THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 18, 1994 TAG: 9409190234
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY RUTH WALKER
LENGTH: Long : 127 lines
THE KENNEDY WOMEN
The Saga of an American Family
LAURENCE LEAMER
Villard Books. 933 pp. $27.50.
THE OTHER MRS. KENNEDY
ETHEL SKAKEL KENNEDY
An American Drama of Power, Privilege, and Politics
JERRY OPPENHEIMER
St. Martin's Press. 542 pp. $25.95.
TWO WRITERS WITH CREDENTIALS in the celebrity-biography field have staked out claims in what is familiar and preferred territory for many Americans: the Kennedy domain.
Laurence Leamer, in his weighty book, The Kennedy Women, has embraced a great amount of material, some of it connected only peripherally with the ostensible subject.
And Jerry Oppenheimer, author of The Other Mrs. Kennedy, has allowed himself to become bogged down in too much detail, some of it at the level of gossip.
Leamer has previously written about Johnny Carson, Ingrid Bergman and the Reagans; Oppenheimer has produced works on Barbara Walters and Rock Hudson.
Both of these books should be of interest to those who have an enduring fascination with the Kennedys.
Leamer has been relentless in his piling up of relevant and irrelevant details, so relentless that the reader may feel submerged at times. Despite a massive array of footnotes, on some occasions the source for some statement or event is not discernible.
But quibbles aside, he has produced a compelling account of a family rich in competitiveness, charm, alcoholism and philandering, mixed with achievements.
A recurring theme of The Kennedy Women: The Saga of an American Family is the family preference for the sons. We are told that Joseph P. Kennedy, the patriarch, did not value his daughters as highly as he valued his sons and that as they grew up, the girls were observers to their brothers' ``intrepid lives.''
Leamer points out that in his 1952 Senate campaign, John F. Kennedy did not consider naming as manager the most obvious choice: sister Eunice, described here as ``articulate, energetic, politically astute.'' Instead, the position went to brother Bobby, ``an inarticulate neophyte.'' The women, the author emphasizes, were not habitues of the back rooms where decisions were made but were sent out to campaign. And campaign they did, with Kennedy vigor.
Leamer says that after his election as president, Kennedy again did not consider naming a sister to a job. But later he notes that the president would have named Eunice (then the wife of Sargent Shriver) to chair a presidential panel on mental retardation; she chose instead to be a consultant to the group.
One of the vivid personalities in the Kennedy story was sister Kathleen, who upset her mother by marrying William Cavendish, heir of the Duke of Devonshire. The Cavendishes, Leamer notes, were ``a notoriously anti-Catholic family.'' Several months after the May 1944 wedding the young husband, an officer in the Coldstream Guards, was killed in action. But there was more to the Kathleen story: She planned to marry Peter Fitzwilliam, a wealthy, married earl. Leamer asserts that mother Rose threatened to disown and disinherit her. Kathleen and her husband-to-be were killed in a plane crash.
Leamer develops the story of Bridget Murphy, in many respects ``the founder of the family.'' The young Irishwoman sailed from Liverpool to Boston in 1849. While aboard ship, she met Patrick Kennedy, another passenger, whom she later married. Her husband died young, leaving her with several children. She worked as a servant, but eventually became the proprietor of a notions store and a woman of property. She was the grandmother of Joseph P. Kennedy.
Rose Kennedy makes numerous appearances in the book, some of them poignant. We are told, for example, that husband Joe gave her a trip to Europe for their 20th wedding anniversary, but he didn't go with her. She cabled him a loving message from Paris. The author says that ``the great unrelieved tragedy of Rose's life'' was her retarded eldest daughter, Rosemary.
The late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis also gets mention. In describing John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign, Leamer comments that ``the moment the elegant, cultured Jackie opened her mouth it was clear that the Democratic nominee had chosen a wife as foreign to most Americans as a finger bowl.''
The author, who doesn't seem to hesitate to offer an opinion where others might be reluctant, says that Jackie accepted ``her husband's sexual betrayals as much as her mother-in-law had Joe's.''
While discussing Jean, the daughter who married Stephen Smith, the author says, ``Of all her daughters, Jean was the only one to blame Rose for the unhappiness of much of her adult life.'' But Leamer doesn't state a source for this judgment.
On the whole, Leamer is gentler toward the Kennedys than Oppenheimer is toward Ethel Kennedy. Those who are inclined to think of her as the friendly, likable, fun-loving wife of Robert F. Kennedy may find themselves disillusioned.
Oppenheimer emphasizes her ``quirky and erratic personality,'' her ``tyrannical, mean-spirited manner'' and her penchant for using people. Also, he dwells on her disregard for the property of others. In one memorable scene, Ethel, on horseback, rides into brother-in-law Ted's kitchen, tearing up some of the new floor tiles. That was not a juvenile escapade but something that purportedly happened in 1988. The author informs us in a note that he learned of this incident through an interview with a ``source.''
Oppenheimer recounts his subject's childhood in the rollicking Skakel family, which had left Chicago and settled, after intermediate stops, in Greenwich, Conn. Big Ann, mother of Ethel and her six siblings, never quite fit into that WASP milieu, we are told.
Money was no problem. Father George, a founder of what became Great Lakes Carbon Corp., made plenty. It appears from this book that Ethel knew how to spend it.
The Skakel family suffered a number of traumatic blows. Both of Ethel's parents were killed in a plane crash. Later, her brother George Jr. was a crash victim.
Oppenheimer says that in embracing the Kennedys, Ethel all but alienated her own family. She also had stressful relationships with her elder sons after the assassination of her husband. One of those sons, David, died from a drug overdose. He is survived by 10 siblings.
Ethel's devotion to Robert Kennedy and the fervor of her Catholic faith are clear throughout the book. MEMO: Ruth Walker is a retired book editor of The Virginian-Pilot and The
Ledger-Star. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
JOHN F. KENNEDY LIBRARY
Kennedy sisters, from left, Pat, Kathleen, Eunice and Jean in
Hyannisport, Mass.
by CNB