Page 44 - All About History - Issue 52-17

The Curse of the Kennedys

Robert F. ‘Bobby’
Kennedy
Kathleen Assassination
‘Kick’ Kennedy
Plane Crash

President
John F. ‘Jack’
Joseph P. ‘Joe’ Kennedy
Kennedy, Jr
Military accident Assassination

Joseph ‘Joe’ Kennedy’s 31 grandchildren, four died many tragedies. The eldest Kennedy son, Joseph in a plane crash while en route to a holiday in the
prematurely, and in often bleak circumstance. Patrick ‘Joe’ Jr, had completed a tour as a Navy south of France.
Joe Kennedy was the grandson of Patrick pilot, but volunteered for Operation Aphrodite, as The family kept the details of her death out
Kennedy, a farmer’s son from County Wexford, a test pilot for unmanned, remote control aircraft. of the newspapers. They also hushed up the fate
who emigrated to Boston in 1849 with his In August 1944, Joe was killed when a test plane of Kick’s sister, Rosemary. Born with learning
wife Mary. Their son, Patrick Joseph ‘PJ’ blew up in mid-air. disabilities, Rosemary was kept out of the public
Kennedy, became a businessman with political Three months later, William Cavendish was eye, and isolated from society because Joe did
connections. His son, Joseph ‘Joe’ Kennedy Sr killed by a German sniper’s bullet while fighting at not want to damage her siblings’ prospects of
(1888-1969) became wealthy through investing Heppen, Belgium. Within a mere few weeks, Kick political and social advancement. As a teenager,
in steel, movies, real estate and, after the end of had lost her favourite brother and her husband. she was diagnosed with the mental capacity of a
Prohibition, in the importation of Scotch whisky. She found consolation with Peter Wentworth- child between eight and 12 years of age, and sent
Prominent in the Massachusetts Democratic Party, Fitzwilliam, 8th Earl Fitzwilliam, a wealthy to a convent. Her moods became increasingly
Kennedy was appointed by President Franklin D Commando officer estranged from his wife. In unstable – perhaps because she was an adolescent,
Roosevelt to head the Securities and Exchange May 1948, Kick and Earl Fitzwilliam were killed perhaps because she was frustrated by her mental
Committee and then, from 1938-40, as ambassador
British reports back to Washington and attempted “Joe raised their children…
to London. From this post, Kennedy sent anti-
to organise a rapprochement with Hitler.
Joe Kennedy was intensely ambitious. Sharing to be boundlessly ambitious”
his father’s dream of creating a dynasty, he
married Rose Fitzgerald, the daughter of his
father’s rival, John ‘Honey Fitz’ Fitzgerald, the A family shot taken in 1939 of
Joe and Rose Kennedy with
mayor of Boston. Joe raised their children to be
their nine children
competitive and boundlessly ambitious – they
played famously aggressive games of ‘touch
football’, and spoke in the mannered ‘Brahmin’
accents of Boston’s old upper class. Joe was
determined that his first son, Joseph Jr, would
be the first Catholic president of Irish extraction
– an ambition shared by his father-in-law ‘Honey’
Fitz, who intended Joe Jr to become “the future
President of the nation.”
In London, Joe’s second daughter, Kathleen
‘Kick’ Kennedy, fell in love with William
Cavendish, the eldest son of the Duke of
Devonshire. Rose Kennedy opposed her daughter’s
marriage to a non-Catholic, but nonetheless the
two married in May 1944. If ambition had brought
the Kennedys to London, love brought the first of
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