Page 42 - All About History - Issue 52-17

The Curse

of the

Kennedys

America’s most powerful political dynasty was blessed with charisma,

talent and ambition, but blighted by intrigue, conspiracy and tragedy
Written by Dominic Green

“ ew will have the greatness to bend presidential nomination. But the Kennedys are
history itself, but each of us can
different. The Adams and Bush families descend
work to change a small portion
ancestors witnessed the American Revolution.
of events. It is from numberless from English Protestant immigrants, and their
Fdiverse acts of courage and belief The Kennedys descend from Irish Catholics who
that human history is shaped.” Robert ‘Bobby’ immigrated in the mid-19th century. They are
Kennedy made this, his ‘Ripples of Hope’ speech, latecomers, and they came as outsiders.
at the University of Cape Town in 1966. Two years The Irish immigrants who fled across the
later he would be shot dead in a Los Angeles hotel. Atlantic during the years of famine were often
He was the second Kennedy family member to be received with suspicion, and even outright
gunned down in the Sixties alone. loathing. John F Kennedy’s presidential campaign
This four-generation dynasty of Democratic of 1960 was the first Catholic candidacy in
politicians held elected office at the national level American history, and a campaign that included
from 1947 to 2011 and, after a two-year break, Kennedy’s promise that his loyalty to Rome would
from 2013 to the present. As well as high-profile not override his loyalty to the land of his birth.
assassinations, personal tragedy has dogged the The rise of the Kennedys mirrors most
family throughout: car accidents, drug overdoses. American stories of rags to riches, and the rich,
Political dynasties are almost as old as the as F Scott Fitzgerald commented, are different.
American republic. The second president, John No other political family has the glamour of the
Adams, was the father of the sixth president, John Kennedys. No other political family grips the
Quincy Adams. His son, Charles Francis Adams, American imagination like the Kennedys do. The
was America’s ambassador to the UK. In 1868, fascination derives from a mixture of style and
Charles Francis’ son, John Quincy Adams II, even tragedy. The Kennedys stand for the heroism of
ran for the Democratic Party’s nomination as World War II, the optimism of the 1950s, the brave
presidential candidate – and won just a single vote. new world of the 1960s, and its human cost, too.
The Adams dynasty petered out in the early In a society with a short history and an insatiable
20th century, just as the Bush dynasty was appetite for entertainment, the Kennedys stand at
getting started. Prescott Bush (1895-1972) was the core of America’s cultural narrative.
a Connecticut senator. His son, George H W They also stand for America’s tragedy – the
Bush, became America’s 41st president, and his familiar story of rags to riches has always had its
grandson, George W Bush, became the 43rd. darker side. Fitzgerald also wrote that there are “no
Another grandson, Jeb, the erstwhile governor of second acts in American lives.” Like characters in a
Florida, ran for the GOP nomination in 2016. three-act play, the protagonists race forward from
The Kennedys, like the Adams and Bush the first to final act. Many of the Kennedy family
families, have now sent generations into office, have fallen to this fate. Three of founding patriarch
and produced three candidates for their party’s Joseph P Kennedy Sr’s four sons died violently. Of
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