Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot (51 page)

If Joan somehow symbolized their worst fears, Jackie and Ethel reacted to it in vastly different ways: Jackie by reach- ing out to Joan and treating her kindly, Ethel by castigating her.

Whatever Jackie could do to see to it that Joan would shine, that’s apparently what she wanted to do. So, in the second week of November 1964, Joan Kennedy and her sis- ter, Candy, whom she took for emotional support, departed for Europe. Their first stop was Dublin.

Cead Mile Failte

B
ack in the summer of 1963, when President Kennedy vis- ited Ireland, he had said that it had been “one of the most moving experiences” of his life. While he walked through

the U.S. diplomatic residence, he mentioned that he hoped one day to become the ambassador and live there. He and members of his family, including his sister, Jean Kennedy Smith, traveled from city to city, meeting and speaking to the Irish, who pressed rosary beads into his hand as he greeted them. He was an icon for the Irish (just as 1922 marked Ireland’s legal independence from the United King- dom, U.S. election year 1960 defined its psychological in- dependence from hundreds of years of British domination) and his sister Jean watched, awed by the reception.* Jack also spent time with a third cousin there, Mrs. Mary Kennedy Ryan. Experiencing the warmth and enthusiasm of the Irish was not only a career highlight for Jack but a source of personal satisfaction as well. (While there, he also ad- dressed a joint session of the Irish Parliament, to resounding success.)

“It wasn’t just a sentimental journey,” Jackie later ex- plained. (She wasn’t with her husband because she was pregnant at the time and couldn’t fly.) “Ireland meant much more. He had always been moved by its poetry and literature because it told of the tragedy and the desperate courage that he knew lay just under the surface of Irish life. The people of Ireland had faced famine and disease, and had fought against oppression, died for independence. And all through the tragic story, they dreamed and sang and wrote and thought and were gay in the face of their burdens.”

“I’ll be back in the springtime,” John Kennedy said just before he left Ireland. Sadly, he would never see the spring.

*Many years later, Jean Kennedy Smith would be named am- bassador to Ireland by President Bill Clinton. She would be instru- mental in easing tensions in Northern Ireland, her first two years marking abrupt changes in U.S. foreign policy.

Now a little more than a year had passed. Much had changed. Jack was gone, and Joan Bennett Kennedy was representing him and his family in the country that had shown so much love and respect to the Kennedys. From the start, the response Joan received was enthusiastic and heart- ening. For instance, 50,000 Dubliners came to see the JFK exhibit at the Municipal Art Gallery in Dublin. More specif- ically, though, it would seem that they came to see the blond-haired, blue-eyed beauty, Joan.

“Look at this, Joan. Just
look,
” Candy exclaimed as thou- sands of Dubliners stood in a winding line in front of the gallery just to catch a glimpse of Joan. The line of patient people seemed endless as it circled around the block.
“Cead mile failte”
(Gaelic for “a hundred thousand welcomes,” the national slogan), they shouted at Joan as she finally got up the courage to walk down the street outside the art gallery, shaking hands and greeting all of those who had come to re- member Jack, and to meet her.

Though she had been in the public eye for some time now, this reception was unlike anything Joan Kennedy had ever experienced. Perhaps she thought, “So
this
is what it’s like to be Jackie,” as she shook the sweaty hands of hundreds of excited fans and was offered so many bouquets of flowers that she was forced to leave them on the ground at her feet. Eventually, she was hip-high in colorful bouquets.

There was such a turnout, in fact, that the exhibit would be forced to stay open long after the scheduled closing hour of 9
P
.
M
. Inside, the crowd turned reverential once the peo- ple were in the presence of all that displayed history.

Joan later recalled, “It was almost as if they were in church, the way they were hushed and the way they exam- ined each of the objects.”

The next day, Joan and Candy drove south to Dun- ganstown, where they had the opportunity to meet Mary Kennedy Ryan and other relatives. “She was lovely,” one re- porter said of Joan. “She and the Kennedy relations sat down, stared at one another for a moment, and then they burst into tears. ‘I can’t believe he’s gone, and I can’t be- lieve
I’m
here,’ Joan said, weeping. They gave her a won- derful reception, made her feel like a queen. They said, ‘Look at how much they love you here,’ to which Joan re- sponded, ‘It’s not me they love. It’s Jack.’ When she left, everyone was all smiles. People were saying, ‘Why don’t we see more of Joan Kennedy?’ ”

The next stop for Joan and the JFK exhibit was London, then Paris, Frankfurt, and finally Berlin, where she would be appearing on November 21 at Congress Hall the night be- fore the first anniversary of Jack’s death. That evening, the Berlin hall was packed with devotees all anxious to be in the presence of any Kennedy. Many had actually seen the Pres- ident in person when, in June of the last year of his life, more than half of West Berlin’s population came to hear him speak.

Now, a year and five months later, it was Joan’s turn to be the Kennedy of choice. The Berliners would not let her down.

There was such enthusiasm for Joan Kennedy’s appear- ance that overly enthusiastic officials almost caused a riot when they decided to open the doors to everyone—those with tickets as well as those who weren’t able to purchase any because they were sold out. Everywhere Joan looked from the platform on which she stood, she saw people were smiling up at her, cheering her, loving her. It was surreal, she would later admit.

Under a bright spotlight, Joan stood in front of a micro- phone on the platform of Congress Hall before the shadowy silhouettes of thousands of figures. She hesitated a moment as the crowd hushed itself.

In a small, trembling voice that was amplified so loudly she was startled at the sound, Joan thanked the throng for its devotion to Jack. “Your love for him is so clear to me, to all of us,” she said. A woman interpreter translated her remarks, and after only a few sentences, Joan had to stop and wait once again for the applause to die down. Her sister, Candy, sitting on the side of the platform, looked at her in amaze- ment.

For a moment, Joan seemed helpless in the face of such overwhelming adulation, but then she must have called upon some hidden resolve because she managed to con- tinue. Suppressing her nervousness, she rose to the occa- sion.

“I am so proud of John F. Kennedy,” she said, her voice echoing louder and stronger, “and all that he stood for, and all that he was to America, and to the world—the great, truly great, man he was.”

At the end of her brief speech, Joan Bennett Kennedy spoke the words that had caused such a torrent of emotion when last heard spoken by her brother-in-law, the Presi- dent:
“Ich bin ein Berliner,”
she declared, her voice clear and authoritative, her arms outstretched to the cheering throng.

The audience rose to its feet in a standing ovation. Flash- bulbs popped all about as Joan Kennedy, tears streaming down her face, stood on the stage and let the crowd’s adora- tion wash over her, a tidal wave of love, respect, and admi- ration.

Joan’s Continuing Struggle

T
he week following Teddy’s accident, Bobby appeared on the cover of
Life
magazine and was quoted as saying that Teddy’s accident had convinced him not to run for the Sen- ate, that his priority should be his family. In truth, Bobby had already decided he was going to run for the Senate if LBJ did not choose him as a running mate. The
Life
story was actually a calculated attempt to force Johnson’s hand.

Bobby didn’t hold out much hope for a position on the LBJ ticket, though, and he really didn’t want the job, any- way. However, he would waffle on the matter for some time, strategizing what to do if asked, and how to proceed if not asked. For his part, Johnson became so determined to avoid having Bobby on the ticket that he soon announced his in- tention to bypass all members of his cabinet for the position. Richard Goodwin, speechwriter for LBJ, told Bobby, “If Johnson had to choose between you and Ho Chi Minh as a running mate, he’d go with Ho Chi Minh.”

Two days after Johnson chose Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey as a running mate, Bobby announced his Senate candidacy. It was a difficult campaign, however, and Bobby was worn down by comparisons to his late brother. Also, long a Massachusetts resident (although he spent his boy- hood in New York), Bobby’s decision to take a residence in New York and seek public office there was resented by many who accused him of being a “carpetbagger,” insisting that a senator should represent the state where he lived and knew its problems.

He considered leaving the race after just a month, until he received an encouraging letter from Jackie. “It was a most feeling letter, in which she implored him not to give up, not to quit,” said Lem Billings. “She told him she needed him and that the children, especially John Jr., needed him as a surrogate father, somebody they could turn to, now that their own father was gone.

“Jackie also wrote that the country needed Bobby, and that the time had come to honor Jack’s memory rather than continue to mourn it.”

Partly emboldened by Jackie’s missive and also by his de- sire to be of public service and continue Jack’s work, Bobby continued in politics by resigning as Attorney General, turn- ing down the Cabinet position offered him by LBJ (which he never really wanted), and running for the Senate, represent- ing New York.

Jackie was enthusiastic about Bobby’s decision. She gave interviews about him, appeared at his campaign office, was photographed with him, and made her support of him clear. Her willingness to make public appearances for him was not surprising to those who knew of their relationship. Of him she had said, “Bobby is a man for whom I’d put my hand in a fire.”

Jackie met for tea with
New York Post
publisher Dorothy Schiff to promote her brother-in-law’s ideals and, she hoped, to win an important endorsement from that publication. “He must win,” she told her, “he
will
win. Or maybe it is just be- cause one wants it so much that one thinks that. People say he is ruthless and cold,” Jackie observed. “He isn’t like the others. I think it was his place in the family, with four girls and being younger than two brothers and so much smaller. He hasn’t got the graciousness they had. He is really very

shy, but he has the kindest heart in the world.” (Bobby did win the
Post
’s endorsement, though it’s doubtful that it was solely because of Jackie’s intervention.)

Bobby’s New York campaign against incumbent Republi- can Kenneth Keating was an uproarious one, with wild crowds everywhere he went in New York just wanting to glimpse him and his wife, Ethel. When he went on to win the election to the Senate, there was no doubt that Jackie’s quiet assistance helped him win many votes that would have otherwise gone to his opponent.

On January 4, 1965, Bobby Kennedy took the oath of of- fice alongside Ted. “What’s it like to have a wife who is be- coming so much a part of history?” a reporter for the
Boston Globe
asked Ted. The writer was obviously referring to Joan’s successful campaign on Ted’s behalf, and also her tri- umph in Europe. As Joan smiled broadly by his side, Ted shrugged. “She’s a good girl,” he said, dismissively. “Don’tcha think?”

With those words, Joan seemed to shrink, the sadness on her face clear to any observer.

By mid-1965, some in the Kennedy camp thought of Joan Kennedy as a diamond in the rough. Though she had always maintained that she didn’t want to be a public person, even she—with all her doubts and insecurities—had to admit that much of what she set out to do in front of an audience she seemed to do well, whether it was campaigning for her hus- band in Massachusetts or talking about her deceased brother-in-law’s personal effects in Europe.