Posts tagged Kennedy
There will never be another Camelot
In the shadow of JFK…
Bringing the old Kennedy magic back on track!
Life - After Camelot
Five decades later, the assassination of John F. Kennedy remains one of the few utterly signal events from the second half of the 20th century. Other moments — some thrilling (the moon landing, the fall of the Berlin Wall), others horrifying (the killings of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, the Challenger explosion) — have secured their places in the history books and, even more indelibly, in the memories of those who witnessed them. But nothing in the latter part of “the American century” defined an era as profoundly as those rifle shots that split the warm Dallas air on November 22, 1963, and the sudden death of the 46-year-old president.
There was Camelot — a media construct, of course, but a rarity in that it actually resonated with so many people, everywhere — and then there was the somber, profoundly uncertain period after Camelot. For countless millions in America and around the globe who lived through the near-surreal transition, the days and weeks after JFK’s assassination felt like a chilling, restless pause: a moment so charged with unease that even reflection, or taking stock, seemed impossible.
Here, on the 45th anniversary of JFK’s March 1967 reinterment, when his remains were moved from his initial resting place to the permanent grave site and memorial at Arlington, LIFE.com offers a gallery of photographs (some of them never before published) from the deeply fraught funeral held mere days after Kennedy was killed. While both ceremonies — the state funeral in ’63, and the reinterment three-and-a-half years later — were marked by sorrow, the rawness of the emotion evident in 1963 is still striking, and rending, today.
“A woman knelt and gently kissed the flag,” LIFE magazine reported of the scene as JFK’s casket lay in state for two days after his assassination. “A little girl’s hand tenderly fumbled under the flag to reach closer. Thus, in a privacy open to all the world, John F. Kennedy’s wife and daughter touched at a barrier that no mortal ever can pass again.”
The next day, Kennedy’s body was taken “from the proudly impassive care of his honor guard” and was carried from the Capitol rotunda to Arlington.
“By a tradition that is as old as Genghis Khan,” LIFE noted, “a riderless horse followed” the flag-draped casket, “carrying empty boots reversed in the stirrups in token that the warrior would not mount again…. Through all this mournful splendor Jacqueline Kennedy marched enfolded in courage and a regal dignity. Then at midnight she came back again, in loneliness, to lay some flowers on her husband’s grave.”
The Kennedy Brothers: Joe and Matt Kennedy (b. 1980)
![For the Kennedy Clan, he is Generation NextOn a balmy fall evening in 1999, Joseph P. Kennedy III, a freshman member of the Stanford University lacrosse team, waited anxiously in his dorm room for the team’s initiation ritual to begin. Like the other new players, Kennedy had no idea what was to come.
On the other side of campus, his older teammates had laid in enough beer to last the long night ahead. But for Kennedy, there was a different drink.
Knowing that Kennedy does not consume alcohol, the upperclassmen had set out a large glass of milk for him. When he arrived, Kennedy promptly downed it, and poured a chaser of the same.Joe drank an awful lot of milk that night,’’ recalled David Kaufman, another rookie lacrosse player and Kennedy’s senior roommate. “He kept pace with us glass for glass.’’
Kennedy’s milk consumption became legendary among his teammates and earned him the nickname “the milkman,’’ which stuck throughout his college career. Kennedy, the 31-year-old grandson of Robert F. Kennedy who surprised no one when he declared his candidacy for Congress last month, rolls his eyes and laughs at the memory, saying, “I’ve kind of tried to press the delete button on all that.’’
But Kennedy’s teetotalism provides a window into the world of a little-known figure now embarking upon a very public political race. That Kennedy does not drink is not in itself remarkable. What is telling is how others interpret that choice. Some see it as a sign of his determination to steer clear of the demons of drugs and alcohol that other family members have wrestled with - in some cases fatally. Others consider it a reflection of a singular self-confidence. Not every freshman could stand up to a team of beer-chugging athletes with a glass of milk in his hand.
Many of his classmates, however, suspected Kennedy’s abstinence was rooted in a nascent political calculus.
“We always joked that Joe was going to run for president,’’ recalled Matt Twomey, who also played on the lacrosse team. “With that last name of his and the fact that he didn’t drink, it just seemed obvious.’’
Kennedy insists it’s a lot simpler than any of that.
“It’s just a personal preference,’’ Kennedy said in an interview. “It’s really just something I have never felt an attraction to.’’
Kennedy, one of twin sons born to Sheila Rauch Kennedy and Joseph P. Kennedy II, the former congressman, doesn’t spend much time foraging in his layered family history. At least not publicly. Of his family, he declares, “It’s a huge family. It’s crazy, it’s wonderful, it’s vibrant and it’s exciting.’’ Kennedy is exceptionally polite and uses words like “darn’’ and “gosh.’’ While he waxes eloquently on his stint in the Peace Corps and his work as an assistant district attorney, he says of himself only partly in jest, “I’m pretty boring as it turns out.’’
Voters in the newly configured 4th congressional district will be the judge of that.
Kennedy is the first of his generation, a tribe of dozens of cousins many of whom do not bear the Kennedy name, to make a bid for public office. If he is successful, he could renew the luster of a somewhat tarnished family name. If he is not, he will fuel critics’ contentions that the family has exhausted its political potency. But right now people like Charlie Shapiro, a former Newton alderman attending a Democratic caucus where Kennedy appeared last month, just wish he would stand still long enough so that they can snap a picture of him.
“I don’t think it should be a cakewalk because of the name, of course,’’ Shapiro said, “But I think he is going places and I would like a photo of him.’’
Family stories
It is the first day of Joe Kennedy’s campaign and the red-haired candidate is vigorously shaking hands in the packed Crivello’s Crossing restaurant in Milford, a town new to the redrawn voting district. Kennedy is talking about the need for economic justice and a fair tax code. But a lot of people would rather reminisce about his family.
A WBZ television reporter interrupts a question to tell Kennedy something: “I covered your father in Congress.’’ Another reporter pulls him aside to tell of the day in 1952 “when your uncle came to town and walked right down this street.’’ A selectman has a story about his own father campaigning with John F. Kennedy. And on it goes.
History does not just precede Joseph P. Kennedy III, it engulfs him. But it is the campaign’s mantra that he is his own man and will not rely on the family name. As Kennedy puts it, “I’m extremely proud of my family’s record of public service to Massachusetts and the nation. But it’s my name on the ballot. I will stand on my own, and I only ask the voters of the 4th district to listen to what I have to say and to make a choice.’’
It is impossible, however, to detach Kennedy or his twin brother, Matt, from their famous lineage. Born in 1980, their arrival coincided with their great-uncle Ted’s failed bid for the presidency, a campaign that both of their parents worked on. As boys they occasionally appeared on the campaign trail with their father, who served in Congress from the time they were 7 until they were 19.
“They went out a bit with me,’’ recalled Joe Kennedy II. “We’d have big sing-along events at the Cape… Matt and Joe would go on stage and they were just mortified about how I would go on and on.’’
But the boys also learned that the political life had a price. Joe Kennedy’s schedule as a congressman, requiring him to be in Washington, D.C. much of the week, coupled with the demands of campaigning, took its toll. When the boys were 9, their mother moved out of their Brighton home and into Cambridge. The couple divorced two years later and the boys began to live between their two homes.
For Rauch Kennedy, living with the Kennedy name was at times difficult. She says of her now adult sons that, “they quite understandably are aware that I felt overloaded about all this Kennedy stuff. They have reason to be proud of their family, but sometimes it is ridiculous.’’
And sometimes Rauch Kennedy grew impatient with it all. She tells of a time when one of the boys had a health problem and the family met with the pediatrician. The doctor peppered the child’s father with questions about his health and that of his extended family but not once did he ask about Rauch’s family, as she recalls it.
“So, I said, ‘Excuse me, is this something they can only inherit from their father?’ ’’ Rauch Kennedy said. “ ‘Because no one has asked me a single question.’ ’’
They also experienced at a young age the media fascination with all things Kennedy. Two years after their parents divorced in 1991, Joe Kennedy sought an annulment of their marriage from Catholic authorities so he could remarry in the church. Initial approval was granted, but Rauch Kennedy appealed and the decision was overturned in 2005 - all of which was vividly played out in the news media.
Both Joe and Matt, director of strategic partnerships for the US Department of Commerce, declined to discuss their parent’s divorce. But classmates at Buckingham, Browne & Nichols, the Cambridge private school that they attended at the time, recall it as a difficult period. In 1997, their sophomore year, their mother published a book about her struggle entitled “Shattered Faith - A Woman’s Struggle to Stop the Catholic Church from Annulling her Marriage.’’I think we all felt a lot of sympathy for them,’’ recalled Michael Ellis, a classmate who played hockey with the twins. “But neither one of them got upset with their parents that I saw. They just tried to push on through.’’
Celebrating differences
Then, as now, the boys found their greatest support in each other. They have lived remarkably parallel lives. After graduating in 1999 from BB&N where they were cocaptains of the football team, they attended Stanford University. There, they both majored in management science and engineering and played lacrosse. While Joe branched out after graduating and worked in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic for two years, he joined his brother as campaign manager of Ted Kennedy’s reelection campaign in the spring of 2006. That fall they both enrolled at Harvard University. Joe attended Law School, while Matt enrolled in the Business School. Over the past three months, they have both announced their engagements. Despite their closeness, however, let no one make a mistake about who came first. It was Matt, by eight minutes.
“Greatest eight minutes of my life,’’ Matt declares with a laugh. “It’s all been downhill from there.’’
Asked if they flipped a coin to see who would run for the 4th Congressional District seat being vacated by Barney Frank, they both say no. “This was clearly Joe’s thing,’’ said Matt Kennedy, who is acting as an adviser to his brother’s campaign. But their father says a run by Matt for a different public office sometime down the road “is not out of the possibility. He might well do that.’’
Although they have many interests in common, the Kennedy brothers are quite different. Joe is regarded as the more cerebral and earnest of the two. Matt, as their mother puts it, “goes more with his gut.’’ Matt says that Joe “is much more hard-working than I am. He likes to play by the rules. Joe made sure I never broke curfew in high school. If he was going to leave the party, he’d take me with him.’’
Stanford classmate Peter Munzig observes that “Joe is much more responsible than Matt. It’s as though Joe is the older brother of the two. Joe keeps things on track. Matt makes sure Joe has fun.’’
Joe Kennedy, who talks to his brother every day, recalls Matt being interviewed on television about why he hired him to help run their great-uncle’s reelection campaign. Matt, as Joe recounts it, explained that his brother spoke Spanish, knew the issues, “and most important, always remembered that it was two milks and one sugar.’’ Joe Kennedy’s response? “Thanks, bro. What are twins for.’’
At Stanford, Joe Kennedy swiftly emerged as a diligent student, yet one with a sense of humor. “The milkman’’ readily downed glasses of milk at the bar when his teammates jokingly ordered them for him, and was frequently the designated driver at parties. Kennedy says he never thought about a political career back then.
A goalie on the school’s lacrosse team, Kennedy was badly injured on the field in his junior year. But he continued to attend all of the practices, and assisted coach Mark Lipscomb in coaching both the Stanford team as well as a seventh-grade lacrosse team at a Palo Alto public school in the afternoons.
Joe was really the father of the [Stanford] team,’’ recalled Lipscomb. “He was just a great role model for everybody. I called him my third coach.’’
By his senior year, Kennedy was made cocaptain of the lacrosse team, along with his brother Matt and Peter Munzig. So eager was he to excel at everything that he did, Lipscomb sometimes suggested he take it a bit easier.
“I’d say, ‘Hey, man, relax a little bit,’ ’’ Lipscomb said. “ ‘You’re 19.’ He’s a real perfectionist.’’
But Kennedy, by virtually all accounts, never flaunted his name in an effort to achieve his ambitions. Lipscomb remembers one night on the road when some players urged him to go introduce himself by name to a group of young women in a hotel lobby.
“They were saying. ‘Tell them who you are; you’ll probably score,’ ’’ said Lipscomb. “But Joe was never into that. He did not want anybody knowing he was a part of this great family.’’
Jeremiah Marble ran into the same thing when he signed up with the Peace Corps in 2004. During an orientation in Miami, a group of new volunteers were asked a host of questions about the organization - when did the Corps start? how many countries did it serve in? Marble noticed “a tall red-headed dude in the corner who knew all the answers.’’
That was Joe Kennedy, whose great-uncle, President Kennedy, founded the organization in 1961. But Marble didn’t know that Kennedy was a member of the Massachusetts political family until months later.
“The neatest thing about Joe was that even if someone was positive that he was related to the Kennedys, he would sort of deny it,’’ said Marble, now a product manager for Microsoft in Seattle. “You really had to pry it out of him.’’
Committed to the Corps
Kennedy’s time in the Corps was deeply formative and he talks about it with sweeping enthusiasm. During his two years in the Dominican Republic, he helped to organize a straggling group of local tour guides at a nature reserve called 27 Charcos, a series of magnificent natural waterfalls. When he arrived, the guides were paid a pittance for often strenuous work. Kennedy, who is fluent in Spanish, was instrumental in getting government support and outside financial backing that enabled him and the guides to transform the operation.
Just 24 when he arrived at the site with his duffel bag in hand, Kennedy and some guides admit that some locals initially regarded him askance. Kennedy was asking them to take CPR training and learn English and more, all to improve their relations with tourists. When he asked them to redo the pathways with their shovels and pick-axes, Kennedy says some “cursed the gringo,’’ as they called him, even though he was shoveling right along side of them.
“You’re asking them to make a huge investment in their future, back-breaking work,’’ says Kennedy. “And, I’m saying, yeah but trust me, you’ll get something in the future.’’
In the end, they did the work and got the promised benefit. Heriberto Lopez, president of the guide’s association, said: “Joe was very easy to work with and he has stayed in touch with us. In truth, he was a real leader and we will never forget him.’’
The guides also observed that Kennedy had an appreciation for the conditions in which the guides lived. Joe Kennedy II recalls that when he once visited his son in the Dominican Republic, he took him a high-end A2000 baseball mitt. Joe Kennedy III promptly gave the glove to a local boy. And when the elder Kennedy proudly presented his son with a propane-powered cooler to use in his house, which had no electricity, he turned it down.
“He said, ‘Dad, what are you doing,’ ’’ recalled Kennedy. “He said, ‘Lots of people come here and get themselves all kinds of things and don’t live like the people they are living with. I have come here to live with these families.’ ’’
By the time he returned home in 2006, Kennedy had decided on a legal career. While at Harvard, Kennedy spent long hours at the school’s Legal Aid Bureau, where he worked with tenants being evicted as a result of foreclosures.
At Harvard, Kennedy also worked as a technical editor of the Human Rights Journal, where he met his fiancee, Lauren Anne Birchfield, of Southern California. Kennedy and Birchfield shared a passion for running as well as human rights and were soon a regular item. Until recently, Birchfield worked as a policy representative at NARAL Pro-Choice America in Washington D.C., but is now moving to Boston and will work on Kennedy’s campaign. The campaign said that Birchfield declined to be interviewed.
Service in law
On graduating in 2009, Kennedy signed on as an assistant prosecutor in the Cape & Islands district attorney’s office. Comfortable navigating the sandy Cape roads that he had so often traveled on his way to the family compound in Hyannis, he also found the courtroom work deeply gratifying. Kennedy handled a variety of cases and quickly gained a reputation for his unassuming manner and willingness to work long hours, as well as for his skill at the “Check Your Knowledge’’ quiz game that was played daily at the lunch table. During his two years in the office, Kennedy frequently invited staffers to his family’s compound, according to those he worked with.
Kennedy says the work contributed to a deepening appreciation of the difficulties facing some members of society. In time, he says, he came to regard, “each of these cases as a problem to solve, and not a person to prosecute… Your job is not to just hide behind recommending a maximum sentence on every case and say, hey, I’m tough on crime. It’s to solve that problem. You’ve got a brain in there. Use it.’’
Once when he was involved in a case involving a young mother and drug addict who was being sent to jail for theft, Kennedy, trying to enrich his understanding, called Steven A. Tolman, a former state legislator who had chaired a committee on substance abuse.
“It was very disturbing to him that a mother stealing groceries for her children was going to jail rather than going into treatment,’’ recalled Tolman, now the president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO.
Although Kennedy had long been interested in public service, he found himself thinking increasingly of politics in the course of his trial work. “You can see what happens when people don’t feel they have a chance,’’ he said. “You can see the ramifications of that.’’
Family counsel
Kennedy sought advice about a possible run from his immediate family as well as a wider circle of Kennedy relatives that included Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, his aunt and the former lieutenant governor of Maryland. But Townsend, who is also his godmother, says that the decision to run was Joe’s alone.
“That is something that is in your gut,’’ said Townsend. “It says either you want to run, or you do not. And he did.’’
In September 2011, Kennedy moved to the Middlesex district attorney’s office. Four months later, he announced to a band of reporters that he was going to leave his job in order to explore a bid for Congress. In February, he made it official.
Kennedy may downplay his last name, but it still causes a certain breathlessness on the campaign trail. When he registered to vote in Brookline last month, where he now rents an apartment, it prompted a flutter on Twitter and several news stories. When he announced his engagement in January, campaign staffers dispatched an e-mail to the media. In the second week of February, the Massachusetts AFL-CIO endorsed Kennedy for Congress. At the time, he wasn’t even a candidate.That’s breathless.
For Kennedy’s potential opponents, such name recognition is a daunting factor. That he also has the advantage of his family’s formidable political brain trust and the deep pockets of a network of Democratic supporters nationwide has dissuaded more than a few would-be contenders. The several who remain, like Republican Sean Bielat, a businessman who surprised many two years ago with a strong run against Frank, are hoping that the more conservative cast of the newly configured district will play in their favor. And even those Democrats thrilled to see a Kennedy on the ballot again suspect that most voters will soon catch their breath and start to focus on who is the man behind the name.
“Look, some people may have a romance with the Kennedys and will be hopeful for Joe,’’ said Paul G. Kirk, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who filled Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat after his death. “Some will be dismissive and say the page of history has turned. But most people are realistic and they want to take the measure of this kid.’’](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m18kx5WWer1qdvmpgo1_500.jpg)
For the Kennedy Clan, he is Generation Next
On a balmy fall evening in 1999, Joseph P. Kennedy III, a freshman member of the Stanford University lacrosse team, waited anxiously in his dorm room for the team’s initiation ritual to begin. Like the other new players, Kennedy had no idea what was to come.
On the other side of campus, his older teammates had laid in enough beer to last the long night ahead. But for Kennedy, there was a different drink.
Knowing that Kennedy does not consume alcohol, the upperclassmen had set out a large glass of milk for him. When he arrived, Kennedy promptly downed it, and poured a chaser of the same.
Joe drank an awful lot of milk that night,’’ recalled David Kaufman, another rookie lacrosse player and Kennedy’s senior roommate. “He kept pace with us glass for glass.’’
Kennedy’s milk consumption became legendary among his teammates and earned him the nickname “the milkman,’’ which stuck throughout his college career. Kennedy, the 31-year-old grandson of Robert F. Kennedy who surprised no one when he declared his candidacy for Congress last month, rolls his eyes and laughs at the memory, saying, “I’ve kind of tried to press the delete button on all that.’’
But Kennedy’s teetotalism provides a window into the world of a little-known figure now embarking upon a very public political race. That Kennedy does not drink is not in itself remarkable. What is telling is how others interpret that choice. Some see it as a sign of his determination to steer clear of the demons of drugs and alcohol that other family members have wrestled with - in some cases fatally. Others consider it a reflection of a singular self-confidence. Not every freshman could stand up to a team of beer-chugging athletes with a glass of milk in his hand.
Many of his classmates, however, suspected Kennedy’s abstinence was rooted in a nascent political calculus.
“We always joked that Joe was going to run for president,’’ recalled Matt Twomey, who also played on the lacrosse team. “With that last name of his and the fact that he didn’t drink, it just seemed obvious.’’
Kennedy insists it’s a lot simpler than any of that.
“It’s just a personal preference,’’ Kennedy said in an interview. “It’s really just something I have never felt an attraction to.’’
Kennedy, one of twin sons born to Sheila Rauch Kennedy and Joseph P. Kennedy II, the former congressman, doesn’t spend much time foraging in his layered family history. At least not publicly. Of his family, he declares, “It’s a huge family. It’s crazy, it’s wonderful, it’s vibrant and it’s exciting.’’ Kennedy is exceptionally polite and uses words like “darn’’ and “gosh.’’ While he waxes eloquently on his stint in the Peace Corps and his work as an assistant district attorney, he says of himself only partly in jest, “I’m pretty boring as it turns out.’’
Voters in the newly configured 4th congressional district will be the judge of that.
Kennedy is the first of his generation, a tribe of dozens of cousins many of whom do not bear the Kennedy name, to make a bid for public office. If he is successful, he could renew the luster of a somewhat tarnished family name. If he is not, he will fuel critics’ contentions that the family has exhausted its political potency. But right now people like Charlie Shapiro, a former Newton alderman attending a Democratic caucus where Kennedy appeared last month, just wish he would stand still long enough so that they can snap a picture of him.
“I don’t think it should be a cakewalk because of the name, of course,’’ Shapiro said, “But I think he is going places and I would like a photo of him.’’
Family stories
It is the first day of Joe Kennedy’s campaign and the red-haired candidate is vigorously shaking hands in the packed Crivello’s Crossing restaurant in Milford, a town new to the redrawn voting district. Kennedy is talking about the need for economic justice and a fair tax code. But a lot of people would rather reminisce about his family.
A WBZ television reporter interrupts a question to tell Kennedy something: “I covered your father in Congress.’’ Another reporter pulls him aside to tell of the day in 1952 “when your uncle came to town and walked right down this street.’’ A selectman has a story about his own father campaigning with John F. Kennedy. And on it goes.
History does not just precede Joseph P. Kennedy III, it engulfs him. But it is the campaign’s mantra that he is his own man and will not rely on the family name. As Kennedy puts it, “I’m extremely proud of my family’s record of public service to Massachusetts and the nation. But it’s my name on the ballot. I will stand on my own, and I only ask the voters of the 4th district to listen to what I have to say and to make a choice.’’
It is impossible, however, to detach Kennedy or his twin brother, Matt, from their famous lineage. Born in 1980, their arrival coincided with their great-uncle Ted’s failed bid for the presidency, a campaign that both of their parents worked on. As boys they occasionally appeared on the campaign trail with their father, who served in Congress from the time they were 7 until they were 19.
“They went out a bit with me,’’ recalled Joe Kennedy II. “We’d have big sing-along events at the Cape… Matt and Joe would go on stage and they were just mortified about how I would go on and on.’’
But the boys also learned that the political life had a price. Joe Kennedy’s schedule as a congressman, requiring him to be in Washington, D.C. much of the week, coupled with the demands of campaigning, took its toll. When the boys were 9, their mother moved out of their Brighton home and into Cambridge. The couple divorced two years later and the boys began to live between their two homes.
For Rauch Kennedy, living with the Kennedy name was at times difficult. She says of her now adult sons that, “they quite understandably are aware that I felt overloaded about all this Kennedy stuff. They have reason to be proud of their family, but sometimes it is ridiculous.’’
And sometimes Rauch Kennedy grew impatient with it all. She tells of a time when one of the boys had a health problem and the family met with the pediatrician. The doctor peppered the child’s father with questions about his health and that of his extended family but not once did he ask about Rauch’s family, as she recalls it.
“So, I said, ‘Excuse me, is this something they can only inherit from their father?’ ’’ Rauch Kennedy said. “ ‘Because no one has asked me a single question.’ ’’
They also experienced at a young age the media fascination with all things Kennedy. Two years after their parents divorced in 1991, Joe Kennedy sought an annulment of their marriage from Catholic authorities so he could remarry in the church. Initial approval was granted, but Rauch Kennedy appealed and the decision was overturned in 2005 - all of which was vividly played out in the news media.
Both Joe and Matt, director of strategic partnerships for the US Department of Commerce, declined to discuss their parent’s divorce. But classmates at Buckingham, Browne & Nichols, the Cambridge private school that they attended at the time, recall it as a difficult period. In 1997, their sophomore year, their mother published a book about her struggle entitled “Shattered Faith - A Woman’s Struggle to Stop the Catholic Church from Annulling her Marriage.’’
I think we all felt a lot of sympathy for them,’’ recalled Michael Ellis, a classmate who played hockey with the twins. “But neither one of them got upset with their parents that I saw. They just tried to push on through.’’
Celebrating differences
Then, as now, the boys found their greatest support in each other. They have lived remarkably parallel lives. After graduating in 1999 from BB&N where they were cocaptains of the football team, they attended Stanford University. There, they both majored in management science and engineering and played lacrosse. While Joe branched out after graduating and worked in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic for two years, he joined his brother as campaign manager of Ted Kennedy’s reelection campaign in the spring of 2006. That fall they both enrolled at Harvard University. Joe attended Law School, while Matt enrolled in the Business School. Over the past three months, they have both announced their engagements. Despite their closeness, however, let no one make a mistake about who came first. It was Matt, by eight minutes.
“Greatest eight minutes of my life,’’ Matt declares with a laugh. “It’s all been downhill from there.’’
Asked if they flipped a coin to see who would run for the 4th Congressional District seat being vacated by Barney Frank, they both say no. “This was clearly Joe’s thing,’’ said Matt Kennedy, who is acting as an adviser to his brother’s campaign. But their father says a run by Matt for a different public office sometime down the road “is not out of the possibility. He might well do that.’’
Although they have many interests in common, the Kennedy brothers are quite different. Joe is regarded as the more cerebral and earnest of the two. Matt, as their mother puts it, “goes more with his gut.’’ Matt says that Joe “is much more hard-working than I am. He likes to play by the rules. Joe made sure I never broke curfew in high school. If he was going to leave the party, he’d take me with him.’’
Stanford classmate Peter Munzig observes that “Joe is much more responsible than Matt. It’s as though Joe is the older brother of the two. Joe keeps things on track. Matt makes sure Joe has fun.’’
Joe Kennedy, who talks to his brother every day, recalls Matt being interviewed on television about why he hired him to help run their great-uncle’s reelection campaign. Matt, as Joe recounts it, explained that his brother spoke Spanish, knew the issues, “and most important, always remembered that it was two milks and one sugar.’’ Joe Kennedy’s response? “Thanks, bro. What are twins for.’’
At Stanford, Joe Kennedy swiftly emerged as a diligent student, yet one with a sense of humor. “The milkman’’ readily downed glasses of milk at the bar when his teammates jokingly ordered them for him, and was frequently the designated driver at parties. Kennedy says he never thought about a political career back then.
A goalie on the school’s lacrosse team, Kennedy was badly injured on the field in his junior year. But he continued to attend all of the practices, and assisted coach Mark Lipscomb in coaching both the Stanford team as well as a seventh-grade lacrosse team at a Palo Alto public school in the afternoons.
Joe was really the father of the [Stanford] team,’’ recalled Lipscomb. “He was just a great role model for everybody. I called him my third coach.’’
By his senior year, Kennedy was made cocaptain of the lacrosse team, along with his brother Matt and Peter Munzig. So eager was he to excel at everything that he did, Lipscomb sometimes suggested he take it a bit easier.
“I’d say, ‘Hey, man, relax a little bit,’ ’’ Lipscomb said. “ ‘You’re 19.’ He’s a real perfectionist.’’
But Kennedy, by virtually all accounts, never flaunted his name in an effort to achieve his ambitions. Lipscomb remembers one night on the road when some players urged him to go introduce himself by name to a group of young women in a hotel lobby.
“They were saying. ‘Tell them who you are; you’ll probably score,’ ’’ said Lipscomb. “But Joe was never into that. He did not want anybody knowing he was a part of this great family.’’
Jeremiah Marble ran into the same thing when he signed up with the Peace Corps in 2004. During an orientation in Miami, a group of new volunteers were asked a host of questions about the organization - when did the Corps start? how many countries did it serve in? Marble noticed “a tall red-headed dude in the corner who knew all the answers.’’
That was Joe Kennedy, whose great-uncle, President Kennedy, founded the organization in 1961. But Marble didn’t know that Kennedy was a member of the Massachusetts political family until months later.
“The neatest thing about Joe was that even if someone was positive that he was related to the Kennedys, he would sort of deny it,’’ said Marble, now a product manager for Microsoft in Seattle. “You really had to pry it out of him.’’
Committed to the Corps
Kennedy’s time in the Corps was deeply formative and he talks about it with sweeping enthusiasm. During his two years in the Dominican Republic, he helped to organize a straggling group of local tour guides at a nature reserve called 27 Charcos, a series of magnificent natural waterfalls. When he arrived, the guides were paid a pittance for often strenuous work. Kennedy, who is fluent in Spanish, was instrumental in getting government support and outside financial backing that enabled him and the guides to transform the operation.
Just 24 when he arrived at the site with his duffel bag in hand, Kennedy and some guides admit that some locals initially regarded him askance. Kennedy was asking them to take CPR training and learn English and more, all to improve their relations with tourists. When he asked them to redo the pathways with their shovels and pick-axes, Kennedy says some “cursed the gringo,’’ as they called him, even though he was shoveling right along side of them.
“You’re asking them to make a huge investment in their future, back-breaking work,’’ says Kennedy. “And, I’m saying, yeah but trust me, you’ll get something in the future.’’
In the end, they did the work and got the promised benefit. Heriberto Lopez, president of the guide’s association, said: “Joe was very easy to work with and he has stayed in touch with us. In truth, he was a real leader and we will never forget him.’’
The guides also observed that Kennedy had an appreciation for the conditions in which the guides lived. Joe Kennedy II recalls that when he once visited his son in the Dominican Republic, he took him a high-end A2000 baseball mitt. Joe Kennedy III promptly gave the glove to a local boy. And when the elder Kennedy proudly presented his son with a propane-powered cooler to use in his house, which had no electricity, he turned it down.
“He said, ‘Dad, what are you doing,’ ’’ recalled Kennedy. “He said, ‘Lots of people come here and get themselves all kinds of things and don’t live like the people they are living with. I have come here to live with these families.’ ’’
By the time he returned home in 2006, Kennedy had decided on a legal career. While at Harvard, Kennedy spent long hours at the school’s Legal Aid Bureau, where he worked with tenants being evicted as a result of foreclosures.
At Harvard, Kennedy also worked as a technical editor of the Human Rights Journal, where he met his fiancee, Lauren Anne Birchfield, of Southern California. Kennedy and Birchfield shared a passion for running as well as human rights and were soon a regular item. Until recently, Birchfield worked as a policy representative at NARAL Pro-Choice America in Washington D.C., but is now moving to Boston and will work on Kennedy’s campaign. The campaign said that Birchfield declined to be interviewed.
Service in law
On graduating in 2009, Kennedy signed on as an assistant prosecutor in the Cape & Islands district attorney’s office. Comfortable navigating the sandy Cape roads that he had so often traveled on his way to the family compound in Hyannis, he also found the courtroom work deeply gratifying. Kennedy handled a variety of cases and quickly gained a reputation for his unassuming manner and willingness to work long hours, as well as for his skill at the “Check Your Knowledge’’ quiz game that was played daily at the lunch table. During his two years in the office, Kennedy frequently invited staffers to his family’s compound, according to those he worked with.
Kennedy says the work contributed to a deepening appreciation of the difficulties facing some members of society. In time, he says, he came to regard, “each of these cases as a problem to solve, and not a person to prosecute… Your job is not to just hide behind recommending a maximum sentence on every case and say, hey, I’m tough on crime. It’s to solve that problem. You’ve got a brain in there. Use it.’’
Once when he was involved in a case involving a young mother and drug addict who was being sent to jail for theft, Kennedy, trying to enrich his understanding, called Steven A. Tolman, a former state legislator who had chaired a committee on substance abuse.
“It was very disturbing to him that a mother stealing groceries for her children was going to jail rather than going into treatment,’’ recalled Tolman, now the president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO.
Although Kennedy had long been interested in public service, he found himself thinking increasingly of politics in the course of his trial work. “You can see what happens when people don’t feel they have a chance,’’ he said. “You can see the ramifications of that.’’
Family counsel
Kennedy sought advice about a possible run from his immediate family as well as a wider circle of Kennedy relatives that included Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, his aunt and the former lieutenant governor of Maryland. But Townsend, who is also his godmother, says that the decision to run was Joe’s alone.
“That is something that is in your gut,’’ said Townsend. “It says either you want to run, or you do not. And he did.’’
In September 2011, Kennedy moved to the Middlesex district attorney’s office. Four months later, he announced to a band of reporters that he was going to leave his job in order to explore a bid for Congress. In February, he made it official.
Kennedy may downplay his last name, but it still causes a certain breathlessness on the campaign trail. When he registered to vote in Brookline last month, where he now rents an apartment, it prompted a flutter on Twitter and several news stories. When he announced his engagement in January, campaign staffers dispatched an e-mail to the media. In the second week of February, the Massachusetts AFL-CIO endorsed Kennedy for Congress. At the time, he wasn’t even a candidate.
That’s breathless.
For Kennedy’s potential opponents, such name recognition is a daunting factor. That he also has the advantage of his family’s formidable political brain trust and the deep pockets of a network of Democratic supporters nationwide has dissuaded more than a few would-be contenders. The several who remain, like Republican Sean Bielat, a businessman who surprised many two years ago with a strong run against Frank, are hoping that the more conservative cast of the newly configured district will play in their favor. And even those Democrats thrilled to see a Kennedy on the ballot again suspect that most voters will soon catch their breath and start to focus on who is the man behind the name.
“Look, some people may have a romance with the Kennedys and will be hopeful for Joe,’’ said Paul G. Kirk, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who filled Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat after his death. “Some will be dismissive and say the page of history has turned. But most people are realistic and they want to take the measure of this kid.’’
The voter of tomorrow
Joe Kennedy - Born for politics
Maryland man who shot famous JFK Jr. photo dead at 76
WASHINGTON — The photographer who took the iconic picture of John F. Kennedy Jr. saluting his father’s coffin during the slain president’s 1963 funeral has died.
Stan Stearns, 76, died Friday at a hospice in Harwood, Md. His son, Jay Stearns, said the cause was cancer.
Stearns was assigned to cover John F. Kennedy’s funeral on Nov. 25, 1963, as a photographer for United Press International. He would later describe standing outside the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington and being squeezed into a roped off area with 70 other photographers.
Stearns stood by as the president’s flag-draped casket was loaded on to a horse-drawn caisson after the funeral. Through his telephoto lens, he watched as Jacqueline Kennedy leaned down to whisper to her son, who turned 3 years old that day. Then the boy stepped forward and saluted. Stearns’ camera clicked.
The salute lasted less than five seconds. Though television cameras captured the moment, it was Stearns’ photo that became famous. Stearns later said he learned other photographers missed the picture because they had focused on Jacqueline Kennedy or the president’s coffin.
Stearns was supposed to walk with the funeral procession to Arlington but instead returned to UPI’s office with his film. His angry boss demanded to know why he’d left. Stearns explained he had the picture of the day.
“I knew I got it,” Stearns later said of the famous shot. “You know when you get it.”
In 2007, obituaries for another photographer, Joe O’Donnell, mistakenly credited him with taking the famous image. Newspapers later corrected the error.
Stanley Frank Stearns was born May 11, 1935, in Annapolis. He attended Annapolis High School and began working as a photographer at the Capitol newspaper when he was 16. He worked as an Air Force photographer and for UPI before setting up his own photography studio in Annapolis, taking wedding pictures, portraits and graduation pictures of students at the U.S. Naval Academy.
Funeral services are planned for Tuesday in Annapolis.
Ted Kennedy was the baby of the family who became its patriarch; the restless dreamer who became its rock. He was the sunny, joyful child who bore the brunt of his brothers’ teasing, but learned quickly how to brush it off. When they tossed him off a boat because he didn’t know what a jib was, six-year-old Teddy got back in and learned to sail. When a photographer asked the newly elected Bobby to step back at a press conference because he was casting a shadow on his younger brother, Teddy quipped, “It’ll be the same in Washington.
Kennedy name gives candidate early boost
Joseph P. Kennedy III, the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy and the son of former US Representative Joseph P. Kennedy II, formally declared his candidacy for Congress in a video announcement that was released this morning.
“You can always count on me to fight for small businesses, seniors, veterans, and for you to make sure you get the constituent service you’ve come to expect,” Kennedy said in the three-minute video.
He said that if elected, his priorities would include a fair tax code, job growth, and a 21st-century energy policy.
He also touted his recent experience as a prosecutor and an advocate for low-income residents during his studies at Harvard Law School, as well as his time as a Peace Corps volunteer.
“As an assistant district attorney, I fought for fairness every day in the courtroom,” Kennedy said. “I volunteered in a legal aid clinic when I was a law student, helping tenants who were mistreated by landlords and banks.”
Kennedy also gave a nod to his family legacy in announcing his run for the congressional seat being vacated by US Representative Barney Frank, a Democrat, after 32 years on Capitol Hill.
“My family has had the great privilege of serving Massachusetts before,” he said. “They taught me that public service is an honor, given in trust, and that trust must be earned each and every day. That’s exactly what I intend to do.”
The Democrat also plans to visit five locations across the Fourth Congressional District today, starting at 7:45 a.m. at the Newton Center MBTA stop.
“I believe this country was founded on a simple idea: that every person deserves to be treated fairly, by each other and by their government, but that’s not happening in America anymore,” Kennedy said in a statement on Wednesday night.
“I’ve spoken to people from across the Fourth Congressional District — from Newton to Fall River — who believe that Washington no longer works for them. I will work hard to earn every vote and if elected bring that fight for fairness to the US Congress,” he added.
Three lesser-known Democrats, Herb Robinson, Paul Heroux, and Jules Levine, are also competing for their party’s nomination, as are at least two Republicans, Sean Bielat, a former Marine who challenged Frank for reelection in 2010, and Elizabeth Childs, a Newton psychiatrist.
The announcement is perhaps the least surprising in recent Massachusetts political history, coming a month-and-a-half after Kennedy announced he was forming a congressional exploratory committee.
He subsequently quit his job as an assistant Middlesex district attorney, moved to Brookline from his mother’s home in Cambridge, arranged a series of fund-raisers in Washington next week, and received several high-profile labor endorsements from the AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union.
Today’s events codify his desire to be the first member of his famed political family to return to Washington since his cousin, former US Representative Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, ended his own service in the US House last year.
His grandfather and his late uncle, Edward M. Kennedy, both served in the Senate, while his uncle John F. Kennedy served in the US House and US Senate before being elected president in 1960.
His fund-raisers next Wednesday will take place on what would have been Edward Kennedy’s 80th birthday.
A recent poll showed the younger Kennedy with a wide lead over Bielat in a hypothetical matchup, largely attributable to the Kennedy family’s name recognition.
Nonetheless, Kennedy has declared that he will not rely on family recognition but on shoe-leather campaigning to win the race.
Kennedy, 31, is one of twin boys born to the former congressman and his first wife, Sheila Rauch.
Kennedy is not known for having his father’s fiery demeanor, as much as his mother’s congenial disposition, and in his early statements, he has channeled the underdog passion that was a hallmark of his late grandfather.
His strategy of formally announcing his candidacy by video, and then following it with a tour of Massachusetts communities, mimics the process used last summer by fellow Democrat Elizabeth Warren as she kicked off her US Senate campaign.
Both Kennedy and Warren are served by the same political and media consultants, Doug Rubin and Kyle Sullivan.
The video format allows Kennedy, a political newcomer, to deliver a polished speech without the imposing presence of an audience. It also offers the opportunity to include testimonials by supporters, as well as family photos.
Mrs Kennedy and Me
He called her Mrs. Kennedy. She called him Mr. Hill.
For four years, from the election of John Fitzgerald Kennedy in November 1960 until after the election of Lyndon Johnson in 1964, Clint Hill was the Secret Service agent assigned to guard the glamorous and intensely private Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. During those four years, he went from being a reluctant guardian to a fiercely loyal watchdog and, in many ways, her closest friend.
Now, looking back fifty years, Clint Hill tells his story for the first time, offering a tender, enthralling, and tragic portrayal of how a Secret Service agent who started life in a North Dakota orphanage became the most trusted man in the life of the First Lady who captivated first the nation and then the world.
When he was initially assigned to the new First Lady, Agent Hill envisioned tea parties and gray-haired matrons. But as soon as he met her, he was swept up in the whirlwind of her beauty, her grace, her intelligence, her coy humor, her magnificent composure, and her extraordinary spirit.
From the start, the job was like no other, and Clint was by her side through the early days of JFK’s presidency; the birth of sons John and Patrick and Patrick’s sudden death; Kennedy-family holidays in Hyannis Port and Palm Beach; Jackie’s trips to Europe, Asia, and South America; Jackie’s intriguing meetings with men like Aristotle Onassis, Gianni Agnelli, and André Malraux; the dark days of the year that followed the assassination to the farewell party she threw for Clint when he left her protective detail after four years. All she wanted was the one thing he could not give her: a private life for her and her children.
Filled with unforgettable details, startling revelations, and sparkling, intimate moments, this is the once-in-a-lifetime story of a man doing the most exciting job in the world, with a woman all the world loved, and the tragedy that ended it all too soon— a tragedy that haunted him for fifty years.
“We were incredibly close, all of us, through all our younger years and after. The Cape house was our base. Our whole lives were centered in this one place. It was all here — all the playing, all the enjoyment, all the fun. For me it still is. And always shall be.”
— Senator Edward Kennedy in his memoir, True Compass
History of the Kennedy Cape House in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts
When Joseph P. Kennedy and his wife Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy purchased the home at 50 Marchant Avenue in Hyannis Port on October 31, 1928, they could not have known the important place it would hold both to their family and to American history.
Few families have impacted American life in such far-reaching ways as the Kennedy family, and it all begins with nine siblings and two amazing parents. The home in Hyannis Port, described by Senator Kennedy as “the base,” is the place where values were taught, lessons were learned, characters were built, and history-making events took shape.
It is the place from which three United States Senators grew up, one of whom became President. It was home to the Kennedy sisters, who dedicated their lives to people with intellectual disabilities by founding the Special Olympics and the Very Special Arts. Their contributions through numerous charitable works have touched the lives of millions of Americans.
The Kennedy Compound
The history of the house dates back to 1904. Beulah A.B. Malcom had a 15-room, white clapboard house built at 50 Marchant Avenue in Hyannis Port, Mass. The site was about two and a half acres, with a lawn running down to Nantucket Sound.
The Kennedys rented the house for the summer for several years before purchasing it themselves. At time of the purchase the house, the family included seven of the Kennedys’ eventual nine children. Over the next two decades the house was remodeled and expanded to accommodate the growing family.
John F. Kennedy purchased a nearby home in 1956, and shortly thereafter his brother Robert also purchased a neighboring house. For a time Jean Kennedy Smith and her husband Stephen E. Smith owned a home in the neighborhood as well. This cluster of family residences became known as “The Kennedy Compound.” Eunice and Sargent Shriver owned a home nearby as well.
The Kennedy family became an integral part of the local community. They considered this area their home. In 1957, to honor eldest son Joseph P. Kennedy, killed in World War II, Mr. Kennedy donated $150,000 toward the construction of a skating center in Hyannis because, as he said in the letter dedicating the center, “Here, in this lovely and friendly area our son Joe and his brothers and sisters lived and laughed and grew through many sunny and happy days.” (The Fruitful Bough, 1965)
Growing Up
“One of the first things that I remember on arriving at your home was the regular noontime swims with you and Mr. Kennedy and all the children down at the Taggart’s pier. The children all looked forward to being with you and displaying their swimming and diving ability and how they improved. It was great fun when you and Mr. Kennedy would form a big circle with the older children and then Teddy, Jean and Bobby would swim first to the nearest them and gradually work up to the farthest away.”
—Elizabeth Dunn Anderson, a governess writing a recollection about Mrs. Rose Kennedy in Grace Above Gold (1997)
As the children grew, they spent the summers learning to sail and swim in the waters of Hyannis Port. The competitive touch football games, made so famous in iconic family photos, were also a regular occurrence on the large lawn adjacent to the house.
When remembering his brother Joe Kennedy, John F. Kennedy wrote, “We would spend long hours throwing football with Bobby, swimming with Teddy, and teaching the younger girls how to sail.” Younger brother Teddy had his own memory of his big brother, when Joe threw him into the cold water during a sailing race. “I was scared to death practully. I then heard a splash and I felt his hand grab my shirt and then he lifted me into the boat. We continued the race and came in second.” (As We Remember Joe, 1945, with young Teddy’s uncorrected spelling.)
Their time learning these skills impacted them throughout their lives. Senator Edward Kennedy attributed to those swimming lessons his brother John’s survival in the water for days when his PT boat sunk during World War II. The competitive streaks that became ingrained in the family were evident during political fights in the years to come.
Growing up at the house, the children were also exposed to various leaders and dignitaries who came to visit Joseph Kennedy, who joined the Roosevelt Administration, first as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1934 and then as head of the Maritime Commission in 1937. Prominent visitors joined the children’s friends as guests for dinner, and one frequent presence was Richard Cardinal Cushing of Boston.
Political Life at the Cape
The house was also the site of major political decisions. In August 1945, John F. Kennedy, decided to run for the House of Representatives in 1946, the first of his six winning elections. In the spring of 1952, the family house was the site of meetings to plan JFK’s successful campaign for the Senate that year against the Republican incumbent, Henry Cabot Lodge. Political aides of JFK, like Larry O’Brien and Kenny O’Donnell were frequent guests. And in November 1956, John F. Kennedy, in consultation with his family, decided that he would seek the Presidency in 1960.
On Election Night 1960 and the day after, many members of the family stayed at the house as they gathered to follow returns and then celebrate JFK’s victory. The well-known post victory family photo, with President-elect and Mrs. Kennedy, his parents, siblings, and their spouses, was taken in the living room of the house.
Throughout the summer in 1961, on weekends, JFK’s helicopter would land on the lawn after he flew in to nearby Otis Air Force base. That summer he stayed at his own house, and met with Administration officials there. But in 1962 and 1963, seeking greater privacy, JFK rented homes on Squaw Island, a half mile away, where his youngest brother, Edward M. Kennedy, had a home. Visitors like Averell Harriman came to report on negotiations that produced the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The National Security Council met at Squaw Island in 1963.
In July 1982, the house became the main residence of Senator Edward Kennedy. A few months later, he gathered ten family members, including nieces, nephews, and his own three children, for a meeting to talk about whether he should run for President again in 1984. They held the meeting on the day after Thanksgiving next door at President Kennedy’s old house, and he was persuaded not to run, but rather to make the Senate his life. His children were the most decisive voice. In December 1985, he decided not to run in 1988 and assembled staffers and associates at the house to tell them and to make arrangements to tell the country.
He still used the house in connection with his Senate duties, making it a command center in the summer of 1987 as he prepared for hearings on the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court, and in the summer of 2005 as he prepared for hearings on the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court. But it was largely a place of respite, where he sailed, relaxed, and entertained, delighting in showing visitors the historic pictures that crowd the walls, and the theater from which, as a boy, he was ushered off to bed when the movie action turned romantic. Governors, Senators, President Clinton, then-First Lady Hillary Clinton, then-Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown and a series of Irish Prime ministers were among his guests. Some came for events, but many came just to talk in the morning and sail in the afternoon. Members of the extended Kennedy family returned every Thanksgiving.
In a rare formal function at the house, on September 23, 2008, President Michelle Bachelet of Chile presented Senator Kennedy with her nation’s Order of Merit, a human rights award for his support of democracy in Chile.
Dark Days on the Cape
Sadly, the Kennedy family has weathered tragedies both public and private. It was September 1939 when the war changed the Kennedys’ lives dramatically. Joseph P. Kennedy was serving as ambassador in London, doubtful about Britain’s chances, when war broke out. He promptly sent his wife and children home, to the house on the Cape and their other homes in Bronxville and Palm Beach. Then on Sunday afternoon, August 13, 1944, two priests came to the Cape house to tell Joe and Rose that their eldest son, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., a Navy pilot, had been killed in action.
Their second son, John F. Kennedy was on hand, recuperating after heroism in the Pacific. To cheer the other children up, he took them out sailing that afternoon. Nearly four years later, most of the family gathered again at the house after receiving the news that Kathleen Kennedy Hartington, the Kennedys’ fourth child, had died in a plane crash in France.
On November 22, 1963, Senator Edward Kennedy and his sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, flew up to Hyannis Port from Washington to tell their father that President Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas.
Several years later at the house, on November 16, 1969, Joseph P. Kennedy, 81, died. His beloved wife Rose lived to be 104, passing away also in the home on January 22, 1995.
On May 17, 2008, Senator Kennedy was in his beloved Cape house when he felt the effects of what would be later diagnosed as a malignant brain tumor. On June 2 he underwent surgery at the Duke University Medical Center and returned home to the Cape to recuperate. Later that summer he worked at the house on the speech he would deliver at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, saying Barack Obama as President “will close the book on the old politics” and lead a “renewal for our nation.”
On August 25, 2009, in the home where it all began, Senator Kennedy died at the age of 77.
Future Generations
“There is nothing half so pleasant as coming home again.”
—Margaret Elizabeth Sangster (American poet and editor)
The Kennedy family has been coming home to Hyannis Port since the early 1920’s and continues to, to this day. The house on 50 Marchant Avenue has been the site of numerous family weddings, baptisms, and other celebrations. Most recently, Senator Kennedy’s son, Patrick was married in the summer of 2011 at the house.
In fulfilling his mother’s wishes that the home be preserved and open to the public in some way, Senator Kennedy made preparations for the donation of the house to the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate. His widow Vicki Kennedy gifted the home to the Institute in December 2011.
Historic Kennedy Home in Hyannis Port Gifted to the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate
BOSTON, Jan. 30, 2012 - The Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate announced today that ownership of the Kennedy family’s property at 50 Marchant Avenue in Hyannis Port has been gifted to the EMK Institute, in keeping with the wishes of the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy and his widow Victoria R. Kennedy. This generous gift fulfills a promise made by Senator Kennedy to his mother Rose that the home be preserved for charitable use. This property was the backdrop to some of the most memorable events in Kennedy history and a team of experts in national historic preservation will be assembled, lead by a renowned presidential historian, to provide guidance on programming and operations of the home.
“From our earliest discussions about the EMK Institute, Teddy and I dreamed of a place that would encourage public engagement and inspire political leadership in future generations. The acceptance of the gift of this historic home in Hyannis Port is a significant step forward in fulfilling that mission,” said Vicki Kennedy. “This special home and the family of Joseph P. and Rose Kennedy were at the center of many memorable events in the history of our country. It was at this home that the family learned the lesson that shaped their lives, which is that each of us can make a difference and all of us should try. In making this gift to the EMK Institute, Teddy and I hoped this American landmark would remain a dynamic place that reflected the contributions and commitment to this great nation displayed by the extended Kennedy family. We hoped it would help inspire future generations of Americans to be involved and make a difference as well.”
“This house was my family’s epicenter, where my grandparents, father, uncles and aunts would retreat to connect with one another through heated political debates in the dining room and rousing games on the front lawn. Over the generations, we have returned to Hyannis Port in times of both happiness and pain. We have come to celebrate baptisms and marriages, await election results, and grieve the passing of our relatives,” said Ted Kennedy, Jr. “Even though my family still considers Hyannis Port to be our home, we recognize that this house is a unique and historic place that should be preserved so that future students of history and politics will better understand how this house helped to develop, define and sustain my family.”
Preservation of Historic Home
Recognizing the special history and importance of the home, the EMK Institute will assemble a team of experts in historic preservation who will offer recommendations on usage, programming and public visitations. Renowned presidential historian Michael Beschloss has agreed to serve the Institute as an advisor and will help evaluate the recommendations of the advisory team. Beschloss has authored eight books on presidential history, is a regular contributor to PBS NewsHour and NBC News, and is a trustee of the White House Historical Association and the National Archives Foundation.
“This world-famous house is a national treasure, the setting in which this great American political family made history, year after year, for nearly a century. Like Hyde Park for the Roosevelts or Quincy for the Adamses, if you want to really understand Joseph and Rose Kennedy, President Kennedy and his brothers and sisters, and their families, you will have to go to Hyannis Port,” said Beschloss. “The gift of the house to the EMK Institute is an exceptional act of generosity by the Kennedy family, which will have an impact on generations of visitors.”
The house at 50 Marchant Avenue in Hyannis Port is the backdrop to many famous Kennedy moments captured by film and photo. This is where the Kennedy children learned to swim and sail, and where the traditional touch football games were played. It is the place where countless political discussions were held and major political decisions made. President Kennedy hosted meetings with dignitaries and administration officials at this historic home. This home was central to a remarkable family which produced three United States Senators, one who went on to become President, and influential daughters who have impacted American society through the Special Olympics and Very Special Arts. The extended Kennedy family continues to make a positive impact on a range of issues through other nonprofit organizations such as the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights.
“When I think about my childhood, it’s the summers at the Cape that come to mind most frequently,” said Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith. “My parents created a very loving and exciting environment for our entire family here. Through their guidance and enthusiasm we developed our deep interest in American history and a very real desire to give back to our country in some capacity what we had received. It is a great tribute to my parents that it will now permanently be a place where thoughts and ideas are exchanged, and new generations of leaders can come for inspiration and guidance.”
EMK Institute Plans
The EMK Institute (http://emkinstitute.org/) hopes to use the home to support and enhance its mission of educating the public about the U.S. government, invigorating public discourse, emphasizing the importance of bipartisanship, and inspiring the next generation of citizens and leaders to engage in the public square. Specifically, it is expected that the main house will host selected educational seminars and forums organized by the EMK Institute. In addition, it is expected that the property will also host programs on behalf of other institutions.
The EMK Institute also recognizes the desire that exists on the part of the general public to visit this historic site. They will work with the panel of national historic preservation experts, area neighbors and Town of Barnstable officials over time to create an appropriate schedule of public visitations to the house. Chairman of the Board of the EMK Institute Lee Fentress emphasized, “The Institute is committed to ensure that the residential character of the property is preserved and the privacy of the surrounding neighborhood is respected.”
In giving this gift, Vicki Kennedy has given away her rights to the property. In addition to receiving title to the property, a $3.2 million donation from the Committee to Re-Elect Edward M. Kennedy campaign fund has been made to the EMK Institute in order to fund maintenance and operational costs associated with the house. No federal funds will be used to support property upkeep or operations.
“Senator Kennedy’s life was rooted in public service, enriched by his love of history and fueled by his commitment to enhance civic engagement,” stated Fentress. “It is not at all surprising, then, that he and Vicki Kennedy together planned for their home in Hyannis Port to serve to pass on the Senator’s legacy of giving back and inspiring leadership. We are extremely grateful to the Kennedy family for this generous gift and entrusting this cherished and historic home to the Institute’s care.”
“My father had great passion for the United States Senate. It was his life for many years. There could be no greater testament to his legacy than allowing the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the Senate to turn this home into a place of learning,” said Congressman Patrick Kennedy. “My aunts and uncles all felt a special connection to this home and the surrounding area. I hope visitors will be inspired by the contributions they made to our country and will in turn make their own unique contribution to society.”
Kennedy Family Usage of Property
The Kennedy family will have limited usage of the property going forward. There are longstanding easements on the property, granting beach access to Kennedy family members who own adjacent properties, which will remain in effect as part of the deed transfer. It is also expected that the Institute will enter into a rental agreement allowing Kennedy family members limited access to the grounds for recreational purposes.
Additional Facts:
Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy purchased the property at 50 Marchant Street on October 31, 1928.
The home was originally a 15-room white clapboard house on about two and a half acres, with a lawn running down to Nantucket Sound.
The home today sits on 1.93 acres and is 9,055 square feet.
Schlossberg: Race to the bottom in South Carolina
By Jack Schlossberg
Thursday, January 26, 2012
South Carolina is cruising, as they say, for a bruising. This state has been asking for it for a long time, and its most recent offense came on Jan. 21 in the Republican primary.
As a Democrat following the 2012 presidential election closely, I was happy to see that South Carolina voted overwhelmingly for Newt Gingrich, a candidate almost too easy for President Barack Obama to beat in the fall. I was not, however, surprised at the state’s gaffe. South Carolina has made a mess of almost every chance it has gotten, and this time South Carolinians’ logic proved nonexistent as it has so many times before.
Before I get into the absurdity of a blowout win for Newt, let me give some historical context to my view that South Carolina is nothing but trouble.
We begin in the heat of America’s finest hour: the American Revolution. At the outbreak of war, an estimated one-third of South Carolinians remained loyal to England. These loyalists caused considerable trouble for American forces. They aligned with the Cherokee tribe to fight with the British. In 1781, the governor, one John Rutledge, issued a pardon to a loyalist. These offenses, while in the distant past, still put my knickers in a twist.
It is now 1860, and Abraham Lincoln has just been elected. He’s a bro from Illinois. He doesn’t want war! He says he won’t abolish slavery anywhere that it exists. Seems pretty chill to me (if I didn’t mind slavery), but not to South Carolina. They promptly secede, becoming the first state in history to do so. Leading the charge is Yale’s beloved John C. Calhoun. The ’Houn, as some like to say, was on fire.
The first battle of the Civil War, at Fort Sumter in 1861, saw South Carolinians attempting to take over a federal military site by firing shots at Union troops stationed there.
Okay, so South Carolinians were little brats during the first two major wars in U.S. history. Who cares?
To this I would say that South Carolina has always been, and remains to be, the hotbed of racism in America.
South Carolina was the single largest slave trader of Native Americans in U.S. history. So much for that alliance with the Cherokee.
By 1860, South Carolina had more slaves than any state in the nation. Blacks, the overwhelming majority of whom were enslaved, outnumbered whites two to one.
Let’s move to some more contemporary offenses.
In South Carolina, the Confederate flag flies high on countless flagpoles. Those who defend this practice by saying it is part of Southern culture are lying to themselves. The Confederacy was formed for the purpose of seceding from the Union because those states could not part with their rights to own slaves. The flag flies in front of the Statehouse, and fewer than half of the candidates who have ever run for governor there have said that they would even consider removing it.
South Carolina’s bigotry does not stop at racism. In fact, the state was the second-to-last to ratify the 19th Amendment and give women the right to vote.
How about South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson, who infamously shouted, “You lie!” at Obama during a joint address to Congress? Wilson showed perhaps the most disrespectful and egregious display in the House chamber since Preston Brooks, another South Carolinian representative, beat Sen. Charles Sumner with a cane in the name of slavery.
Finally, the most recent display of stupidity, the one I began with, came just last weekend during the Republican primary in South Carolina.
I am not a fan of Mitt Romney, but I admit that he is, politically speaking, a good candidate for president. He has no personal baggage. He’s as handsome as they come. And he’s a talented orator. Newt Gingrich, on the other hand, is possibly the worst candidate for president in the Republican field.
From a purely political standpoint, Gingrich is laughable as a potential candidate. He had two divorces, both of which apparently resulted from his infidelity — this coming from the man who led the impeachment effort against Bill Clinton for adultery. This hypocrisy surely indicates flaws in Gingrich’s character.
In addition, Newt has a horrific record. He has been fined $300,000 for ethics violations while in office. And, if all that weren’t enough, he worked as a historian for the widely hated insurance company Freddie Mac. The company paid Gingrich $1.6 million. This is the same company that holds considerable responsibility for the subprime mortgages that lead to the financial crisis in 2008.
South Carolina, what’s going on down there? Are you guys okay?
Jack Schlossberg is a freshman in Trumbull College. Contact him at john.schlossberg@yale.edu.
‘My uncle Teddy’ - a letter from Caroline Kennedy
Caroline Kennedy sent an email to supporters earlier today, remembering the moment her uncle Ted Kennedy lent his voice to President Obama’s campaign:
Four years ago today, I joined my Uncle Teddy and thousands of excited students at American University to endorse Barack Obama as the next president of the United States.
Barack Obama had stirred something in young people and the young at heart. I saw the passion in my own teenage children, and I heard it from a different generation of people who said they felt like they did when my father ran for president.
We felt strongly that we needed to elect a President who urged us to believe in ourselves, who could tie that belief to our highest ideals, and who understood that together we can do great things.
Four years later, as I think about what first inspired me to support Barack Obama, I’m proud we have a president who has fought hard for the values Teddy held dear, and stood up on issues that matter, regardless of the consequences.
Will you join me by saying what first inspired you to stand with Barack Obama?
Teddy understood that the challenges of health care aren’t political—they are personal. That’s why Teddy fought for 40 years to make health care a right and not a privilege for American families.
How proud he would have been to see his candidate sign the Affordable Care Act into law as president, giving all Americans the security of knowing that their health care will be there when they need it most.
In his speech four years ago today, Teddy reminded us all of that bright light of hope and possibility that shines even in the darkest hours. He knew that with Barack Obama as president, America would shine again. I don’t think he would be surprised to know that four years later, this president would have ended the war in Iraq, repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and guaranteed women the right to equal pay for equal work.
The 2012 election will be harder than the last. And as you think about what role you can play this time, I want you to remember that when Teddy joined this campaign, it wasn’t just Barack Obama who drew him in.
It was you.
The possibility of a campaign run by ordinary people who are determined to change our country for the better and who are willing to work as hard as necessary inspired him then, and it’s what inspires me today.
Thanks for all you do. I’ll see you out there,
Caroline
