Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot (71 page)

“Well, I think Joan’s done pretty well with things,” a smil- ing Ethel said, as she walked over and grabbed her sister-in- law’s hand. “I mean, just look at her, Teddy. Look at how
wonderful
she looks.”

“She does look wonderful,” Ted agreed.

“Doesn’t she, though?” Ethel asked. “And what’s that scent? My God, she smells so good . . .”

“It’s Opium,” Joan answered, studying Ethel.

“Well, I just
love
it,” Ethel offered, a bit too enthusiasti- cally.

“Thank you,” Joan said, with a thin smile.

Though Joan and Ethel had never fulfilled the promise of a loving, sisterly relationship that seemed to be in the offing after the Chappaquiddick incident, they had remained close over the last ten years. Though she often seemed exhausted by so many troubles with her children, by the end of the decade, Ethel seemed newly energized by the prospect of Bobby’s brother Ted running for President.

In the decade after Chappaquiddick, Ted Kennedy had served as one of the leading liberal spokesmen in the Senate, building a legislative record unmatched by either of his brothers. In fact, as his aide Richard Burke put it, Ted was

considered by many as “the torchbearer of liberalism” in America, though there were some liberal issues he still found thorny, such as gay rights. As time went on, though, many people in Ted’s circle began to believe that, since it rarely came up in the press anymore, the public had forgot- ten about Mary Jo Kopechne’s death. Perhaps, it was being whispered, Ted would have a chance at the Presidency. He would wait through 1972 and then 1976, when another De- mocrat, Jimmy Carter, won the White House. But by 1979, with the Chappaquiddick issue ten years old, Ted thought he had a chance and decided to take on the unpopular Jimmy Carter in the Democratic primaries. Successfully challeng- ing an incumbent President of his own party would be diffi- cult, Ted knew, but he and his handlers believed it to be possible.

A meeting in the spring was called to discuss the “Joan Problem,” and the likely pitfalls during the campaign of a presidential candidate whose wife was a well-publicized al- coholic. In fact, by 1979, Joan knew that her alcoholism was still not completely under control, though she hadn’t had a drink in about four months. Working with her therapist, Dr. Hawthorne, from Boston as well as a number of recovery programs, Joan seemed on her way to sobriety. But she knew it would not be an easy road ahead. She was now a forty-three-year-old woman and, tough as it may be for her to do so, she realized that she was ultimately the only one with the power to turn her life around.

When the couple unofficially separated in 1977 (with Joan moving to Boston and Ted and the children staying at the McLean home), Ted, oblivious to how it would affect his wife, took that opportunity to begin a heated affair with a woman he had met in Palm Beach. It was not a secret; Ted’s

friends and business associates knew about her, as did Joan and their children. Even Ted’s eighty-seven-year-old mother, Rose, knew.

After Joan moved to Boston, Kennedy historian Lester David had a conversation with Rose Kennedy—who was in her late eighties—during which he asked her if Ted’s mar- riage was ending. When Rose said she didn’t know, David asked why Joan was now living in Boston while Ted had stayed behind in Virginia. “Virginia!” exclaimed the hear- ing-impaired Rose. “Who’s she? I’ve never even heard of
that
one.”

Ted had asked his aide Richard Burke to call together some of the most renowned psychiatrists in the nation, all specialists in the treatment of substance-abuse problems, along with members of his family, so that they could deal with the “Joan Problem.” Because Joan’s psychiatrist, Dr. Hawthorne, warned Burke that such a meeting should occur only on “neutral territory” and not at Hyannis Port or any home deemed Kennedy territory, Burke booked a number of suites in a moderately priced hotel in Crystal City, Virginia, for the doctors. The family meeting would be held in one of the doctors’ suites.

“I organized all of it in a secretive fashion, without Joan’s prior knowledge,” confessed Richard Burke. “The thought was that if she was aware of the meeting in advance, she might panic and not go along with it. At the last possible moment, when all of the players were in place, Marcia Chellis, I believe, told Joan about what was going on, and then had her show up for it at the appointed time. However, if I’m not mistaken, I don’t think Joan was told until the sec- ond before she and her kids walked into the room, after hav- ing flown in from Boston, the extent of what was going to

occur—that Ethel, Eunice, and Jean would be there, as well as all of the doctors and Ted’s aides. Any person would have been unnerved by such a confrontation, most certainly.”

Prior to the meeting, Dr. Hawthorne and three other spe- cialists from Yale, the Mayo Clinic, and UCLA reviewed hundreds of documents pertaining to Joan’s case in order to determine how to proceed. By the time Joan and her chil- dren got to the hotel, the doctors had already had a private conference with Ted, Ethel, Ted’s aide Richard Burke, and Ted’s sisters.

When Joan showed up at the appointed hour, it was with her children at her side—nineteen-year-old Kara, who had grown to be a beautiful woman with long brown hair and was now a student at Trinity College; eighteen-year-old Ted Jr., blond and solidly built like his dad and a student at Wes- ley; and twelve-year-old, brown-eyed Patrick, who attended school in Washington. To her left was Ethel, and Ted’s sis- ters Eunice and Jean were to her right. (Jackie, who was liv- ing in New York City, was not summoned. While she was still involved in many of the personal aspects of the Kennedy family, Jackie had so distanced herself from its po- litical concerns by 1979 that she would never have been in- vited to a strategy meeting, nor would she ever have attended.)

Richard Burke, who was present, recalls that the meeting began with one of the doctors stressing that Joan would “only get better when she wants to get better. But she’s got to do it herself.”

“Well, personally, I think she’s licked it,” Ethel said of Joan, looking over at her warmly. Disregarding the earlier warning of one of the doctors that “there is no cure for alco- holism,” Ethel pushed on, “Isn’t that right? Haven’t you

licked it, Joan?” Like many people, Ethel thought of a seri- ous drinking problem as a sign of weakness or lack of will power, not a disease. So to Ethel, it was something that could just be “licked.”

Joan didn’t say anything. Everyone else exchanged un- easy smiles.

“Didn’t you hear what the doctor said? He said that you don’t cure this kind of thing, Ethel,” Eunice, who was al- ways very concerned about Joan’s well-being, said impa- tiently. It was as if everybody in the room except Joan was hearing about alcoholism for the first time. “So, no, she is not cured,” Eunice observed. “And I don’t think she can take a campaign right now. I really don’t.”

Joan opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again. “Oh, sure she can,” Ethel argued. “Can’tcha handle it,

Joan? C’mon, now.”

“Look, may I have your attention,” Dr. Hawthorne inter- rupted. “What we need is for each person to have a say.” Richard Burke recalls Joan raising her eyes to the ceiling in dismay.

The psychiatrist then moderated a discussion as each per- son in the room gave his or her opinion on how Joan would fare in a presidential campaign. Eunice said that she was worried that Joan would not be able to handle the stress, that it would drive her back to the bottle and maybe even cause a rift with her children. Jean was silent, as she often was in sit- uations such as this one. (Usually, when she had concerns about family matters, she would take them up with her hus- band, Steve, and he would then bring them to the attention of whoever was involved.) For her part, Ethel felt that Joan could deal with the pressure of a campaign, and she took it a step further to say that she would do anything in her power

to help Joan, even though some observers found her reason- ing to be a bit curious.

“Oh, I
so
want Ted to be President,” Ethel said, dreamily. “My God, wouldn’t it be great to be back in the White House? It’s what we’ve always wanted, after all. And now it can happen. Whatever I can do to help Joan through this, that’s what I’m going to do. She should come and stay with me at Hickory Hill,” Ethel suggested. “I would keep an eye on her.”

Suddenly, Joan spoke up. “Look, I’m not a child, Ethel. I don’t need to be looked after.”

“Oh, I know that, dear,” Ethel said, her tone just a bit condescending. “You’re not a child. Of course not.”

Joan looked at Ethel menacingly.

“Okay!” Ethel said, holding up her hands defensively. “I just agreed with you.”

There was silence in the room.

Kara, sitting at her mother’s side, finally offered, “I’ll only go along with Dad running for President if Mom’s okay with it,” she said, squeezing her mother’s hand. Her brothers agreed wholeheartedly. It speaks well of Joan that her chil- dren were so supportive of her. Though she had moved away from home, they visited her on weekends. It hadn’t been easy for them to see Mommy move out, but they seemed to understand that Joan was taking care of herself.

Finally, it was Ted’s turn to speak. “I want nothing more than to be President,” he said, catching Ethel’s wide grin. “The timing is right. I can do this. I believe I can win. Peo- ple are sick of Carter. The energy crisis, the economy . . . people need a change, and that’s me.” He walked over to Joan, stood behind her, and put his hands on her shoulders. “If it will hurt Joan, though, forget it. I won’t do it. I will

only proceed if I have the full support of everyone in this room, including my wife.”

Ted’s magnanimous speech aside, the fact was that he could not mount a successful campaign without his wife’s cooperation. But what responsibility did she have as a polit- ical wife when she and her husband had been estranged for three years, and how could she resolve the conflict between that duty and the one to herself?

Joan was no longer eager to camouflage her feelings and put on a happy face for the media as she had done for so many years as a Kennedy wife. She had made that much clear about a year earlier, when a
Good Housekeeping
re- porter visited her at her Boston apartment and asked if she thought Ted still loved her. She answered, “I don’t know. I really don’t know.” Then, when questioned about her feel- ings for him, she remained silent. Asked if the marriage was going to end, she explained that her focus was on her recov- ery, not on her relationship. “I’m working on myself,” she said, “then maybe I can make up my mind from a position of strength.” This was a “new” Joan Kennedy, one who had no pictures of any of her family—or any other Kennedys—any- where in her apartment, the only reminder of her past being a framed letter to her from President John Kennedy.

Now the “new” Joan was being called to act like the “old” one and sublimate her own feelings for the greater good: the Kennedy good. However, Joan felt that there was more at stake than just the personal and political image of the fam- ily. This time she believed she could extend her motivation so that there would be some benefit to her, as well as to the family. Ted’s and the family’s presidential aspirations could provide her with the motivation she needed to continue her recovery, or so she thought. She believed—as she would

later explain—that the discipline required to remain sober during a difficult campaign would keep her that way. If she were to start drinking again during such a high-profile time, it would prove to be humiliating not only for herself, but also for Ted and everyone in their family. She would never do that to them—at least not intentionally—and so, for the next year, she would feel that she had a strong impetus to continue her recovery. Yes, she would stop drinking for the campaign. But was this a good enough reason? She never thought of what would happen after the campaign was over. Finally, after each person had made his or her opinion known, it was Joan’s turn to speak. All eyes were on her as she stood up. “I want Ted Kennedy to be President, too,” she said, avoiding eye contact with her estranged husband, a man she now almost always referred to as “Ted Kennedy.” She continued, and not too convincingly, “I think he’d make a great President.” Then, looking around at all of the smil- ing, relieved faces, she hastened to add, “I need more time, though. I really do. I have a lot of work to do on myself. . . .

But I’ll do it. Yes. I can do it,” she concluded firmly, “and I will do it.”

“Then that takes care of that,” Ted said happily as he jumped to his feet. He walked over to Joan and reached out to her. She ignored him. Ted took a few awkward steps backward.

“Well, this is just the beginning of a process,” cautioned Dr. Hawthorne. “We don’t need to make any final decisions right here, Joan.”

“We’re on our way, though,” Ted said.

“Oh boy! We sure are,” Ethel agreed enthusiastically. It was as if the old Ethel Kennedy had suddenly emerged, the one filled with joy at the thought of herself and Bobby in the

White House, the one whose zest for life seemed to have died along with her husband.