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Caroline Kennedy’s video exposes the fight over a fading family legacy
On Tuesday, Caroline Kennedy unleashed a searing public denunciation of her cousin, delivering a moment that stood out even after the family’s 60 years of public triumphs and tragedies.
Caroline Kennedy:
For decades, Caroline Kennedy kept silent.
Kennedy, 67, the only surviving child of President John F. Kennedy, has been a model of two of the family’s prized values: discretion and stoicism. Handed no shortage of tragedy and scandal, she has kept quiet and largely stayed on the sidelines.
In recent years, that has meant that Kennedy has said little as her cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spread false health information during a pandemic, challenged a Democrat for president, endorsed Donald Trump for the White House and then lobbied for a place in his Cabinet. She was largely silent as he used his family’s name — and the likeness and memory of her father — to advance his campaign while, in the view of many of the Kennedys, defying what the family has stood for across generations.
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The closest the understated Caroline Kennedy came to criticism was to note, from her diplomatic post in Australia, that Robert Kennedy’s views on vaccinations were “dangerous.”
But on Tuesday, Caroline Kennedy unleashed a searing public denunciation of her cousin, delivering a moment that stood out even after the family’s 60 years of public triumphs and tragedies.
On the eve of his Senate confirmation hearing, Caroline Kennedy described Robert Kennedy as not just unqualified to run the Department of Health and Human Services, the position that Trump has nominated him to fill, but also a “predator” and a hypocrite.
She not only wrote this in a letter to senators; she also posted a video of her reading it, coolly and methodically. The fact that the public rarely sees her speaking made it all the more devastating.
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“We are a close family: None of this is easy to say,” she said. “It also wasn’t easy to stay silent last year, when Bobby expropriated my father’s image and distorted President Kennedy’s legacy to advance his own failed presidential campaign, and then groveled to Donald Trump for a job.
“Unlike Bobby, I try not to speak for my father,” she said, although she went on to say that her father and his two brothers would have been “disgusted” by Robert Kennedy’s actions.
Robert Kennedy, 71, did not respond to a request for comment.
This was more than the latest chapter in the debate over Robert Kennedy’s qualifications to serve, his skepticism about vaccines and his support for unconventional medical treatments.
This was a battle over who gets to claim the mantle of the Kennedys, who for so long were the first family of Democratic politics, with their talk about government service and helping the poor and downtrodden. They were long personified by three Kennedy brothers — John F. Kennedy, the former president; Robert F. Kennedy, the former attorney general and New York senator; and Edward M. Kennedy, the former senator from Massachusetts.
But in recent years Robert Kennedy Jr. has become the most recognizable living Kennedy, largely because of his criticism of the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, his presidential campaign and now his presence at Trump’s side. His rise could redefine the family for its future generations.
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“It’s hard to imagine Caroline Kennedy doing anything like this,” said Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic analyst. “The fact that she did speaks volumes about how she truly feels about Bobby Kennedy.”
Caroline Kennedy and Robert Kennedy Jr. have come to represent the polar extremes of the Kennedy clan: Caroline Kennedy was born into the spotlight but lived her adulthood in the shadows, becoming a diplomat who enjoyed the relative quiet of service overseas. Robert Kennedy battled demons in public and seemed eager to be the face of the next Kennedy generation.
Caroline Kennedy did not offer much detail or evidence to support her accusations, which included calling her cousin unstable and questioning his ethics.
But she offered vivid detail about his early life: As young man, he would “show off” how he put “baby chickens and mice in a blender” to feed his hawks, she said. He got clean, she said, “through his own strength, and the many second chances he was given by people who felt sorry for the boy who lost his father.”
Perhaps most notably, she said that Robert Kennedy, through his charisma and risk-taking, “encouraged” younger siblings and cousins “down the path of substance abuse” — an apparent reference to the 1984 overdose death of David Kennedy, Robert Kennedy’s younger brother.
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“Siblings and cousins who Bobby encouraged down the path of substance abuse suffered addiction, illness and death, while Bobby has gone on to misrepresent, lie and cheat his way through life,” Caroline Kennedy wrote.
Other members of her family have been more restrained in their criticisms, sensitive to Robert Kennedy’s own struggles with drug addiction and the trauma from his father’s assassination in 1968.
After Robert Kennedy ran a primary against Joe Biden, threatening the unity of the Democratic Party, one of his sisters, Kerry, led a group of family members in assailing him for his effort. “I love Bobby,” she said in an interview at the time. “It’s heart-wrenching to be in this position.”
But Caroline Kennedy found support Tuesday from other members of her family who said they did not think Robert Kennedy should serve in Trump’s Cabinet. “I completely support my cousin Caroline’s view that RFK Jr is unqualified in terms of experience and character for the role of Secty of HHS,” Stephen Smith, a cousin, wrote in a text message to The New York Times.
Robert Kennedy is not the only member of this family who has been known to live to excess, whose exploits have captured the attention of tabloids. And Caroline Kennedy is not the first Kennedy to chide her relatives for unseemly behavior.
Caroline Kennedy’s brother, John F. Kennedy Jr., who died in a plane crash in 1999, once chastised his cousins for being “poster boys for bad behavior.”
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In some ways, Caroline Kennedy and her cousin Robert come from two very different branches of the famous clan: Caroline Kennedy’s mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, sought privacy and discretion. Robert Kennedy is part of the rambunctious brood of Ethel Kennedy known for their exuberance and occasional scrapes with the law.
“Big families don’t always sing from the same sheet of music, famous or not,” said John A. Farrell, the author of a biography of Edward M. Kennedy.
Caroline Kennedy’s letter is strong evidence that as reclusive as she might have been over the years, she took a lesson from growing up in such a political family. The timing all but ensures her concerns will be aired in Robert Kennedy’s Senate hearing. Her words were designed to weigh on Democrats who might be considering voting for her cousin, setting up one more test of the family’s fading political power.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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