Eunice: The Kennedy Who Changed the World

on behalf of my colleague Steven Rothstein executive director of the Kennedy Library Foundation and all my library and foundation colleagues thank you for coming this evening I also want to acknowledge the generous support of our underwriters at the Kennedy Library forums lead sponsor Bank of America the Lowell Institute and our media sponsors the Boston Globe Xfinity and WBUR I'm also delighted to welcome all of you who are watching tonight's program online including those of you watching from the John F Kennedy Hyannis Museum we look forward to a robust question and answer period this evening and when Q&A starts we will invite those of you who are joining us in person tonight to proceed to the microphones in the aisles to ask your questions Eileen McNamara I should know how to say that word hep shouldn't I Eileen McNamara has kindly agreed to sign copies of her most recent book after tonight's program our bookstore has copies available for purchase if you are interested now history has a way of overlooking women even the word his story seems to reflect this inequity but the narrative is changing however slowly we are progressing to tell a full story tonight we will be exploring and challenging that view by looking at the life of eunice Kennedy Shriver a life which described by our panelists fought against their traditional view of women as quote invisible or interchangeable well that was the lot of the daughters of Joseph P and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Eileen writes relegated to the role of decorative accessories to the outsized ambitions first of their father and then their brothers but as she describes in the case of Eunice that image was wildly out of focus there was nothing silent or ornamental about the fifth daughter of Joe and Rose Kennedy's nine children it now gives me great pleasure to welcome Eileen McNamara back to the library she is the director of journalism program the journalism program at Brandeis University where she has been a professor of the practice of journalism since 2007 she's an award-winning reporter and former columnist for the Boston Globe where she won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary and contributed to the coverage of this clergy sex abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston her writing continues to appear there and on cognoscenti the commentary pages of WBUR org Boston's national public radio station I'm also pleased to welcome back to our welcome back our moderator for the evening Larry Tye is a New York Times bestselling author whose most recent book was Bobby Kennedy the making of a liberal icon the author of six other books he also runs the Boston based health coverage fellowship which trains a dozen medical journalists a year from newspapers radio stations and TV outlets nationwide from 1986 to 2001 Larry was an award-winning reporter at the Boston Globe he has been a Nieman fellow at Harvard University and has taught journalism at bu Northeastern and Tufts please join me in welcoming our speakers [Applause] thank you what I want to start by doing actually tonight is tell you why Eileen McNamara is the perfect person to have written this book number one she worked for a very long time at the Boston Globe and unlike most people at the globe who were so close to the Kennedys that they were afraid to ever say anything critical about the Kennedys Eileen McNamara covered the Kennedys for years and knew their story intimately the good and the bad of the Kennedys story a second reason is that she has lived this history she isn't somebody who came in from out of town and had to learn how to talk like Kennedy's or understand the way that they talked she is of Cambridge and of Wellesley and of Boston a third reason is that anybody who read her column all those years knows that Eileen is a great writer she is the perfect person to be describing to telling telling you the Yunus story because she's also a strong feminist and she's of the not afraid to tell what you know kind of mode of an author but the most important reason and the most important reason that you buy a book like all you all of you are gonna do when we're done here tonight is that she has a point of view and anybody who has met Eileen with 13 seconds knows that she's got a strong point of view of just about anything that she comes into contact with and you will see in reading the Yunus story that she's not only got a point of view but she is trying to sell you on her title in a way that only Eileen could make that ring true which is the thesis that eunice Kennedy Shriver coming from this extraordinary family is the most interesting story in the family and has the legacy that lasted the longest and arguably means the most and we're gonna get to that thesis in a minute and see whether it holds up and I was gonna comment actually challenged her to a debate about whether Bobby mattered more than do it I'm gonna hold this isn't about me this is about her that's right Larry so what I want to do is start actually by asking her a question and the short question is why this book in this subject but more importantly tell us the answer to that question through taking us through the process what you had access to that nobody has ever seen and what you saw in these papers that you found so why Eunice the obvious answer to that is that this extraordinary woman has never been written about nobody knows her story people think she's a lovely lady that started Special Olympics she's a lot of things a lovely lady got so much tothe fearest beautiful but not easy not an easy woman but she did so much more in her life than Special Olympics that we didn't know about and finding that out was not easy because when you're a woman even a woman in the Kennedy family you don't necessarily leave the same paper trail I'm sure researching Bobby was a much easier I'm just saying but on the other hand she she then she did keep meticulous records into her life but not even her family knew that upstairs in the archives here the wonderful archives at the Kennedy Library in a storage room were 33 boxes that nobody had really ever gone through publicly accessible box not publicly accessible boxes because they were storing them here for the Shriver family but the Schreiber's had never deeded them to the library so the library wouldn't allow me to see them even with the permission of the Shriver children so we had to actually physically remove the boxes from here to Brandeis so that I could read them and Tim Shriver said to me Tim one of her sons who now runs Special Olympics I don't know what you think you're gonna find in those boxes I mean if I had to guess there are old VHS tapes of Maria on The Today Show well there was a lot in those boxes and I didn't come across with one VHS tape of Maria that one it was amazing she kept Diaries when she was a school girl in London they were letters from Lyndon Johnson and there they were it was a remarkable trove of material to look through so before I ask the next question I want to ask are there any Shrivers in the audience here great so I'm safe to ask anything that I want so the question is what was it getting access to this material with the Kennedys and Shrivers they're all wonderful they saved lots of papers but there's always a back story and what it was like dealing with them to get the access that you wanted how easy and how much insight did it give you into the family just trying to get that access well you know I think that all Kennedys and all Schreiber's are all offered and all Smiths are a little dubious when a journalist approaches them and says you know I'd really like to write a biography of your mother there's more than a few books out there on various Kennedys that don't take a particularly sympathetic tack and I not everything in this book it's especially sympathetic to Eunice either but I wanted to argue that you want a real journalist to do this somebody that is going to weigh your mother's record you don't want to hate geography you can hire someone to do that but let me see these papers and I'll tell you what's in them but give me a shot at it because I have some credibility and it took two years took two years of letter-writing phone conversations emails a trip to California to meet Maria and Bobby it took a lot of work to convince them that I was the real deal that I didn't have an agenda I didn't know their mother I knew probably about what everybody in the room knew about her but I knew that was more there so getting the papers was key and I had pretty much told Simon & Schuster unless I got access to the papers I wasn't going to do it because you really out of nowhere the only way to know her is to read that material so this book is an extraordinary book about units but it's also a lens into the rest of the Kennedys and before we get to Eunice I would love to hear what you came away thinking what did the unit's story tell you about who Rose was as a mother and as a person Rose rose well most of us of a certain age came of age with an impression about mrs. Kennedy that I think was manufactured and it was manufactured by institutions that are devoted to manufacturing those kinds of images and Joe Kennedy was a master of public relations as you know and the idea that the Rose Kennedy was the National matriarch strikes you as ironic when you when you read her personal letters - Eunice as Eunice is growing up you think hmm could be a little more present and could be a little more supportive did you come away liking roses no not especially I didn't I mean I think you know she had a she had a lot on her plate shed nine children but I don't think she raised them and I think we've been we've been told a story about how those children were raised that I don't think it's exactly accurate so somebody who had arguably an even bigger influence on Eunice's life was Joe Joe's expectations for his daughters versus his sons tell us what you came away thinking about Joe after this I would say this about worlds before I turned my attention to Joe is that she did get her incredible piety from her mother but she's a very different Catholic than Rose was roses piety was passive and unisys was quite active she saw the church and she saw Christ in the world in action not in church and was that in reaction to Rose no I don't think it was in reaction to her I think it was in reaction to Joe because the the political path that was open to her brothers was not open to her because of her gender she simply wasn't seen by her father and so while he was busily plotting the futures of his sons she was desperately trying to get his attention he did put her in charge of the Kennedy foundation that was named for Joseph Pete Jr who was of course killed in combat in World War two but typically when the letterhead of the Joseph P Kennedy foundation for decades it either read John F Kennedy President Robert F Kennedy President Edward M Kennedy president and none of them had much to do with the Kennedy foundation it was unisys show from 1957 one she ran it she determined what I did and they remarkable things so can you talk to us arguably the Kennedy who Eunice's life she lived most in reaction to in a before-and-after Joe Kennedy period was her sister Rosemary Deanne talk to us about Eunice's reaction to rosemary and dealing with guilt with rosemary and I think that's the record she doesn't leave she leaves she leaves is remarkably detailed Diaries in the run-up to World War two for instance where she has lots of things to say about Hitler about what's happening in London where as you'll remember her father was the US ambassador to the court of st. James but she doesn't she's not introspective none of the mark but I think probably Eunice is the least introspective at least in any way that you would you would see displayed in a even in a private writing she writes for instance this is something she does she lives with Jack when Jack Kennedy first goes to Congress in 1947 they roommates together they share a townhouse in Georgetown and she takes meticulous notes after every dinner party who said what what jokes were told she writes down the jokes in all their detail a few of them off-color she talks about how someone enters a room how they make conversation I think she was very awkward socially and so she used those occasional occasions to see how other people functions so that she could adopt the same behavior but insights into what she was thinking about something like rosemary you're not going to find in her writings we there's a big gap and I suspect we could fill it upstairs when the Kennedy family decides that all the pink slips that they have removed from the archives from the personal papers of Joseph and Rose when they restore those and make them available to historians we'll know more about the rosemary story we know that she was lobotomized of course in 1941 that ignite in she's the lobotomies in November Eunice transfers to Stanford from Manhattanville in January of 1942 some historians have argued that she was so traumatized by what happened to her older sister that she wanted to get as far away as she could go but one of the great things about access to these private papers is it's clear that Jack encouraged her to go to Stanford a full year before and that that was in process I don't think she learned about the lobotomy at the earliest until 1949 and we know that because in roses papers there was one letter after Rosemary's personal physician died prematurely the nuns at st. Coletta's wrote a letter to Rose saying we need to find a new physician and Rose said I'm going to refer this letter to my daughter Eunice because she was involved in the original decision about a doctor for rosemary when she first went to st. Coletta's that was 1949 so I think she knew then so can you start out by anybody who has worked with the Kennedys whether you're a reporter or whether you're a library official knows that it's exciting and it is challenging what was it like trying to get these trying to get access to the papers trying to get cooperation can you give us a little background on working with the family and when they opened up and when they I think you really did it took a took a long time and I this is really embarrassing I thought I had written these remarkable letters laying out my credentials I thought the Pulitzer might count for something but it really wasn't until spotlights came out and all the Shrivers went to the movies that weekend apparently and I started getting emails saying oh my god I silenced well and I believe my character was mentioned for 30 seconds so I'm very very grateful just spotlight because it opened the door so can I just say so her character may be mentioned for 30 seconds but she was spotlight would never have happened it would never have happened because she did the first story that convinced the new editor who was coming to Boston that this was a story worth pursuing and she was the spectre the whole time that they were out there tracking things down it was Eileen nothing would have happened with it and I think that the [Applause] so which was more of a challenge trying to get the Catholic Church to open up on spotlight or the Kennedy family on this book I'm not going to so when you got access to these extraordinary files there must have been a million things that delighted and surprised you can you tell us about some of the things that were your favorites that you were saying well the chaos of the papers I think was the most exciting thing you would never know what you'd find they'd be all these old crumbling newspaper clippings from London and like in the middle there would be this personal letter from a woman who had been a spy for Japan during World War two and had been sentenced to prison at Alderson the federal penitentiary for women in West Virginia Eunice befriended her and there's this exchange of letters her name was Velva Lee Dickinson Velva Lee what a name I mean how did you you can't beat that name and she was paroled the year after eunice worked at the prison and eunice got her a job with Catholic Charities in New York who knew that that that she she was that she was a lifetime friend of a world war two spy and she changed her name to Katherine Dickerson I think she figured out that Velva Lee would be a tip of people might connect her to her previous crimes but she there she is in the brides registry on the gift registry she gave her stationery from Tiffany's so she had taste she'd get a taste so Eunice seems like before we get to all your conclusions on who Eunice was can we talk a little bit about Eunice's relationship with other people and how she's a lens into some of the rest of the Kennedy family and can you start out with Joe and Jack the two older boys and what her interactions were like with them and what you learned that was new and interesting about them I didn't know how close she was to Jack I mean people told people in the family told me that Jack a daughter and when their older sister Kathleen died tragically in an airplane crash in 1948 eunice was the next able-bodied sister and they became extremely close she in the 1946 campaign was the one that Bobby sent or Joe sent to stand in for Jack when he had competing engagements and needed somebody to give a speech it was eunice that he sent he respected her political judgment she was a great strategist those famous tea parties I didn't know they were Eunice's idea she and a Cambridge city councilor cooked up that idea and all of the male advisors to Jack Kennedy said no that's a waste of money let's spend it on beer and have a beer bus for all the GIS returning from World War two and Eunice insisted no it's gonna cost a lot of money it's gonna bring out all of the women of a registered Democrat in the 11th district and some of you may remember the name droney droney was the Middlesex District Attorney later in his life but earlier he was just a young lawyer in Cambridge absolutely thought this would not work and it was on a Saturday and then the Sunday papers there were photographs of lines going around the corner of the commander hotel in Harvard Square all these women dressed in their finery to go have tea with Jack Kennedy's sisters and his mother so in the White House years Jack and Bobby used to joke about who was gonna have to deal with units when she came to see them that they knew she was gonna come and she had an agenda and that she was not going to be easy did she have a sense ie how they were dealing with her and did she have a sense that she ought to have been there and not these two yeah I think she had a sense of the latter and I would say with all due respect Larry that I wouldn't characterize that that's the way that Jack thought about her hmm in every secondary source that I've read about the relationship between these people she's an irritant she's a new addition oh my god give her what she wants get Eunice off the phone maybe they gave Eunice what she wanted because Eunice knew what worked maybe they respected Eunice's opinion I've heard you lately a lot on CNN talking about the Kennedys and talking about the relationship between the two brothers and in fact I heard you Sunday night say and I think you were absolutely right that the Cuban Missile Crisis was like bonded those brothers in a way that probably no siblings were bonded in that family but I couldn't help but notice every week of the CNN special when the Kennedys that there's no mention of his relationship with Eunice during the White House years and you know there was a Presidential Commission created in the White House at the urging of Eunice Shriver that she made her brothers sign off on before he took the oath of office it was called the President's Commission on mental retardation and it led to all the legislation federal legislation that still currently exists that the institutionalized children that were kept in these Dickensian institutions that created group homes that gave federal money for the first time to states most states didn't have departments of what we then called mental retardation that we now call intellectual disabilities they didn't exist in most states they existed after this legislation passed who wrote that legislation who who created the panel on that was full of the experts that crafted it I don't know why that didn't get in CNN documentary I just don't know what [Applause] so I don't want to defend CNN and I have no idea what's coming but there are three parts left the breath how much of all the things that you just talked about how much was that not just an out Grove rosemary and her relationship with rosemary but an outgrowth of her guilt in terms of what she did or didn't do during the years her dad was alive and talked to us about why somebody a strong willed as eunice until her dad had his stroke well along with the rest of the family I think is you have to understand who he was and I think you do he had a powerful powerful hold over that family I don't think anybody defied him I don't think Jack defied him I don't think anybody defied him he was the patriarch and I no matter how she felt she would have done what her father told her to do and if she said if he said to her that rosemary was off-limits uh who knows if she visited her privately she lived in Chicago not far from the institution there's no records left at the institution so it's impossible to know but you know the Wisconsin primary was he to Jack Kennedy's primary success and she was right there and the district that Sargent Shriver and Eunice Shriver were assigned to canvass with the district where Jefferson Wisconsin is is it possible she never went to see her sister I don't think so I think she went but I can't tell you that she went and if she didn't go I can understand that too because her father would not have been pleased so how much of the rest of her life and all of her extraordinary work on those issues were compensating for yeah I think I think some of it was compensation but I think there's guilt I'm not gonna psychoanalyze her there was some guilt that was anger a lot of it was anger at her father that was displaced in some ways and I think there was rage if you want to understand who the Shriver you have to understand rage and it it wasn't just raged at how rosemary was treated and what you know what fate befell her it was that all of these children and adults all around the country five million in 1960 had nothing children with intellectual disabilities didn't have a right to a public school education until 1975 and they wouldn't have had it then if it wasn't for Eunice Shriver so we've talked a little bit about them rose and relationship to Joe and the siblings arguably a more important person in her world and shaping her world and for the rest of her life was Sargent Shriver yeah what can you tell us about their relationship what role each played and the support they gave to one another there are a remarkable political partnership there unlike anything else in this family they're like any other couple that I've encountered in my life he had toward her his his love letters to her and the stack was quite large was in her personal papers and they're just remarkable the level of devotion and persistence seven years he dated her seven years and she wasn't having it because she wanted to be in them and and I think she devoutly felt that she had a vocation it's not unusual any of you who happen to have gone to Catholic school know that it isn't as if the nuns don't encourage you to think that you might have a vocation and they encouraged the girls were at Roehampton the sisters of the Sacred Heart that taught her Roehampton in London and I met a wonderful woman when I went to Roehampton to look at the archives there who sat in the last row of the study hall beside Eunice she was a few years younger than Eunice and she said during our school days everyone knew that Eunice had a vocation and as it turned out Dorothy Bell who was the young girl who sat beside her did become a sister of the Sacred Heart and she said I was astounded to find out that she did not become a nun and I did because I was much more sure of her vocation than I wasn't my own um so other than so he was extraordinarily persistent he 7 years but when they get married this was a great uncharacteristically Kennedy marriage in me oh very uncharacteristic I think I mean I think before we marry them you have to know what how did she get convinced I mean she thought the world of Sargent Shriver liked her he was a devout Catholic they went to Mass together every Sunday she lived in Chicago then and he was running the Merchandise Mart for Joe so he would be essentially marrying the baudet buzz his daughter and they they had a lot of fun together but she she wouldn't give up the idea of the convent until Joe put in a call to father Theodore Hesburgh at Notre Dame in 1952 father Hesburgh had just been named the president of Notre Dame and they were big Notre Dame football fans and Sargent Eunice used to go down quite a lot to see the games so he invited her for a little private conversation in at Notre Dame in 1952 and she went and father Hesburgh dined out on this story for about 40 years with his fellow priest and several of whom told it to me and but he always told biographer Kennedy by AFER's oh of course it was love that it was wonderful Sarge was just persistence in when the day so when I called father Hesburgh I said you know father this story's been around for a long time because you've told it so often and I wouldn't really hate to think that you were telling tales long pause well you know why they game everyone's did I guess we can put it on the record now yes I told Eunice she didn't have a vocation to be a nun she had a vocation to marry Sargent Shriver and have his children I was astounded I mean even though I'd heard the story I was astounded to hear it and I said and you didn't feel a little queasy about being Joe Kennedy's emissary he said I would have if I hadn't known what a wonderful man he was and if I hadn't seen them together and known that they would make a wonderful marriage and I think they did they did so you're a much better reporter than I am and the I spent a long time trying to understand the relationship between why Bobby Kennedy so despised Sargent Shriver and tried to undermine him when Bobby Kennedy when Lyndon Johnson was looking in 1964 for a vice president and he brought up the name Sargent Shriver Bobby Kennedy said it will be a real Kennedy meaning him Bobby Orr it would be nobody what did you understand about that antipathy and where Eunice fit into it did she try to she adored Bobby she did Bobby and she adored Sarge - but not in quite the same way I mean Sarge his friends when I interviewed his friends from the Kennedy administration from that period they always felt that Sarge got a bum deal that he was always like the secondary Kennedy he wasn't like really accepted as part of the family but I've read your biography of Bobby so I know that Bobby evolved himself he wasn't the liberal icon in 1964 that he was in 1968 and I think he thought of Sarge's the house communists because in Chicago sergeant Shrivers that on the interracial Council the Catholic interracial council he and Eunice took black adolescent girls into their home once they left the reformatory where Eunice volunteered so that they would have some transitional housing Sarge used to say I'd be sitting at my desk at home on Lake Shore Drive doing some paperwork and they'd be a knock on the door and I'd open the door and there'd be a girl with a little suitcase and I think Oh Lord one of Eunice's and they took them in and they mentioned them and they treated them like family Bobby and Maria who were young but they were the only two there in Chicago they remember the girls at the dinner table they never knew who exactly why they were there and they came with them to the Cape I think Sarge was much more liberal than the Kennedys much more liberal he was and I think not the only thing that I didn't see Bobby evolve on was Sargent Shriver but the so I want to get to some of the issues that made Eunice so incredibly compelling as an advocate and a person and I want to read a few of my favorite lines from the books on different themes and would love you to comment on sure this is what Eileen McNamara wrote on Eunice's competitiveness she was the best sailor in a group of natural mariners the best tennis player among siblings who had volleyed on the grass courts of Wimbledon and the clay at cap Antibes and she was trained by her father not to lose what she really did despite a physical Constitution so delicate the family called her puny uni talk to us about her competitiveness she was fierce I mean I think I say in the book that the word I heard most often in interviews to describe unis is the word that Ted Kennedy first used in describing her to me when I covered Congress during the Reagan administration and got to know the senator she was formidable and she was formidable because she didn't think that there was an excuse for anything all right you are a very sickly young woman who at five foot ten usually weighed around 105 pounds I mean that's the person maybe with an eating disorder - but there's she had I think they possibly was an eating disorder because she was her parents her mother was fixated on their weight she waved them constantly when they were children but there was also she had all kinds of physical stomach ailments gastrointestinal problems Addison's disease as Jack had Addison's disease and because Joe's ethic was that it only counts if you come in first she imbibed that and she was not gonna let Jack come in first all the time she was gonna come in first so she was very competitive athletically as she was politically she was going to get done what she wanted to get done so can we talk for one quick second say you mentioned the idea Rose was obsessively weighing the kids yeah but the boys were fat Ted was a young well Kenny was fat Jack was not Kelly started taking steroids for his Addison's disease so was there a reaction that the wing had a different implications for what the girls should yeah I think so I think it did and you can see I mean if I don't see him as warm as many biographers toward Rose it's because of these letters that she would write to Eunice I think she compared her unfavorably to Kathleen who was more feminine and flirtatious Eunice wasn't going there she wasn't flirtatious she wasn't feminine she was she wore men's trousers and she played a very vigorous game of tennis she drove men off the court nearly in tears I mean people would people would feign ankle injuries so not to have to play tennis with Eunice but that in the Kennedy family and given the way the Kennedys reacted to the boys and the girls on the nine that was needed to have her voice wasn't that the competitiveness I think so but I also think it was a little bit as they say I think she was an angry person and lots of levels maybe it's me but you know I'm Irish we're not all beauties right you know so not all of us but you look at photographs of the Kennedy girls and when they're young women and the Kennedys write a narrative I think or wrote a narrative Joe wrote a narrative of this and every family member every child has a has a little story about them and as historians dig in these stories are really true ain't Joe jr. handsome athletic mean a bully I threw Teddy off a sailboat because he was too heavy and he was weighing him down during a race that's the Atlantic Ocean people an anti-semite and well yeah maybe and also Eunice fought fiercely this Lou is another interesting thing about her she fought fiercely to keep a letter that Joe Jr wrote before World War two out of hostages of fortune which is a wonderful wonderful collection of Joe Kennedy seniors correspondence was compiled by Amanda Smith gene Smith's daughter it's a really brilliant piece of work that she did when she was studying at Harvard for her PhD and what and the letter talks about how his admiration for a lot of things in the Third Reich and one of the things that he admired most was this policy of sterilization of people who were defective and unfit and you can understand why Yoona said that not that can't be published I've spent my life trying to get people not to see others as defective so I want to read something else that you wrote but before I do I want to say the N and I'm not representing Simon & Schuster up here but I want to say that I've read one of the things you do when you write a book as you read lots of other books written on that topic and the and I read probably I think I ended up giving away 500 books at the end of finishing my book and I've read everything that's been written about Eddie Kennedy and the combination of writing and original reporting in your book was something extraordinary that I didn't see in 500 books that I had read on the Kennedys you told us a new story about not just Eunice but about the whole family but I want to read something that you wrote about their activism and so rather than telling you that you wrote really well I want to show you another little piece of her writing and Eileen writes there is little doubt that at least some of that passion was private anger the anger you just talked about redirected to the public sphere anger at the adored but autocratic father who lobotomized a beloved sister anger at the pious but passive mother who submitted to Rosemary's long banishment from the family anger at herself in her siblings for allowing themselves to edit the inconvenient rosemary out of their lives for so many years and you called it anger I would call it passion or appropriate anger talk about sort of this was anger that somebody should have felt that all the things that she was watching going on in her family tell us about well you know there's there's a letter that that Joe senior writes to one of the nuns at st. Coletta's that I think is his justification for the banishment of rosemary Rosemary's situation resolving Rosemary's situation by allowing her to live at st. Coletta's has freed all of them to fulfill their own destinies and I think that was probably true for Jack and maybe Bobby it allowed them on the public stage but it didn't fulfill Eunice's mission what was her mission she wasn't going to have a public political career but ironically Joe didn't know this but he did by banishing rosemary find a way for Eunice to channel her social conscience and her passion in a public way and to serve the public good in no less of way than Jack did or Bobby did or Teddy did and I would argue in a way it's much more consequential it she changed the way we look at an entire population of people she did so I want to read you I had a lot of favors but this was probably my favorite paragraph in the book and this is what you were just talking about and you say if that girl had been born with balls she would have been head of a pot a politician joe kennedy is reputed to have said of eunice an observation that reflected less on her talents than in the limits of his imagination the self-made millionaire could envision either of his older sons the first Catholic president but couldn't picture his daughter in public office breaking barriers was for Kennedy men not Kennedy women men play and women pray that was Joe Kennedy's attitude towards his wife and his daughters but there was one daughter who broke out of that MV she became arguably one of the most effective politicians in the family how did she manage was it just determination what was there in units that let her do this despite Joe's constraints because she was smart as hell I mean look at the morale she she went to Stanford she transferred from Manhattan the lovely school to Stanford she she came back from Stanford to finish up her degree and she went directly she um she she was smart she was savvy she was ambitious it wasn't polite to be ambitious as a woman in the 50s or the 40s but she was ambitious she wanted what her father was laying out for her brothers she knew she couldn't get it the way they were getting it so she just wormed her way behind the scenes and she got what she wanted in 1960 she went to Jack and said why isn't there a National Institute for Child Health and Human Development everything stems from that why don't we know anything about human development this wasn't just about her concern for mental retardation this was her concern for about everything about childhood illnesses and diseases how did she convince Jack she said Jack you and Jackie have had two tragic losses one a miscarriage one is stillbirth and jack on a sailboat and then tuck it sound said well well would it help to and yes she said it would help if researchers focused on prenatal care focused on infant development of course it would matter and what do we have now we have a child we have an Institute of Child Health and Human Development that is called the eunice Kennedy Shriver Institute for Child Health and Human Development she created that the research that has happened there has been extraordinary the Kennedys son Patrick died of hyaline membrane disease of a deficiency in lung development no one dies of that today because because of the work that went on at the Institute that does not exist except for eunice Kennedy Shriver so when I hear your passion for her here tonight and when I read that passion in the book I'd have to be an idiot not to say somebody that I'm reminded of is somebody named Eileen met her as I read about eunice Kennedy Shriver how much did you see yourself in her and how much did that drive you in this process well I can't play tennis and I don't know how to sail so and I don't weigh a hundred and five pounds for that matter I mean so not so much I didn't see myself but I did see myself in her she bristled a lot at at obstacles that women face in the world and I don't know if that building was still open across the street on Morrissey Boulevard I think they probably remember me bristling a little bit you know once or twice I'm so I yeah I read her in that way I believe in social justice too and I I think she was just an amazing force of nature in fighting for it so I think Eunice also captures it I think every Kennedy in every Kennedy certainly among the nine children of rose and Joe was a set of contradictions they were a combination of some blend of god-awful disagreeable and transcendent good and Eunice seemed brilliantly to capture both of those can you talk about this USS contradiction and Eunice says Kennedy contradict yeah absolutely I interviewed lots and lots of her assistants and it is easy because she had lots and lots of assistance because they quit regularly because they couldn't work for her one told me she came to her and after two weeks on the job and said mrs. Shriver I just I I had to let you know that I spend my lunch hour every day at the church next door praying for the fortitude to get through one more day working for you and mrs. Shriver set behind her desk and said could we take dictation now so and I don't think she would but I interviewed many assistants who told me stories like that but who also said but I loved her so for the work that she did and the energy she brought to it I don't think she was mean I think she expected everyone to have the same sense of urgency that she had and no living human being has that sense of urgency so I think it was she had impossible expectations for her children as well as for her employees she wanted the world she didn't believe in no she didn't hear no and that can be tough that can be tough to take can be really tough to take so I would love to know where you started out in terms of the book process liking or not liking Eunice and where you ended up I didn't know where well enough to like her or not like her I heard a lot of these stories about people having to go pray to get through the day and then I didn't like her but then I got to know her and I really liked her I really liked her I I wouldn't want to hang out with her yeah I don't think she will hang out with me I don't think we were we're not alike in lots of ways so we probably wouldn't be pals but there is there is a scent a former senator who was a key figure in the Kennedy administration who said to me about the Shrivers there is one person in the world that I wish I could bring back to have dinner with and that's Sargent Shriver and there's one person in the world I would never bring back to have dinner with and that's new to Shriver Wow and I wrote that down seriously and he said you know maybe you don't want to put this in the book I don't think the kids would like it and the kids wouldn't trunk I think they understood that about their mom they think they do that so is it accidental when you talk about the kids they've all had something to write as well as to say about their father about their mother a lot more silence was it difficult to get them to open up and really talk to you about what they thought about their mother no um surprisingly at the beginning it was I mean until spotlight thank you again father um when I think I got some legitimacy they were very candid they were very candid Bobby you know said you know when I think of her now I think she was probably a working addict because she she was on all kinds of medication which Ethel Kennedy told me she would take in fistfuls and you would never know what the hell's in there and Ted had a nurse practitioner who worked for him on disability issues who was dispatched regularly to the Shriver household to readjust her meds so I think they were honest about their mother they saw her clearly they admired her fiercely they adored her but they ran when she was coming they all described her favorite expression when they were children was it onto yourself that means and Maria's describes it is you know get up get out do something seize the day nobody sat in front of a television set in that house nobody lounged around all of them told me they have spent their young adult lives learning how to relax so I want to just make one more editorial comment on Arlene she makes all of this all of those impressions that she drew out of the children sound like they were easy and again no Shrivers in the audience but the doing anything with any generation of the Kennedys or Shrivers is never easy and it's a tribute to her skills as a journalist and an intrepid researcher that not only did they talk to her and talk to her as openly as as they did but that they opened up these papers that had been there forever that so many people were trying so that doesn't require any comments in your part I want to end my part of the the questioning with the most important question which is the thesis of your book of your title and subtitle is the eunice wasn't just the equal of her brothers but that she ended up mattering more take your best shot at telling us why in this family okay the subtitle of the book is the kennedy who changed the world and that's not my subtitle i went back through my notes as we were trying to come up with a title for this book and it was remarkable how many times that expression was used by people Lowell Weicker once gave a commencement speech he's the former governor and senator from Connecticut he gave a commencement speech in which he said to young people graduating into the world people will tell you you can change the world and you won't believe them because it sounds extraordinary I'm gonna tell you about a woman who did and it's a wonderful speech and it turned out that that was the impression of an awful lot of folks who knew her worked with her were terrified of her on Capitol Hill who like cut an appropriation she wanted there are more than 170 countries in the world including South Africa China Russia where children who are locked away are not locked away anymore and you can say well the special olympics didn't do that yes it did because Eunice Shriver told all of us to value every human life and people listened to her and she went into places where you are not supposed to push away into institutions to see how these children were being treated and she used her name and her forceful personality and she barged into places all over the world and because baby because she was President Kennedy's sister she cracked open the door and now all over the world millions of children have dignity that didn't have dignity I and make this assertion without any disparagement of Senator Edward Kennedy's accomplishments his 47 years in the Senate are a testament to what makes a great lawmaker Jacky and Bobby's lives were cut short they left a wonderful legacy but they didn't get the full life that eunice got and up until the last moment of her 88th year she was still haranguing people about amendments to the Americans with Disabilities Act so I just want to say in ending this segment of the program and that the one thing I think Eunice was missing was somebody giving voice to all that she had done and telling us why she mattered and there's only one book in the world that will do that and so I want to begin by how I ended my part of the program which is saying you'll be aligned in the back and buy one for yourself buy one for your gifts for Christmas and Mother's Day and everything else and I think that because it really does tell a story that has been missing and the idea that you could say that about anything Kennedy related that a story is actually missing out there and that's a tribute not just to the fact that it was the first important biography and that you got all this great material but that you did true justice to her I think what we're gonna do now is take questions how do we do this people come to microphones great so come to microphones and we'd love to hear you have a lot of lights in our eyes are great no that's there is a mic sir the first question first of all is there time for CNN to add an addendum to the program you you speak as interestingly as as you write and makes it fascinating I think any of us who went to parochial school had that sister in school so I think that's you know she may have not taken the the holy vows but she carried on in that way she's a lot like Katherine Hepburn from what you described a question about the Addison's disease because they say that that effect to Jack Kennedy's personality and they became more risk takers than people who don't have it is that perhaps part of her personality that I don't know what are their other diseases she had but Addison can affect that I don't know I don't know about that I don't think I would say that because she was his fierce at 14 long before she was diagnosed with that disease and she was at 80 so I don't think it was that I think it was something else something deeper thank you very much thank you question over here my question to you is did any of Kennedy's children ever stand up to Joe as an anti-semitic pro-nazi a bootlegger and all the other things he was did they ever stand up any of them stand up face to face and say dad you're wrong what a benign question I think I mean I read the patriarch pretty carefully and I don't think we've established it - it was a bootlegger I mean we know that he did imported Hague and Hague but I know I don't think they did I don't think they did where the money come from you shut up pardon me where the money comes from you just keep your mouth shut well I think they all love their father I don't I I mean I think this is a very interesting thing about the Kennedys I mean people have very strong feelings about this family but they are a family don't forget and what ever you think of any of their politics he was their dad and he was a present father even when he was away he wrote them all the time the files upstairs are full of his letters to his kids they know that their careers and their lives were we're dependent on him in many ways that his encouragement and is yes his money so this is about you not me but can I take a quick shot of that I think most of what the Kennedy kids did during their lives they didn't stand up to him by confronting him but most of what they did during their public lives was confronting him everything in your book convinced me the eunice Kennedy's life was shaped by what Joe did in banishing and lobotomizing rosemary in standing that's a profound way Bobby Kennedy started life he started his public life where the stigma of having grown up where the father who was an anti-semite and the question about whether he was anti-semitic and at the end of his life he was killed because he was too Pro Semitic sirhan sirhan said I killed him because he was too supportive of Israel and the Jews that I think what they did in their public lifes was a more profound way of standing up to Joe Kennedy than actually confronting their aging father when they were over in England and when he was an ambassador and he was auntie it was Pro Nancy what were their feelings to them they must have had some feelings well I mean I think I'm gonna I'm gonna leave it with with what Larry said I mean I think this the motto of this special olympics says it all we've talked about how Joe's motto was only first place finishers count what's the motto of special olympics let me win but if I cannot win let me be brave in the attempt and saying that as the daughter of Joe Kennedy was saying a lot a question there you brought up so many you know you rich the story of Eunice for someone you know it's known about it for a long time go to Dib Wow yes how you doing what it was also at Brandeis yes yes made a big deal about the Saturday Evening Post and now that you've talked about unis tonight and sort of opened my eyes in a different way about her I've got to say could you talk about that Saturday Evening Post article because I think you know given what you're saying about her that's in before Special Olympics right right it's waivable and he was still pretty with it I would know he wasn't he wasn't in 15 okay she wrote that article in 1962 this is an article they Eunice wrote in 1962 for Saturday Evening Post and it's when the family revealed that rosemary had we then called mental retardation and this this was a revolutionary piece for one thing they were telling the truth for years they had said that she was teaching children in a school for the mentally in Wisconsin when in fact she was a resident there this piece is extraordinary for a couple of reasons one she didn't write it of course you didn't write it none of them are anything that's that's what we do for a living um but the fellow that they got to write it tells hilarious stories about being flown in to Hyannis Port and basically locked on one of those porches watching the sea come in while she brought reams and reams of research material and told him and when it didn't sound enough like Jack should say write it again it doesn't sound like and that's like Jack and this was her piece but she did have a thing about her brother and he tells the story of how President Kennedy would would come through the porch have you seen you own a yo day it's time to go sailing and it's every once in a while I'd look up and think oh that's where I am this is what I'm doing but the piece had a remarkable remarkable impact because nobody had talked about this issue publicly before and because she was a Kennedy it will it had an enormous impact people felt free to talk about the situation in their own family but it is worth noting that the was published in September of 1962 and Joe Kennedy had his stroke in December of 1961 so before we take the next question I just want to make a quick comment Eilene just demonstrated in graphic form how she gave voice to Eunice Shriver the that voice is brilliant most people don't have the courage most authors don't have the courage you ever try to imitate the kennedy eunice Kennedy Shriver was a Kennedy by birth and a Shriver by marriage and you pointed out sometimes some of the conflicts that occurred between Sargent Shriver and members of the Kennedy family regarding some positions or rather posts he took there were political posts what effect if any and how if there was a conflict how did that resolve between eunice and Bobby and whatever family members might have been offended by some of the political opportunities that Sargent Shriver took advantage of well I think there were two points I think Larry would agree with me of a real contention between Bobby and Sarge in 1964 Lyndon Johnson asked Sarge to run the war in poverty this was something Bobby resented because he and Jack before Jack's assassination had talked about a major assault on the poverty issue and he thought that was his portfolio arguably Bobby thought everything was his portfolio I would say so they and Lyndon Johnson and Bobby Kennedy could not tolerate one another so part of him giving it to Sarge I'm sure was to stick it to Bobby the second occurrence Eunice told him to take the job he said he didn't want to take the job because he loved the Peace Corps and he wanted to stay in the Peace Corps but I found a letter from her where she said you know if the president asked you to do it you do it you have to do it and the second conflict was in 1968 when Lyndon Johnson before he had a that he would not stand for re-election ask sergeant Shriver to be his ambassador to France did he suspect that Bobby might run maybe he did Bobby was certainly talking about running in late 67 didn't run until after Jim McCarthy did well in New Hampshire it's true but the thought was that he was out there this was an opportunity for Sarge to stand on his own to do something on his own he accepts the position in 20 seconds later Bobby announces he's running for the Presidency and I have to say a lot of sergeants friends said to me she always stood with the Kennedy brothers instead of standing with Sarge and in 1968 she stood with Sarge emissary after emissary came out to timber lawn their estate in Maryland and said you have to go to Indiana for Bobby you have to stay and work for Bobby Sarge you have to be part of the campaign and Eunice said and I quote we are going to be ambassadors to frogs how's that and note that she said we and she said ambassadors and she wanted to go to France she loved her time in France and she thought Sarge was entitled to something of his own and she but she she split the baby she Sarge went in early April to France she went to Indiana and campaigned for Bobby and then flew to France after after the Indiana primary very diplomatic yeah one quick comment on that when Bobby in 1964 when LBJ was about to accept the presidency he was looking around for a vice president and II and he I think just to tweak Bobby suggested it was going to be Sargent Shriver and Bobby's famous response was if it's gonna be a Kennedy it would be a real Kennedy and that was Bobby's the ultimate put-down of Sargent Shriver who was as close to a real Kennedy as every way as you could get and the and so I think you just made a great decision in 68 yeah by sticking by and it was a brilliant move by LBJ to take Shriver and Eunice out of the camp oh there's no question that there was a political calculation there he didn't want Sargent and Eunice in the country if he was running campaigning against him question uh hi I mean could you talk about um Eunice's relationship were there two younger sisters with her two younger sisters Oh with Pat and genius very close to Pat not as close to gene but the sisters were Kennedy close how's that she and Pat was very close I think but she was so different than her sisters the gene ends up later on serving as ambassador to Ireland but was certainly compared to Eunice a meek presence how did Eunice turn out so differently um because Eunice is Eunice and she's not like the others they both had ambitions gene wanted either to be a nurse or a doctor she talks about it that her father said no it was unseemly for a woman to be in medicine even though the doctor in the white house was Janet Ravel who was a woman when Jack was there Pat had a great business his business head they thought she would like to be a businesswoman Joe veto that so Eunice is the only one that broke out of the box and yes gene was the ambassador to Ireland because Ted said it's time for gene to have something so clinton named her ambassador ireland and you know did a nice job at it and while she was there peace came to Northern Ireland but I don't think she had anything to do I think George Mitchell did but I don't think she did question great discussion got here a little late so I'm not sure whether you may have said something in the very beginning about this but you've both written excellent biographies about two members of the Kennedy family that to me in your description sound most close in personality the intensity the passion Bobby that is and Eunice would you agree with that as to begin with and secondly let's start and leave that alone okay I would say yes she's closer to Bobby she wanted to be gellick but she didn't excuse me she didn't have Jack's smoothness and disposition you know she had a mercurial personality the idea that she would ever be elected to public office is probably remote because she was kind of prickly just as bobby was prickly but what I mean what they had they didn't move as smoothly through life as Jack Kennedy did I think life was harder for them Bobby was the runt of the litter she was a girl I think they they internalized that and the compassion that they both had for the disenfranchised you know comes through and every pore of their being I'm not saying Jack Kennedy didn't have that but I don't think he had it at least in the early 60s would he have had it later on that Bobby did and that units did some said Bobby would have been in later years a radical priest you know and in his own ways which it sounds a lot like her I'm curious who would have won a tennis match between Bobby and you really really yeah but last serious question being on that what about her suspicions about the assassinations of two of her brothers did she have any thinking about the possibility that there was CIA involvement it but yeah mom you know a lot has been written on this so I wonder Kennedy's don't look back they look forward they don't look back none of the Shriver children ever had a conversation with their mother about the assassinations of their uncle that was extraordinary to me Anthony told me that if it came on television a special about the assassinations she turned it off and said oh go sale it wasn't a topic of conversation and it was not a preoccupation of hers what was passed was passed and I didn't she didn't want it reexamined one of the mark Nathan one of them one of her children was at the Potomac school with one of Ethel's children at the time and this was coming up as a history lesson and she showed up at the Potomac school and she took both of them out of the school thank you sure first of all I'd like to say thank you very much for this book I work for Special Olympics and I remember back in 1995 I went down to Washington DC and I was given a tour of the office and we said okay now look through this window and then if you look out it goes across alleyway and you can see into another window and that's where mrs. Shrivers office is we don't go in there unless you call I want you to know that mrs. Shrivers office is preserved exactly as it was when she left it it's uh it's locked and I asked him if I could go into the inner sanctum and a piece of paper blew off the table and I said didn't stay long but I I think she's still there so it's wonderful that you've written this book there's so many of us that have been looking and waiting to hear more and more about her and and I was just wondering yeah she sounded like a prolific letter writer and and had lots of talk did she have any type of memoirs that she was no I mean that would not have been unisys style and she would be horrified by this book I sent it to one of her close friends when it was in manuscript form and when I got when Dida Blair is a socialite uh a philanthropist on medical issues in New York and when Dida got to the parts in the book that were about her physical condition she said oh no no no Eunice would want that out you've got to take that out and I'd say well goodness is in here at staying thank you so the only one of those children of the nine children who wrote anything that could legitimately be called a memoir I think was Ted and I think and it says a lot maybe about how he was different than the others he actually showed feeling and emotion and let some of that come out in his yes I was just wondering in some of your early diaries that you said is there at one point that you see that sense of anger come out because of how people would look at somebody as rosemary because when Eunice was here at the library what a she's she attributed Jack's sense of compassion to living with somebody that was challenged such as rosemary so I was wondering if there was one point in her life that kind of solidified it or she it was an awakening for her yeah there's no there's no no psychological awakening in Eunice's writings I mean what I loved about them in fact was in some ways how pedestrian they were when she was a debutante preparing for all these parties or had just gone to some luncheon she would say had a lovely time - was such a lovely girl to meet she didn't remember anybody's name so there were dashes all through the diary that that'll be useful for you when you read that years later Eunice no I don't think there was one thing like that and I also think it's important to know that she projected one to Jack her feelings and her thoughts about intellectual disabilities I don't think Jack had a thought in his head about intellectual disabilities he's no record in the Senate his record in the Senate is absent he he walked out of a hearing room the only bill that had been passed before the Kennedy administration was to provide some federal funding for special education teachers and a brilliant woman who was going to testify at that hearing was infuriated to see Senator Jack Kennedy brush right past her out of the hearing room and not stick around to hear from testimony so I think there's a lot of projection going on they don't hurt her she stands up even higher in character now I think she does tonight and she also was politically savvy enough to know that if I don't say that this is Jack Who am I I'm just his sister I mean who is Eunice Shriver all across this country as I did interviews well wait a minute she's the one with 11 kids you know that's awful oh oh is she Maria's mother yes is she Sergeant Shrivers wife yes but she's also herself so thank you once again for bringing her reporters thank you so let's take one more question here I'm so sorry I was two hours on route 93 oh I'm so sorry I just came so yeah no idea what you're talking about aye aye when this lady's mentioned the word compassion I had to come up because I don't know what you talked about but would not all of the Kennedys I hope think that the term compassion really is what has to be done in these schools and the the businesses and I mean we just had another one right now we're having another another attack in California right now so it's they have to teach it they have to work with it I'm a poet and I think that poetry is one of the best ways to do that and artwork mm-hmm and I just wondered well I think Eunice would agree with you she started a program in the 80s that still exists in thousands of schools all across this country and middle schools and high schools and it's called communities of caring and it's run now out of the University of Utah but she started it and the idea was to stop bullying of intellectually disabled kids but now it's got a much broader curriculum which is trying to deal with the whole bullying issue in general what was how it was now I mean it's just the bullying is so pervasive everywhere even adults thank you I'm sorry for your traffic woes so I want to end by just saying I'm I've already made the pitch that you should go out and buy books for every relative that you can be on the Home Shopping Network and I don't know shopping so I want to make just one more pitch and this is an easy pitch after the performance of Arlene just put on and that is a pitch and if you are part of the big enough group out there to justify her coming I can't imagine two combinations a combination that makes more sense a person in our world who we should know about who we don't like you know Shriver and a person who can bring them alive as a speaker like Eileen McNamara just proved that she can do so pepper is a speaker buyer [Applause]

Channel: JFK Library

Views: 20,194

Rating: 4.736527 out of 5

Keywords: John, F., Kennedy, Presidential, Library, and, Musuem, eunice, kennedy, intellectual, disabilities, special, olympics

Id: YcEricS_Wus

Length: 83min 0sec (4980 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 03 2018