We've been watching the Kennedys mini-series this week, staying up later than usual to walk through what we remember in our youth of the Boys at the Top and how they waded through the dangerous waters of change.
The show is a drama, meaning there's too much information and some of it is untrue. I've read some of Joe Sr previously, but what I am surprised by is the amount of time devoted to him and his unrelenting control and ruthless ambition that drove his sons into the White House and the grave.
Joe Sr. was a bootlegger, with probable ties to the Irish Mafia. He was a bully to his children, his family, his colleagues, his wife. He goaded his boys into such fierce competition that the eldest was motivated back into the war to be decorated and was killed. He gave permission for a frontal lobotomy to be performed on his daughter Rosemary without his wife's permission, which reduced her mental capacity to that of an infant.
He groomed his first son for the Presidency; after Joe Jr's death, he forced Jack into the role and Bobby into a support role. Many times I wondered how the children could emerge to be public servants at all. The boys went on to change the course of history, even change our expectations of what a President should be, but not of their own volition.
It is truly ironic the Kennedy Mantra is 'family is everything'. He brow beat and belittled his daughters-in-law. He was an unapologetic womanizer, a habit that he unfortunately passed along to some of his sons. Every one and every thing fed his cancerous ego and ambition.
How different the world would be had the Kennedy brothers lived outside of their father's grip.
People talk of the Kennedy Curse and the bad luck that has befallen the clan. But I believe it was their father's harsh upbringing and the enormous pressure brought to bear on the sons and grandsons that put in motion events that ultimately led to the tragedies.
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