Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot (63 page)

Ethel Pushes Jackie Too Far

A
fter 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 Ser- vice man, a nanny named Susannah Walker (who was tem- porarily 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 (actu- ally there were camouflaged speakers placed all along the pathway).

During the course of their discussion, the two women ap- parently 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 ob- served 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 hus- band, 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. Per- haps thinking better of it in front of the children, Jackie in- stead ran her fingers nervously through her shoulder-length hair. Behind her on the wall was a framed letter from Presi- dent Franklin D. Roosevelt to young Robert Kennedy, giv- ing 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, judg- ing 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, stam- mering. “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 al- ways there for her. However, it now seemed that their rela- tionship 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, ac- cording 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 au- tomobile as the Secret Service man and the nanny posi- tioned 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”

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s 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 pre-

mature, 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. Pan- icked, 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 cri- sis 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 hos- pital 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 ar-

rival. Hennessey was given a private room across the hall. In Ethel’s room was a bouquet of pink and blue flowers wait- ing 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 fero- ciously that Ethel instinctively grasped his hand and squeezed it reassuringly. He turned pale, gagged, and wa- vered 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 mem- ber 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 dif- ferences 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 al- ways 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 sug- gested 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.

P A R T E L E V E N

Chappaquiddick

I
t 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 ter- rible, terrible accident.”