Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed

The sister of Joseph Jr., John, Ted, and Bobby, Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy was the shining star of the Kennedy family. She was passionate about sports and fashion and was her father’s favorite. Despite his love, however, Kick endured a brutal double standard: Her brothers were openly encouraged to be sexually active at a young age, while she was expected to stay celibate until marriage. Not only that, but her gender also excluded her from the kind of political power that her brothers and father had, despite her father admitting that she would have been the most talented politician among them had she been male.

In the run-up to World War II, Kick moved to England to indicate US commitment to English allies since her father was the ambassador. While there, Kick enjoyed an active social life among the English elite and was party to changing social mores in the wake of intense political upheavals. She fell in love with William Cavendish, the Marquess of Hartington, whom she called Billy. However, since she was Catholic and he was Protestant, marrying him meant being estranged from her entire family. Though Kick had been close with her mother, Rose, and was the only one of her children to defend Rose from Joseph Sr.’s humiliating adultery, Rose threatened to disown her. Undeterred, Kick married Billy in 1944 while he was serving in the British Army and she worked with the Red Cross. No one attended her wedding but her brother Joseph Jr. Her other siblings were happy for her but followed their parents’ example and were silent about the marriage. However, Billy was killed in action only four months after the wedding. In the face of her grief, her parents softened and welcomed her back into the family. They encouraged her to stay in London since she was happy there.

In 1945, she met Lord Peter Fitzwilliam. Though he was already married, he and Kick shared an instant and intense connection. Not only was he another Protestant, however, but he would also be a divorcee if they chose to marry. Horrified, Rose told Kick that if she married Peter, she would be “well and truly dead” to her (99). Kick followed her heart and married him anyway. The brutality of the war had instilled in her a new belief that she should live life to the fullest, and she did not intend to reject love out of fear. However, before they could get married, Kick and Peter both died in a tragic plane crash in 1948. Kick was “buried alone in the English countryside” (101). Her gravestone bore no last name.

Mary Jo Kopechne was a political aide to Robert F. “Bobby” Kennedy, Sr. She was a bright, well-liked young woman whose firm Catholicism and political ambition set her apart from her peers. She was one of a group of political aides for Bobby nicknamed the “Boiler Room Girls” since they were forced to work in the boiler room near his offices. She started working for Bobby in 1963 and quickly became indispensable to him because of her intelligence and dedication. Though she was well-known and liked by all the Kennedys, she felt especially connected to Bobby because of his social activism on race and poverty in America, issues that mattered greatly to her.

When Bobby was assassinated in 1968, Mary Jo, unlike other aides, did not intend to move to Ted Kennedy’s office or switch to another Kennedy campaign. For her, Bobby was the only Kennedy worth following. She held Ted in mild contempt, considering him an embarrassing womanizer and political lightweight. However, they both attended a party meant to honor Bobby in Chappaquiddick in 1968. The circumstances leading to Mary Jo leaving in Ted’s car were unclear. People who knew her well vigorously denied that she would have engaged in sex with him: She was openly celibate and waiting for marriage. Possibly, she accepted a ride to her hotel room or decided to take a nap in the backseat of Ted’s car, as she often did in other cars while out on the campaign. This would explain why her purse and hotel key were not with her in the car. Ted later said that he was giving her a ride home, but his account was inconsistent.

He had been drinking and was speeding down the rural roads when he veered off a bridge and nosedived into a river. The car flipped over. Ted escaped, but Mary Jo was pinned in the backseat. He left her there and chose to call his campaign adviser and then his current mistress, not the police. A diver later recovered her body and determined that she had a pocket of air; had Ted immediately called for help, she likely would have survived. He also determined that she was in immense pain and terrified in her upside-down position as she waited desperately for help that never came.

Mary Jo’s parents were devastated by the loss of their only child. The Kennedy family quickly began to conduct damage control in the media. The Kopechnes received condolence calls from Ethel Kennedy and Joan Bennett Kennedy, Ted’s current wife. Ted promised to tell the Kopechnes “what really happened” that night when he was emotionally ready. The media erased Mary Jo from the story, referring to her only as a girl, “a Kennedy aide,” or “the Blonde” and implying that she was being intimate with Ted or arguing with him, which led to his distracted driving. They also cast aspersions on her for being 28 and unmarried but in a married man’s car, insinuating that she was desperate for attention, especially from a Kennedy. Her loved ones vigorously denied this, stating that she likely died a virgin. Ted argued with his campaign advisers that they should say that Mary Jo was driving, not him. In addition, he explained not calling the police by claiming that he had a concussion and neurological damage that compromised his decision-making. Neither of these claims was corroborated by doctors, and eyewitnesses stated that they saw Ted looking calm, well-groomed, and cheerful at the hotel breakfast the next morning.

Ted attended Mary Jo’s funeral, wearing a neck brace he didn’t need, with his wife, Joan, to show that he had her support during this crisis. For years after the accident, Ted called the Kopechnes on the anniversary of the accident, promising to tell them what really happened one day, when he was ready. He never did. After several years, the heartbroken parents stopped taking his calls.

Joan Bennett Kennedy was Edward “Ted” Kennedy’s wife. The Chappaquiddick incident affected her deeply. She stated that Mary Jo’s death was what “broke” her and led to debilitating alcohol use. Ted used her struggles as a buffer for his own shortcomings, allowing embarrassing photos and rehab stays to take center stage in stories about their family to obscure his own transgressions so that people would see him as a “victim” of his “uncontrollable” wife.

Their relationship, like many Kennedy romances, started much differently. Joan was a rich, beautiful, well-known Revlon spokesmodel when she started to date Ted. Her home life was previously somewhat unstable, and the Kennedys represented stability to her. However, after the engagement, things began to feel off. She started to suspect that Ted did not love her and that “she was a casting coup” for his future political career (128), not his true love. Nonetheless, she went through with the marriage and, for a while, believed that they could make it work. She could tell that the cruel, competitive nature of the Kennedy family negatively affected Ted and that his careless cheerfulness could be a bracing medicine for her anxieties. She tried to convince him to move their family away from the East Coast, to California, but Joseph Sr., Ted’s father, forbade it. Joan realized that she would never come first in Ted’s life. Despite this, she was a huge boon to his political career: “[R]eporters loved Joan” (133). Her down-to-earth nature and relatability contrasted with Jackie Kennedy’s polished, considered, and guarded manner.

In 1964, Ted was in a plane crash, and Joan was his rock during the ordeal. Ted narrowly avoided being paralyzed from the waist down, and during his recovery, he still had to run a campaign for Senate. Joan agreed to run it on his behalf, and she used her popularity and charisma to win him the seat. The rest of the Kennedy clan was thrilled, but Ted never thanked her for it.

In 1969, Joan learned of Mary Jo Kopechne’s death, and she was immediately put to work in the same manner: campaigning to the nation. This time, she was expected to argue that Ted was totally innocent in the crash and to leverage her charm in his favor. He bullied her into calling the Kopechnes to offer her condolences. At the time, Joan was pregnant and was supposed to be on bedrest. Six days after Chappaquiddick, she miscarried. Instead of being grateful for her sacrifice, Ted only grew crueler after the incident, blaming her for the deterioration of her mental health and beginning his strategy of using her struggles to distract from his misdeeds.

In the hours after John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Jackie Kennedy reflected on the troubled nature of their married life. Due to his many affairs, he had infected her with sexually transmitted infections, which caused fertility issues, for which she was blamed. Her mental health declined, and for a time, she was institutionalized at the Valleyhead psychiatric institute for depression. However, after she successfully gave birth to their daughter, Caroline, things shifted for the better. She began to furtively talk with a respected doctor whom she trusted and who helped her negotiate her troubled marital life and find solutions. Jackie was relieved to hear a professional tell her that their issues were not her fault and offer a solution.

Another problem had no solution: Jackie accompanied her husband’s body on Air Force One in Dallas as it was moved to the Andrews Air Force Base. She was surprised to find the vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson, already on board. She noticed that he “quickly and easily assumed the mantle” of the presidency (153), and she felt contempt for his shameless eagerness for power. Lyndon was kind to Jackie, encouraging her to change out of her blood-spattered Chanel suit. She refused, knowing that changing her clothes would whitewash the violence of the last few hours. Lyndon needed Jackie to stand next to him as he was sworn in since that would be a powerful symbol of her approval. She refused to do it unless she could wear her bloody suit. Once she got off the plane, she was on a “self-appointed mission: statecraft and stagecraft. Legacy” (158).

Over the next three days, Jackie meticulously planned the funeral, which was simultaneously bleak and magnificent: Her stellar taste created the ultimate expression of national grief. Afterward, she called Life magazine writer and journalist Theodore White and offered him a cover story interview. Theodore flew from New York to Cape Cod that same night. During the interview, he was surprised at how much control Jackie required: She had no interest in letting him create an image that she didn’t control. She made a deal that Life would have her exclusive interview if she got the final edit of his story. She trimmed it “mercilessly” and focused the narrative on the “mythological ending she had crafted” for herself and for John (166). As Theodore dictated the article over the phone to his editors, Jackie stood over him to make sure that he didn’t deviate from her version.