High life
Truth time
Taki
New York This is a grim tale with an even grimmer cover-up. It involves none other than America's first political family, the Ken- nedys. The cast of characters is familiar by now. There's Joe, Bobby, David and Michael, sons of Robert Kennedy and Ethel; Christopher Lawford, son of Pat Kennedy; the Smith boys, sons of Jean; and the Shriver brothers, sons of Eunice Ken- nedy. There's also Teddy Kennedy, the senior senator of Massachusetts; and Richard Goodwin and his wife Doris Kearns, both speech writers for Teddy as well as being on the payroll of the vast Ken- nedy machine with the singular assignment to whitewash any Kennedy scandal. This is a grim tale with an even grimmer cover-up. It involves none other than America's first political family, the Ken- nedys. The cast of characters is familiar by now. There's Joe, Bobby, David and Michael, sons of Robert Kennedy and Ethel; Christopher Lawford, son of Pat Kennedy; the Smith boys, sons of Jean; and the Shriver brothers, sons of Eunice Ken- nedy. There's also Teddy Kennedy, the senior senator of Massachusetts; and Richard Goodwin and his wife Doris Kearns, both speech writers for Teddy as well as being on the payroll of the vast Ken- nedy machine with the singular assignment to whitewash any Kennedy scandal.
It was in 1975 when I first heard rumours about the erratic behaviour of the young Kennedys. That it was drug-induced and that if the 'torch was about to be passed' to them, as their Uncle Teddy had announced, the Republic's days were numbered. There was only one problem. The stories that the gossip grapevine was producing were so harrowing, I felt they reeked of a Goebbels- like propaganda plot to discredit.
Eventually I got the opportunity to judge for myself. It was easy, although hardly pretty. If anything, the gossip grapevine had understated the case. Although I was always begging various editors to let me write the story of the Kennedy clan's brutality, their drug-taking and drug- selling, their carelessness with other people's feelings, even lives, no editor would touch it. Too libellous, they all said. Now a book written by two people I know is about to be published and it details all the above. What is interesting, however, is not the seamy side — the constant main-lining of heroin, the vast consumption of LSD, the daily intake of cocaine and angel dust (an animal tranquilliser) — but how the various kids got hooked and once hooked what they used as an excuse. Finally, and most interesting of all, is how the writers managed to get their book published.
The villain of the book is Bobby Kennedy Jr. Bobby boasted that he could handle and maintain the heaviest of drug use, while his younger brother David and cousin Chris Lawford fell apart trying to compete. The Kennedys were more interested in how well they performed against each other than in any ultimate goal.
Both Bobby and Chris Lawford accuse Teddy of letting the side down: 'The build- up he was getting from the press was a sham, a Kennedy-created sham at that. We all felt very bitter about him. He couldn't fill Uncle Bobby's shoes.' Yes, you guessed it. Bobby, Chris, Joe, David and a few other cousins have actually sat down with the authors and have spilled the beans. If I didn't know the authors I would think it was a hoax. But Peter Collier and David Horowitz are no Clifford Irvings. They knew that David Kennedy wanted to get revenge on his family over the shabby way he had been treated, and that Chris Lawford wanted to expose his movie-actor father for having taken a vast amount of drugs with him but, the moment they wore off, having rejected him. And Bobby was too much of a showoff to refuse to brag about his vast intake and reckless way of life.
If all this sounds degrading and mind- boggling, it is. All the 'heroes' of this seedy saga have one thing in common. They all want to be President. All, that is, except David, the most pathetic of the lot but also the most vulnerable and nicest. Joe, the eldest, emerges as someone intrigued with the rumrunning of his grandfather, and his gangster connections. Dropping out from one school after another, he manages to overturn a jeep while driving under the in- fluence of drugs and a girl is now paralysed for life as a result. Still, he plans a career in politics. Bobby, ditto. In fact he is at pre- sent an assistant district attorney in New York. The mind boggles at the thought. Chris Lawford also wants to go into politics. Ditto the Shriver and Smith cousins.
Richard Goodwin and Doris Kearns have waged war on the two authors ever since Teddy Kennedy found out that it was his own flesh and blood that had spilled the beans. The two writers have been threaten- ed and have been offered bribes. They've ignored both. Their book will be out next month.
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