WHY AMERICAS FIRST FAMILY HAS BEEN HAUNTED BY TRAGEDY FOR

150 YEARS

THE KENNEDY CURSE

EDWARD KLEIN
AUTHOR OF J UST J ACKI E AND ALL TOO HUMAN

This book is a detective story.
It is an investigation of one of the great mysteries of our time the Kennedy Curse. It
explores the underlying pattern that governs the curse and examines the many
influences historical, psychological, and genetic- that have shaped the Kennedys
character and led to their self-defeating behavior.
The stories in this book illustratre how the Kennedy Curse began in the common Irish
immigrant experience of poverty and humiliation, and developed into an obsessive lust
for power and dominance over others at the expense of all ethical behavior .
The people in the book were, for the most part, on a fatal collision course with reality.
They felt immune to mortal laws and somehow divinely protected from the inevitable
consequences of their deeds and misdeeds. In their hunger for unlimited power, they
saw themselves as superior beings who resided above the common herd. They felt
special omnipotent and worthy of being worshiped .
Our inclination to idolize the Kennedys has obscured their human attributes. And so,
finally, this book is an attempt to demystify the Kennedys by telling the story of how
the descendants of Patrick Kennedy, a poor Iris immigrant who came to the shores of
the New World in 1849, pulled, tore, scratched, scraped, clutched, and clawed their way
to the top of American society and, in the process, made the fatal mistake of thinking
of themselves as divine.
-from The Kennedy Curse

INTRODUCTION

AN ILL-FATED HOUSE

It was an ill-fated house. A curse seemed to hang over the family, making men sin in
spite of themselves and bringing suffering and death down upon the innocent as well as
the guilty.
-EDITH HAMILTON, Mythology

I want to have kids, but whenever I raise the subject with Carolyn, she turns away and
refuses to have sex with me.
The speaker was John F. Kennedy Jr., and he was sitting on the edge of a king-size
bed, a phone cradled in the crook of his shoulder, pouring his heart out to a friend. It
was late on the afternoon of July 14, 1999 two days before Johns fatal plane crash-
and the last rays of sunlight were flooding his room at the Stanhope, a fashionable New
York hotel located across Fifth Avenue from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Its not just about sex, John told his friend, who recalled the conversation for me
several days later, while it was still fresh in his memory. Its impossible to talk to
Carolyn about anything. Weve become like total strangers....
For a moment, the words choked in Johns throat, and his friend could sense his
struggle to regain his composure. Then all of Johns pent-up bitterness and frustration
exploded over the phone line.
Ive had it with her! he said. Its got to stop. Otherwise, were headed for
divorce.
A thousand days had passed since John exchanged wedding vows with Carolyn
Bessette on a wild, unspoiled island off the coast of Georgia, and during that time the
truth about their troubled marriage had been kept a well-guarded secret. Now John and
Carolyn were lying apart he at the Stanhope, she in their downtown loft in TriBeCa-
and John was on the verge of calling it quits.
For the life of him, John could not understand why his marriage had soured,
especially since it had begun with so much sweetness and hope. An inveterate prankster,
John eagerly endorsed Carolyns wish to keep their wedding plans secret. This is one
thing Im in control of, not John, Carolyn told a close friend. No ones going to know
where or when were getting married.
From the start, Carolyn was in a quandary over who would make her wedding dress.
Should she ask Calvin Klein, who until recently had employed her as a mid-level
publicist? Should she choose her old roommate, the talented black fashion designer
Gordon Henderson? Or should she turn to Narciso Rodriguez, a former Calvin Klein
staffer who now worked for the Paris couturier Nino Cerruti? Carolyn knew that her
choice would have major repercussions, for her wedding dress and its designer were
certain to garner worldwide publicity.
It was not until fifteen days before the wedding that Carolyn finally made a decision.
She picked the relatively unknown Narciso Rodriguez to design both her rehearsal
dinner dress and wedding dress, as well as Caroline Kennedy Schlossbergs matron-of-
honor dress.
Gordon Henderson, who was Carolyns closest friend, was devastated. He had
dreamed of designing Carolyns dressand becoming a bigger fashion star.
As a consolation, Carolyn asked Henderson to make Johns suit and orchestrate the
details of the wedding. Preparations were conducted with all the secrecy of a military
operation. Only a few close friends and family members were invited. Everything
seemed to go smoothly until Carolyn attempted to put on her wedding dress and found
that she could not manage to get the $40,000 pearl-colored silk crepe floor-length gown
over her head. It was cut on the bias without a zipper, and like many such dresses, it was
difficult to put on. Try as hard as she might, she could not squeeze herself into it.
Under mounting pressure, Carolyn grew hysterical and began yelling at everyone
around her. Henderson gently led her into a bathroom, put a scarf over her head, and
managed to get her into the dress. Then, still in a state of high anxiety, she sat while her
makeup and hair were redone.
Carolyns stiletto heels drilled holes in the sandy beach on the way to Cumberland
Islands tiny wood-frame First African Baptist Church. A stunning six-foot-tall, size-
six, corn-silk blond bride, she was two hours late for her own wedding.
The one-room church was illuminated by candlelight, and it was so dim inside that
the young Jesuit priest, the Reverend Charles J. OByrne of Manhattans Church of St.
Ignatius Loyola, where Jacqueline Kennedy Onassiss funeral Mass was held in 1994,
had to read the service by flashlight. Johns cousin and closest friend, Anthony
Radziwill, served as best man (as John had served as best man at Tonys wedding), and
at the end of the ceremony John turned to Tony and told him that he had never been
happier in his life.
The marriage made front-page news everywhere, and a new Kennedy myth was
born. The man who could have had any woman in the world had chosen as his bride one
who was not rich or famous or ennobled by family background or distinguished by any
professional accomplishment. What Carolyn had were certain charismatic qualities
exceptional beauty, a unique sense of style, and a shrewd, sharp, hard intelligence.
The media played the marriage as a Cinderella story, casting Carolyn as the
commoner who had found true love with Prince Charming. But it turned out to be a
doomed fairy tale, a nightmare of escalating domestic violence, sexual infidelity, and
drugsa union that seemed destined to end in one kind of disaster or another.

When John and Carolyn returned from their honeymoon in the fall of 1996, they found
a swarm of journalists camped outside their front door at 20 North Moore Street in the
heart of Manhattans chic TriBeCa district.