Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot (56 page)

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 reli- gious 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 dif- ferent 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 whis- pered 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

T
here was the sound of gunfire, six shots in all, like fire- crackers popping, and then, amid the aftermath of chaos and confusion, the life of another Kennedy hung in the bal- ance—Bobby’s.

It was Tuesday, June 4, 1968, voting day for the presiden- tial primary in California. Bobby Kennedy had won the De- mocratic 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 decided 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 Em- bassy 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 fa- miliar 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 wor- shippers.

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 him- self 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 oc- curred, 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, caus- ing 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 hulk- ing 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 contin- ued 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 unintelli- gible 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 unbut- toned his shirt and rubbed his chest, all the while talking ten- derly to him. Jean Kennedy, the sister who, years earlier, had introduced Bobby to Ethel, knelt down beside them. Specta-

tors 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 camera- man 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 star- ing 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 atten- dants away. “I’m Mrs. Kennedy!” she added with author- ity.

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 profes- sional 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, gen- tly,” 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 loudly 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 or-

dered that “Only Mrs. Kennedy is allowed in the ambu- lance with us.” Ethel brushed him aside, however, and al- lowed 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 con- tinued to build in the ambulance. When Behrman at- tempted to put an oxygen mask over Bobby’s face, Ethel screamed at him, refusing to allow the medic to touch her husband.