Nevertheless, fallout from the revelations about Michael’s illicit relationship with the babysitter continues, sparking more stories in the press about the less-than-admirable behavior of the younger Kennedys in decades past, dredging up David’s death from overdosing, Bobby Jr.’s drug arrest, the jeep accident Joe caused which paralyzed Pamela Kelley. And there’s no denying that a high percentage of the family are admitted alcoholics: “It’s easier to get an AA meeting together than a touch-football team now,” Christopher Kennedy quips.
But the articles largely ignore how “none of the RFK sisters appears to have suffered a turbulent youth or later moral failings.” In fact, the oldest Kennedy grandchild, Kathleen, has “none of the rakehell appetites of the Kennedy men,” and founder of the Washington Monthly, Charlie Peters, calls her “the embodiment of the best the family represents. She’s stayed loyal to the true faith.” The sisters Michael is sandwiched between, Kerry and Courtney, are both active in humanitarian issues, and Rory, the baby of the family, is a serious documentary filmmaker who focuses on social justice issues. Even reformed addict Bobby Jr. is now described as “messianic” in his impulse to continue his father’s work. “After my father died, I had a feeling I should pick up the torch…er, pick up the flag,” he tells reporters.
The attitude toward the family is still rather askance after these latest scandals, however, and after examining his poll numbers, in August 1997 Joe Kennedy decides to bow out of the governor’s race. Earlier that year, the president of the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus, Samantha Overton, had noted, “Everyone I know was saying Joe Kennedy could just walk right into the governor’s office,” but after the “one-two punch” of the annulment and babysitter scandals, women voters are no longer looking favorably on Joe. “I don’t know if he can get beyond it,” she’d cautioned at the time, and it seems Joe agrees.
The most unexpected media blow comes from one of their own.
In the September 1997 issue of his pop-political glossy magazine, George, John F. Kennedy Jr. appears to take a potshot at his troubled cousins. In an issue that evokes the Garden of Eden, with a photo of Kate Moss and a snake on the cover and JFK Jr. himself with an apple in the interior (both seemingly nude), the editor’s letter John Jr. writes references “temptation” and “desire” and “the distraction of gawking at the travails of those who simply couldn’t resist.”
He goes on to specify how “two members of my family chased an idealized alternative to their life” and in so doing, “became poster boys for bad behavior.” Paraphrasing Grandma Rose’s favorite Bible verse, John Jr. writes, “To whom much is given, much is expected, right? The interesting thing was the ferocious condemnation of their excursions beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior. Since when does someone need to apologize on television for getting divorced?”
Multiple media outlets pick up on the phrase “poster boys for bad behavior” as proof of John Jr. chastising and attempting to distance himself from his cousins. Despite Joe himself having previously appeared on Good Morning America a few months earlier to also decry his brother’s “bad behavior,” he’s clearly miffed at being lumped in with Michael in John Jr.’s magazine, and lashes out: “I guess my first reaction was ‘Ask not what you can do for your cousin, but what you can do for his magazine.’” Kathleen takes a more tempered view, saying of their cousin John, “I think he probably wishes he hadn’t written it. I’m sure he wishes that.”
Lingering resentments are expected to blow over, however, and be largely forgotten. “A year from now, Michael and the Baby Sitter and Joe and the Annulment will have joined Amy and Joey and Donald and Marla in the landfill of tabloid dreck,” predicts Time magazine.
But unfortunately, it would only be a few months before Michael Kennedy is back in the headlines.
Chapter 52
The past year, 1997, has been a challenging one for the Kennedy clan, and for Bobby and Ethel’s sons in particular. Even so, former JFK speechwriter and family intimate Ted Sorensen tells the LA Times, “It’s a family that is accustomed to both controversy and criticism. Sometimes withstanding it is all you can do—just accept it and go on.”
Holding their heads high and soldiering on is something the family has long been taught to do. As Lem Billings—for whom Michael LeMoyne Kennedy is named—used to remind the younger generation after the deaths of Jack and Bobby, “Remember what Grandma Rose used to say: ‘Never forget that you are a Kennedy. A lot of work went into building that name. Don’t disparage it.’”
“The Kennedys all take care of each other,” Beth Dozoretz, a Washington Democratic activist, remarks. “They have an overwhelming sense of a continuing commitment to public service, through all the trials and tribulations of their lives,” says Thaelia Tsongas Schlesinger, a Massachusetts Democrat.
Despite his setbacks, Michael’s family encourage him, “You’re a Kennedy. You have to pull it together.” Pulling oneself together and moving on is “just Kennedy 101,” his cousin Patrick insists.
As 1997 comes to a close, Michael Kennedy is among extended family and friends congregating for the holidays in Aspen, Colorado, as they do nearly every Christmas season. Even though their divorce is imminent, Michael’s estranged wife, Vicki, is also staying in nearby Vail with her father and stepmother, Frank and Kathie Lee Gifford. “Probably the central thing in Michael’s life was his wife and his children,” Michael’s friend Larry Spagnola remarks. “It was his intention to reconcile.”
On New Year’s Eve, Michael and about twenty friends and relatives—a group that includes his younger brother Max and sister Rory, plus his three children—gather near the 11,212-foot-high summit, awaiting their last run down Aspen Mountain. They’re about to play a favorite Kennedy game, known as “ski football.” “They hang at the top of the mountain till everybody is off the hill, so they don’t endanger anybody else,” a family friend says of the game, which involves skiing downhill while tossing a small foam football back and forth. “It is Kennedyesque. There is a lot of laughing, vigor, excitement and a big rush.”
There are conflicting reports as to whether the family has been warned earlier that week against playing the made-up sport, but the daredevil game is certainly rife with potential danger.
The possibility of disaster doesn’t bother Michael, whom longtime friend James Hillard notes “really had a tremendous drive for living on the edge. Whether it was kayaking or skiing, he just did it.” It’s not a new attitude, or even exclusive to Michael. The Kennedy cousins are known to goad each other to jump from extreme heights, and Bobby Jr. notes of their childhood, “If we went more than two weeks without a visit to the emergency room, it was unusual.”
And in a family known for daring athleticism, Michael is touted as the best of them all. His brother Max calls him “an unbelievably good athlete,” and Joe agrees, remarking on Michael’s “amazing physical gifts” and deeming him “fearless—on the slopes, on water skis, wherever he could test himself at the edge.”