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The Kennedy Curse, Part 1
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Welcome to episode one of our new series: The Kennedy Curse. This is going to be a billion part series. No really. Nikki has been researching and writing since September.
In this episode, we define "the curse," talking about the patterns of behavior we are going to see from the first Kennedy to come to America to today, and talk about the legacy of the Kennedy name in the United States.
Check out our YouTube channel, Fixate Today: Grey Matters
Sources (there's a lot):
Books: The Kennedy Curse by Edward Klein, Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Katie Clifford Larson, The First Kennedys: The Humber Roots of an American Dynasty by Neal Thompson, After Camelot: A Personal History of the Kennedy Family 1968 to the Present by J. Randy Taraborrelli, Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed by Maureen Callahan, The Kennedy Imprisonment: A Meditation on Power by Garry Wills, Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates
Media: Grey Gardens (1975 documentary), JFK (1991 film), Thirteen Days (2000 film), Murder in Greenwich (2002 television film), Bobby (2006 film), Grey Gardens (2006 musical), Grey Gardens (2009 film), Parkland (2013 film), 11.23.63 (2016 series), Jackie (2016 film), Chappaquiddick (2017 film), Cover-Up (2018 podcast), The RFK Tapes (2018 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episodes 400-405: JFK (2020 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episode Relaxed Fit: Marilyn Monroe & The President’s Aspirin (2020 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episode Side Stories: The Bullet in the Backseat (2023 podcast), Wine & Crime, Episode 366: Lobotomy Crimes (2024 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episode 1046: The Miseducation of Ed Larsen - JFK & Government Conspiracies (2025 podcast), United States of Kennedy (2025 podcast), Dead Certain: The Martha Moxley Murder (2025 podcast), Wine & Crime, Episode 456: Family Curses (2026 podcast), Love Story (2026 series)
Websites: historyhit.com, Scientific America, CNN, PBS, CBS News, BBC, Autistic Self Advocacy Center, InStyle, Best Buddies International, All Things Interesting, USA Today, Today in Civil Liberties, Cambridge Dictionary, Kennedys and King, RJP Books, New York Post, Boston Magazine, Time, The Moth, Vanity Fair, Voices Center for Resilience, Reddit, Washington Association of Black Journalists, NPR, The Ringer, The Daily Express, The Harvard Crimson, Wikipedia
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction: Hosts and Obsession with the Kennedy Curse
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Fixate Today Gone Tomorrow. I'm Nikki and I'm here with my aunt Joy. We are two neurodivergent ladies who obsess about various topics. Joy is autistic and I have ADHD and we are letting our hyperfixations fly.
00:00:16
Speaker
Today we are fixating on the Kennedy curse.
00:00:31
Speaker
All right, Nikki, this is you. This is all your fixation, right? This is all me. And when I tell you i have been, I think I looked at the Google Doc or like when I created the Google folder and it's been like since September.
00:00:44
Speaker
but I know you've been nagging at me. You want to do this one. Oh my gosh. we just You guys, I'm sorry in advance because it just can of woms worms opened. And instead of closing the can of worms, I bought another can of worms and opened that one too.
00:00:58
Speaker
Hey, that's what we're about. Now, I admit though, I had a mini
Complexity of the Kennedy Curse: Beyond a Simple Narrative
00:01:02
Speaker
fixation on it. I did for a bit. It's not, I'm not deep in this, but i have been trying to get a little bit more up to speed. um But I mean, i I feel like I have a ton to learn from you and I'm learning along with with our listeners. Yeah. Well, and I think why I've been so in this fixation is because it's not one huge story. It's a bajillion tiny stories in like the timeline of this family. Yeah.
00:01:25
Speaker
Well, it's a long timeline. It's a long timeline. And it's a lot of things to happen to a family. Yeah. But it is interesting to look into. Yeah. Well, ah the general ideas that occurs. Yes. Lifestyle or decisions. Exactly. Yeah. That's the interesting thing is. What is the Kennedy
Podcasting Style and Personal Fixations
00:01:43
Speaker
curse? And what have we what can we like kind of pull from the different things that people in this family have gone through that link to other things within their own family? In general, trends that we see in all families and we see in even in politics oh today. yeah This is a little different, though. We haven't really done history, like a long history yeah unit. we did they We did Aquatofana, which was one episode. We did Garfield, which I think was maybe three or four. But this gonna be big.
00:02:12
Speaker
This is going to be a lot. ok um I have a friend when I was telling when i was telling her how many episodes I'm writing, she was like, are you going to lose this fixation after like 10 episodes? And I was like, gosh, if I do, I've wasted a lot of time.
00:02:27
Speaker
No, we'll fight you will fight it through You will get me fixated by then and I'll take Right, exactly. I'll be like, just read my notes. But I mean, too like to our listeners, it truly is when we do these things, it is our fixations. And so that's why, you know, jumping from current stories to true crime to historical, and it is hard to kind of give ourselves a genre, right?
00:02:49
Speaker
Yeah. Because it We can only do what we really get into. And yeah we were talking before, I'm like, well, so you know, some people would rather us be like too crying, but I'm like, I can't just pick up a murder and suddenly be into it. So yeah, um it is what it is. Hopefully we have some of you guys that like to go along these trails with us. so
Edith Hamilton and the Kennedy Connection
00:03:06
Speaker
Yes. um A minor anecdote before we get too into it. This is how encompassing this has been. And it's always in my brain. My husband and I went with some of our friends to like a murder mystery dinner.
00:03:16
Speaker
And part of the the story was it was like this Hollywood couple thing, whatever. And the man was talking about being on a ship with Joe Kennedy when he was having his affair, blah, blah, blah, blah. blah And I just leaned over to Nate and like might nate my husband and just started like being like, yeah, this is what happened in blue bla bla bla bla Joe Kennedy and having a affair. It wasn't just this one. And he was like, I have to pay attention to to the murder. miss there This is why we're here.
00:03:46
Speaker
I was like, okay, I'm sorry. Well, I'm excited. i am excited. I've been trying to do a little bit myself research, but not not to your depth. Well, let's jump right in. First of all, I have so many sources that I'm not going to make you guys listen to me list our sources every episode because it's insane how many sources I have. So for every episode, I'm going to pop the source list right in the show notes of the episode.
00:04:12
Speaker
So you can check out everything I've been doing. Yeah. for the last few months. Great. And also am going to start on a tangent. then So I found this incredible quote from an author from the eighteen hundreds It was in one of the books that I used as a source and it just so perfectly encapsulates the Kennedy family. But then I got curious and i was like, oh I wonder who this author is. And the first thing I saw was that we have the same birthday. And I was like, OK, I want to know everything about her. And she's so interesting. So I'm starting on a tangent about this lady. And then I'm going to talk about a quote.
00:04:51
Speaker
Nothing like starting off a new ah series with a tangent. Exactly. So this quote I'm going to read is by Edith Hamilton. She was born on August 12th. ah But 1867, so not quite the same year. And in my notes, i actually put, I wasn't going to talk about her until we saw, until I saw we share birthday. So now I have to.
00:05:14
Speaker
um She was born in Germany of American parents. She grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Her father taught her Latin and Greek. And then they moved to Connecticut to Farmington, where she attended the elite Miss Porter's school.
00:05:31
Speaker
Now, this is important because this is the same very fancy, all women's, private, rich lady school that members of the Kennedy family attended.
00:05:43
Speaker
Several did, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I just in the notes, I put down Jackie, Caroline and Edith Bouvier Beal all attended, but so more did. And little personal connection. Both Nikki and I have ah like our family roots go back to Connecticut and we would drive by this school all the time. And I was a kid. And I just remember always hearing like that was a girl's school, boarding school, which at the time I don't think I understood where all the rich kids go.
00:06:14
Speaker
Yeah. And then what my dad would say when I was a kid and we drove by because his parents lived near there. So we drove by it a lot when we visited. He would go, that's where the Kennedys went to school.
00:06:26
Speaker
And for anyone who's never seen it, it looks exactly like you would think it did in the countryside or of Connecticut. It is stunning. So Edith would go on to graduate from Bryn Mawr College, M-A-W-R, I think that's how you say it which was near Philadelphia with her MA degree in 1894. So that's just wild to me that women were able to like get these get degrees at this time.
00:06:54
Speaker
She's a very educated, ah intellectual, obviously, person, especially for that age. And another tie to the Kennedys is Harris L. Wofford, who was JFK's special assistant on civil rights, was the college's fifth president. So there's another Kennedy link to this random lady.
00:07:14
Speaker
In 1895, she traveled to Germany with her sister Alice, and they were the first female students enrolled in universities in Munich and Leipzig. Leipzig?
00:07:25
Speaker
Leipzig.
00:07:28
Speaker
Well, you know, that a place in Germany. Sorry. Say it with confidence everyone will believe that. 1896, she returned to the U.S. and became a headmistress at Bryn Mawr Preparatory School in Baltimore. She retired in 1922, but began writing, began her writing career in 1922.
00:07:48
Speaker
She published the book that going quote from Mythology in 1942 at the of 75.
00:07:53
Speaker
Now, Edith never married, but she did share a home with her longtime companion, Doris Reed. Doris and Edith took in and raised Reed's young nephew.
00:08:04
Speaker
And when Doris died in 1973, in the obituaries and all the ah the information about her dying, Hamilton was listed as her, quote, life partner. And they are buried together alongside the other Hamilton family members. And Edith died at the age of 90 in Washington, D.C.
00:08:22
Speaker
That's really a beautiful story. but Like, how interesting is this random lady that I just quoted from? yeah So advanced for her day and age, too. So interesting. So I apologize. Tangents over. The quote that all of this 10 minutes of conversation started was from her book, Mythology, Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes. Quote, 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. Yeah.
00:08:55
Speaker
So let's talk about the Kennedy curse from Wikipedia. Quote, the Kennedy curse is a series of deaths, accidents, assassinations, and other calamities involving members of the Irish American Kennedy family.
00:09:10
Speaker
The curse also goes beyond just the family, and it has impacted family, friends, business associates, and even distant relatives. In 1964, after his brother Ted was injured in a plane crash, Robert F. Kennedy said, quote, somebody up there doesn't like us. And this is marked as the first time a curse on the family was ever mentioned.
Genetic and Environmental Factors in the Kennedy Family
00:09:34
Speaker
Eunice Kennedy Shriver said of the curse, quote, I've come to believe that it's not what has happened to our family that has been cursed as much as it's the fact that we've never been able to deal with it privately. There's little dignity found in living your life in so public a fashion. And that's especially true of our children.
00:09:53
Speaker
However, this burden is one we Kennedys have carried for generations. If there is a curse, surely it's that. And I'm say I think that may be part of it, but I think there's a lot of other aspects to do it.
00:10:04
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And we're going to get into it. So the basically, the Kennedy family, specifically mostly the men, have been in a pattern of self-destructive behavior. The idea of a curse is actually a question of destiny versus karma or fate versus hubris. And perhaps it's a bit of both. The Kennedy homes generally didn't allow for genuine emotions or anything less than perfection from the children.
00:10:32
Speaker
There's deeply ingrained Irishness and Catholicism that play into that. And I would say not just the children and perfection in the children, but the perfection in the spouses that come into and marry into the family.
00:10:44
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So the Kennedys are an Irish family that gained financial stability when they migrated to the U.S. But it was during a time and a long period of time that the Irish were not socially accepted. So this was a time of like a flux of Irish citizens immigrating to the U.S. Throughout history, I think we can see the same pattern. When we have mass migration of a large group, they tend to take the brunt and blame for a lot of the social issues going on in the nation at that time.
00:11:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And at this point it was, and it was very significant for the Irish. Yeah. They had a lot to overcome socially for many, for a long time. um Yeah.
00:11:31
Speaker
And so the the Kennedys who who did move to the US, s like there is a scrappiness that we'll see that goes through the generations. But I would argue kind of lessens each generation. But we'll get we'll get there eventually. Yeah. And, ah you know, not to get ahead, but also the the fact that they also are Catholic.
00:11:53
Speaker
It plays a big role because yeah anyone who knows Irish history or the history of Ireland knows there was major tur turmoil between the Protestants and the Catholics that spilled over. Yep. So generally, Kennedy men didn't understand that the trauma from their childhood resulted in them seeking worth and acceptance.
00:12:13
Speaker
And they basically lived in a cycle of punishing themselves for their own mistakes. Right. coming from their parents. The men were kind of raised like, there's like this emotional tug that you can see weaved throughout of longing for a warm mother, but craving this warmth from a woman or a mother is weakness. So like and internally, they like want their mom to hug them, but then like can't show that. Like, no, it's, we can't show that. That's what I want. I'm fine. i Everything's fine. And extremely high expectations coming from their fathers. that were almost insatiable. Like they couldn't. Well, their mothers, their mothers too. Like really? Yeah.
00:12:55
Speaker
Yeah. So in 1993, gene variant was discovered that makes the protein receptor the controlling portion of the brain. 50% of people with ADD, which now is, I think, ADHD encompasses all, like, ADD, all the things. 50% of people with ADD showed this variant. It's gene DRD47R.
00:13:20
Speaker
I don't know much about the science of that, but... This is the gene that is known as the, quote, thrill-seeking gene. People who abuse drugs and alcohol are also more likely to have this gene.
00:13:32
Speaker
And I bring this up because JFK Jr. was, i think, the first person in the family actually given a diagnosis of ADD. And We know that ADD, ADHD is genetic. It can be genetic. If you look at my family, you tell me that ADHD is not genetic.
00:13:54
Speaker
I'm in with a lot of neurodivergent other neurodivergent. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. um So I think it's a safe assumption that there were more men in the family that had ADD that weren't diagnosed.
00:14:08
Speaker
There's definitely abuse of drugs and alcohol. And you'll see as we go through that thrill seeking, that phrase itself comes up over and over and over again with Kennedy men.
00:14:21
Speaker
So I think it's, I would posit that perhaps they had this gene variant. It does seem possible. I mean, this is, it's something, it's a scientific tangent that I would not have thought of. Yeah. We also have to remember ADD does run more, it's least considered to be more prolific, hold on, proficient, prolific.
00:14:42
Speaker
pro I don't know what you're, I don't know you're saying. Like more, like men have it more. That's not true though anymore. No, no, I know. But it's in the past, I guess, has been. and So we haven't looked at it as much in the I was going to say. So yeah we haven't looked at it and understood it. Like historically, it was diagnosed in men more. We know that's not the case now. Right. Yeah. And I don't know if we want to. Yeah. Because i i think that there is one like if I'm thinking through the siblings.
00:15:07
Speaker
Like I think Bobby didn't have it. I think Kathleen had it. And like I think that's where females can generally cover it more. They can control, usually a lot of times they can control the hyperactivity portion of it. So yes point being that in the past ADD has was more diagnosable in males. However, also it was not diagnosed at all very much back in, you know, through the history of this family So it would make sense that JFK Jr. would be one of the first who was a diagnosed. Also, we do know now that it's as prevalent in females as it is is in males, but females generally can mask it better. That doesn't mean it's not. Yeah.
00:15:51
Speaker
And it it displays better. Like I have inattentive ADHD, whereas my son has hyperactive. And and that's very common in females. Females don't quite have the hyperactive component as much. So yeah. um But I do think it is.
00:16:04
Speaker
All right. So I want to talk about behavior patterns that we're going to see throughout the series. There are pronounced things that are like glaring to my dumb brain. I don't know if that's like to everybody. That's a thing. But in going through these episodes, I was like, there are these like clear to me behavior patterns in the generations.
00:16:23
Speaker
So first, let's talk about addiction. This is alcoholism. This is drugs. This is even smoking.
Gender Roles and Family Dynamics in the Kennedy Legacy
00:16:30
Speaker
When I'm giving examples, I'm going to just give some of the names, knowing we're going to go back and do deep dives on all these people. So don't feel like you got you're like, who, what? Who's that in relation to who? Whatever, whatever. I'm just going to say the names as examples. We'll get through it. We'll go back and do deep dives. So don't worry.
00:16:47
Speaker
So the first couple generations of Kennedy, Joe Sr., And his father, PJ, they didn't drink at all. Joe Jr., Jack, and Bobby. So Joe Sr.'s sons, three of his sons, rarely drank. But Joe's youngest son, Ted, was like the first to succumb to alcohol.
00:17:07
Speaker
And then the generation after theirs, the what's called the third generation, really struggled with addiction. So once like kind of the floodgates opened in the family of addiction, they opened Interesting, wasn't a lot of the family's wealth based on liquor and alcohol commerce? Yep, absolutely. they They landed in Boston, right? And that ended up being like the very, the largest population of the country of Irish were in Boston.
00:17:35
Speaker
And that was, they recognized, you know, what they could make the most money selling, despite not being interested in partaking themselves. Yeah. And I mean, you know, maybe stereotype, but people from Ireland at that time enjoyed a good drink it end and, and, and they were wealth, they were smart enough to capitalize on that. This was a population they knew. What makes me think about it is maybe that in those earlier generations, they did see it more as a form of ah like a bit, it looked at it in a business context for making money. Not so much as something they themselves partook in as much, but how they were going
00:18:14
Speaker
you know, grow their wealth. And in later generations, that bogus changed. yeah Their wealth was built. Their wealth was built. Now they can enjoy it a bit. Or maybe too much. Yeah. Yes, perhaps. So the next kind of major theme we'll see throughout behavior pattern is a consistent mistreatment of women.
00:18:33
Speaker
This includes multiple affairs we would be hard-pressed to find a kennedy man who didn't have an affair and this is until the third generation when i think it started getting more taboo for this but but like the jfk generation the above philandering was the way to be a kennedy man almost an accepted oh yeah very accepted way of yeah in the family yeah women would be used for political clout There was sexual harassment and assault, abuse. The daughters of the family were controlled. And a hard, intense dependence on women to clean up the messes created by the men.
00:19:14
Speaker
I find it interesting because it's more than just the sexual aspect of it. Yep. Their floundering took a different level, I think. And they were able to capitalize on these affairs relationships in more than one way. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. From the book, The Kennedy Imprisonment by Gary Wills, quote, the woman should wait for her wandering husband to come home and then take care of him in his old age. Meanwhile, she must never complain, never let on that she knows what every everyone around her knows.
00:19:46
Speaker
um Yeah, it's great. Joe Kennedy's sons were groomed to hold public positions of power, and his daughters were groomed to attract distinguished men into the family. Basically, the daughters needed to recruit men to join the Kennedys, not to fold into another family.
00:20:03
Speaker
The podcast Wine and Crime called the husbands of Kennedy daughters, quote, naturalized Kennedys. And I thought that was the most succinct, like brilliant way to put it.
00:20:14
Speaker
That is. Let's just ah roll back. So Joe Kennedy would be. That is to put it in the simplest terms, JFK's father. And he's the generation where did things change with his generation? Not really, though. I mean, they were already yeah going down the politics route and. um So yeah, he's a bit of a, we'll leave it. I wouldn't even say what I'm going to say. He's very, he's a very controversial, not in terms like, but leave Joe. He was just JFK's father. Yeah. So that generation, JFK siblings. And I'm simply only using him because he's, I would say the most well-known of siblings.
00:20:54
Speaker
So the sons, Joe's sons were expected to be lustful like him. Joe would even compete with his sons for their affair partners. He would make advances on his kids' friends.
00:21:07
Speaker
And it was like sex was an aristocratic trait because of this wealth and this clout. He's entitled to these women and girls, I'd say. do you think they took that on when you say aristocratic that i think that's a really good word do you think that they carried that over from kind of the the feelings and concepts of of europe back in the you know yeah i mean there are we'll see some of that too joe had a high up position in the uk for a while and i think it's also the thing of
00:21:44
Speaker
coming from Ireland and proving like proving everybody wrong about the Irish that no I'm we're really like we're in the same league as like being royal yeah I agree yeah I feel like it for them part of it was a show of wealth wealth power prestige and proving themselves yeah in in the way of the of the European aristocracy that yeah they That their family failed to achieve back in Ireland. Yeah, exactly. I get that that feeling.
00:22:15
Speaker
Exactly. So just for the sake of consistency, through the series, I'm going to call JFK Jack. That's what everyone called him. so I'm to start that now. So Jack was politically and personally risky about sex.
00:22:29
Speaker
His sex life was entirely self-centered and self-serving. And he actually didn't get married until it was threatening to his political career to be unmarried. At the time, the suggestion that an unmarried potential president was either gay or too promiscuous to be trusted, which he was very promiscuous.
00:22:50
Speaker
like um So that was, you know, once he started ramping up his political career is when he married Jackie. The next theme we'll see is that of the American dream.
Kennedy Ambition and the American Dream
00:23:01
Speaker
which is for them, for especially for Joe, who imparted this to his family, was wealth and respect. We just kind of talked about it a bit. And for him, it's ah it's very much don't get mad, get even. Like prove yourself, prove them wrong. Almost like, listen, I can be like this. i ah When I'm in an argument, I try to stay very rational and under control. Not because I am, because I want to win. Like it's petty. It is.
00:23:27
Speaker
Like, yeah, well, this person insulted us. We'll go like, listen, give me 10 years and I'll buy his business ah out from under him. Yeah. So the next behavior pattern we talked a little bit about already, but it's that thrill seeking behavior.
00:23:41
Speaker
This is ah some of like the major cycles of it is flying planes, not being on planes flown by someone else, but flying them themselves, drug use and women outside of the marriages. I think a lot of the philandering was kind of that thrill seeking behavior of the, you know, how catastrophic it would be to be caught. Another very consistent behavior pattern is I will say that I believe has been broken in the recent generations, but started with very cold parents.
00:24:14
Speaker
Joe Sr. absolutely had narcissistic traits. And Rose, his wife, so Jack Kennedy's mother, she was distant and strict.
00:24:25
Speaker
Ethel Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy's wife, was held as the model Kennedy wife because she was the most like Rose in how she parented. And if anyone has seen Hulu released a new docu-series. It's the Ryan Murphy one. that what you're talking about? no, no. I'm talking about the JFK and what is it? Love Affair.
00:24:47
Speaker
No, they because they put that's what is that the same one? Yeah, it's not a docuseries. It is very much like a fictionalized. i'll say yeah But they do. The portrayal of of Ethel is interesting. I'm not saying it was accurate, yes but it was interesting. And you can see what they're trying to. I thought it was pretty good. and Pull in these concepts and try to at least dramatize. Yes. No, that felt pretty.
00:25:09
Speaker
pretty accurate to me from what I've researched and what I've looked at. Even there is a part where ah Ethel on the show has Carolyn come over and it's like she's almost a different like she's a bit warmer and is giving her advice instead of like being cold and like encouraging competition and stuff like that when it's like one-on-one she's like this is what you got to do to survive this and it's it's not necessarily nice but it's like okay you don't hate me I guess.
00:25:36
Speaker
And an acknowledgement of reality, I guess. Which will when we get to that, I think that is how Ethel showed warmth. It's like, suck it up, kid. This going to be hard. this good But worse is like we've done it before. You can do it too. Like, oh, she loves me.
00:25:52
Speaker
It was more important to please your parents than anything else. An example is small talk was forbidden at the dinner table. They had to discuss national and international issues. And there's a fantastic scene in that. The love story. Yeah. Yes, that encompasses exactly that.
00:26:12
Speaker
Seems to me like it would be a little, the the way they portrayed it, hopefully was um to the extreme, but. um It wasn't. And this I'm talking about like Joe senior and Rose and they're like when Jack and Bobby, when they were children, like teens, children had to become like talking like military strategy theories and stuff like that. amazing. And interestingly, the way that the girls rebelled from their cold mother was by being more present in their father's world of the two parents. Joe was the warmer.
00:26:43
Speaker
So the way that the Kennedy daughters would piss off Rose was by Being like asking their dad for a hug and he would give them and she'd get mad. Like, you don't need a hug. It wasn't like a jealousy. It was just like, ah buck up. You're fine. Be stronger. Which is ironic when Joe is the...
00:27:02
Speaker
narcissistic powerhouse and and he's the one showing the love. Yeah. I think it's so interesting. um Anytime in my research, I've come across something specifically, like he was warm to his sons to some extent, but like he did his best a lot of the not all the time because people are going to come out of it. Like I i acknowledge Joe was not a good person overall and not a good father, but like he was warm to his daughters and he, he would,
00:27:29
Speaker
take steps further than Rose would for them. Maybe not a full on girl dad, but. No, not a full girl dad, but like recognize their place in society and tried to give them advantages.
00:27:41
Speaker
That Rose was like, no, they need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Another behavior pattern we'll see is the placement of the Kennedy name on a pedestal. Kennedy family first.
00:27:52
Speaker
We kind of talked about this with the in-laws, but specifically the in-laws, people who married into the family were only accepted once they had proven that the Kennedy family interests would come ahead of their own and that the families were that they were creating weren't outside of the Kennedys. They weren't, you know, leaving the Kennedy family to create their family. They were creating more Kennedys. Yet they also found their marriages, they also tended to marry up, at least in the early days, um or marry into families that had something, an advantage to bring to them.
00:28:26
Speaker
And then ironic then that they expected those families to fold into their into the the Kennedy family. Yeah, so Eunice's husband, Sarge Shriver, he was seen as taking Eunice out of the family. And so there was always friction with the rest of the Kennedy family and the Shrivers specifically because Eunice would back him up. And so that would always, there were always issues with Sarge being like an interloper. He inserted himself, but then took Eunice away. The nucleus of the family was Joe Sr., and then his sons, and then his wife and daughters, and then the sons-in-law, and then finally the daughters-in-law, who were the furthest removed from that nucleus. And of the three wives, the three women who married into the Kennedy family, so Jack's wife, Bobby's wife, Ted's wife, there's a hierarchy there. Ethel and Jackie always competed for like top daughter-in-law, and Joan, Ted's wife, was the furthest.
00:29:30
Speaker
Out of the orbit. So you don't hear a lot about Joan. Right. She caused trouble. And ah so Ethel and Jackie was always a bit of a competition of who was who was the top. And they were very close, though, which is interesting. Like they were very, very close.
00:29:44
Speaker
But there was always this underlying like I'm the most important daughter in law. And it was a favor to something. But they were also very different. there was They had different strengths. Yes, absolutely. 100%. So an example of kind of this folding in of in-laws, but the in-laws owning that.
00:30:03
Speaker
and And, you know, they did not want this, some of them. Like Sarge did not want to be a Kennedy. Sarge wanted to be a Shriver. Most of them were ready to be Kennedys. so They understood the implications of what was expected. So Jackie once wanted, ah if this was when Jack was president.
00:30:20
Speaker
Jackie wanted to acquire like a tract of land that had been owned by an older lady, a widow in Virginia. And the way that this woman was convinced to sell her land was she was told that it was her patriotic duty to the president to sell the land to the first lady.
00:30:36
Speaker
And so once Jack became president, putting that Kennedy name on the pedestal became patriotic to the whole nation. So a next big thing is their Irishness.
Irish Identity and Social Expectations within the Kennedy Family
00:30:47
Speaker
And what I think this led to the ambition part of it, there's a sense of being ganged up on and needing to always present a united front. They almost became like a clan.
00:30:58
Speaker
ah And we'll see like, you know, when, especially once we get into Ted's, Ted's stuff, this automatic instinct to gang together, group together,
00:31:11
Speaker
And they are always a united front. It doesn't matter what's happening. It doesn't matter if someone disagrees. And this comes from their need to do that as they were building themselves up from moving to, from Ireland.
00:31:25
Speaker
This is part of that kind of heritage for them. And it starts back um with the original Kennedy who immigrated, Patrick Kennedy, I think went by PJ. Yep. And it it started, it was right when he did And he was, I believe he was a Cooper barrel maker. Yes. Back in Ireland. And, came to the U.S. with hopes, high hopes, but did face extraordinary struggles to find a job to fit in um,
00:31:50
Speaker
I talk a lot about the hierarchy of like the Irish families and how they had like different names. There was like, i don't know. There was like Irish with like lace yeah curtains. And then at the highest level was Irish with ah fruit when they, on their table, when they were not ill. And that was the level that they strove to achieve and ultimately did. So anyways, it started, I think back at right at the beginning with trying to be accepted. And to their credit, the,
00:32:19
Speaker
generation after generation, they built up that acceptance to the point of becoming power. Yeah. And it, It went through generations. There was a sense of ostracization.
00:32:31
Speaker
Is that a word? Feeling ostracized and almost probably being ostracized as well. For sure, yeah. um All the way through like Jack and Bobby when they were senators. They were senators from different states, which I didn't realize. And it was because they weren't, they chose spots that were like, quote, Irish, but they weren't accepted as like being fully accepted in those areas. Because of their Irishness.
00:32:54
Speaker
I know that's like counterintuitive and doesn't make sense. But they're like, I think Bobby was in New York, Senator of New York. And he was just like, there's some Irish here, I'm going to try it. And so it was, it was this thing of like, still being considered poor Irishman, but then also maybe like not being Irish enough in those areas.
00:33:15
Speaker
So it was a constant, like, they felt like pariahs, basically. Despite being highly respected in society and politics, there is still this Irish thing. and which Which continued throughout the their life. that That part of them never ceased to be in an important... yeah trait that find them. Yeah. And I'd say that created a bit of a martyr complex for the men specifically. For example, Joe was rootless in business. You can't like Joe worked in Hollywood. Joe worked in finance. Joe had like Joe didn't have a specific skill set that would suit one industry. But because of this, this adds to that like kind of pariah thing of like because of this, he was never fully accepted into any industry.
00:33:59
Speaker
So he was a brilliant businessman, but because he felt like a martyr, I think, that prevented him from like diving all in on one thing and being accepted as like a titan of industry in this one thing and finance or producing movies. Almost an impulse to dominate whatever industry or whatever where where whatever he was involved in at that point.
00:34:23
Speaker
He felt the need to dominate everywhere. But then in that, I guess, didn't focus down. Yeah. And I i wonder also in terms of that, if that's a bit of an ADHD thing of like he would get bored. I didn't read. This is just like just me thinking. I didn't see anything that was like oh he got bored with Hollywood. So he did this. But that's very ADHD. Makes a lot of sense.
00:34:44
Speaker
Yeah. The Kennedys themselves, the boys ganged up on each other. Again, from the Kennedy imprisonment by Gary Wills. Quote, the old man would push Joe. Joe would push Jack. Jack would push Bobby. Bobby would push Ted.
00:34:57
Speaker
Ted would fall on his ass. it's except that's it like And you'll see Ted's the quote screw up. Oh, Ted. Yeah. So it's just like, it was almost a thing of never being able to take accountability or responsibility, but pushing it down onto the next person. And creating, as the and creating competition among, among the boys. Yeah. Competition's a huge thing for the, for the girls. Enjoying to spur on and then watch that fight by the parents. I mean, I, we kind of see that.
00:35:25
Speaker
We hear that a lot about that, like today with like Donald Trump and, um, Yeah, of throwing in the catalyst and then watching how it plays out. Yeah. Yeah. And then the, so Joe, we mentioned this before, Joe had a pretty high
Political and Religious Challenges of Joe Kennedy
00:35:40
Speaker
role. I think he was ambassador to Great Britain right around the time of World War ii So we'll talk about that. But Roosevelt ended up calling him back from England when it it was pretty clear that the Britain was going to go join the war. Roosevelt was like, let's get the Americans home.
00:35:58
Speaker
and But the British criticized Joe for this. So Joe was like an, Irishman with a high powerful position in Britain. But then when the American said, no, it's time to come home. And he went home. The British were just, he was, he was made a pariah for, he was like, yeah, the Irish guy won't stay.
00:36:16
Speaker
Maybe this is a tangent, but I do believe part of it though, is that Joe failed to achieve higher positions in politics, which he, he was striving for. And yeah, you know, although being ambassador to England, a huge, very sought after position, It was not his first choice. It was, yeah. No.
00:36:36
Speaker
And Roosevelt hated him. We'll get into it. It's it's a it's a juicy one. So Joe desperately wanted to exude that trope of like the wealthy British adventurer, aristocrat, but he was simply too Irish. That was never going to happen.
00:36:52
Speaker
He could have done everything perfectly and he wouldn't have been accepted 100% as that trope he wanted to so badly be seen as. so But interestingly, so he's third generation then. But they consider it in the timeline of the family, Joe is the second generation. Because it it PJ was the first born generation in the US. s Patrick moved here. so then like they call...
00:37:20
Speaker
That's what the the the the first generation would be the one that's born like in the country. But I mean, it was still a bit removed to, I don't know. I think it's a bit removed to still feel feel that pull of of that. i mean Maybe I'm not. i mean Maybe I'm not. Maybe second generation. you It still seemed like an overwhelming attribute that he was striving and and meant. Yeah, I don't. i Played a huge role in his life and.
00:37:41
Speaker
I guess I can't understand where so many generations in, but. Well, his, I mean, he was raised under a first generation father who probably passed some of that down. And then like, we'll see, Jack Kennedy really didn't discuss his Irishness that much. And and I think it was probably the fear of being ostracized more, even if it wasn't going to happen. And I guess back then, societies, of they remained grouped. Yeah. So i guess the Irish, they didn't Irish group. Next pattern we see is Catholicism.
00:38:12
Speaker
I think it is safe to say that anti-Catholic sentiments that Joe faced shaped him. Joe used and taught his sons to use Catholicism when politically advantageous.
00:38:25
Speaker
He used it as a tool of revenge as well. And again, when he was ambassador to England. like a Catholic is serving in this Protestant country in this high position. He loved that.
00:38:36
Speaker
The other helpful thing in this kind of setup is that women were held to a higher standard of Catholicism than the men were. Kennedy women had a duty as a wife and mother, and they had all of those obligations imposed on them. Do you know if if they all married people?
00:38:53
Speaker
Catholic women or if women converted? They did not all. There were some conversions. It got to some point that they're just like, it's fine. You you you seem Catholic enough, whatever.
00:39:05
Speaker
But then when Jack ran for president, there was that big, like, he was the first Catholic president. And I always forget this, that that was such a big deal. It's hard to imagine in this day and age that it was, but it but it really was. And it wasn't that long ago. i even remember, though, with Biden, that that was part of, like, that was part. it wasn't a big It wasn't a big deal to his presidency, but it was always, like, that was always in like, how he's described. He's Catholic president. It was in the background. Yeah, it was. ah Yeah, yeah.
00:39:35
Speaker
But for Jack, it was um he had there were accusations of a dual loyalty to the Pope, like he was going to be serving the Pope before the American people. So that just adds another layer to like the martyrdom thing.
00:39:47
Speaker
A huge trope in the family is the idea of widowedom. Bridget, who was the we'll talk about her next time. She emigrated here with Patrick Hannity, PJ's mother, Joe's grandmother, Jackie Ethel.
00:40:04
Speaker
they There was an expectation of how to be the paradigm of the suffering but faithful widow. And there was basically a playbook that Ethel actually like kind of followed when Bobby died after Jack because she's like, Jackie is the epitome of a Kennedy widow.
00:40:22
Speaker
This is what we do. There is a high demand for loyalty involved with this family. You'll see groups of friends and advisors that served the Kennedys being called, quote, honorary Kennedys.
00:40:38
Speaker
The most loyal of like this group of outsiders, I guess, got the most glory. And the honorary Kennedys kind of basked in the power that being like tied to the family gave them.
00:40:51
Speaker
This included family servants. They would become honorary Kennedys. We'll see this pattern almost like Maggie and Blanca of the wealthier person who who employs somebody into their family to help take care of everything, really becoming ah like the the person, the woman specifically, like depending on these housekeepers and things like that. It just, they would be kind of folded into the family. On the one hand, I think it's lovely. Other hand, there's an element of like taking advantage of your employee.
00:41:26
Speaker
And control. Yeah, that's really interesting. I'd never heard that before, but yeah that makes a lot of sense. They would, ah like Rose would kind of consider some of her, like the servants as like errand running friends. Ethel too. You see that a lot with Ethel. And it turned into like this weird dependence thing that like the luxury of having these people working for your family became a necessity for like the emotional needs too. I see that. That kind of reminds me of like um a lady in waiting.
00:41:51
Speaker
Yeah. royalilty yeah Oh, I didn't even think of that that, but absolutely. The biggest example of this is Joe Gargan. He was a Kennedy cousin. His loyalty was like beautiful and lovely, but also it was like, it was scary because he would do, he would do anything for them and they would drop him immediately if they needed to. We'll talk about him when we get into Ted stuff.
00:42:14
Speaker
But hit it like if you ever saw the movie Chapaquiddick, he was played by Ed Helms. And I think he was the best part of that movie. The woman who I forget the actress's name, Kate Mara, um who played Mary Jo Kopechny is amazing in it, too. But Ed Helms being Joe Gargan, was just like being told we need you so much. Do this for the family. And then being like, OK, but I need you to tell the press that you did this to cover up for me. Like it's so like, it's the most heartbreaking thing. And great casting. Sounds like a great, great. So good. It's the movie's fine. I it's, it's a, it's whatever, but the, the cast is great.
00:42:50
Speaker
The family motto of like ambition is throughout this ambition could be a positive thing when kept in check so an example of this is bridget who married patrick her ambition created this family dynasty she kept everything where it needed to be she didn't let the ambition control her she controlled her ambition to get the family get this family started but when unchecked this ambition becomes a corruptive force it becomes power and the nature of power has no internal check And real power is seen as the power to be able to destroy.
Ambition, Public Service, and Philanthropy in the Kennedy Family
00:43:26
Speaker
So I would argue the men started benefiting from this ambition is when we started seeing things kind of escalate to scary points. um Even within family structures, Kennedys were winners.
00:43:39
Speaker
If you were not a winner, if you if the Kennedys like if Joe considered you a loser, he would tell you. And this I'm talking about it like his children be like, you are a loser. Ted is the way or Ted was the way he was because.
00:43:52
Speaker
he was because of that i would argue just say it because he was a loser no and okay because he's a loser i have this weird this is gonna be a hot take i have a weird soft spot for ted later but he's like i go from being like you are the worst man that's ever lived to being like Oh, God.
00:44:14
Speaker
Give him a break. That's funny. I'm usually the softie out of us. And I have no soft spot for that man. I don't know. I know. I know. it's I hate it. I'm so mad at myself for it. So an example of this was Jack Kennedy had so many health problems.
00:44:31
Speaker
Joe insisted on keeping all of his medical records hidden. Like nobody knew about how unhealthy he was when he was president. And his wartime heroism was Very exaggerated when he was campaigning.
00:44:45
Speaker
But Joe identified that as the nation needed somebody to be that charismatic hero. So he was like, well, we'll give it to them. The problem is charisma can disappoint pretty easily if it's not backed up by by truth and by character.
00:44:59
Speaker
But he had good hair. He had great hair. So did his son. But this charisma also was what protected the family so much. They could charm everybody. to this day.
00:45:11
Speaker
To this day. Well...
00:45:16
Speaker
You can see it still to this day, even in past generations when you look back. Yeah. There's one cousin who right now would not be able to charm me. And there's one specifically that I'm like, you're precious and I want you to be protected at all costs. And that's checks Jack Schlossberg.
00:45:33
Speaker
I can't wait to him. We'll get to him in like weeks. Okay. but Something to look forward to. good Kennedy. of Well. A charismatic one that would work on me.
00:45:45
Speaker
Yeah. um But even like all the colonialism related to Jack specifically's administration kind of rested on this charisma. And we'll talk about it. there There is like going into Cuba, going into Turkey, going into Guatemala. It was all because Jack could charm people. And that included like his circle of administration and like some world leaders. mean, it's an interesting concept to explore.
00:46:11
Speaker
yeah In U.S. history of presidents, actually. but Yeah. Yeah, right. The generational wealth created, created a sense of nepotism. But this was even within the family. Certain ones were higher in Joe's hierarchy. And the ones that were higher got some more more doors opened for them through Joe's connections. Yeah. I wonder, would they be considered old wealth or new wealth? Now, I think old wealth because we're a pretty young country still. Right. But in the time... In the time, it was like very... They were, I would say, pretty wealth. New wealth, I would say. Yeah. can Yeah.
00:46:46
Speaker
So Joe's politics were really flexible based on the best paths for his sons to become winners. He didn't have like a political party necessarily. He didn't have like political beliefs. Going forward, we'll see when he does have political beliefs. They're not great But it was like the country wants this winner. So this is what I believe. This is what our family believes, because this is what the country is demanding. And this is how he'll get elected by pandering to this thing. So it was more strategical.
00:47:15
Speaker
Absolutely. And finally, this is the ultimate dichotomy of the Kennedys. Throughout everybody, there is this pattern of service. And it's the desire. It's this the the dichotomy is like the desire for power.
00:47:30
Speaker
but also wanting to serve others around you. They had so many philanthropic endeavors and like they would use their politics for social causes. The third generation really focused on philanthropy more than politics, we'll see.
00:47:46
Speaker
And it was like this badge of honor to to be a public servant for the American people. And it was genuine. Like a lot of it was genuine.
00:47:57
Speaker
Some of it, of course, wasn't. But some of the things even still that Kennedy families are doing are to serve, like truly to serve. We're thinking of the same person that it's not so much who's in a very high position of power right now. um that I'd say we're going to move him aside.
00:48:17
Speaker
I would just like to look at it again. i would like to look at it maybe given some of the information that we've received more recently about the way foundations and philanthropy have been used to in more nefarious ways. So I just would like to for the powerful and the rich. I'd like to look it back as we look at them. I'd like to see if i try to look under, you know, kind of that lens too, to see if we see anything that, that they've done in the past to serve in a different light.
00:48:46
Speaker
Yeah, it is. It is definitely worth it, given the things we know. So I think this is a great place to, we're going to wrap up here.
Conclusion and Future Discussions
00:48:54
Speaker
um i do have this massive timeline that um I primarily took from the book, The Kennedy Curse by Edward Klein. That's like this massive I also used Wikipedia to fill in some blanks between you and me. It's this massive timeline of the Kennedy curse of things that have happened. It is everything we're going to talk about. We were going to walk through it, but I'm wondering, oh maybe we will. I don't know. But I think I'm going to post this. I think going make it into like an infographic and I will post it on social media. But there is, it's basically everything that has happened to this family from,
00:49:31
Speaker
1858 is the first date up until today. Sounds good. So next episode, we are going to, i believe, get into the first generation Kennedys. Fantastic.
00:49:44
Speaker
So we're getting some Irish, Irish history. Okay. All right, guys, thanks for joining us. I hope you enjoy this so far and delving back into to history. I am super excited for this series. So I hope Other people are too.
00:49:58
Speaker
You got me. All right. Yay. All right. Talk to you guys later. Bye.