keepingupwiththekennedykurse

[keepingupwiththekennedykurse]

Examining the Leaders of the Family Dynasty

Every dynasty begins with a patriarch and matriarch. In the case of the Kennedy family, the patriarch was Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., a successful business tycoon who would not let his Irish Catholic background prevent him from any business opportunity that a only a well-established Protestant man could get. The matriarch was Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald-Kennedy, who grew up in a wealthy family and took care and viewed her main duty of the Kennedy family to bear and raise healthy, happy, and successful children. Together they created there large family of nine children and became known as the most prominent family of the 20th century. For this project I have been researching the Kennedys and the curse that is said to plague them. My main research question when exploring the topic was if the money and prominence that the family had the contributing factor to the curse that hung over them? I thought the best place to look was at the root of the Kennedy family.

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First there is Joseph P. Kennedy. He was the son of two Irish immigrants who moved to Boston right before the birth of their first son. Growing up, Joseph was always bullied and excluded for being Irish Catholic in Eastern Boston, where the area was made up of well-established Protestant families. As he got older and tried to get into the banking business, he realized that because he didn’t have a big family name in Boston, he would have to work harder to get the job he desired. His main goal when he graduated from Harvard and started looking for a job was that he wanted a job that would make him rich enough so that when his children and grandchildren grew up, they would not have to worry about getting a good job, and could instead focus on public service. After many years of working in banking, the stock market, the movie industry, and investing (just to name a few of the many careers he was involved in) Joe Sr. also got involved in politics. In 1934 he was appointed a job under President Roosevelt, and was eventually promoted to U.S. Ambassador of Britain in 1937. By this time, the newspapers were obsessed with the ambassador and his beautiful, growing family. They were constantly taking pictures and talking about the family’s whereabouts in the society pages. Besides being popular, the family was at this point very well off financially due to the many careers that Joe made money off of.

Rose Fitzgerald-Kennedy was used to living a life of wealth because her father, John Fitzgerald was the governor of Massachusetts while she was growing up. She traveled with her father while he campaigned and this was when she got a lot of recognition from the media. When it came time for her to decide if she was going to continue her education by attending college (a rarity for females at this time), she decided to apply to Wellesley College in Massachusetts. According to a book that I read for this blog, the night before Rose was to attend college, she her parents told her that she would not be attending Wellesley the next day, or at all for that matter. The reason: “Her father had chosen his politics over her future. [John] Fitzgerald had been warned by Boston’s Archbishop O’Connell that his days as mayor could be numbered if he did not embrace O’Connell’s brand of Catholic conservatism,” (Clifford Larson, 15). Basically, Wellesley College was a Protestant college and the fact that the mayor’s Catholic daughter was not attending a Catholic college did not sit well with the diocese. The Archbishop had connections, and if the mayor did not listen to O’Connell, he could easily get the mayor replaced. Instead, Rose attended the Sacred Heart School in Manhattanville, New York. Rose and Joe knew each other growing up because their families went on vacation together, but during this time, the two got to know each other on a more romantic level. It wasn’t until after Joe graduated from Harvard that the two eventually got married in 1914. One year later, their first son, Joe Jr., was born. Over the span of seventeen years, she would bring eight more Kennedys into the world.

The book that I had used for the post about Rosemary Kennedy, “Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter” by: Kate Clifford Larson, provided much insight to me about how Rose and Joe raised their children.  Bringing up nine children of various ages was not easy for the family, especially because Joe was often at one of his many jobs and not at home with his wife and children. Not only did this make Rose the primary caregiver, but it also provided a strain on their marriage. When I read this quote, “The children, in a very profound way, would be Rose’s security in the marriage, even if Joe found sexual and emotional fulfillment with other women. Through their children, she found ways to remain the center of attention and in control,” (Clifford Larson, 33) I felt that it explained a lot about Rose’s parenting style. For a little background information, everybody knew that Joe Sr. was unfaithful to his wife, especially while working in the movie industry. While Joe was out making interacting with the hottest actresses of the time in order to make a deal, Rose was at home with the children. She acted as though she had no idea that her husband was cheating on her, and instead focused all of her energy on raising the children. While reading, I often found that Rose’s parenting style was very controlling. She was obsessed with monitoring and controlling the weight of each child; their health; and their academic, social, and athletic success. I find that maybe she was so controlling over her children for two reasons. First, she found control over her children when she couldn’t find control over her husband and his infidelities. Second, she was probably controlling so that they could be their best possible selves and have the opportunities that she didn’t have while growing up.

When Joe was at home and helped raise the children, together, Joe and Rose both had extremely high expectations for their children. This is evident in the quote,

“The children’s upbringing included an emphasis on sports as well as academic studies. ‘They learned to be winners, not losers in sports,’ Rose proudly claimed. Rose and Joe tried to attend as many school sports competitions as possible, spurring the children ‘on to victory’ and providing little sympathy—though no more than a “nod” – when they lost. When a child failed to win, ‘the reasons for this were analyzed’. As each grew older, it fell to him or her to urge on the younger siblings, yet they were very competitive with one another, too. Rose liked that.” (Clifford Larson, 37)

So why did Rose and Joe raise their children so strictly? It was because they knew they were being watched by the media and they wanted to appear as a perfect and successful family. They both knew that it would not look good if they were raising children that were not excelling in everything they did in school, on the playing field, or among friends in the neighborhood. They wanted their name to be known in a positive light, and with nine children running around, they could either be seen in a positive light or a negative light. In this case, the achievements of their children would be just another thing to put their family name in a positive light. The same goes for if any of their children did something wrong. That could put the family in a negative light. I think they believed if they controlled their children and raised them to only aim for success was their way of ensuring the Kennedy name being represented positively.

To get to the point, I believe that the pressure from Joe’s career and the media constantly watching him and his family brought on what is said to be, “The Kennedy Curse”. If the media wasn’t constantly watching them, they wouldn’t have been so obsessed with what others thought about them. Joe Jr. died in the war because he was worried what the media would say if the U.S. ambassador’s son wasn’t fighting for his country. Rosemary was lobotomized because her parents were too afraid what the media would think of her having an intellectual disability. Kathleen died when both of her parents were contemplating shunning her for dating married man and did not want the American people to know that a Kennedy daughter was involved in such a sinful relationship.  Both John and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated because they were in the public light and two people who didn’t like them as leaders decided to kill them. Teddy Kennedy got himself in a lot of trouble for not immediately reporting his automobile accident into the Dike River because he did not want it to affect his future political career and possible presidential campaign. Due to his selfishness of what it would mean for his future, an innocent woman to die. Lastly, John F. Kennedy Jr. was said to participate in many activities like flying, swimming, and various athletics to set himself apart from the common male Kennedy stereotype that the world attached to him. It was during one of these activities that his life was cut short. All of these events involved concern about what others would think. This concern is what comes with living a prominent life.  In conclusion, I do indeed believe that the prominence and wealth of the Kennedy family did cause the family to be cursed.

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Four plane crashes, Four Kennedys

After researching the possible Kennedy Curse extensively over the semester, one thing that I found most interesting is how many parallels exist in the curse. There were two assassinations, two car crashes caused by Kennedys that left their passengers severely injured or even dead and several miscarriages, young deaths, and serious diseases. The one event that really seemed to curse the Kennedy family the most was plane crashes- there were four Kennedy plane crashes, all occurring over the course of the 20th century and three of them resulting in death.

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The first plane crash occurred in 1944 involving the oldest Kennedy son of Rose and Joe. As a Navy pilot during World War II, Joe Jr. was extremely successful and eventually made his way up to the highest ranks of Navy pilots. This made his father extremely proud, but Joe Jr.’s achievements were soon overshadowed by his younger brother, John, and his successes as a Navy captain. The mission known as PT-109, an incident that almost cost John Kennedy his life and left him and his crew MIA for some time, resulted in him being recognized everywhere as a war hero when his crew returned back to their base. He played a major role in rescuing his fellow crew members and bringing them to safety by making acquaintances with natives on a nearby island, who were able to get them to safety. John received a lot of praise and several medals for bravery. Not only did he get a lot of attention at home, but newspapers everywhere were covering the traumatic event that John experienced while protecting the country. Suddenly, Joe Jr. was not in the center of his father’s spot light and now his younger brother was overshadowing him. In 1944, Joe Jr. was able to return home from being a fighter pilot, but he decided to stay on for one more mission and hopefully gain an achievement bigger than his younger brother’s. On August 12, 1944, Joe Jr. was piloting a drone with a lot of explosives. He and his crew were to drop the explosives in the skies over Germany and parachute to safety. Instead, the explosives in the drone blew up before they were dropped, killing everyone in the drone, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. included. At the age of 29, he was the first of the Kennedy children to experience what would later become the bad luck of his family’s curse.

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Four years later, another Kennedy offspring would experience the same death of her older brother. In 1948, the fourth (and often referred to as the favorite) Kennedy daughter, Kathleen, would die in a plane crash. Kathleen was a beautiful free spirit and often got a lot of attention and affection from her brothers’ friends. She was involved in the Red Cross during World War II and this is where she met her first husband, who was also royalty. The future Duke of Devonshire, William Cavendish was a soldier for England, and they quickly got married while they were both in London. Four weeks after their marriage, William was shot and killed in battle, leaving Kathleen to be a widow. Fortunately, four years later, she met Peter Fitzwilliam, and they started a relationship. On May 13, 1948, while flying through a storm with her beau to meet with her father in France, the plane that Kathleen and Peter were riding crashed. Because her current love interest was still technically a married man and in the process of a divorce, the Kennedy family did not want word to get out that Peter and Kathleen were traveling together. As a result, not many people knew about her death and only her father attended her small funeral because Rose was appalled that her daughter was in a relationship with a married man. Like her brother, Kathleen died before even reaching age thirty. She was 28 years old when her life was taken by this unexpected tragedy.

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The Kennedy family experienced a 16 year rest when it came to plane crashes, but over those 16 years, John F. Kennedy would be assassinated in 1963. A year later, Rose and Joe Sr. almost lost another one of their children, which would make a grand total of three children killed (Joe Jr., Kathleen, and John) and one child that they no longer were in contact with (Rosemary). On June 19, 1964, Ted Kennedy almost died in a plane crash. He was flying in a small, private plane with four other people. He had to get to from Washington back to his home state of Massachusetts. He was in Washington, D.C. to witness the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and was flying to receive his re-nomination for Senate at the Massachusetts Democratic Convention the following day. This plane crash is similar to his older sister’s because again, poor weather was a contributing factor to the plane crash. Two of the five passengers would die, but surprisingly, Ted Kennedy would not be one of them. He did experience serious injuries, including a broken back that would leave him hospitalized for months. He would escape death again 4 years later when he accidently drove off of a bridge into a lake in a scandal known as Chappaquiddick.

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The fourth and final Kennedy plane crash occurs at the end of the 20th century, the century that both provided many successes to the Kennedy family, but just as many sorrows as well. This plane crash took the life of John Kennedy Jr., the son of President Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy. Although John Jr. did not pursue politics like his father and uncles, the media still kept their eye on the president’s son, whom many called John-John. He was a successful business man and owned the political and pop-cultural magazine, George. Many people loved to read in the tabloid magazines about him and his wife, Carolyn Bessette. On the night of July 16, 1999 John; Carolyn; and Carolyn’s sister, Lauren were going to fly from a New Jersey airport to Massachusetts for the wedding of John Jr.’s cousin. Somewhere close to midnight, the plane was reported missing and was not found until five days later. The plane crashed in a small body of water and all three passengers. The ironic thing? The cause again was poor weather. The night that John and his passengers took flight, the flying conditions were not ideal because it was extremely foggy and the visibility was awful. And this crash was similar to his uncle Teddy’s because they were both flying to Massachusetts from a nearby location.

When reading about the reports of each of these plane crashes, I can’t believe how many parallels exist. The fact that Kathleen and Joe Jr. were almost the same age when they died the same way. The fact that bad weather was the result of three of the four crashes. The fact that two of the planes were not even flying that far and ended in fatal and almost-fatal crashes. One plane crash is a tragedy, I can’t even imagine what it was like for the Kennedy family to have to experience four in the same century.

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How the media fed off of the Kennedy Curse

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Unfortunately, the Kennedy Curse did not stop at the offspring of Joe and Rosemary Kennedy, but carried on to the next generation. At just thirty-eight years old, President Kennedy’s only son, John Jr., died unexpectedly in a plane crash on July 16, 1999. He was a very successful business man, he was athletic, and he was handsome. The media loved watching him grow into such a man, especially since his father was not alive to form him into the person he became. In fact the media loved him so much, that at the time of his death, they made a huge deal out of the event. For this assignment, I read an academic article on how the media portrayed the death of the president’s son. In Carolyn Kitch’s article, “A Death in the American Family: Myth, Memory, and National Values in the Media Mourning of John F. Kennedy Jr.”, the author explains how the media used this unexpected death to talk about President Kennedy and his assassination, draw this death to another event in the family curse, and to portray John Jr. as an American hero.

The first point that this article highlights is the fact that the media used JFK Jr.’s death to talk about his father, John F. Kennedy, his presidency, the Camelot years, and his assassination. In many of the articles referenced in this academic article, many of them referred to how similar JFK Jr. was to his father. They even went so far to compare his wife, Carolyn Bessette, to Jackie Kennedy. These journalists were obsessed with finding parallels between the father and son. I think the reason for wanting to find similarities between the two is further explained later in the post when I talk about JFK Jr. seen as a figure of hope. Many people hoped that he would run for president and have a presidency that his father never got to finish. In reference to Camelot, people may have just missed the glamour of reading about and seeing a young president and his beautiful, young, perfect family. During JFK’s presidency, I think the fact that the Kennedy family appeared perfect made the American people feel at peace and that the country was in good hands.

Second, John Jr.’s plane crash just added more fuel to the media’s fire that was the Kennedy Curse theory. Kitch said it perfectly in her article, “This context allowed the magazines to explain JFK Jr.’s airplane crash (which occurred in bad weather) as part of a larger narrative of predestined calamity. Thus, for America, his death was a tragedy but not truly an unexpected one,” (302). The fact that there was a theory of bad luck cursing the most prominent family of the 20th century, a family that so many Americans loved, got people’s attention. The parallels between events, the fact that these events happened so close in succession made great material to write about and great material to get people to read. Journalists used John Jr.’s death as a hook to get people to pick up their magazine and read about not only John Jr.’s death, but all the events that fall into the conspiracy of the Kennedy Curse.

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Lastly, when Kitch talks about the media portraying John Jr. as an American hero, they often reference to the famous salute picture from JFK’s funeral. This picture is extremely famous and depicts a three-year old John Jr. saluting the casket of his slain father. According to the article, “During the two-week period of coverage, the five magazines that are in the focus of this study contained thirty-nine visual and verbal references to the salute,” (299). These magazines could not see beyond this photo and looked at him as a “symbol of hope,” (303). Those who watched their president get assassinated, then watched his brother get assassinated five years later, were hoping that another Kennedy would step up and take back the presidency. Everyone was obsessed with the Kennedy charisma and wanted to see that type of person lead the country again. Many people assumed that since John Jr. was a Kennedy and that he was old enough to take office, he would immediately run for office. These people could not look beyond the fact that John Jr. was not interested in running for any type of political position, and instead published a magazine, George, that focused on politics and pop culture. Just because he was a Kennedy did not mean he was automatically going to run for president, and John Jr. knew that people just assumed that he would follow in the political footsteps of the males in his family. Now that he was dead, there was no possibility that he would ever one day become president, and the media used his death to mourn the loss of that hope that many American people had.

Once I finished reading this article, I looked into the work cited and the sources that the author had used when writing. There were many references to articles that were exemplifying the techniques of the media that the author was referencing to. One such article that I found was from Newsweek magazine titled, “Charmed Yet Cursed” by Kenneth Auchincloss. This article was published about a week after the plane crash that resulted in the death of John F. Kennedy Jr. I was drawn to this article mainly because from the title, I assumed it had to do with the Kennedy Curse, the main topic of this blog. I wanted to see how the conspiracy theory was brought up in the height of such a tragic event. I wasn’t sure how Newsweek was going to bring it up without sounding insensitive by simply blaming John Jr.’s death on a century-long family curse.

After reading this second article, I saw that it was written with all of the techniques that Kitch was criticizing the media for using when writing articles about the life of John Jr. This article called him the “golden boy of his generation”; referred to the plane crash as, “the most recent of a string of tragedies, The Kennedy Curse,”; mentioned the salute (“As a boy, of 3 he raised his arm in salute to the casket of his fallen father,”); discussed the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Space program, and other events of his father’s presidency; and even brought up the well-known affair between his grandfather, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and movie star, Gloria Swanson. This article was not about the life of John Jr., this article was about gaining the interest of anyone who was roped into reading anything involving the Kennedys. This was a way for Newsweek to get people to read their magazine, and conveniently (and unfortunately), they were able to use this plane crash as a disguise to get people to read.

Both of these articles that I read for this assignment contribute to my research question because it just goes to show how prominent the Kennedy family was. In my last post, I talked about how Jackie Kennedy manipulated the media so that the world saw the Kennedy family in a positive light. In this post, I found out how the media manipulated the Kennedy family to get the world to see them a certain way. The theory of this family curse just added to their prominence. No matter what was going on in the Kennedy family, whether it was an affair, death, new baby, or scandal, people were still talking about them. John Jr.’s death just goes to show that even at the end of the 20th century, people were still drawn to reading about the family and wanted to know what was going on in their lives.  

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"And for one brief shining moment, there was a Camelot."

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One week after watching her husband be assassinated right next to her, Jackie Kennedy had journalist, Theodore H. White interview her and write an article for Life Magazine about her husband. Jackie saw this interview as her last chance to set the image of how people would remember her late husband and the nation’s president, John F. Kennedy. Not only did she have this interview arranged to be published in the December 6, 1963 issue of the magazine (just two weeks after the assassination), but she also made sure that she could edit it before it was published for everyone to read. Life Magazine was an extremely popular magazine read many American households. Jackie likely suspected that even more people would be reading due to the recent events involving the assassination and the president’s funeral.

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Jackie was a woman of grace and especially with how she handled herself after the assassination, many people viewed her as being so graceful and so brave. Many women at this time strived to be like Jacqueline; whether it being the way she dressed, the way she raised her children, or the way she was a wife. In this interview, “For President Kennedy an Epilogue”, the reader sees how important the public’s perception was about this event. Although Kennedy was killed in such a brutal and graphic way, Jackie did not want America to remember him as the graphic pictures of his damaged head circled the magazines, but she wanted him to be remembered for his youthful beauty, his progressive ways, and his successes all throughout life. Again, this all circles back around to the Kennedys’ obsession of how the public perceived them and how much their prominence affected their lives.

After reading this interview with Jackie, President Kennedy’s three years in office suddenly were referred to as, “The Camelot Years”. This title was based off of Alan Jay Lerner’s musical, “Camelot”, which came out in 1960. The story line involved a mythical King Arthur and his knights that help him rule the kingdom in Medieval times. Over the years, there is a lot of scandal: a love affair, an illegitimate son, a depressed king, and lots of battles. Although this doesn’t sound good at all, there is a line that King Arthur sings in a song when referring to how he wants his kingdom to be remembered in the years to come, “Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot,” meaning he wanted his leadership and kingdom to be remembered as this perfect time where nothing was wrong. In this interview, Jackie said, "For a while, I thought history was something that bitter old men wrote. But then I realized history made Jack what he was... For Jack history was made of heroes... Jack had this hero idea of history, the idealistic view," then followed this statement with the lyrics of King Arthur about Camelot, and added, "And it will never be that way again."

The parallels between the Kennedy Presidency and Camelot are plentiful when you really think about it. King Arthur was trying to be a peace-maker and his land and people happy and comfortable by trying to end the war with France. President Kennedy was also a peace-maker, trying to make peace with the Soviet Union and end the constant tension that surrounded the United States during the Cold War. In King Arthur’s kingdom, there ended up being a lot of failures and there were battles with France after all. Like King Arthur, President Kennedy had several failures while in office, such as the Bay of Pigs invasion and the possible nuking from Cuba, as they were setting up missiles could have easily reached the coast of Florida and caused a nuclear war. In King Arthur’s personal life, his wife was no longer in love with him and fell in love with one of his knights. Surprisingly, JFK had some imperfections in his personal life as well- it was no secret that he had several extra-marital affairs. Lastly, just like King Arthur wanted to be remembered not for all of the bad in his kingdom, but for the good; Jackie wanted Americans to remember President Kennedy for all the good things he did, instead of his failures during his time in office.

So, how does this all relate back to my initial research question of whether money and prominence caused the Kennedy Curse?  I don’t think this interview answers this question, but I think it is another interesting tidbit to look at when looking at the Kennedys and the wealth, power, and beauty that they exhibited; but also the tragedy, scandal, and mystique that came with it. I just find it extremely interesting that Jackie was able to create this concept of John’s life and presidency as being Camelot, and people picked up on this concept, and since then it has stuck. Jackie said, “There will be great Presidents again- and the Johnsons are wonderful, they’ve been wonderful to me- but there’ll never be another Camelot again.” And since then, people have viewed President Kennedy as one of the greatest presidents. This just goes to show how much prominence the Kennedy title had, what the family could say and do to protect their reputation, and their legacy that still exists today in history. I also believe that this is a great primary source not only because it shows the First Lady’s vulnerability (which she never showed), but we also read her direct perspective of the assassination. I don’t think in today’s news world we would get to hear the blunt details of something so graphic, coming directly from the First Lady of the United States. Today, a press secretary would probably write a statement that the First Lady would read on live television, and that would be it. Jackie was a lot more involved in the publishing of this interview and it is almost as if she published it herself.

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The Hidden Daughter Uncovered

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Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy by Kate Clifford Larson was published in 2015 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

In this biography of the first daughter of Joe and Rose Kennedy, the author explores what it was like for the intellectually disabled Rosemary to grow up in a family that was determined to be the perfect family (or at least appear so in the public eye). 

During Rosemary’s early childhood, her parents noticed that Rosemary struggled both physically and intellectually. With her parents both determined to protect their family name, they tried to raise Rosemary as normal as possible, in hope that she would grow out of these struggles. Her parents believed that the struggles she had both socially and academically could be ‘cured’, therefore, they sought out the best doctors and schools of the time to treat their daughter and help her get back on track academically. 

While she was attending new schools every few years and seeing different specialists, the reader sees how inadequate the medical world and society’s view of intellectual disability was. In school, the teachers did not know how to teach a child with intellectual disabilities and did not have the resources to provide Rosemary with the proper attention she needed. With all of the doctors she saw, they all thought they had the solution to treat her, whether it was injections, pills, and eventually one doctor believed, a lobotomy.

At the age of 23, Rosemary Kennedy was lobotomized after a streak of promiscuous behavior with men who were basically strangers to her, a very short temper that often led to her going missing for hours at a time, and increasingly common seizures. At this time, Rosemary’s father, Joe Sr. had just resigned as the United States ambassador of Great Britain, and he couldn’t have word get out about his daughter’s behavior and possibly tarnish the family’s name at such a tender time in his career. He was determined to find a treatment to make his daughter normal at last. At this time, he was approached with the suggestion of two holes being drilled into the frontal lobe of his daughter’s brain to be the answer to all of Rosemary’s problems. 

At this time, lobotomies were still just experiments and there was no guarantee that it would make Rosemary “normal”, but Joe Sr. went out on a limb and had his daughter get this medical procedure done. As a result, she was left barely able to speak and had a limp when she walked. She was left in far worse shape then she started. She was then institutionalized for the rest of her life because her family no longer knew how to help her, and was not visited by them for almost twenty years. 

Although her parents viewed Rosemary’s intellectual disability as something that was detrimental to their reputation, her siblings had a better understanding and respect for her sister. The sibling most impacted by Rosemary’s struggles through life was Eunice Kennedy Shriver. Eunice was  the younger sister of Rosemary, became a major contributor to Special Olympics and other foundations supporting the rights for those with disabilities. Rosemary Kennedy lived until the age of 87, receiving care in an institution until the last days of her life.

This book was everything that I needed to support my original research question, which is, “How does money and prominence contribute to the Kennedy Curse?”. In the first few chapters of this book, I could see how conscious Joe and Rose Kennedy were when they realized that their daughter had an intellectual disability. They worried how it would affect the way their friends and neighbors viewed them as parents, how society would react to the Kennedys’ having a daughter with a disability, and how the special attention that Rosemary required would affect their other eight children and their success as individuals. As the reader, it seemed to me that it was the lack of treatments to “normalize” his daughter that Joe Kennedy Sr. finally decided to lobotomize his daughter. I think the fact that the Kennedys’ every move was reported in the newspaper during the 20th century is why Rose and Joe decided to have their daughter undergo such a medical procedure. All it would take was one outburst by Rosemary in front of the media, and this the Kennedy parents believed, would ruin their reputation forever. If they were not in the spotlight, they wouldn’t have had to worry about what others thought of them and they would not have had to make such a hasty decision on how to treat their daughter.

Something that I did notice while reading this book is that whoever is reading it may need to have some background information about the Kennedy family to be able to fully understand and enjoy this book. The Kennedy family is made of a lot of children and it can sometimes get confusing keeping track of everyone. Also, in the first chapter, Larson goes into detail about Joe Kennedy Sr.’s and Rose Fitzgerald’s siblings and parents and how they met and got married. There is some talk about Joe Sr.’s many careers which can also get confusing and a little boring, just because there is some jargon about politics and business that may be hard for someone who is not knowledgeable in those fields to understand. These sections are a little easier to understand when you have some previous knowledge about the Joe Sr.’s success in society and the family in general.

Regardless of that, I think that Kate Clifford Larson did an extremely great job tying in the historical context of the time along with the life of Rosemary Kennedy. While reading, I saw how the cultural events of the time contributed to Rosemary’s life. A perfect example of this is in the first chapter, which chronicles the birth of Rosemary. It was the year 1918, and Spanish Influenza was killing a lot of people at the time. Due to this pandemic, the doctor that was supposed to deliver Rosemary was running late because he was overwhelmed by house calls to those suffering from influenza. As a result, Rose Kennedy’s nurse told her to keep her legs crossed and even pushed Rosemary’s head back up the birth canal, just so she would not be born before the doctor arrived. The nurse’s actions caused a cut off of oxygen to baby Rosemary in the birth canal, which is one of the causes of intellectual disability in an individual. Throughout the book, Larson explains how the Great Depression, World War II, and the lacking knowledge of disabilities in the early 20th century affected Rosemary and her family. Larson also talks about these historical events in an engaging way that does not make you wonder, “Why am I reading about this? What does this have to do with anything?”. Every cultural event explained has relevance to Rosemary’s story.

Overall, I highly recommend Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Kate Clifford Larson. Once you get beyond the first two chapters highlighting the history of the Kennedy and Fitzgerald families, this book becomes extremely interesting and even a little emotional. It’s incredible to read about how selfish parents can be when it comes to their own daughter’s health and well-being. I felt that this book really highlighted an individual that the world does not know much about because she was lobotomized and pushed out of the public life right in the beginning of her adult life. The chronological telling of both the regression and struggles of Rosemary’s intellectual disability along with the cultural events of the world in the early 20th century shows a connection to what eventually ended in her lobotomy. This book definitely reveals Rosemary Kennedy, commonly known as the hidden daughter of such a prominent family.

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Will we ever know what really happened at Chappaquiddick and does the movie do anything to help?

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When comparing opinions surrounding the incident surrounding Edward Kennedy and Chappaquiddick, there is a lot of controversy. Real quick, I’m going to fill you in with a brief summary about what happened that night of July 18, 1969.

The night began in a cottage on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Edward Kennedy was having a small party made up mostly of the women who were involved with Edward’s late brother, Bobby’s 1968 presidential campaign. That campaign came to an end on June 5, 1968, when Bobby was assassinated. It was believed that Edward gathered these women to possibly work for him in his campaign to run for president in the near future (at this time he was the only surviving Kennedy son and everyone was expecting him to follow in his brothers’ footsteps and run for president). Around midnight, Edward and one of the party guests, Mary Jo Kopechne, left the party and went for a drive. Nobody knows what the intentions behind this drive were for, but Edward later said that they were going to the beach, although he drove in the opposite direction, which is one of the pieces of evidence that causes speculation. After the incident, he said that he had made a wrong turn. Instead, Edward and Mary Jo turned onto Dike Road, which had a small bridge known as Dike Bridge. Unexpectedly, he drove the car over the guardrail of this small bridge, sending the car, himself, and Mary Jo into the pond under the bridge. He was able to escape the car, but Mary Jo was trapped in the car and died not from drowning, but suffocation. Kennedy did not report the incident until the next morning, and many say that the woman may have lived if he reported the accident earlier. Because he waited so long to tell the police, they could not find any evidence if he was driving under the influence, and there is no real answer to why or how the car ended up in the Poucha Pond. This is known as the event to ruin any chance he had at becoming president in the future. Edward Kennedy pleaded guilty to the event and received a temporary driving suspension and a two-month incarceration that was eventually suspended.

The first article I read was from Neal Gabler, who is currently writing a biography about Edward Kennedy. His opinionated editorial was titled, “‘Chappaquiddick’ Distorts a Tragedy", and appeared in the New York Times on April 6, 2018, the same day on which the movie was released in theaters. The author expresses his disgust with the inaccurate portrayal of Edward Kennedy as an individual and the false series of events that followed in the hours and days following the Chappaquiddick incident. Now, this is kind of an event that is hard to label as being portrayed in a false manner because nobody knows exactly what happened and Kennedy is no longer alive to defend himself if there were any misrepresentations in the movie. The biggest piece of evidence that the author used of false portrayal in the movie was a scene that involved Edward telling his father about the incident and how it was all over the news. The problem with this scene is that Joseph P. Kennedy had suffered from the after effects of a stroke a that occurred in 1961, which left him with aphasia. One of the symptoms of aphasia is not being able to speak because of the brain damage that occurred during the stroke. In the scene between Edward and his aphasic father, Joseph Sr. whispers one word to his son: “Alibi.” When he says this to his son, he means that Edward should find evidence and say that he was elsewhere at the time of the accident. That was the author’s biggest argument and then he goes on to talk about the distortion of history for means of entertainment. Along with this belief, Gabler says in his article, “Fake history is no better than fake news; it’s maybe worse. It is very possible that over time, through the osmosis of social media, the despicable Kennedy of this movie will eradicate the honorable if flawed real one.” After reading this editorial, I believe that there is bias because does name a political party that opposes from his own views. He talks about how heavily Conservative news outlets have promoted that people go see this movie that has a factual approach on the event. He later goes on to say that of course Conservatives would promote this movie and the way it portrays Edward Kennedy, because he was a Democrat. I do not think that this bias is fair because it stereotypes Conservatives and makes them look stupid for believing the ‘false’ portrayal of the movie. Like I said earlier, it is hard to label what is true and what is false in this scandal because a lot of the questions surrounding the event are still unanswered to this day. Unfortunately, the use of the Ad Hominem fallacy and calling out a specific group of people, it does lessen his credibility of opinion on this movie. But I do feel that he is reaching out to all people, even Conservatives, to look at this movie with an open mind and to not immediately believe every single part of this movie. He then finishes this article by listing all of Kennedy’s positive contributions to politics while he served as Senator of Massachusetts until his death in 2009. If I were going by Gabler’s statement that Conservatives don’t like Edward Kennedy, I’d say that the author is probably Liberal/Democrat based on the way that he ended this article.

The second article that I read was from the New York Observer, which is a more right-leaning news source, compared to the left-leaning New York Times, where the previous article I read appeared in. With the difference in political outlook, there was a difference in this review of the movie, “Chappaquiddick”. Rex Reed published his piece, “‘Chappaquiddick’ Makes You Think About the Consequences of Power”, on April 8, 2018, two days after the movie had been released to the public. Reed praises the movie’s factual retelling of the event that is still talked about to this day. Interestingly, it also talks about the possibility of Mary Jo and Edward having an affair. Along with that, this article differs from the first review I read because the author’s perspective about Kennedy. He looks at Edward as a crook and talks about the possibility that Edward’s drinking at the party was the reason he drove off of the bridge. As for support of his opinion that the movie is factual, there is no definite way he states his belief that this was an accurate portrayal of the series of events that took place on that July night of 1968. Due to the fact that this article targets Edward’s drinking and discusses several conspiracies about the relationship between Mary Jo and Edward, I would have to say that the author is using hasty generalization about the Chappaquiddick incident and what really went down. Hasty generalization cannot be used with an incident like this because there are so many gaps in the series of events from the night of July 18 and nobody can just assume that Edward was drunk driving. Because the author seemed to really like this movie, I think they are intending to reach a broad audience so that more people go and see this movie too.

I found it interesting that the article with a positive review for the movie also tied in to my purpose of the blog, which is to explore the Kennedy Curse and how affluence and power may have contributed to the occurrence of the curse in the first place. In his article, Rex Reed said, “It’s a movie that engages a commitment to concentration few contemporary films try to do, and makes you think about the consequences of power few people ever experience.” His statement is definitely true about this movie and the whole Chappaquiddick incident. I saw the movie shortly after it came into theaters, and I cringed as I watched Edward bury himself deeper and deeper into lies that he made trying to defend himself and his possible presidency. This event was known to be the reason why Edward Kennedy lost any possibility of ever becoming president. I think if it was any other presidential candidate, it wouldn’t have had such an impact in the news and people would have seen it as an accident and would probably have forgotten about it. The reason why it was different for Edward was because he was a Kennedy. Critics of the Kennedy family thought they were all rich, sneaky, and were always able to get themselves out of trouble. Unfortunately, Chappaquiddick proved these critics right and made the American people look at Edward Kennedy in a whole new(and negative) light.

[keepingupwiththekennedykurse]

Two Assassinations in Five Years

An assassination is definitely a large contribution when talking about the events that curse a family, but two assassinations over the course of five years is definitely bad luck.

Both President John F. Kennedy and his brother, Bobby, were assassinated. I find this extremely interesting (and a little ironic), and wanted to see if there were any parallels between the assassinations. In order to do this, I watched two documentaries.

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The first documentary that I watched, "The JFK Files: The Murder of a President", was created by The Fifth Estate, a news source that is part of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

I found this documentary extremely interesting because out of all the conspiracy theories of who really shot JFK, the documentary focused on the FBI and CIA as the president’s assassins.

The thing that I found most interesting was how much trouble these government agencies went through to make Lee Harvey Oswald look like the assassin, when really the evidence would have proved that if it wasn’t tampered with.

Let me give some background information: Lee Harvey Oswald was a Communist sympathizer supposedly responsible for shooting President Kennedy from the window of the Texas School Book Depository. The building he shot from was along the route that JFK's motorcade was following when he got assassinated. What was believed to have happened was that Oswald shot the president from the sixth floor of the building that was about 300 yards away from the moving car that JFK was sitting in. That is what the government tried to tell everybody what happened, when really they were just trying to hide their involvement.

Since 1959, both government agencies have been investigating Lee Harvey Oswald and his Russian wife, Maria. Why? Because Oswald tried to get out of America and get citizenship into Russia, at a time when the Cold War was at an all time high and Communism caused the Red Scare in America. When he was denied Russian citizenship, he handed out pro-Communist propaganda in the streets of Dallas, Texas. Up until the assassination in 1963, The FBI and CIA were constantly checking up on Oswald. So, how did he get past their supervision the weekend that JFK was going to be visiting Dallas? Well, if the government was going to use LHO as a cover up for the president's assassination, then this was all part of the plan.

The major evidence that was explained to support the argument that the government used Lee Harvey Oswald as a cover-up was in the autopsy report and government documents surrounding the assassination.

First, the autopsy report. When President Kennedy was pronounced dead, the doctors that tried to save his life were to give a brief report about the state of his body. They said that his head had very little damage and most of the damage was in his back, neck, and chest- where the bullets had entered and traveled. His body was wrapped in a white sheet and placed in a bronze casket that would be flown to Bethesda Naval Hospital for an official autopsy and then Washington, D.C. for the funeral and burial. When the body arrived for the autopsy, the doctors were shocked to see that Kennedy’s brain was missing and his head was in terrible condition. He also arrived in a body bag and metal box. The doctors believed that on the plane ride from Dallas to D.C., the government officials on the plane tampered with the body either to make it more evident that Oswald’s shots really destroyed the president’s head or to make Kennedy’s head in such a bad state that no investigating could take place.

Second, the government reports. In April 2018, President Trump had the government release more documents surrounding the investigation of JFK’s assassination. One report from the FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover, specifically states, “…so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin.” Think about it, why would the American people need convincing if Oswald really did assassinate the president, and why is it any concern of the FBI director?

After seeing this evidence, it really made me think. If the government was in fact responsible for JFK’s assassination, then what other national tragedies are they responsible for and are covering up. I mean, if they could get away with covering up the assassination of the leader of America, what else can they get away with? One of the individuals that was interviewed several times during the documentary, Bob McKowen, was talking about how there are still millions of documents that have not been released and how he doesn’t understand why after all this time the government is keeping these documents secret and are not releasing the truth about what happened. All of the men that were served in the government during Kennedy’s presidency are dead, so even if they were found guilty, nothing could be done.

It seems like this is a lot of obvious evidence to pin the government as the group responsible for the assassination of John F. Kennedy… almost evidence that is too obvious. I looked into as many sources as I could to see how credible this documentary really was. I found it helpful that they included actual photocopies of the government documents, as well as video clips and pictures from November 22, 1963. The people were interviewed during most of the documentary both seemed credible and to have real knowledge about the assassination. Bob McKowen is an investigative journalist and has spent decades researching the assassination, and even made a documentary on the 20th anniversary of the assassination that was watched by millions. Jefferson Morley was another man interviewed and he is a veteran journalist for the Washington Post and has written several books on the government’s involvement with Kennedy’s assassination.  

Just five years later, John’s brother had a fate similar to his own, he was shot dead in the early hours of June 5, 1968. For this event, I watched the Netflix Original Series, “Bobby Kennedy for President” episode 3, “You Only Get One Time Around”.

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The episode starts with a bunch of different news reports from 1968 announcing all the violence that was going on in the United States at the time. Two main events for violence were the Vietnam War protests and issues surrounding race (not to mention the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. as well). The world is portrayed as absolute chaos, and then there is Bobby Kennedy, making speeches and visiting people all across the United States, trying to promote peace. The people that are interviewed in this particular documentary are those who worked with him on his campaign or met him when he gave one of his many speeches promoting peace. Each person that was interviewed viewed Bobby as a hero for the future of the United States at that time.

1968 was a big year because that November there was going to be a presidential election. The election became an even bigger deal when the current president, Lyndon Johnson announced he was not going to seek re-election for another term in office. That freed up the spot for a Democratic nominee, and after a lot of coaxing, RFK decided to run for president in March 1968. Little did he know that three months later he would be assassinated and never make it to the election of 1968.

It was the night of June 4, 1968, and Robert Kennedy just won the primaries in California, a big and very important state needed to officially become the Democratic presidential nominee. He announced his triumph at the Ambassador Hotel, where a rally had been held to watch the results of the primary. The results were announced shortly after midnight, and at this point it was the early hours of June 5. He got off the podium and was escorted into the kitchen of the hotel, when a gunman came out from the surrounding crowd and shot him in the head. The assassin was taken down immediately, and unlike with his older brother, RFK’s assassin was known. The man responsible for killing Robert Kennedy was 24-year old Sirhan Sirhan. Bobby died about an hour and a half after being shot.

I did not know as much about the assassination of RFK as I knew about the assassination of JFK, but there was one thought that struck me right as I began watching the documentary: It’s sad that RFK, a man who fought so much for the end to violence was taken down and killed by violence. The same goes for Martin Luther King Jr. The same goes for John F. Kennedy. All of these men were loved by so many, it seems unfair that their lives were ended in one of the most violent ways, and were killed out of hatred.

Seriously, think about it. So many people loved President John F. Kennedy. A lot of people liked him because of how he ruled the country, but a lot of people also were attracted to his youthfulness, charisma, and the fact that he was a family man. A lot of people loved Martin Luther King, a majority being those of the African American nationality. Those who were not African American and still loved King were those who were also for civil rights. Many people loved Bobby Kennedy for his dedication to peace and his idea to reunite all the races of the United States, even before he started running for president. All of these men were loved, yet they died out of hate.

Going back to the main idea of my blog and trying to make a connection between the events of the Kennedy Curse and if fame and fortune caused these tragedies, in this case I would say yes. In both the assassination assassinations, if JFK and RFK were not famous, I think they would have lived full lives. I believe this because they would not have been seen on a global scale and their every move wouldn’t be publicized. Their political views would not have such an effect on America, and they would not be shot because of them. None of this would have happened if the Kennedys did not have such status and power as they did in the 20th century.

[keepingupwiththekennedykurse]

Fount of Knowledge Found on Campus!

When starting a research blog, I found that there were a lot of different routes I could take and I didn’t know exactly where to start. Also, when I’m excited to get started with a project, I like instant answers and being able to take action right away. For this project, talking to a librarian was something that I found extremely helpful in the beginning stages of this blog.

Because this blog is being written for a  Research Composition class, of course I was told to use the online data bases that the school provides to every student. I knew about some of the basic data bases, but I didn’t know how much access I had as a student to documentaries, digital newspapers, scholarly articles, books, magazines, and so much more. Thanks to Robert Flatley, the History Liaison for the school library, my eyes were opened to how much access I had to resources that would really beef up and support the research that I would be writing about in my blog posts.

My meeting with Professor Flatley started with him walking me through some databases that he thought would be most useful for my topic of the Kennedy Curse. He even went through all the trouble of putting together a webpage that would have all of these links easy to access.

I learned about the Gale Virtual Reference Library, which he described as being like a Wikipedia that I could actually use as a source for projects because it is reliable and it is not open for just anyone to edit. Another resource like the Gale Reference Library was Credo Reference, a Wikipedia-like source that gives information in shorter, easier to understand paragraphs. I think this will be beneficial when I just need a basic understanding of an event and do not need to get confused with all of the details. Sometimes less is more.

ProQuest Research Library is a source that provides so much more than just articles to read. Through this database, I can limit the search results to just podcasts, documentaries, or websites if I wanted to. I can also limit what sort of document I would like to access (Example: just blogs, just advertisements, just statistic reports pertaining to my topic). I think this ProQuest Research Library is a great research tool to use because it provides an array of research materials, not just articles to read. I also think the accessibility to filter the search results that I want to see will save me a lot of time. There’s nothing worse than filing through a bunch of search results that have nothing to do with the topic that you are trying to research.

Since I am researching a topic that took place mainly in the 20th century, what better place to look than the newspapers that reported these events. With the New York Times Historical database, I can access every single newspaper that the New York Times published since their beginning in 1851 to 2016. Since newspapers were the main source of finding out what was happening in the world at the height of the Kennedy Dynasty, I think this will be extremely beneficial and will allow me to read about the tragedies as they happened in real time. It’s really cool that I can read articles from journalists that may have been present when a specific event (example: one of the assassinations) happened, rather than reading an article written by someone who wasn’t there, but has a lot of knowledge on the topic. This can also be used as a great primary source.

Although I learned a great amount about the databases that the school provides during this library meeting, the most beneficial information that I learned from Robert was the knowledge of sources that he had himself about the Kennedys. He was really excited to tell me about this podcast he had listened to a few months before, “The RFK Tapes”. As soon as he started talking about it, I was intrigued because I love watching, reading, and listening to any new shows, books, or podcasts that come out discussing anything Kennedy related. I looked into the podcast and immediately knew that this was going to be extremely helpful for my post about Bobby’s assassination. Not only do the episodes discuss the assassination and Sirhan Sirhan (the man responsible for shooting Kennedy), but also interviews bystanders who were at the Ambassador Hotel the night of the assassination.

When the librarian told me about this podcast that he had listened to, that led me to look into if there were any other podcasts pertaining to the Kennedy family, and I struck research gold! People Magazine has a podcast series called, “Cover-Up” and they have a really interesting episode highlighting the events of and following the Chappaquiddick scandal involving Teddy Kennedy called, “10 Hours Later”. The JFK Library Foundation recently published the podcast series, “JFK35” which gives an intimate look into the 35th president’s time in office. Another podcast that I found will be extremely helpful is from iHeartRadio and HowStuffWorks, who published a series called, “Stuff They Don’t Want You To Know”, with an episode titled, “The Kennedy Curse”. I listened to the some of these podcast episodes, but I look forward to listening to the rest and seeing what else I can learn about this family.

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I am thankful for the time that librarian Robert Flatley took out of his day to teach me how to use the school’s databases and share with me the information that he had himself about the Kennedys, the Kennedy Curse, and some sources that he knew of that he thought could be beneficial. I’m thankful that he even brought up the RFK podcast series, because otherwise I wouldn’t have even thought about using podcasts as one of my research sources. I believe that with a range of different sources, I will learn a range of different information.

Overall, my visit to the library was extremely beneficial to the formation of this blog!

[keepingupwiththekennedykurse]

Meet the Kennedys

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The Kennedy Dynasty began in 1914, when Irish banker Joseph P. Kennedy married the oldest daughter of the mayor of Boston, Rose Fitzgerald. Over the course of the next 18 years, they would have 9 children.

Their oldest child was Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Being the first in the family, his father was determined to form him into a politician with hopes of one day being President of the United States. An untimely death at the age of 29 brought Joe Jr.'s political career to an end before it even started.

Next in line was John. Growing up, he was overshadowed by his older brother's success and sophistication. Joe Sr. never looked at his son John's future with much hope because John was either suffering dangerously poor health or constantly causing mischief with his friends. It wasn't until the death of Joe Jr. that Joe Sr. realized John would have to be the son that got into politics. At the age of 29, he served in Congress for Massachusetts. Through the years he worked his way up to Senate, then a vice presidential nominee in 1956, and eventually became the 35th president in 1960. While campaigning for re-election for the 1964 Presidential election, he was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

Rosemary, often referred to as the "Forgotten Kennedy", was the first daughter of Joe Sr. and Rose. Early in her life, Rosemary's parents noticed that she was having struggling with academics and was promiscuous as a young adult. As a result, she underwent a surgery that would change her in means of personality and functionality. She was locked away in an asylum where she lived to the age of 87, but was rarely visited by her family.

After Rosemary, Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy was born. She is most known for her participation in the Red Cross during World War II. She eventually becomes Lady Hartington of England when she marries William Cavendish, the Marquess of Harrington. She is widowed In their first month of marriage. She dies in a fashion similar to her oldest brother- in a plane crash, at the young age of 28.

The next three females of the Kennedy family, fortunately, lived full lives and did not experience any major tragedies.

Eunice is the fifth Kennedy child. She started the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation. According to the Foundation Directory Online, this foundation aims for the,"prevention of mental retardation by identifying its causes and improving means by which society deals with its mentally retarded citizens." She was much involved with anything that had to do with bettering the lives of those with mental disabilities. She worked with the Special Olympics, the Chicago Juvenile Court, and a women's penitentiary in West Virginia. She married, had five children, and lived to the age of 88.

Next came Patricia. Throughout her life she was involved in show business and the political campaigns of her brothers John, Robert, and Edward. She married an actor and had four children. She lived until the age 82.

Jean Kennedy started her adult life majoring in English at the Manhattenville College, but got involved in politics while her older brother Jack was campaigning for the 1960 election. She started with working for peace in Northern Ireland, which was divided by some people wanting Ireland to be apart of the United Kingdom, while others wanted Ireland to be independent. This conflict continued for over 30 years. President Bill Clinton made Jean Kennedy the United States Ambassador for Ireland in 1993. She is also the only surviving Kennedy offspring of Joe Sr. and Rose.

Robert is the eighth Kennedy and the United States Attorney General for his older brother, John. John and Bobby had an extremely strong relationship and they both worked closely with Martin Luther King Jr. in the Civil Rights Movement. After John was assassinated in 1963, Robert continued to work for Civil Rights and was aiming to be the Democratic nominee for the 1968 Presidential election. Here we see another parallel- while he was campaigning he was assassinated- the same fate as his older brother while campaigning for his re-election.

The youngest Kennedy is Edward "Teddy" Kennedy. Although he did live a full life, it was filled with a lot of what one might call "close calls". In 1964, he was riding in an airplane with three other people in very poor weather conditions, causing yet another plane crash. Unfortunately, the crash resulted in two causalities, but surprisingly, Teddy wasn't one of the people who died in the crash. Years later in 1968, he was involved in yet another crash, this time involving a car. He was driving one night with one other passenger on a small island near Martha's Vineyard known as Chappaquiddick. Accidently (but could be argued otherwise depending on who you talk to) he drove off of a bridge into a pond. He was able to escape the car fine, but his female passenger was stuck in the car and drowned. She ended up dying, but yet again, he survived. Chappaquiddick became a huge scandal in his life and for awhile affected his political career. He served as a Senator of Massachusetts up until his death in 2009. He died of brain cancer.

In this blog, I would like to explore the Kennedy Curse in detail. I believe that there is something suspicious about this curse and I find it ironic how many parallels there are (plane crashes and assassinations are a big parallel). Also, there are more unfortunate events spanning even to the Kennedy's offspring that I would like to explore as well: how the Kennedy Curse still exists decades later.

Although I haven't gotten to research all the events of the Curse in detail yet, I am still in awe at how such a perfect family could have such bad luck, which has led me to another topic to research. I want to see if all the money and prominence (things that we usually associate with success and good living) was the cause for all this bad luck. Maybe fame and fortune isn't everything it is cracked up to be after all...

But trust me, we're going to find out.