not. Reporters waited for her at the entrance to the hospital. She ignored them as she and her coterie, including Luella Hennessey and Ted Kennedy, rushed into the lobby and were taken to a private room in the maternity ward, which had just been painted pink for her arrival. Hennessey was given a private room across the hall. In Ethel’s room was a bouquet of pink and blue flowers waiting for her on the bed stand. They were from Jackie and the card read: “Boy or Girl? It matters not. How wonderful for you! Love, Jackie.”

  The next morning, with Ted and Luella at her side, Ethel was wheeled into the delivery room. Ted seemed in almost as much distress as Ethel. He began to tremble so ferociously that Ethel instinctively grasped his hand and squeezed it reassuringly. He turned pale, gagged, and wavered on his feet as though he was about to faint, as Ethel was finally wheeled into the delivery room.

  Within the hour, Ethel gave birth to an eight-pound four-ounce daughter, her fourth. Afterward, Ted, still shaking, had to be helped on his wobbly feet from the room by two very concerned nurses.

  Ted and Joan, along with some of the Kennedy children, waited in Hennessey’s room for the news. When Hennessey burst in and made the announcement, they let out a unified scream of excitement. The baby was named Rory Elizabeth Katherine; Joan called her “Bobby’s little miracle.”

  “Bob would have loved to see his baby girl, but we can’t talk about things that never can be,” Ethel Kennedy would later say at a press conference where photos of mother and child were snapped for the international media. “So I will take her home to Hickory Hill in Virginia and let her grow up among her brothers and sisters and let her learn from them what her father was and how lucky she is to be a member of this family… the older ones take care of the smaller ones, and the smaller ones take care of the very little ones… and they all take care of me.

  “Teddy and Joan have been just wonderful to us,” she continued. “With an aunt and uncle like those two, this new Kennedy can’t miss.”

  Three days after Ethel gave birth, she found Jackie at her bedside. She was probably not surprised. Despite their differences about Onassis—and the recent, terrible outburst at Hickory Hill—theirs was a bond of tragedy shared by no one else in the family. Both women’s husbands had been shot down with a bullet into the brain during a moment of triumph. Both had felt their husband’s lifeblood running through their fingers. Both had seen them die. They had borne so much of the same kind of sorrow that they would always be spiritual sisters in some way. Of course Jackie would be at the hospital when Ethel gave birth to Bobby’s child, this baby who would never know the warm, secure touch of her father’s hand.

  Jackie seemed happy and in good spirits when she showed up at Georgetown Hospital. She had on no makeup and her hairdo was not the usual fresh-combed style she always wore when there was a chance her picture might be taken. She was wearing the same navy blue dress and matching jacket in which she’d traveled back and forth for her wedding in Greece, the dress she’d been wearing so often that a reporter from Women’s Wear Daily tartly suggested it was time she gave it to charity.

  A week after the birth of her daughter, Ethel and the infant went home, driven by Ted. On the way, Ethel asked that they stop at Arlington National Cemetery. Carrying the baby, Ethel walked to Bobby’s resting place and stood at the foot of the grave. While Ted waited in the car, tears streaming down his face, Ethel introduced Bobby to his new daughter.

  PART ELEVEN

  Chappaquiddick

  It was early Saturday morning, July 19, 1969, when the phone rang in Joan Kennedy’s bedroom in Boston. It was Ted.

  “There’s been an accident,” he told her. His voice sounded weak and strained, as if he had been crying. “A terrible, terrible accident.”

  As the breath whooshed out of her, a chill ran down Joan’s spine. “Oh, no, Ted. What now?”

  It was then that Joan heard the words that would forever change her life: “A girl drowned, Joansie. And there was nothing I could do. I swear it.”

  By the end of the sixties the smoke was just settling over cities that had been burned during the civil rights unrest. The country still had not recovered from the deaths of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., and a lingering sense of hopelessness stemming from Jack’s assassination five years earlier was still felt by many. With the war in Vietnam continuing as an explosive, divisive factor, it could be said that Americans had not had a chance to catch their breaths in a decade that had been chaotic, emotional, and troubling.

  On Friday, July 18, 1969, as the Apollo 11 crew approached the moon in fulfillment of a goal set by Jack in 1960, Ted was en route to Boston to attend a weekend party with some male friends and six single young women who were fondly referred to by friends an
d family as “The Boiler Room Girls” (an appellation given them because of the countless hours they had put in for Bobby’s 1968 presidential campaign.) This party—attended by five men, all married—was held in a cottage that had been rented by Kennedy cousin Joe Gargan on Chappaquiddick Island, just off Martha’s Vineyard.

  A bit after eleven o’clock, as the festivities wound down, Ted emerged from the seaside cottage with blonde, blue-eyed Mary Jo Kopechne. At twenty-eight, Mary Jo had earned herself a degree in business and a treasured job on Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign. Ted then asked his chauffeur, John “Jack” Crimmins, for the keys to his black 1967 Oldsmobile, and the two motored off into the night.

  Ted would later explain that he was giving Mary Jo a ride to the ferry, which would be headed back to Edgartown, where Mary Jo was staying. Tragedy occurred, though, when, according to his own account, he took a wrong turn onto a dirt road that led to an unlit, narrow wooden bridge. His car plunged off the bridge, landing upside down in the cold, dirty water. While Kennedy managed somehow to escape, Mary Jo did not. Later Ted would claim that he had alerted Joe Gargan and friend Paul Markham to the accident, and the two dove repeatedly into the water in an effort to save Mary Jo.

  After two teenage boys discovered the car on an early-morning fishing trip, police were summoned, and the young woman’s body—her identity a mystery—was eventually pulled from the murky water. It would be ten hours before Ted would contact the police and explain that the body was Mary Jo’s. No matter how one looked at it, everything about Mary Jo Kopechne’s death seemed to point to Ted’s lack of integrity and responsibility, or maybe worse.

  Saturday, July 19, 1969, was three days before Rose Kennedy’s seventy-ninth birthday. Still healthy and active, that morning she planned to attend a charity bazaar at her church, St. Francis Xavier, and was dressing to leave when Ted called to tell her that something tragic had occurred. He warned her not to go to the bazaar for fear she would be confronted by the press, and told her he was on his way to the compound.