Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot (8 page)

Critics in the media, such as the political analysts at the
New York Times
, cited nepotism as the major reason Bobby should not be appointed to such an important post. Privately, even Lyndon Johnson joined the group of naysayers, calling Bobby “a little fart.” But Jack announced that he wanted Bobby to take the job—though he did not explain that his fa- ther, Joseph, had been so insistent that there was no talking him out of the notion.

“Poor Ethel wasn’t happy about it at all,” the late Kirk LeMoyne “Lem” Billings, a close friend of the family’s, once said.* “She wanted Bobby to break away from Jack. She had her heart set on him running for governor, that was her plan. She was afraid he would always be connected to his brother’s achievements. She was also afraid she would always be in Jackie’s shadow, a prospect that sent chills down her spine.” Once the offer was officially extended, however, and the critics began to descend upon the Kennedys, Ethel adopted a different stance. “He’s the man for the job,” she said in 1961, “and he should have it. I don’t care what anyone says.”

Bobby brought out Ethel’s most competitive streak. No one could say a word to her, or in her presence, against

*Billings and Jack Kennedy had been roommates during Jack’s sophomore year at Choate and then at Princeton, until Jack trans- ferred to Harvard to be near Boston doctors for health reasons. Al- though Billings never served the President in an official capacity, he was a frequent guest at the White House and remained a close friend of the family until his death at the age of sixty-five in May 1981.

Bobby. Bobby was not like Jack, a man who could turn away wrath with wit and a smile. Especially during his early days in politics, Bobby was much more like his father, Joseph: a temperamental person compelled to speak his mind, and often without forethought, when someone had an opposing point of view. As a result, Bobby would make more than a few enemies during his short lifetime. In turn, Ethel would make each of them
her
enemy; and although at times she may have appeared to have forgotten their trans- gressions, she rarely, if ever, forgave them.

“Ethel Kennedy adored Bobby,” recalls Helen Thomas, “and, I would have to say, to the exclusion of everything else. Whereas Jackie made certain that she had a life sepa- rate and apart from her husband’s, Ethel had no such desire. From the beginning,” she concludes, “Bobby was the center of her universe. While it’s a cliché to say that ‘he was her life,’ if ever a cliché rang true, it would be this one.”

When Bobby finally went before the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearings on January 13, 1961, with Ethel and his sister Jean watching, only a few Republicans noted his lack of experience as an attorney (he had graduated from law school ten years earlier but had never tried a case), concerns about his finances, and whether any of his holdings would conflict with his job. In the end, after two hours of questioning, all fourteen of the committee members voted to approve Bobby’s nomination as Attorney General. Ethel was so excited that she went out and bought Bobby a six-foot mahogany desk that had belonged to Amos

T. Ackerman, U.S. Grant’s second Attorney General and the first to head the newly created Justice Department in 1870.

As the nation’s top law official, Bobby would wield a great deal of power. “And along with that power, came those

perks that Kennedy men loved more than life itself,” says Kennedy friend George Smathers (a senator from Florida from 1950 to 1968). “Women, women, women.”

Some have speculated that Bobby’s womanizing was a way of competing with his older brother. Bobby was smaller and more wiry than Jack. He was also shy and withdrawn, while Jack was bold and gregarious. Bobby often appeared unruly— his hair always looked as though he had just driven a fast sports car with the top down—whereas Jack was meticulously groomed. In the past, Bobby had certainly seemed determined to assume those facets of Jack’s personality he admired, and perhaps he even appreciated Jack’s way with women.

In 1961, just after Jack moved into the White House, Ethel all but ignored Bobby’s brief affair with blonde actress Lee Remick, ten years his junior and remembered today for her roles in
Anatomy of a Murder
and
Days of Wine and Roses
. “Bobby Kennedy gave such eloquent expression to his passion for me,” the late Remick told Marilyn Kind, once a close friend of hers.

According to Kind, Lee telephoned Ethel Kennedy one evening to inform her of the affair. “You’re on your way out,” Lee coolly informed Ethel.

As Lee remembered it, Ethel was understandably angry. Before hanging up, she told Lee that Bobby was sleeping right next to her and warned her to never call again.

Bobby was, indeed, sound asleep. But in Lee’s bed. Whenever a friend or even a Kennedy family member in-

formed Ethel of one of Bobby’s indiscretions, she often chose not to believe them. “It’s not true,” she once said. “I have asked Bobby if he ever cheats on me, and he assures me that he does not. And that is the end of that.”

Though Ethel usually ignored stories about her husband

and other women, there were times when her curiosity seemed to get the best of her, especially if people close to her were whispering about certain liaisons or if she kept reading about them in the fan magazines she so enjoyed. On rare occasions, she would go to Jackie and ask if she had personal knowledge of a particular rumor regarding Bobby and another woman. However, Jackie always seemed un- comfortable discussing Bobby’s personal life, perhaps afraid that she would become involved in a dispute between her in-laws that was really none of her business.

By 1961, the dawn of the Camelot years, Ethel and Bobby already had seven children, with four more to come. Many aspects of their life together were favorable; Ethel’s mar- riage was not a complete sham, Bobby’s infidelities aside. He was tender and loving to his young wife, though not in an overt, obviously passionate manner. He fascinated her with his intelligence, his drive, his passion and ideals. They had common goals and ambitions, and their life together at 1147 Chain Bridge Road—Hickory Hill—in McLean seemed to be a happy one, at least to outsiders. The Kennedy family photographer, Jacques Lowe, recalled the first time he visited Hickory Hill:

“Oh, it was a gorgeous experience entering the Robert Kennedy home for the first time. I remember the first night coming to dinner, having spent the day with Robert on Capi- tol Hill. They had five children then and had recently bought Hickory Hill. I had known Robert for some time in my role as a magazine photographer covering the up-and-coming in- vestigator. He had been sober and serious, revealing sudden flashes of humor and sometimes anger; but I was not pre- pared for the man I met on coming to the house late that night. All of his reserve seemed to melt in the glory of his

family, and the long, difficult day was forgotten in the warmth of love of a father for his children and vice versa. It was chaos, with all the children talking at once and Bobby answering each of them with humor and sometimes trying to be stern, at which he didn’t fully succeed. Ethel instantly ac- cepted this stranger [Lowe] into the house, and later on I had to go upstairs to say the evening prayers with the children, which took place after a family pillow fight.”

It seemed the picture-perfect, happily married lifestyle; maybe for Ethel Kennedy it was and perhaps she sensed that it would remain that way as long as she refused to accept that Bobby had a secret life. As long as he was there for her when she needed him and for his children—and he always was—she seemed content.

The Skakels

E
thel Skakel was born on April 11, 1928, at Chicago’s Lying-In Hospital, the sixth child to be born in the Skakel home in ten years; three brothers, two sisters, and a younger sister born five years later completed the family. Ethel’s mother, Ann, was a large woman, taller and heavier than her husband, who kept the weight she gained with every child and eventually tipped the scale at close to two hundred pounds. Nicknamed “Big Ann” by friends and family mem- bers, she was a formidable woman both in stature and deter- mination.

Big Ann was married to the ambitious and distant George

Skakel, owner of Great Lakes Coal and Coke Corporation, which was well on its way to becoming one of the largest privately held corporations in America. The family was prosperous and never wanted for anything material, even when the Great Depression of 1929 hit. Though Great Lakes Coal and Coke foundered at that time, the Skakels curtailed some of their extravagances, though not many. In fact, against all odds, now sole owner George Skakel became a millionaire
during
that economic hardship. When the alu- minum industry recovered, the fortunes of the Skakels soared.

Because George conducted so much of his business on the East Coast, the family moved to a rented mansion set on twelve acres in Larchmont, New York, in 1933. Whenever George utilized the house for business entertaining, Ann as- sisted in grand style. The parties were always impressive, with a hired staff to serve the finest foods and liquors—es- pecially liquor. George had apparently inherited a tendency toward alcoholism from his father and soon became af- flicted with the disease. (With such an abundance of liquor always available, some of the Skakel offspring would exper- iment by drinking whatever was left in the guests’ glasses after parties. Unfortunately, Georgeann, the oldest, was an alcoholic at fifteen.)

A year later, the family moved from Larchmont to a fur- nished thirty-room mansion on Lake Avenue in Greenwich, Connecticut, complete with parklike grounds, a guest house, servants’ quarters, stables, and six-car garage. George was proud that he had purchased it at a bargain price in the midst of the Depression.

Ethel’s relationship with both parents was strained and distant. She was closer to her brothers and sisters, always in

trouble with them and joining them in antagonism against Ann and George. As a youngster, Ethel was enrolled in Greenwich Academy, one of the leading Northeast day schools, where the girls wore uniforms and discipline was strict. She had no respect for authority, however, which may have enhanced her status with her classmates but completely dismayed her instructors. She was in trouble so often it was a wonder that she was not expelled.

The behavior of the other Skakel children was also trou- bling. Because George was a hunting enthusiast, there were always guns lying around in the Lake Avenue home. The Skakel boys would shoot the firearms from the windows of their cars, using the .45 caliber weapons to destroy mail- boxes and streetlights.

Once old enough to drive, every Skakel child had his or her own automobile, which he or she drove at high speed; the Skakel boys, particularly Jim and George Jr., were such notorious drivers that most Greenwich mothers forbade their daughters to ride with them. Skakel cars were wrecked on a regular basis, and brand-new automobiles would be aban- doned in ditches, ponds, and swimming pools. Ethel had a red convertible, which she often drove as recklessly as her brothers.

When Ethel was fifteen, she enrolled in the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Maplehurst, in the Bronx, New York. There, as at Greenwich Academy, Ethel excelled at sports but was a mediocre student. Despite her rowdy, trouble- making nature, she had always felt a strong emotional con- nection to God, and at Maplehurst she showed the greatest interest in religion classes. She embraced those studies with a zeal that made her mother proud. After graduating from the convent in the spring of 1945, she followed her older sis-

ter by enrolling in Manhattanville College in New York City in the fall.

At Manhattanville, Ethel’s best friend and roommate was the shy Jean Kennedy, next-to-last child in the large and wealthy Kennedy family. The first time Jean took Ethel home to Hyannis Port to visit her family, Ethel was immedi- ately struck by how different the Kennedy lifestyle was from her own. She saw discipline; she saw order; she saw caring. Early in their friendship, Jean introduced Ethel to her brother Bobby on a ski weekend, certain they would hit it off. However, Ethel was interested in the much more debonair Jack, who was also present during that particular vacation break. If Jack noticed her at all, though, he would probably have seen her as a skinny tomboy—the way most young men viewed her, which did not bother her in the least. She was always completely comfortable with who she was, or at least she appeared that way. With Ethel clearly inter- ested in Jack, Bobby became attracted to Ethel’s sister Pat. Still, for the next two years, Bobby and Ethel dated occa-

sionally.

After dating Pat—and a few others—Bobby finally turned to Ethel in a more serious manner. Friends would ob- serve that the relationship seemed to lack romance, noting that Bobby and Ethel were more like close siblings than boyfriend and girlfriend, but after two years he proposed marriage.

At the time that Bobby proposed, Ethel was seriously considering becoming a nun. Her family’s spiritual zeal had always been clearly in evidence in the Skakel home when Ethel was growing up. Crucifixes and other religious objects hung on the walls; shelves in the large library were filled with Catholic books, some of them rare manuscripts. Her