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Speaker 1: I'm George Severis and I'm Julia Claire and this is

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Speaker 1: United States of Kennedy, a podcast about our cultural fascination

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Speaker 1: with the Kennedy Dynasty. Every week we go into one

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Speaker 1: aspect of the Kennedy story, and today we are talking

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Speaker 1: about one of the lesser known, but perhaps most impactful

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Speaker 1: members of the original Kennedy's siblings, Eunice Kennedy Shreiver.

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Speaker 2: Unice was the fifth of the nine Kennedy children to

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Speaker 2: Joseph and Rose Kennedy. Though she lived and died in

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Speaker 2: the shadow of her famous brothers, Eunice's lifelong commitment to

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Speaker 2: public service has had lasting positive outcomes for millions of Americans,

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Speaker 2: particularly those with disabilities. While she's best known as the

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Speaker 2: founder of the Special Olympics, we learned that that was

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Speaker 2: just the tip of the iceberg in terms of her

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Speaker 2: accomplishments and lasting legacy.

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Speaker 1: To unpack Unice's remarkable life to day, we are joined

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Speaker 1: by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author of Eunice, The

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Speaker 1: Kennedy Who Changed the World, Eileen McNamara.

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Speaker 2: To call Eileen a legend is kind of an understatement.

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Speaker 2: George and I are very excited about this but for

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Speaker 2: more than thirty years, Eileen did essential reporting for the

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Speaker 2: Boston Globe, including on the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal

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Speaker 2: in the Boston arch Diocese, which directly led to the

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Speaker 2: groundbreaking spotlight investigation that shook.

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Speaker 3: The very foundation of the church.

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Speaker 2: She's just the coolest and George and I couldn't be

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Speaker 2: more excited to have her.

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Speaker 1: Eileen McNamara, Welcome to the United States of Kennedy.

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Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me.

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Speaker 1: I have to tell you we started this episode when

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Speaker 1: we were conceptualizing it as an episode about the Special Olympics,

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Speaker 1: because that is honestly all we knew about Eunice Kennedy,

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Speaker 1: and it was a member of the family we hadn't

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Speaker 1: talked about, and we both found it very fascinating that

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Speaker 1: there was this family where the man was the established

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Speaker 1: the Peace Corps and the woman created the Special Olympics too,

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Speaker 1: pretty iconic kind of American institutions that are overall pro

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Speaker 1: social and philanthropic and kind of social justice oriented within

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Speaker 1: this family that is otherwise completely mired and scandal and thin.

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Speaker 4: Historical achievements.

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Speaker 1: That's right, that's right, that's very true. We thought it

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Speaker 1: would be mostly about the Special Olympics, and we thought

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Speaker 1: it would be sort of like, you know, just the

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Speaker 1: history of how they were established where they are now.

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Speaker 1: And then as we started doing more research, we realized

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Speaker 1: that the real interesting part of the story is Unus

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Speaker 1: herself and her life. And obviously your book did such

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Speaker 1: invaluable work in terms of putting that on the map. However,

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Speaker 1: even to this day, it's funny, I just did a

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Speaker 1: very quick Google of Unis just to go to her

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Speaker 1: Wikipedia in case I needed it in front of me

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Speaker 1: during this interview or something, and even her Wikipedia to

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Speaker 1: this day is so thin compared to any other member

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Speaker 1: of her family, despite the fact that thanks to you

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Speaker 1: and thinks of a few other people, their research is there,

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Speaker 1: the writing is there, but it somehow hasn't achieved, you know,

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Speaker 1: mainstream impact in the way that it deserves. So with

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Speaker 1: all that said, what drew you.

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Speaker 4: To Unice initially, well, first of all, to address why

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Speaker 4: she hasn't been recognized for her contrigutions. She's a Kennedy woman,

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Speaker 4: she is not a Kennedy man. And what drew me

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Speaker 4: to her was I was a reporter or a columnist

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Speaker 4: at the Boston GLTE for thirty years and you can't

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Speaker 4: have a position like that in Boston and not have

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Speaker 4: come across the Kennedy's many, many times. And she was

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Speaker 4: a force of nature, Unice. If you covered a press

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Speaker 4: conference by her, you paid attention because if you were distracted,

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Speaker 4: she called you up for it. Yeah, And like you,

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Speaker 4: I think when I started my research, I thought about

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Speaker 4: the Special Olympics, and I had the miss understanding of

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Speaker 4: unus that I thought she was Lady Bountiful, you know,

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Speaker 4: a kind, empathetic heiress who spent her life devoted to

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Speaker 4: children with intellectual disabilities. That is exactly not true, Unice

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Speaker 4: Kennedy Shriver was. She did not come into her life's

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Speaker 4: work out of this feeling of nobless oblieved. She came

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Speaker 4: to it out of her age about how her sister

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Speaker 4: was treated, about how her mother was unable to find

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Speaker 4: services for her daughter who had intellectual disabilities, come handed,

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Speaker 4: of course, by the father's decision to lobotomize her when

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Speaker 4: she was a young woman. And I think that's what

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Speaker 4: fueled her all her life. But from the beginning of

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Speaker 4: her life, Eunice Kennedy Shriver was a voice to be

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Speaker 4: reckoned with. Joe Kennedy was a man of his era,

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Speaker 4: so he focused all his attention on the futures of

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Speaker 4: his sons, and his daughters were basically decorative accessories to

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Speaker 4: their brother's political careers. And of all the girls, Eunice

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Speaker 4: was not buying it, and her father thought he could

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Speaker 4: buy her off in a way by putting her in

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Speaker 4: charge of the Kennedy Foundation, which was named for Joe

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Speaker 4: Kennedy Junior, who died tragically in World War Two, and

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Speaker 4: this foundation was created in his name, but it had

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Speaker 4: no real focus until Joe Senior turned it over to Unit.

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Speaker 4: And it's interesting when you look at the history of

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Speaker 4: that foundation, which did more in the private sector to

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Speaker 4: help people with intellectual disabilities than anyone in the federal

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Speaker 4: government did in the nineteen forties and fifties. But if

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Speaker 4: you look at their letterhead from the outset, the president

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Speaker 4: of the foundation is he's a Joe, or it's Jack,

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Speaker 4: or it's Bobby or it's and I'm here to tell

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Speaker 4: you that none of those men had anything to do

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Speaker 4: with the Kennedy Foundation. Eunice ran it. Eunice focused it

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Speaker 4: exclusively on issues of intellectual disability, and she understood from

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Speaker 4: the beginning of her life that her boys would be

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Speaker 4: out front and she would be the anonymous person behind

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Speaker 4: the scene, but behind the scenes, she created the civil

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Speaker 4: rights movement for people with disability that has had more impact,

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Speaker 4: I'm here to say, than anything that the Kennedy men

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Speaker 4: did in their lifetimes.

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Speaker 2: It's so interesting, and I really I think that your

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Speaker 2: work is really convincing in that way that this Kennedy

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Speaker 2: that most of us have never heard of, actually had

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Speaker 2: so much more of a lasting and widespread impact than

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Speaker 2: any of her famous brothers. I think what I love

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Speaker 2: so much about the book is, and I'm sure that

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Speaker 2: you enjoyed this as well as a research subject, that

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Speaker 2: you really seem to get to know her, and she

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Speaker 2: has been kind of erased from history, and we know

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Speaker 2: so much about her brother's personalities.

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Speaker 3: So my question for you was, like the sense that

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Speaker 3: you got of.

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Speaker 2: What she was like as a person, What was she

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Speaker 2: like in social situations and in this family of very

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Speaker 2: big personalities.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, well she had a big personality, but she was irascible,

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Speaker 4: she was demanding, she was relentless. I wouldn't want to

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Speaker 4: hang out with her. She would not want to hang

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Speaker 4: out with me because I don't know how to stay all,

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Speaker 4: and I don't know how to I'm not athletic. I

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Speaker 4: don't weigh one hundred and nine pounds, which is what

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Speaker 4: she weighed when she was five and eleven. She was

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Speaker 4: a sickly person.

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Speaker 3: Is oh my gosh, I'm five to eleven. That's one

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Speaker 3: hundred and I'm not one hundred and nine pounds.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, but I think that was compounded by you know,

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Speaker 4: her mother had an obsession about weight, and I think

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Speaker 4: Unis had needing disorder all of her life, and she

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Speaker 4: wasn't like a particularly healthy person, but she was relentless,

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Speaker 4: absolutely relentless. She went through assistance the way you and

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Speaker 4: I would go through tissues if we had a really

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Speaker 4: bad head cold. People that worked for her told me

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Speaker 4: just amazing stories about her expectations that were beyond belief

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Speaker 4: that that came out of this sense that she had

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Speaker 4: that everyone should care as passionately about this issue as

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Speaker 4: she did, and nobody could. For instance, when the planes

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Speaker 4: hit the Pentagon on nine to eleven, she hadn't come

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Speaker 4: into work yet of the Kennedy Foundation, but she called

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Speaker 4: in from home and the woman who was the executive

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Speaker 4: director said, well, I'm going to send everyone home because

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Speaker 4: what's happening, And she said, don't send anybody home. We

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Speaker 4: have work to do. The work doesn't stop just because

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Speaker 4: those planes hit the towers and hit the Pentagon. Now

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Speaker 4: the executive director send everybody home. But that was who

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Speaker 4: units was. She was just she was hell on wheel.

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Speaker 4: And that's why the Special Olympics, although it's an enormous accomplishment,

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Speaker 4: is the least of it. I don't think that people

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Speaker 4: really understand that until nineteen seventy five, a child with

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Speaker 4: intellectual disabilities in the United States did not have a

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Speaker 4: legal right to a seat in a public school classroom,

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Speaker 4: let alone be mainstreamed with other kids without disability. Eunice

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Speaker 4: Kennedy Shreiver made those things happened the Americans for Disabilities Act.

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Speaker 4: Originally it was about people with physical disabilities. So we

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Speaker 4: have sidewalk curves for people who are in wheelchairs, which

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Speaker 4: is a wonderful accomplishment. But Lowell Whiker was a Republican

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Speaker 4: who really championed that as a Senator from Connecticut who

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Speaker 4: was like a moving force behind that legislation. In nineteen

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Speaker 4: ninety that bill got a lot bigger when Unis showed

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Speaker 4: up in his office and said Lowell, I don't see

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Speaker 4: anything in this bill about people with intellectual disability. And

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Speaker 4: as it happened, Senator Whiker had a son, Sonny, who

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Speaker 4: had intellectual disability, so he was well acquainted with unus

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Speaker 4: and this issue. And suddenly that bill was rewritten, and

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Speaker 4: it was rewritten by the force of her personality, and

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Speaker 4: legislation passed between you know, nineteen sixty one when John

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Speaker 4: Kennedy went to the White House and her death, that

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Speaker 4: passed because just as forceful as she was with her

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Speaker 4: poor suffering assistance, she was that way on the hill.

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Speaker 4: She was absolutely that way when she went to a

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Speaker 4: senator's office or in Hatch told me that he would

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Speaker 4: hear her five minutes before she arrived.

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Speaker 5: Alminighting in our voice, that connadive eyes, and she he

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Speaker 5: would hear her down the hall.

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Speaker 4: She never made an appointment to see him, and she

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Speaker 4: never asked him for anything. She just barged past his

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Speaker 4: secretaries and into his office and told him.

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Speaker 5: All I've wrought in this ball and Tanda is going

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Speaker 5: to carry it for the Nomocrats, and I need a

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Speaker 5: Republican an ara.

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Speaker 4: Because people did what she asked to do.

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Speaker 1: We were really hoping you would whip out the Unice

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Speaker 1: impression because we have seen you. We have both watched

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Speaker 1: YouTube videos of you doing it, and you know, we

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Speaker 1: didn't want to ask explicitly, but we were hoping, well.

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Speaker 4: That's just less, miss help Area doesn't watch this bus,

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Speaker 4: that's right.

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Speaker 1: I mean the single mind or not single mindedness, I

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Speaker 1: think that's reductive. But the verve with which she fought

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Speaker 1: for for the rights of people with intellectual disabilities really

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Speaker 1: was really really makes sense when you think back to

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Speaker 1: what you said about her being motivated by rage, because

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Speaker 1: it is she is someone who felt a very personal

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Speaker 1: connection to this issue. And I'm wondering if you can

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Speaker 1: talk a little bit about that, a little bit about

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Speaker 1: where she got her fire from, because on the one hand,

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Speaker 1: as you say, there's a rage and also the guilt

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Speaker 1: that she feels because of what happened to Rosemary and

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Speaker 1: her sister. On the other hand, there is a more

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Speaker 1: intellectual level to this. She studied sociology. She actually studied,

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Speaker 1: as you know, in an academic environment, how inequality, how

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Speaker 1: inequality presents itself in society and in American society. On

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Speaker 1: the third pand she also was incredibly religious. As as

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Speaker 1: as the rest of her family was and you say

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Speaker 1: that her Catholicism was based in action rather than belief.

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Speaker 1: She really felt like it was all about what you

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Speaker 1: do to express your religious ideals. And it was a

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Speaker 1: very social justice focused kind of Catholicism.

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Speaker 4: And trust her mother, you know, yes, exactly. She she

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Speaker 4: was very prayerful. I don't know how prayerful. You know,

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Speaker 4: she went to church every day, but I don't know

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Speaker 4: that that was the focus of her Catholicism. Action Wars.

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Speaker 6: We'll be back with more United States of Kennedy after

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Speaker 6: this break, and we're back with more United States of Kennedy.

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Speaker 1: Sow In terms of her relationship with Rosemary, what was

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Speaker 1: that like before Rosemary was lobotomized. I mean, Unice was

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Speaker 1: an adult when it happened, she wasn't a child. And

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Speaker 1: so how did that change her relationship with her father

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Speaker 1: and with the rest of her family.

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Speaker 4: Well, that's a good question. You have a lot, you

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Speaker 4: have a lot you packed into that. But can if

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Speaker 4: I could go back a little bit just where you started.

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Speaker 4: I mean, Eunice is distinguished from the other Kennedy woman

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Speaker 4: in that she had a very serious higher education. She

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Speaker 4: went to Stanford. I mean, I know, the Kennedy men

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Speaker 4: went to Harvard Blodida, but the tag didn't matter. Is

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Speaker 4: the other Kennedy women were, you know, sent off to

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Speaker 4: Sacred Heart convent schools as Eunice was. Initially she went

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Speaker 4: to Manhattanville in New York initially, but she transferred to

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Speaker 4: Jack's urging to Stanford and then she when she moved

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Speaker 4: to Chicago, she studied at the chicag School, you know,

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Speaker 4: at University of Chicago where sociology was really born. I

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Speaker 4: mean all of the great practitioners were there. She worked

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Speaker 4: as a social worker in a detention facility for wayward girls.

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Speaker 4: You know what does that mean? I mean it means

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Speaker 4: somebody was pregnant who was not married. Petty thieves, not

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Speaker 4: serious criminals, but they were incarcerated as if they were

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Speaker 4: and they worked in a laundry, just like the Magdalene

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Speaker 4: sisters did in Ireland. With people. They had a pretty

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Speaker 4: tep road to her there, and she was somebody who

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Speaker 4: tried to transition them from their unfortunate circumstances back into society.

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Speaker 4: She saw potential in them. She was a serious, thoughtful person.

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Speaker 4: She came out of a family where as you've examined

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Speaker 4: in your podcast. Excellence was expected of everyone, and the

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Speaker 4: record shows that Rosemary was born with minor, really what

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Speaker 4: we would think of today as minor intellectual disability. She

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Speaker 4: didn't have down syndrome, she was not severely impacted by

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Speaker 4: whatever it was that caused her illness. And now I've

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Speaker 4: read all kinds of fanciful reasons for why she was

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Speaker 4: born with intellectual disabilities, including the farcical idea that the

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Speaker 4: doctor or the nurse told rose to cross her legs

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Speaker 4: and not give birth until the obstetrician arrived for the

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Speaker 4: home Bird. Anybody who's had a baby knows that that's

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Speaker 4: not possible. She wasn't deprived of oxygen because Rose crossed

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Speaker 4: her legs. The Spanish flu was pretty prevalent the time.

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Speaker 4: I don't know if Rose was affected. That's not in

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Speaker 4: the historical record. We don't know what costed her issues.

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Speaker 4: But I think that the most you would say about

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Speaker 4: Rosemary's that she was slow, but she was She went

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Speaker 4: to garden parties in London when her father was the

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Speaker 4: ambassador to the Court of Saint James. Alone. She was

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Speaker 4: holding conversations with other young adults. You can see in

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Speaker 4: the films that I examined at the Kennedy Library. From

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Speaker 4: that era. There is nobody walking around sheltering her so

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Speaker 4: she doesn't embarrass the family. She could hold her own.

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Speaker 4: The tragedy of Rosemary's life was doublebotomy. As far as

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Speaker 4: we can tell, no one knew that he was going

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Speaker 4: to do that, including rose and that he told them

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Speaker 4: when it was over and was a disastrous result. She

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Speaker 4: was nonverbal, she fairly mobile after that alotomy, and then

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Speaker 4: the real tragedy is what followed, where she was exiled

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Speaker 4: from the family and in order to promote the boys'

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Speaker 4: political careers and their futures, she was sidelined and never

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Speaker 4: spoken again, or when spoken about, was lied about that

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Speaker 4: she was teaching in a school for children with intellectual disability,

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Speaker 4: when in fact she was at Saint Colletti as a resident.

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Speaker 4: Unice was getting ready to go to Stanford when her

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Speaker 4: father had that operation done on Rosemary. She did not

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Speaker 4: go to Stanford because she was traumatized and had to

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Speaker 4: get to the other side of the country. She had

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Speaker 4: delayed her entry there. She was already on her path

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Speaker 4: to go there. I think I think it probably was

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Speaker 4: the most significant event in her young life when she

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Speaker 4: realized what happened to Rosemary. We don't have records too

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Speaker 4: much about when she did know. We do have correspondence

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Speaker 4: between Rose and Saint Coletta's School in which Rose sort

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Speaker 4: of washes her hands about the care of Rosemary and says,

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Speaker 4: my daughter, Eunice is someone you should talk to, because

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Speaker 4: her father talked to her about this early on. So

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Speaker 4: I think probably while she was at Stanford, the father

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Speaker 4: told her what happened to Rosemary, and he would have

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Speaker 4: told her first among all of them, because she was

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Speaker 4: in charge of Rosemary when she was a child. She

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Speaker 4: taught her how to swim, she taught her how to sail.

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Speaker 4: When she was in all those races that they were

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Speaker 4: always competitively competitively involved in on an Tecket Sound, Rosemary

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Speaker 4: was her second in the boat. She didn't like that

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Speaker 4: because she lost a lot of race because of Rosemary,

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Speaker 4: and believed me, she cared about winning those races. So

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Speaker 4: again this notion that she was just so compassionate, it's

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Speaker 4: not exactly true. But she was her protector in life,

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Speaker 4: and she came to see that if the Kennedy Foundation

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Speaker 4: could have an impact, it or ought to pick an issue,

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Speaker 4: and it ought to focus all its money and its

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Speaker 4: attention there, and she did that.

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Speaker 3: This is a perfect segue.

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Speaker 2: You say in the book that Unice hijacked the Kennedy

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Speaker 2: Foundation and transformed it into an effective advocacy organization for

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Speaker 2: the rights of people with disability, with intellectual disabilities. So

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Speaker 2: we would love to know, like if you could give

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Speaker 2: us a sense of what the Kennedy Foundation was like

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Speaker 2: before Unie and then after.

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Speaker 4: Right it was you know, it was a gesture that

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Speaker 4: Joe made. He had to do something to commemorate the

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Speaker 4: life of his son that he lost and who he

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Speaker 4: had placed his presidential ambitions on. Frankly, so the death

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Speaker 4: of Joe required something of him. He created this and

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Speaker 4: they built an ice skating rink in Hyannas. There's a

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Speaker 4: church that has a beautiful marble altar on Cape cod

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Speaker 4: that is, you know, was created by the Kennedy Foundation.

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Speaker 4: And Cardinal Cushing was the Archbishop of Boston at the

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Speaker 4: time and was very influential with Joe Kennedy and intellectual

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Speaker 4: disabilities was a particular concern of Cardinal Cushings, so he

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Speaker 4: prevailed upon Joe to give him a lot of money

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Speaker 4: to create a Saint Colia's School, which is in Braintree, Massachusetts,

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Speaker 4: which was a residential school for children with these intellectual disabilities.

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Speaker 4: So he had sort of Joe had dipped his toe

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Speaker 4: in there, just took the focus and it went there

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Speaker 4: and it never came back. And she was an incredible

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Speaker 4: political operative too. When I talk about how the women

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Speaker 4: were just sort of decorative accessories to the Kennedy boys' careers,

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Speaker 4: that's not true either. I Mean, when I read of

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Speaker 4: biographies of Jack Kennedy, I'm always frustrated when I get

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Speaker 4: to the sections that are always very small about Unice,

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Speaker 4: when they describe what an irritant she goes to the president,

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Speaker 4: and you know, they always quote Jack Kennedy saying to

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Speaker 4: his aid, when Unice comes to the White House, what

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Speaker 4: she asks for, just give it to her. And the

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Speaker 4: impression you're supposed to walk away with is that he

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Speaker 4: would do anything to get that woman out of his

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Speaker 4: face and off the phone. Some of that may be true,

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Speaker 4: that the reality is that Jack Kennedy knew that when

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Speaker 4: it came to this issue, if she was asking for it,

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Speaker 4: it was worthwhile, and he was going to lean into

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Speaker 4: what she was asking for. And the evidence of this

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Speaker 4: is overwhelming. Before he even took the oath of office,

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Speaker 4: she convinced him to create a Presidential Commission on Mental Retardation,

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Speaker 4: which is what we called intellectual disabilities back in the day,

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Speaker 4: and there was no precedent for anything like this. It

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Speaker 4: was an enormous commission full of all of the experts

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Speaker 4: in the country. Well Jack Kennedy to know who those

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Speaker 4: experts were. Eunice packed that commission with the best people

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Speaker 4: in the country in all kinds of fields, law, medicine, genetics,

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Speaker 4: you name it. They were on there and she ran it.

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Speaker 4: Her name's not on it, but she ran it. She

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Speaker 4: was in every meeting. She set the agenda. And that's

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Speaker 4: why because she knew on this to show what was needed,

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Speaker 4: and she knew that what this issue needed was not

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Speaker 4: a private foundation run by her dad. Wealthy as they were,

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Speaker 4: they could not solve this problem. She wanted the way

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Speaker 4: to the federal government behind the needs of these children.

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Speaker 1: You talk a lot about how the by necessity, she

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Speaker 1: became a behind the scenes operative, so to speak. She

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Speaker 1: was not running for senate or running for office. Is

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Speaker 1: that something that just happened because that was what was

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Speaker 1: available to her, or did she have did she have,

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Speaker 1: you know, a semi secret desire to be more public,

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Speaker 1: to be the actual face and name of these movements

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Speaker 1: that she that she helped create.

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Speaker 4: I don't think there was anny the secret about it.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: I think she would have looked to get the credit

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Speaker 4: that she didn't get and still doesn't get in her lifetime.

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Speaker 4: When the Kennedy Library in Boston had a big event

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Speaker 4: for her toward the end of her life life acknowledging

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Speaker 4: her remarkable contributions, she came, and her family came, and

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Speaker 4: all the surviving Kennedy's were there. It was the packed

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Speaker 4: house and her remarks were classic. Given us, well, isn't

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Speaker 4: it lovely that after all these years of celebrating the

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Speaker 4: Kennedy men, somebody noticed you know. So, on the one hand,

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Speaker 4: thank you very much, this is the lovely honor. On

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Speaker 4: the other hand, will you people been for forty years?

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Speaker 4: The reality, I think is she would have met a

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Speaker 4: terrible politician. I think she might have liked to run

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Speaker 4: for office, but she there's a great lesson in her

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Speaker 4: life is that you don't have to be in the

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Speaker 4: House of Representatives or in the Congress to affect social change.

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Speaker 4: I mean, she did more in her lifetime than well,

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Speaker 4: I can name a number of people that are sitting

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Speaker 4: on Capitol Hill right now that they'll ever accomplished in

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Speaker 4: their lifetime. So yeah, she would have liked it. But

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Speaker 4: she was true and temperate. She was true demanding. She

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Speaker 4: was the definition of impolitics. She would especially in this era,

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Speaker 4: she could never survived in politics, but behind the scenes

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Speaker 4: getting stuff done. Yeah, that's you.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's funny because the way that you describe her,

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Speaker 2: I think if she had been a man, all of

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Speaker 2: those maybe less desirable qualities that you describe would have

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Speaker 2: been assets for her. I think the you know, when

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Speaker 2: you talk about her just kind of barging into rain

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Speaker 2: Hatch's office, it almost it reminds me of the way

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Speaker 2: that LBJ would operate. He was like just kind of

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Speaker 2: a bull in a china shop to get things done.

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Speaker 2: And that is something that really I think would have

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Speaker 2: gone a long way if she had been a man.

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Speaker 2: And yeah, I think if she had, but I think

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Speaker 2: you're absolutely right that she could never have won over

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Speaker 2: the public.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and you're absolutely right because she was a woman.

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Speaker 4: I mean, what's the adjective often used to describe Bobby Kennedy.

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Speaker 4: He was ruthless. He was ruthless well in the service

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Speaker 4: of her aims. Eunice Kennedy shreiver was ruthless too. But

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Speaker 4: it doesn't fly right with you're a woman, and it

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Speaker 4: certainly didn't fly in that era when you were a woman.

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Speaker 1: What is it that her father said that I'm sorry

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Speaker 1: to work blue, but he said, if Eunice had balls,

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Speaker 1: she would be president or something.

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Speaker 4: What was it If that girl had been born with balls,

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Speaker 4: she would have made a great president.

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Speaker 1: That's what it is.

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Speaker 4: Yes, it's true, right, and but you know what, that's

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Speaker 4: a reflection on Joe Kennedy Senior's limited imagination. That a

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Speaker 4: man with his experience and his money thought the only

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Speaker 4: horses you could back had to be men, you know,

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Speaker 4: says something about the limitations of his own vision, not

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Speaker 4: about her. You know, when Jack Kennedy went to Congress

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Speaker 4: in nineteen forty seven, there were seven women in the

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Speaker 4: House of Representatives. I mean, that's Paul Tree, but they

435
00:28:18,560 --> 00:28:21,879
Speaker 4: were there. It's not that Unice couldn't do it. By

436
00:28:21,920 --> 00:28:24,840
Speaker 4: the way, Unice get to Washington before Jack Kennedy. She

437
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:28,639
Speaker 4: worked for the State Department in nineteen forty five and

438
00:28:28,720 --> 00:28:32,400
Speaker 4: nineteen forty six, So when Jack came, she welcomed him

439
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:34,680
Speaker 4: to the Federals.

440
00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:38,360
Speaker 2: This is a great intro to another question that we

441
00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:41,120
Speaker 2: had for you, which is kind of really about the

442
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:45,280
Speaker 2: thesis of your book, which is that Eunice is the

443
00:28:45,320 --> 00:28:48,760
Speaker 2: sibling with the most lasting impact on the world, and

444
00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:52,920
Speaker 2: it expands far beyond just the special Olympics. So what

445
00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:56,760
Speaker 2: are some other of her accomplishments that people might not

446
00:28:56,800 --> 00:28:57,360
Speaker 2: be aware of?

447
00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:01,400
Speaker 4: So well, her nephew is trying to dismantle them as

448
00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:07,640
Speaker 4: we speak, right, So her accomplishments are broad and deep.

449
00:29:08,560 --> 00:29:13,760
Speaker 4: I'll give you one example. In nineteen sixty three, three

450
00:29:13,800 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 4: months before JFK was assassinated in Dallas, Jackie gave birth

451
00:29:20,240 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 4: to their son, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy. Patrick was premature. He

452
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:29,640
Speaker 4: was born with something called highline membrane disease, which is

453
00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:35,480
Speaker 4: basically undeveloped loans. In nineteen sixty three, most babies born

454
00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:40,240
Speaker 4: with that condition dove because we didn't have the research,

455
00:29:41,120 --> 00:29:45,040
Speaker 4: We didn't know how to treat premature infants, we didn't

456
00:29:45,080 --> 00:29:50,760
Speaker 4: have the expertise. So Eunice argued to John Kennedy in

457
00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:56,640
Speaker 4: nineteen sixty one that he needed in the National Institute

458
00:29:56,640 --> 00:30:02,080
Speaker 4: of Help to create a special institute or child Help

459
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 4: in human development, so that we could study pregnancy, childbirth,

460
00:30:08,560 --> 00:30:12,720
Speaker 4: and infancy, so that we would be able to understand

461
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:19,200
Speaker 4: diseases developmental stages that medicine had simply not paid much

462
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:22,960
Speaker 4: attention to. You know, back in the early sixties, we

463
00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:27,719
Speaker 4: operated under a disease model. So we studied, you know,

464
00:30:27,920 --> 00:30:31,040
Speaker 4: heart disease, and we studied cancer, but we didn't look

465
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:38,280
Speaker 4: at issues development. Jack Kennedy's response to that initially had been,

466
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:44,520
Speaker 4: why would I want to create another institute within the

467
00:30:44,560 --> 00:30:49,080
Speaker 4: Institute of Help. These too many competing factions. I'll never

468
00:30:49,120 --> 00:30:53,600
Speaker 4: get that through Congress. And so Unis did what she

469
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:56,400
Speaker 4: always did when she wanted to convince Jack of something.

470
00:30:57,640 --> 00:31:01,440
Speaker 4: She took him sailing, and they went out on Nantucket's

471
00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:06,000
Speaker 4: downed and at that point in their light, Jackie had

472
00:31:06,040 --> 00:31:11,480
Speaker 4: had miscarriages, she had had a still birth, and Unis

473
00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:17,600
Speaker 4: is living embodiment of the philosophy that feminism has long promoted,

474
00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:22,120
Speaker 4: which is the personal is political and political is personal.

475
00:31:22,960 --> 00:31:26,800
Speaker 4: Jack don't you want to know why those things happened?

476
00:31:27,480 --> 00:31:30,480
Speaker 4: Don't you think Jackie deserves to know why those things happen?

477
00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:37,080
Speaker 4: Jack created the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

478
00:31:38,360 --> 00:31:42,320
Speaker 4: And today babies do not die of highlight memory. These

479
00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:45,640
Speaker 4: they live, and they lived because of the research that

480
00:31:45,800 --> 00:31:48,800
Speaker 4: was done at the institute that today is named the

481
00:31:48,920 --> 00:31:53,360
Speaker 4: Unice Kennedy Shriver Institute for Child Health and Human Development.

482
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:57,800
Speaker 4: And when this biography that I wrote of Units came out,

483
00:31:58,240 --> 00:32:00,920
Speaker 4: they invited me down to speak to the there, and

484
00:32:00,960 --> 00:32:06,760
Speaker 4: I spoke to an auditorium full of medical researches, most

485
00:32:06,760 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 4: of whom had no idea why her name was on

486
00:32:09,200 --> 00:32:09,680
Speaker 4: that built.

487
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:14,560
Speaker 1: Wow, it's interesting. We are obviously complicit in this because

488
00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 1: we wanted to focus on the special Olympics, but it talked.

489
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:19,200
Speaker 1: It goes back to how the parts of her that

490
00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:21,840
Speaker 1: are most well known are the ones that fit into

491
00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:26,000
Speaker 1: this narrative of her as a kind heiress. Basically, who

492
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:30,600
Speaker 1: wants to do you know, uplifting philanthropic work. You know,

493
00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:35,600
Speaker 1: something funding medical research is you know, much more quote

494
00:32:35,640 --> 00:32:39,680
Speaker 1: unquote serious and substantial in something that you know a

495
00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:41,920
Speaker 1: man would a man would do in that time.

496
00:32:42,160 --> 00:32:45,600
Speaker 4: Well, Bobby Kennedy Junior should thank it's lucky stars every

497
00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 4: day that his aunt is not still with us because

498
00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:53,120
Speaker 4: his war on vaccinations and his war on medical expertise

499
00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:55,800
Speaker 4: is the kind of thing that would set her hair

500
00:32:55,920 --> 00:32:56,480
Speaker 4: on fire.

501
00:32:57,440 --> 00:33:00,000
Speaker 1: And I'm glad you brought up Bobby Junior, but also

502
00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:03,200
Speaker 1: more broadly, her family and her personal relationships, because I

503
00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:07,360
Speaker 1: do want to talk a little bit about her personal

504
00:33:07,400 --> 00:33:10,880
Speaker 1: life and her personal relationships. You were able to talk

505
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:13,480
Speaker 1: to all of her children for the book. You did

506
00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:18,720
Speaker 1: a lot of research into Sergeant Schreiver and their marriage.

507
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:22,120
Speaker 1: There's some I mean, one of my favorite sort of

508
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 1: quotes is when Bobby Shreiver is crying and someone says,

509
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:29,160
Speaker 1: you know, Kennedy's don't cry, and then his father tells him,

510
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:32,800
Speaker 1: but you're a Shriver, you can cry. So can you

511
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about what her I guess the

512
00:33:37,920 --> 00:33:40,920
Speaker 1: tension between her own family that you grew up in

513
00:33:40,960 --> 00:33:43,080
Speaker 1: and then the family she created. It seems to me

514
00:33:43,200 --> 00:33:48,040
Speaker 1: like the Shreiver Kennedy klan had a sort of its

515
00:33:48,040 --> 00:33:52,000
Speaker 1: own subculture that was slightly different than the Kennedy environment

516
00:33:52,040 --> 00:33:52,760
Speaker 1: that she grew up in.

517
00:33:53,480 --> 00:33:59,160
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's that's fair. The Shreiver kids are

518
00:33:59,440 --> 00:34:05,840
Speaker 4: very different then their Kennedy cousin in almost every way

519
00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:08,239
Speaker 4: I can think of, and that is not by accident.

520
00:34:09,560 --> 00:34:13,600
Speaker 4: I'll give you an example, Bobby Kennedy Junior was a

521
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:16,200
Speaker 4: member of the group that they liked to call among

522
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:20,880
Speaker 4: themselves the Hyannas Poor Terrors. And you know, they would

523
00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:24,480
Speaker 4: unleash people's boats and let them drift off into the sound,

524
00:34:25,080 --> 00:34:28,360
Speaker 4: and you know, they smoked a little grass and they

525
00:34:29,640 --> 00:34:34,400
Speaker 4: you know, they were just teenagers. Well, Bobby Shriver was

526
00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:36,440
Speaker 4: hanging out with him at the time. They were like

527
00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:41,759
Speaker 4: sixteen years old, and they were busted or smoking marijuana.

528
00:34:42,560 --> 00:34:47,280
Speaker 4: And that was the end of the Shreiver kids hanging

529
00:34:47,320 --> 00:34:49,880
Speaker 4: out with the Kennedy cousin. When they came out of

530
00:34:49,920 --> 00:34:54,280
Speaker 4: the courthouse, Bobby went directly to an airplane with his father.

531
00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:57,359
Speaker 4: So I started a driver and they flew to California.

532
00:34:57,840 --> 00:35:01,719
Speaker 4: And that's unus. She put a cotton between her kid

533
00:35:02,719 --> 00:35:06,400
Speaker 4: and those kids and they went to tennis camp for

534
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:11,800
Speaker 4: a week. Dad and Bobby and I think they instilled

535
00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:15,680
Speaker 4: in their kids early and often, you know, the Kennedy ethic,

536
00:35:15,760 --> 00:35:18,960
Speaker 4: you know, to who much is given, much is required,

537
00:35:19,360 --> 00:35:22,600
Speaker 4: So that they had larger obligations than themselves, and that

538
00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:26,120
Speaker 4: they were public people and that nobody in our family

539
00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:29,160
Speaker 4: is getting busted for drug and nobody in that family

540
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:32,120
Speaker 4: ever got busted again, let me tell you. And as

541
00:35:32,120 --> 00:35:34,239
Speaker 4: we all know, that wasn't the end of Bobby Kennedy's

542
00:35:35,080 --> 00:35:38,920
Speaker 4: since with drugs. So I think that they were just

543
00:35:38,960 --> 00:35:43,000
Speaker 4: a very very different family. Look at what the Shriver

544
00:35:43,200 --> 00:35:46,960
Speaker 4: kids are doing today. Tim is the head of Special

545
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:53,240
Speaker 4: Olympic Mark Works for Santa Children. Maria Run's like philanthropic

546
00:35:53,280 --> 00:35:58,000
Speaker 4: work on women with Alzheimer's. Her dad, Sergeant Trivick, died

547
00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:02,000
Speaker 4: of Alzheimer's out there doing the kind of work the

548
00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:05,920
Speaker 4: mother would have expected them to do. So she saved

549
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:10,160
Speaker 4: them from some of the downsides of being in that family.

550
00:36:10,960 --> 00:36:14,680
Speaker 4: Did that mean that they got away scott free. No,

551
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:18,560
Speaker 4: she was a very difficult person to have a mother.

552
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:22,120
Speaker 4: I loved when I was doing my research reading these

553
00:36:22,239 --> 00:36:26,000
Speaker 4: pieces that she did for Red Book and Good Housekeeping

554
00:36:26,160 --> 00:36:31,440
Speaker 4: about how motherhood was the most noble profession and you know,

555
00:36:31,480 --> 00:36:35,720
Speaker 4: nobody should disparage women who have five or six children

556
00:36:35,760 --> 00:36:38,960
Speaker 4: because you know, the glory of motherhood blah blah blah.

557
00:36:39,320 --> 00:36:42,400
Speaker 4: And working women who seemed to think that a career

558
00:36:42,480 --> 00:36:46,960
Speaker 4: could replace motherhood were so disguided. Yeah, well tell that

559
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:49,600
Speaker 4: to the Shriver kids. Because mom was at work all

560
00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:52,239
Speaker 4: the time, they woke up I know, and half the

561
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:54,880
Speaker 4: time they didn't know what country she was in because

562
00:36:55,600 --> 00:36:59,680
Speaker 4: when she founded Special Olympics, she didn't limit herself to

563
00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:02,640
Speaker 4: the United States. I mean, she was kicking down doors

564
00:37:02,680 --> 00:37:06,759
Speaker 4: in China and in South Africa, I mean, where kids

565
00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:10,680
Speaker 4: were still held in those dickensie and warehouses that used

566
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:13,880
Speaker 4: to exist in the United States too, where children with

567
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:20,840
Speaker 4: intellectual disabilities were just warehoused and institutional line. So you know,

568
00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:23,840
Speaker 4: she talks a good game about the glory of motherhood,

569
00:37:23,880 --> 00:37:25,000
Speaker 4: but she went around a lot.

570
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:29,800
Speaker 6: We'll be back with more United States of Kennedy after

571
00:37:29,880 --> 00:37:42,239
Speaker 6: this break, and we're back with more United States of Kennedy.

572
00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:46,000
Speaker 1: She is full of contradictions when it comes to her

573
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:50,319
Speaker 1: place in let's say feminist history for lack of a

574
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:52,640
Speaker 1: better term. I mean, she is, as you're saying, she

575
00:37:53,160 --> 00:37:56,480
Speaker 1: was sort of publicly a very big advocate for let's

576
00:37:56,480 --> 00:37:59,200
Speaker 1: say traditional family values in the way that you're describing,

577
00:37:59,440 --> 00:38:04,920
Speaker 1: while also so very clearly being incredibly self determined, motivated

578
00:38:05,080 --> 00:38:08,000
Speaker 1: in a very equal marriage. We should also say it

579
00:38:08,080 --> 00:38:10,680
Speaker 1: seems like her I mean, she really was very empowered

580
00:38:10,680 --> 00:38:11,600
Speaker 1: both at home and.

581
00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:15,000
Speaker 4: At work, and that's in large part she made a

582
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:17,600
Speaker 4: very good choice of a husband. Yes, it seems so,

583
00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:21,239
Speaker 4: or I should say I should say Joe Kennedy made

584
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:23,840
Speaker 4: a very good choice of a husband.

585
00:38:24,520 --> 00:38:27,200
Speaker 1: Yes, we'll talk about empowering the.

586
00:38:27,239 --> 00:38:30,040
Speaker 4: Sharp kids, would you know. I'm not true that they

587
00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:33,360
Speaker 4: agree with this, but their mother never wanted to be married.

588
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:36,719
Speaker 4: In my view, she wanted to be a nun. She

589
00:38:36,880 --> 00:38:40,080
Speaker 4: wanted to be a nun not just because she was

590
00:38:40,120 --> 00:38:44,120
Speaker 4: a devout Catholic. She wanted to be a nun because

591
00:38:44,520 --> 00:38:48,360
Speaker 4: those were the most powerful women that she had experienced

592
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:51,360
Speaker 4: in her lives. You know, in all of their lives,

593
00:38:51,520 --> 00:38:55,239
Speaker 4: those women made decisions on their own. Priest didn't tell

594
00:38:55,560 --> 00:38:57,359
Speaker 4: women in the Comma what to do. They ran their

595
00:38:57,400 --> 00:39:02,759
Speaker 4: own lives, and I think she admired that greatly. The

596
00:39:03,920 --> 00:39:07,960
Speaker 4: juvenile facility that she worked in in Chicago was run

597
00:39:08,040 --> 00:39:11,640
Speaker 4: by the sisters of the Good Shepherd, and she led them,

598
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:16,160
Speaker 4: and I think she wanted to be like them. Sergeant s.

599
00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:22,360
Speaker 4: Trever asked her to marry him seven times before she

600
00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:29,680
Speaker 4: said yes, that's a long time. And finally Joe inserted

601
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:35,879
Speaker 4: himself into that courtship and called father Ted Hesberg, who

602
00:39:35,960 --> 00:39:39,480
Speaker 4: was the president of Notre Dame and Chicago is in

603
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:44,440
Speaker 4: that bar from Notre Dame, so Unison sergeant should go

604
00:39:44,480 --> 00:39:47,920
Speaker 4: down there for Notre Dame football games. So they knew

605
00:39:48,080 --> 00:39:51,840
Speaker 4: Ted Hesberg when he was a young priest and teacher

606
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:55,319
Speaker 4: there before he became the president of the university. And

607
00:39:55,400 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 4: so Joe called him and said, you got to talk

608
00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:00,440
Speaker 4: to humanists about this. She thinks she's got to vocation

609
00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:03,680
Speaker 4: for the nunhood, like you get to tuck around in it.

610
00:40:05,960 --> 00:40:09,360
Speaker 4: And four years and I biden years, I mean decades.

611
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:13,240
Speaker 4: Rother Hesberg, who was in like a national public figure,

612
00:40:13,560 --> 00:40:17,520
Speaker 4: a huge civil rights activist, wonderful human being. For years

613
00:40:17,560 --> 00:40:20,440
Speaker 4: he dined out privately on the story that I'm going

614
00:40:20,480 --> 00:40:23,040
Speaker 4: to tell you, but he would never put it on

615
00:40:23,080 --> 00:40:29,720
Speaker 4: the record. So you read Kennedy biographies and he'll say, oh, no, no,

616
00:40:29,880 --> 00:40:33,520
Speaker 4: I knew that she and Sarge would be a great marriage.

617
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:36,120
Speaker 4: It's a wonderful partnership. And I had nothing to do

618
00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:39,600
Speaker 4: with it. Well, he was in his late nineties when

619
00:40:39,640 --> 00:40:43,720
Speaker 4: I called him and I said, well, you know, father,

620
00:40:45,040 --> 00:40:48,160
Speaker 4: you're not going to live forever and at some point

621
00:40:48,200 --> 00:40:50,680
Speaker 4: you might want to put this on the record. I'm

622
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:53,840
Speaker 4: either you did or you didn't tell you news to

623
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:58,759
Speaker 4: marry Sergeant Shreiver, and he said, what the hell, I

624
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:03,640
Speaker 4: ween they're all dead, And then he told me that

625
00:41:03,680 --> 00:41:06,840
Speaker 4: what he actually said to her was, I think you

626
00:41:06,920 --> 00:41:10,120
Speaker 4: do have a vocation to do the kind of work

627
00:41:10,120 --> 00:41:13,440
Speaker 4: that you're doing, but I don't think that that precludes

628
00:41:14,120 --> 00:41:17,040
Speaker 4: a marriage. I don't think you have to join the

629
00:41:17,080 --> 00:41:20,480
Speaker 4: convent to do that work. He said, I think you

630
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:25,040
Speaker 4: have a vocation that includes marrying Sergeant Shiver and she

631
00:41:25,120 --> 00:41:28,880
Speaker 4: married it wow, And they had an inful marriage. I

632
00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:32,480
Speaker 4: think they were very happy, streate good rooms that they

633
00:41:32,480 --> 00:41:36,720
Speaker 4: have five children, and I think it was a good marriage.

634
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:39,799
Speaker 4: They really were partners in social justice. I mean you

635
00:41:39,880 --> 00:41:44,840
Speaker 4: mentioned the Peace Corps. Again, we think of Sergeant Shriver

636
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:46,840
Speaker 4: and we think of the Peace Corps just as we

637
00:41:46,880 --> 00:41:50,040
Speaker 4: think of UNIS and we think of Special Olympics. But

638
00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:54,080
Speaker 4: he also started the job poor. He also started legal

639
00:41:54,120 --> 00:41:57,319
Speaker 4: aid for the poor. I mean, these were people who

640
00:41:57,360 --> 00:41:59,560
Speaker 4: devoted their lives to be disenfranchised.

641
00:42:00,160 --> 00:42:03,000
Speaker 1: Can I ask you something along those lines. It seems

642
00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:05,920
Speaker 1: like they really were very earnestly committed to social justice.

643
00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:08,600
Speaker 1: And Julie and I were talking about how oftentimes in

644
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:12,440
Speaker 1: this podcast, we want to talk about someone who has

645
00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:15,319
Speaker 1: an amazing reputation, and then the more we dig deep,

646
00:42:15,360 --> 00:42:17,960
Speaker 1: the more we find skeletons in their closet. And this

647
00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:20,960
Speaker 1: is kind of the opposite where it's people that you know,

648
00:42:21,040 --> 00:42:23,640
Speaker 1: maybe you don't know much about, and it turns out

649
00:42:23,680 --> 00:42:26,279
Speaker 1: they're much better people than you thought they were. I mean,

650
00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:30,280
Speaker 1: for the Kennedy family, it's really very rare, and I'm wondering,

651
00:42:31,320 --> 00:42:35,200
Speaker 1: as people, especially Unis as someone who was very a

652
00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:41,000
Speaker 1: very deeply moral and ethical person, how did she react

653
00:42:41,120 --> 00:42:45,360
Speaker 1: to the various sins of her family members like she's

654
00:42:45,480 --> 00:42:50,280
Speaker 1: you know, how much was she aware of JFK's various

655
00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:53,360
Speaker 1: crazy affairs, of the way that all the men in

656
00:42:53,400 --> 00:42:58,000
Speaker 1: her family treated women? Was that something she was I mean,

657
00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:00,160
Speaker 1: I know you said somewhere that the Ken and these

658
00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:02,880
Speaker 1: are notoriously not very self reflective, so maybe there's not

659
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:06,480
Speaker 1: much there. But I'm wondering what, you know, what you

660
00:43:06,520 --> 00:43:08,520
Speaker 1: think she felt about all that stuff.

661
00:43:08,680 --> 00:43:10,640
Speaker 4: I think she knew it all. I mean, she knew

662
00:43:10,680 --> 00:43:13,239
Speaker 4: that her father was a landerer. One of the great

663
00:43:13,280 --> 00:43:16,240
Speaker 4: gifts that the Shriver kids gave me it was access

664
00:43:16,280 --> 00:43:20,120
Speaker 4: to her private papers, which nobody had ever read. And

665
00:43:20,360 --> 00:43:23,600
Speaker 4: reading is like the wrong word, because they were in

666
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:28,719
Speaker 4: boxes with like VHS tapes of Maria on the Today Show.

667
00:43:29,040 --> 00:43:31,800
Speaker 4: They were like everything in her life was a jumble,

668
00:43:32,160 --> 00:43:34,879
Speaker 4: and her archives were the same. You know. I hope

669
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:38,600
Speaker 4: that someday they the kids give those papers back to

670
00:43:38,640 --> 00:43:42,400
Speaker 4: the Kennedy Library where they were in storage, so that

671
00:43:42,719 --> 00:43:48,480
Speaker 4: an archivist can organize them, because she is a historical figure,

672
00:43:48,640 --> 00:43:52,920
Speaker 4: and Sargeant's papers are there, and I think Eunice's papers

673
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:55,280
Speaker 4: should be there too. I hope they do it someday.

674
00:43:56,080 --> 00:43:58,480
Speaker 4: What did she think, Well, she knew about her father.

675
00:43:58,840 --> 00:44:03,480
Speaker 4: I know she did, just for the correspondence in those

676
00:44:03,520 --> 00:44:08,400
Speaker 4: boxes that I looked at, and she joked with Jack

677
00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:12,200
Speaker 4: about their father. I assume she knew about Jack. She

678
00:44:12,320 --> 00:44:17,120
Speaker 4: was his roommate when he was a bachelor in Washington.

679
00:44:17,200 --> 00:44:19,799
Speaker 4: They lived together when he first came to Congress. They

680
00:44:19,880 --> 00:44:24,520
Speaker 4: shared a downhouse in Georgetown. You know, she's not blind.

681
00:44:24,600 --> 00:44:26,640
Speaker 4: She saw the women coming in and going out, and

682
00:44:26,680 --> 00:44:30,000
Speaker 4: she was anything but stupid. I think she was a

683
00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:35,520
Speaker 4: pretty sophisticated person, and she lived in a family where

684
00:44:35,600 --> 00:44:39,799
Speaker 4: that was tolerated. And I think, you know, she went

685
00:44:39,840 --> 00:44:43,600
Speaker 4: along because that's what women did. They put up a bit,

686
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:49,440
Speaker 4: But were you to publicly criticize a member of her

687
00:44:49,520 --> 00:44:54,600
Speaker 4: family for the Rande behavior. She would have been down

688
00:44:54,680 --> 00:44:57,880
Speaker 4: your throat, and she was. She wrote a ridiculous letter

689
00:44:57,960 --> 00:45:05,200
Speaker 4: to the Washington Post when Marlena Dietrich wrote her autobiography

690
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:08,080
Speaker 4: in which she talked about her affair with Joe Kennedy,

691
00:45:08,400 --> 00:45:12,520
Speaker 4: and the letter Junius wrote to the Washington Post decrying

692
00:45:12,880 --> 00:45:18,279
Speaker 4: them writing a review with this scandalous autobiography full of

693
00:45:18,840 --> 00:45:23,719
Speaker 4: lies about her father was absurd because of course she

694
00:45:23,840 --> 00:45:26,360
Speaker 4: knew that her father had had an affair with Marlena

695
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:31,600
Speaker 4: Dietrich because he had it on the French riviera where

696
00:45:31,600 --> 00:45:35,320
Speaker 4: the whole family was spending the summer. That's where it started.

697
00:45:36,200 --> 00:45:39,400
Speaker 4: So none of this was news to her. But loyalty

698
00:45:39,520 --> 00:45:42,880
Speaker 4: is a very important quality in the Kennedy family.

699
00:45:43,960 --> 00:45:46,279
Speaker 2: Oh, something that you mentioned that I want to go

700
00:45:46,320 --> 00:45:50,279
Speaker 2: back to is this idea that I don't think a

701
00:45:50,320 --> 00:45:55,040
Speaker 2: lot of people understand, which is the idea of nuns

702
00:45:55,160 --> 00:46:02,040
Speaker 2: as being kind of aspirational figures for independently minded women.

703
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:05,400
Speaker 2: I just I think that when people think of nuns,

704
00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:09,719
Speaker 2: they think of them as obviously being extremely obedient, subservient.

705
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:13,160
Speaker 2: Maybe it's because I have, like one of my aunts

706
00:46:13,239 --> 00:46:17,560
Speaker 2: is a nun, and I you know, know the person

707
00:46:17,640 --> 00:46:19,560
Speaker 2: who she is. I think it makes a lot of

708
00:46:19,600 --> 00:46:26,000
Speaker 2: sense that kind of rebellious women were attracted to the convent.

709
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:30,160
Speaker 4: There's could be independence, right, so most people's experience, I mean,

710
00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:33,560
Speaker 4: if your cat, like I went twelve years to parochial school,

711
00:46:34,160 --> 00:46:38,839
Speaker 4: so I had my own experience, and I wouldn't say

712
00:46:38,880 --> 00:46:42,480
Speaker 4: that Sister Katherine Martin did anything but terrify me. Yeah,

713
00:46:42,560 --> 00:46:44,879
Speaker 4: So people think of nuns in all of these kind

714
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:48,400
Speaker 4: of you know, hokey. You know, there's scary, the Carrie,

715
00:46:48,440 --> 00:46:51,800
Speaker 4: big rulers, blah blah blah blah. But nuns didn't just teach.

716
00:46:52,600 --> 00:46:54,920
Speaker 4: You know, Nuns have always been out there in the

717
00:46:54,960 --> 00:46:58,800
Speaker 4: social service sector. They have always been working in prisons

718
00:46:59,520 --> 00:47:03,480
Speaker 4: and on the street with drug addicts. That's where a

719
00:47:03,520 --> 00:47:07,480
Speaker 4: lot of the work of nuns has taken place. And

720
00:47:07,640 --> 00:47:12,359
Speaker 4: those are the nuns that she admired, and those were

721
00:47:12,920 --> 00:47:17,440
Speaker 4: places that she wanted to bet she worked at Alderson Prison,

722
00:47:17,760 --> 00:47:21,719
Speaker 4: the only federal prison for women. Nobody knew that about her,

723
00:47:21,800 --> 00:47:24,200
Speaker 4: that she had done that. Now, how did she get

724
00:47:24,800 --> 00:47:26,560
Speaker 4: a job there? She can get paid, of course, she

725
00:47:26,640 --> 00:47:29,399
Speaker 4: never got paid for any of the jobs that she did,

726
00:47:29,440 --> 00:47:31,880
Speaker 4: except for her first week on the job at the

727
00:47:31,920 --> 00:47:34,920
Speaker 4: State Department when she was a young woman. After she

728
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:38,200
Speaker 4: graduated from Stanford, she got her first paycheck and she

729
00:47:38,440 --> 00:47:41,440
Speaker 4: sent it to her parents. It was sixty dollars, I think,

730
00:47:41,800 --> 00:47:45,799
Speaker 4: and she said, do something wild would have And then

731
00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:49,440
Speaker 4: after that, of course, she didn't take a paycheck because

732
00:47:49,520 --> 00:47:52,360
Speaker 4: she was what they called back in the forties, a

733
00:47:52,400 --> 00:47:56,520
Speaker 4: dollar a year girl. Rich men who had daughters who

734
00:47:56,520 --> 00:48:00,640
Speaker 4: were somewhere between their education and their wedding day needed

735
00:48:00,640 --> 00:48:04,520
Speaker 4: something interesting to do, so they got them jobs and

736
00:48:04,560 --> 00:48:07,920
Speaker 4: then they didn't have to pay them for those jobs.

737
00:48:08,520 --> 00:48:11,720
Speaker 4: And unis you know, she was a very serious person.

738
00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:16,680
Speaker 4: She worked for the Justice Department on juvenile delinquency, a

739
00:48:16,800 --> 00:48:23,000
Speaker 4: cause that, by the way, Bobby Kennedy Senior, never had

740
00:48:23,120 --> 00:48:28,240
Speaker 4: any interest in until he became the Attorney General under JFK.

741
00:48:28,680 --> 00:48:32,240
Speaker 4: And Units showed up at his office and said, I'd

742
00:48:32,280 --> 00:48:35,239
Speaker 4: like to talk to you about juvenile delinquency because here's

743
00:48:35,239 --> 00:48:38,359
Speaker 4: a report that I wrote in nineteen forty seven and

744
00:48:38,440 --> 00:48:42,040
Speaker 4: nothing has changed since then. So let's talk about getting

745
00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:46,800
Speaker 4: services to juvenile delinquents instead of incarcerating them. And Bobby

746
00:48:46,880 --> 00:48:51,759
Speaker 4: Kennedy watched this huge effort to come back to delinquency.

747
00:48:52,239 --> 00:48:54,680
Speaker 4: But Bobby didn't do it. She did it. Well.

748
00:48:54,680 --> 00:48:57,640
Speaker 2: It's clear that as difficult as it was for her

749
00:48:57,680 --> 00:49:01,239
Speaker 2: to be a woman in that time, her brothers at

750
00:49:01,239 --> 00:49:04,439
Speaker 2: the very least seemed to take her seriously and knew

751
00:49:04,440 --> 00:49:07,879
Speaker 2: that she had like a level of intellectual haft and

752
00:49:08,960 --> 00:49:12,279
Speaker 2: seriousness that maybe even they didn't have.

753
00:49:12,880 --> 00:49:15,680
Speaker 1: You know, there's more trust within the family than there

754
00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:18,320
Speaker 1: is with that. Like, I think that if they're going

755
00:49:18,360 --> 00:49:20,080
Speaker 1: to listen to a woman, it might as well be

756
00:49:20,120 --> 00:49:20,600
Speaker 1: their sister.

757
00:49:21,080 --> 00:49:23,920
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well they had a lot of sisters. Yeah, they

758
00:49:23,920 --> 00:49:26,720
Speaker 4: only had one this she was one of a kind.

759
00:49:27,200 --> 00:49:30,400
Speaker 4: There's a great story about there was a vote on

760
00:49:30,480 --> 00:49:34,560
Speaker 4: the Senate floor in nineteen sixty four and it was

761
00:49:34,600 --> 00:49:38,440
Speaker 4: occurring at the same time that the Kennedy Foundation board

762
00:49:38,719 --> 00:49:43,000
Speaker 4: was meeting to vote on their annual budget, and an

763
00:49:43,040 --> 00:49:46,040
Speaker 4: aid to Bobby Kennedy came to the Senate floor to

764
00:49:46,160 --> 00:49:50,560
Speaker 4: tell him this vote is going to conflict. With this vote,

765
00:49:51,440 --> 00:49:54,759
Speaker 4: where are you going to be? And he said, seriously,

766
00:49:55,880 --> 00:49:59,759
Speaker 4: of course I'm a Kennedy Foundation because you didn't say

767
00:49:59,840 --> 00:50:03,239
Speaker 4: no oh to Unice. I mean I covered her a

768
00:50:03,280 --> 00:50:05,920
Speaker 4: little bit, you know, as a reporter, but I didn't

769
00:50:05,960 --> 00:50:10,240
Speaker 4: know her. And when the Globe sent me to Capitol

770
00:50:10,320 --> 00:50:15,080
Speaker 4: Hill to cover Congress. My first week there, I had

771
00:50:15,280 --> 00:50:19,640
Speaker 4: lunch with Senator Kennedy. Ted Kennedy at that point in

772
00:50:19,680 --> 00:50:23,879
Speaker 4: his office, and as we're having lunch, his secretary comes

773
00:50:23,880 --> 00:50:28,640
Speaker 4: in to say, I'm sorry to bother you, Senator, and

774
00:50:29,160 --> 00:50:32,040
Speaker 4: Kennedy's a little mipped. He said, look, I told us

775
00:50:32,200 --> 00:50:35,320
Speaker 4: we shouldn't be disturbed a new reporter for the Globe

776
00:50:35,800 --> 00:50:40,440
Speaker 4: out paper. And his secretary said, I'm sorry, Senator. I

777
00:50:40,480 --> 00:50:45,839
Speaker 4: would not have bothered you, but it's Unice, and I

778
00:50:46,120 --> 00:50:50,120
Speaker 4: just like thunderstruck. I mean, I didn't know her. And

779
00:50:50,200 --> 00:50:52,960
Speaker 4: Kennedy said, okay, tell her I'll be right there. And

780
00:50:53,160 --> 00:50:56,359
Speaker 4: he looked at me and he said, have you met

781
00:50:56,400 --> 00:51:02,160
Speaker 4: my sister Unice? And I said not, Senator, And he said, well,

782
00:51:03,080 --> 00:51:06,520
Speaker 4: you'll understand why I have to take this call. I

783
00:51:06,600 --> 00:51:09,040
Speaker 4: watched him pick up the phone, and this was his

784
00:51:09,160 --> 00:51:14,640
Speaker 4: side of the conversation. Yeah, I will, I did. I

785
00:51:14,680 --> 00:51:18,759
Speaker 4: told you I would, and I did, Yes, Yes, I will, Yes,

786
00:51:18,960 --> 00:51:21,360
Speaker 4: I'll be there, Unice. I will be there. Yeah, Okay,

787
00:51:24,960 --> 00:51:27,520
Speaker 4: so I don't know that's who she will.

788
00:51:29,400 --> 00:51:32,240
Speaker 6: We'll be back with more United States of Kennedy after

789
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:43,440
Speaker 6: this break, and we're back with more United States of Kennedy.

790
00:51:44,360 --> 00:51:46,799
Speaker 1: All right, as we're as we're you know, kind of

791
00:51:46,840 --> 00:51:49,000
Speaker 1: coming to an end. I do want to talk about

792
00:51:49,040 --> 00:51:51,560
Speaker 1: the Special Olympics because it is it is obviously such

793
00:51:51,600 --> 00:51:54,520
Speaker 1: a lasting part of her legacy. So if you don't mind,

794
00:51:54,960 --> 00:51:56,680
Speaker 1: if you can just give us the basics, you know,

795
00:51:56,920 --> 00:51:59,200
Speaker 1: how did it come about, how did it become such

796
00:51:59,200 --> 00:52:02,040
Speaker 1: a huge success. From what I understand, it is to

797
00:52:02,120 --> 00:52:04,879
Speaker 1: this day an incredible success, and she would be very

798
00:52:04,960 --> 00:52:06,400
Speaker 1: she would be very proud of it. So I would

799
00:52:06,400 --> 00:52:09,759
Speaker 1: love to know, you know, as a sort of very

800
00:52:10,120 --> 00:52:11,799
Speaker 1: quick history, if you will.

801
00:52:11,920 --> 00:52:15,320
Speaker 4: It is an enormous success, and it's in two hundred countries,

802
00:52:16,400 --> 00:52:21,480
Speaker 4: millions of children around the world, millions of volunteers around

803
00:52:21,520 --> 00:52:24,560
Speaker 4: the world, in countries where you would not expect to

804
00:52:24,680 --> 00:52:28,719
Speaker 4: find the Special Olympics, it is there. It started as

805
00:52:29,239 --> 00:52:32,839
Speaker 4: a summer camp in her backyard in nineteen sixty one.

806
00:52:33,719 --> 00:52:37,000
Speaker 4: And she did it the way she did everything is

807
00:52:37,120 --> 00:52:39,120
Speaker 4: like off the top of her head, by the seat

808
00:52:39,120 --> 00:52:41,839
Speaker 4: of her pants. She said, we ought to have this

809
00:52:42,239 --> 00:52:45,080
Speaker 4: because the mother had called her and said, I have

810
00:52:45,160 --> 00:52:48,120
Speaker 4: a child with these issues. And I have nowhere to

811
00:52:48,160 --> 00:52:51,319
Speaker 4: send them to summer camp. So she said, send them here.

812
00:52:52,520 --> 00:52:57,000
Speaker 4: She lived on a two hundred acre estate in Maryland

813
00:52:57,440 --> 00:53:01,960
Speaker 4: called timber Lawn swimming Pool. They had a basketball court,

814
00:53:02,080 --> 00:53:06,640
Speaker 4: they had tennis courts, they had horses. So she just

815
00:53:06,800 --> 00:53:11,440
Speaker 4: opened basically her backyard to these children. And who was

816
00:53:11,480 --> 00:53:13,760
Speaker 4: going to work there? Well, she went to the Catholic

817
00:53:13,760 --> 00:53:15,960
Speaker 4: schools and she got all the good Catholic school kids

818
00:53:16,000 --> 00:53:19,359
Speaker 4: to volunteer to help her that. And then she did

819
00:53:19,400 --> 00:53:22,440
Speaker 4: something that was typical of Unice. She went to the

820
00:53:22,480 --> 00:53:26,680
Speaker 4: local prison and she asked them to send her prisoners,

821
00:53:27,040 --> 00:53:32,160
Speaker 4: like can you imagine today anyone saying could you please

822
00:53:32,239 --> 00:53:36,520
Speaker 4: open the cells and send me some prisoners to help.

823
00:53:36,920 --> 00:53:39,719
Speaker 4: They had to build paddocks for the horses so they

824
00:53:39,760 --> 00:53:42,400
Speaker 4: could have pony rides for the kids. And it was

825
00:53:42,480 --> 00:53:47,040
Speaker 4: nineteen sixty one. There was no like background checks, just

826
00:53:47,560 --> 00:53:52,680
Speaker 4: they brought them over in a prison bus from laudn Virginia,

827
00:53:53,200 --> 00:53:56,600
Speaker 4: and they volunteered at her camp. And there were black

828
00:53:56,680 --> 00:54:01,680
Speaker 4: children and white children swimming in her swimming pool. And

829
00:54:01,760 --> 00:54:05,319
Speaker 4: I remind you it was nineteen sixty one and we

830
00:54:05,320 --> 00:54:09,200
Speaker 4: were in Maryland and there were segregation laws still on

831
00:54:09,320 --> 00:54:14,040
Speaker 4: the book. And when Saturday Evening Posts came to call

832
00:54:14,440 --> 00:54:19,719
Speaker 4: to photograph this amazing social experiment that she was conducting

833
00:54:19,760 --> 00:54:23,560
Speaker 4: in her backyard, they ran these fabulous photographs of the

834
00:54:23,880 --> 00:54:27,640
Speaker 4: integrated summer camp. That's one of the small ways in

835
00:54:27,680 --> 00:54:30,680
Speaker 4: which she helped change the world. When we talked a

836
00:54:30,719 --> 00:54:35,080
Speaker 4: little bit before about did she resent it all not

837
00:54:35,400 --> 00:54:40,000
Speaker 4: having enough recognition for the work she did, let me

838
00:54:40,080 --> 00:54:44,240
Speaker 4: say that Unice was not afraid to take credit even

839
00:54:44,280 --> 00:54:47,400
Speaker 4: when it wasn't due. Now, in nineteen sixty one, she

840
00:54:47,480 --> 00:54:50,719
Speaker 4: did start what she called Camp Shreiver in her backyard.

841
00:54:51,480 --> 00:54:55,840
Speaker 4: But meanwhile, in Chicago, there was a young woman named

842
00:54:55,840 --> 00:55:00,200
Speaker 4: Anne Burke who worked for the Parks Department, and she

843
00:55:00,280 --> 00:55:03,640
Speaker 4: started a summer camp for kids with intellectual disabilities of

844
00:55:03,760 --> 00:55:10,360
Speaker 4: the Chicago Park District. And Eunice got wind of her program,

845
00:55:10,920 --> 00:55:16,000
Speaker 4: blew out to Chicago, got to know her, and stole

846
00:55:16,360 --> 00:55:21,720
Speaker 4: her idea and see the first Special Olympics was held

847
00:55:22,000 --> 00:55:26,360
Speaker 4: in Chicago in nineteen sixty eight, organized by the Chicago

848
00:55:27,600 --> 00:55:31,920
Speaker 4: Parks District. It was an extraordinary event, in no small

849
00:55:31,960 --> 00:55:37,239
Speaker 4: part because her brother Bobby had been murdered only six

850
00:55:37,280 --> 00:55:42,000
Speaker 4: weeks before, and everybody expected that this event would be canceled,

851
00:55:42,560 --> 00:55:46,239
Speaker 4: but it was not Campbell. Eunice went to Chicago and

852
00:55:46,320 --> 00:55:50,279
Speaker 4: she announced, although she had announced this dabsol what we

853
00:55:50,360 --> 00:55:53,480
Speaker 4: know on but herself, that this was just the beginning.

854
00:55:54,000 --> 00:55:56,719
Speaker 4: We were in Chicago for the Special Olympics, but this

855
00:55:56,840 --> 00:55:59,600
Speaker 4: was going to beginning in a national event, and of

856
00:55:59,640 --> 00:56:03,399
Speaker 4: course it did become a national and now an international event.

857
00:56:03,640 --> 00:56:06,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was this beautiful story in I can't remember

858
00:56:06,320 --> 00:56:07,359
Speaker 1: if it was in the book or if you said

859
00:56:07,400 --> 00:56:12,640
Speaker 1: an interview where at her funeral there were Special Olympians

860
00:56:12,640 --> 00:56:16,520
Speaker 1: that kind of spontaneously I think, put their medals in

861
00:56:16,600 --> 00:56:18,440
Speaker 1: the ground to be with Eunice.

862
00:56:18,480 --> 00:56:21,520
Speaker 4: They did, they were Special Olypians, took off the gold

863
00:56:21,520 --> 00:56:24,600
Speaker 4: medal and dropped them in terror grave. And there was

864
00:56:24,640 --> 00:56:28,920
Speaker 4: a whole parade of Special Olympians that followed her coffin

865
00:56:28,960 --> 00:56:29,600
Speaker 4: from the church.

866
00:56:29,800 --> 00:56:33,640
Speaker 1: And as you say, her funeral was noticeably way less

867
00:56:34,440 --> 00:56:38,600
Speaker 1: glamorous than that of Teddy who died what two weeks later.

868
00:56:39,200 --> 00:56:44,239
Speaker 4: Yeah, and she's buried in the cape with Sarge. You know,

869
00:56:44,280 --> 00:56:48,960
Speaker 4: it's a fairly humble cemetery plot. She's not in Arlington

870
00:56:49,040 --> 00:56:52,200
Speaker 4: National Cemetery, and she shouldn't be. She should be on

871
00:56:52,239 --> 00:56:54,399
Speaker 4: the Cape. She was exactly where she should have been,

872
00:56:54,440 --> 00:56:56,839
Speaker 4: and she should have been buried from that in a

873
00:56:56,840 --> 00:57:00,160
Speaker 4: small whitewashed church on the Cape, because that was the

874
00:57:00,360 --> 00:57:04,000
Speaker 4: enormous part of her life to love the Cape. But

875
00:57:04,120 --> 00:57:08,960
Speaker 4: she deserves like a much larger chapter in the Kennedy

876
00:57:09,000 --> 00:57:13,080
Speaker 4: family story. A few years ago, CNN did a I

877
00:57:13,080 --> 00:57:16,200
Speaker 4: think that they're actually rerunning it now. They did a

878
00:57:16,240 --> 00:57:20,280
Speaker 4: documentary series on the Kennedy family and she's not even mentioned.

879
00:57:21,040 --> 00:57:26,480
Speaker 4: And to me, it's criminal because I took a lot

880
00:57:26,480 --> 00:57:29,280
Speaker 4: of grief for the subtitle of the book to Kennedy

881
00:57:29,320 --> 00:57:33,840
Speaker 4: who Changed the World. And I think one of the

882
00:57:33,880 --> 00:57:37,000
Speaker 4: historians who reviewed it for the Washington Post said, well,

883
00:57:37,040 --> 00:57:39,200
Speaker 4: you know, that may be a bit of an exaggeration.

884
00:57:39,360 --> 00:57:43,000
Speaker 4: After all, you know, we wouldn't be here. We're not

885
00:57:43,120 --> 00:57:45,920
Speaker 4: but the cube, you know. For JFK's handling of the

886
00:57:45,960 --> 00:57:52,640
Speaker 4: Cuban missile prices, Well say I today, okay, but how

887
00:57:52,720 --> 00:57:55,240
Speaker 4: are we doing with our relationship with Cuba right now?

888
00:57:55,760 --> 00:57:59,800
Speaker 4: She left a lasting, lasting legacy in spite of her

889
00:57:59,800 --> 00:58:02,880
Speaker 4: fam I mean, she used the Kennedy name and she

890
00:58:03,040 --> 00:58:06,800
Speaker 4: used the Kennedy fortune to make it happen. But I

891
00:58:06,800 --> 00:58:09,040
Speaker 4: would say that she, in lots of ways is the

892
00:58:09,080 --> 00:58:14,200
Speaker 4: Antie Kennedy, because Joe Kennedy's philosophy is you have to

893
00:58:14,240 --> 00:58:19,520
Speaker 4: finish first, second place doesn't count. And the Special Olympics

894
00:58:19,560 --> 00:58:25,680
Speaker 4: is built on the foundation idea that participation is everything,

895
00:58:26,240 --> 00:58:29,760
Speaker 4: and these children would never have been able to participate

896
00:58:29,920 --> 00:58:31,760
Speaker 4: were it not for you is Kennedy Schreiber.

897
00:58:32,320 --> 00:58:37,200
Speaker 2: It's so I mean, she's such an inspiring figure, and

898
00:58:37,280 --> 00:58:42,200
Speaker 2: I do I hope everyone who listens to this buyser book.

899
00:58:42,160 --> 00:58:45,320
Speaker 4: And fling it on a remainder table somewhere good luck.

900
00:58:47,440 --> 00:58:50,880
Speaker 2: But it's also so interesting in the context of the

901
00:58:50,920 --> 00:58:56,760
Speaker 2: present day, particularly with RFK Junior, because so much of

902
00:58:56,800 --> 00:59:03,480
Speaker 2: his political project, would say is obviously like his anti

903
00:59:03,560 --> 00:59:07,880
Speaker 2: vaccine policies when you really listen to the things that

904
00:59:08,480 --> 00:59:10,880
Speaker 2: he says, a lot of it comes from the fact

905
00:59:11,080 --> 00:59:15,400
Speaker 2: that he believes autism, which is kind of the most

906
00:59:15,440 --> 00:59:20,240
Speaker 2: now the most visible intellectual disability, is the worst thing

907
00:59:20,560 --> 00:59:23,920
Speaker 2: that could ever happen to a family is having a

908
00:59:24,000 --> 00:59:29,120
Speaker 2: child born with autism. And it's just in such stark

909
00:59:29,200 --> 00:59:33,720
Speaker 2: contrast to the way that to what Unis believed and

910
00:59:33,800 --> 00:59:37,240
Speaker 2: to her life's work really was that these was that

911
00:59:37,280 --> 00:59:42,120
Speaker 2: people with intellectual disabilities are full and complete people unto themselves,

912
00:59:43,120 --> 00:59:47,080
Speaker 2: and they are not a burden or a which is

913
00:59:47,280 --> 00:59:51,440
Speaker 2: which is entirely how RFK Junior speaks about them in

914
00:59:51,720 --> 00:59:54,480
Speaker 2: the present day. You know, he had that crazy thing

915
00:59:54,520 --> 00:59:57,160
Speaker 2: of like, they'll never throw a baseball, they'll never write

916
00:59:57,160 --> 01:00:00,720
Speaker 2: a poem, all of this, which is just not true.

917
01:00:01,000 --> 01:00:03,680
Speaker 4: It's not true. There's lots of ways in which Robert

918
01:00:03,760 --> 01:00:08,320
Speaker 4: Kennedy Junior is betrayed his family's legacy. But I don't

919
01:00:08,320 --> 01:00:12,160
Speaker 4: think he's betrayed anyone more than he has betrayed UNITS.

920
01:00:12,640 --> 01:00:17,800
Speaker 4: And this entire administration. They're dismantling the Education Department, and

921
01:00:17,880 --> 01:00:21,640
Speaker 4: the civil rights protections that are built into the law

922
01:00:21,720 --> 01:00:25,040
Speaker 4: that Units got passed in nineteen seventy five are being

923
01:00:25,120 --> 01:00:30,080
Speaker 4: dismantled as we speak because they're not a priority. And

924
01:00:30,400 --> 01:00:34,280
Speaker 4: I think there's lots of ways in which the resistance

925
01:00:35,000 --> 01:00:37,560
Speaker 4: asked to stand up. And one of the ways that

926
01:00:37,600 --> 01:00:41,920
Speaker 4: we stand up is is in justin Minnesota, it's everywhere.

927
01:00:41,960 --> 01:00:45,760
Speaker 4: It's in the daily dismantling of the protections for vulnerable

928
01:00:45,760 --> 01:00:48,960
Speaker 4: people in our society that is happening under Donald Trump.

929
01:00:49,640 --> 01:00:52,760
Speaker 1: In terms of Unice's legacy, and I know, we have

930
01:00:52,800 --> 01:00:54,000
Speaker 1: to let you go in a second. But in terms

931
01:00:54,040 --> 01:00:58,680
Speaker 1: of UNI's legacy, I think one kind of complicating factor

932
01:00:58,760 --> 01:01:01,720
Speaker 1: that you've talked about in terms of her life being

933
01:01:01,880 --> 01:01:05,360
Speaker 1: kind of reclaimed as just as important as her family,

934
01:01:05,920 --> 01:01:09,720
Speaker 1: especially as an overlooked woman, one complicating factor is, as

935
01:01:09,760 --> 01:01:13,360
Speaker 1: we've sort of hinted at, some of the more conservative politics.

936
01:01:13,360 --> 01:01:17,000
Speaker 1: I mean, she was, she was a pro life advocate

937
01:01:17,040 --> 01:01:20,480
Speaker 1: and activist. I will say, in her defense, the way

938
01:01:20,560 --> 01:01:24,640
Speaker 1: she explains it is from a kind of pro disability stance.

939
01:01:24,720 --> 01:01:28,640
Speaker 1: She is saying that abortion enables people to not have

940
01:01:28,720 --> 01:01:31,920
Speaker 1: children with disabilities, and then that further stigmatizes people with

941
01:01:31,920 --> 01:01:34,880
Speaker 1: intellectual disabilities. That's neither here nor there. My point is,

942
01:01:35,520 --> 01:01:39,320
Speaker 1: how do you feel about her legacy more broadly and

943
01:01:39,320 --> 01:01:42,560
Speaker 1: maybe even just within the disability community. Is she someone

944
01:01:42,600 --> 01:01:46,520
Speaker 1: who is celebrated in the current disability rights movement. I

945
01:01:46,600 --> 01:01:50,320
Speaker 1: know that the movement as a movement, as we can

946
01:01:50,400 --> 01:01:53,440
Speaker 1: even call it one single monolithic thing, has changed a

947
01:01:53,480 --> 01:01:57,400
Speaker 1: lot since, you know, since she founded the Special Olympics,

948
01:01:57,400 --> 01:01:59,640
Speaker 1: for example. Do you have any sense of how she

949
01:01:59,800 --> 01:02:02,680
Speaker 1: is remembered by contemporary activists.

950
01:02:02,920 --> 01:02:06,680
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, on the abortion issue. You know,

951
01:02:06,920 --> 01:02:12,040
Speaker 4: conservative liberal, however you want to say it. She opposed abortion, obviously,

952
01:02:12,760 --> 01:02:15,960
Speaker 4: I found her completely consistent. I don't agree with her

953
01:02:16,000 --> 01:02:19,960
Speaker 4: on that issue, but I find her completely consistent. She

954
01:02:20,000 --> 01:02:24,760
Speaker 4: opposes a death penalty too. You know, she's she's a Catholic,

955
01:02:25,640 --> 01:02:29,000
Speaker 4: so she does it. Isn't just that she's concerned about

956
01:02:29,400 --> 01:02:35,440
Speaker 4: people with intellectual disabilities being aborted in utero. She thinks

957
01:02:35,600 --> 01:02:39,440
Speaker 4: she thought that abortion was murdered and that's the teaching

958
01:02:39,440 --> 01:02:42,480
Speaker 4: of the Catholic Church, and she accepted that teaching. So

959
01:02:43,680 --> 01:02:45,760
Speaker 4: love her, hate her, you know, that's her faith, and

960
01:02:45,840 --> 01:02:50,240
Speaker 4: that's what she believed in terms of the disability community.

961
01:02:50,360 --> 01:02:53,800
Speaker 4: She was a woman of her time. Would we call

962
01:02:53,840 --> 01:03:00,440
Speaker 4: it the Special Olympics now, No, they're not special, like

963
01:03:00,520 --> 01:03:05,760
Speaker 4: she called children with Down syndrome her special friends. That's

964
01:03:05,800 --> 01:03:10,000
Speaker 4: how we got the Special Olympic. Well, there's something inherently

965
01:03:10,080 --> 01:03:16,520
Speaker 4: condescending in that, isn't there? And No, in nineteen sixty one,

966
01:03:16,560 --> 01:03:20,240
Speaker 4: nobody said, oh, that's kind of condescending. You know, we've changed.

967
01:03:20,320 --> 01:03:24,800
Speaker 4: We don't call it mental retardation anymore. Mental retardation wasn't

968
01:03:24,800 --> 01:03:28,080
Speaker 4: a slur. It was the name of the Massachusetts Department

969
01:03:28,120 --> 01:03:32,200
Speaker 4: of Mental retardation dealt with these issues. It's the name

970
01:03:32,240 --> 01:03:36,000
Speaker 4: of the legislation that JFK. The last bill he signed

971
01:03:36,600 --> 01:03:40,760
Speaker 4: before he was assassinated was a bill that she drafted

972
01:03:41,480 --> 01:03:46,520
Speaker 4: that provided federal money to deinstitutionalize children, and he places

973
01:03:47,400 --> 01:03:52,920
Speaker 4: so society progresses, it changes, intellectual disabilities isn't going to

974
01:03:53,040 --> 01:03:57,160
Speaker 4: last either as a moniker or these children, because it

975
01:03:57,240 --> 01:04:00,920
Speaker 4: too is problematic. I don't know what the right phrasing is.

976
01:04:01,920 --> 01:04:05,800
Speaker 4: But she did have a patronizing attitude, and you know,

977
01:04:06,000 --> 01:04:08,800
Speaker 4: why wouldn't she. She's a spoil rich girl. That's who

978
01:04:08,840 --> 01:04:12,320
Speaker 4: she was. She did wonderful things in her life, but

979
01:04:13,560 --> 01:04:18,560
Speaker 4: she wasn't like signing away her fortunes to the to

980
01:04:18,640 --> 01:04:23,240
Speaker 4: the disadvantage. She was as cheap as the other Kennedys.

981
01:04:23,360 --> 01:04:25,440
Speaker 4: You know, she never had a nickel in her pocket.

982
01:04:25,680 --> 01:04:28,480
Speaker 4: You know, she required whoever was with her to pay

983
01:04:28,520 --> 01:04:32,520
Speaker 4: for her So, I don't know. I think the disability

984
01:04:32,600 --> 01:04:36,000
Speaker 4: community embraces her because they understand that at that moment

985
01:04:36,040 --> 01:04:40,080
Speaker 4: in time, she was an historical figure. She didn't discover

986
01:04:40,280 --> 01:04:44,040
Speaker 4: this population. They were all these wonderful parents who were

987
01:04:44,080 --> 01:04:49,240
Speaker 4: working really hard and doctors who were trying to convince parents.

988
01:04:49,240 --> 01:04:52,840
Speaker 4: You don't have to institutionalize her, kid. What she did

989
01:04:53,080 --> 01:04:57,560
Speaker 4: was she recognized good ideas and then she stole them

990
01:04:57,880 --> 01:05:04,040
Speaker 4: and she them And because of her name and because

991
01:05:04,080 --> 01:05:07,600
Speaker 4: her brother was the President of the United States and

992
01:05:07,640 --> 01:05:10,560
Speaker 4: then the Senator from New York and then the Senator

993
01:05:10,600 --> 01:05:13,800
Speaker 4: from Massachusetts, she was able to get stuff done. That's

994
01:05:13,800 --> 01:05:19,200
Speaker 4: her legacy. So is she politically incorrect in lots of ways? Yeah?

995
01:05:19,360 --> 01:05:23,920
Speaker 4: I mean Tim Shriver led a campaign to to stop

996
01:05:24,000 --> 01:05:26,280
Speaker 4: the use of the R word, to turn the R

997
01:05:26,320 --> 01:05:30,160
Speaker 4: word into a slur, and he was successful until the

998
01:05:30,320 --> 01:05:35,200
Speaker 4: current administration, where now it's used constantly as a pejorative

999
01:05:35,440 --> 01:05:38,360
Speaker 4: and it seems to be working its way back into

1000
01:05:38,400 --> 01:05:44,840
Speaker 4: the general population. But society has swings and changes. I

1001
01:05:44,880 --> 01:05:48,400
Speaker 4: think when lots of issues. You know, she was not

1002
01:05:49,040 --> 01:05:52,840
Speaker 4: a visionary, but on the big issue she was an

1003
01:05:52,920 --> 01:05:53,840
Speaker 4: enormous fish guy.

1004
01:05:54,320 --> 01:05:56,280
Speaker 1: Well, I think that's a great place to end. We

1005
01:05:56,360 --> 01:05:58,200
Speaker 1: really want to thank you so much. This was such

1006
01:05:58,240 --> 01:06:00,960
Speaker 1: a such a great conversation and we're very we're very

1007
01:06:00,960 --> 01:06:03,800
Speaker 1: honored that you that you took the time, really incredible.

1008
01:06:04,040 --> 01:06:05,120
Speaker 4: Don't get carried away now.

1009
01:06:05,120 --> 01:06:09,440
Speaker 2: Okay, so that's it for this week's episode. Subscribe and

1010
01:06:09,480 --> 01:06:12,200
Speaker 2: follow the United States of Kennedy for All Things Kennedy

1011
01:06:12,320 --> 01:06:15,320
Speaker 2: every week. United States of Kennedy is hosted by me,

1012
01:06:15,560 --> 01:06:17,360
Speaker 2: Julia Clair and George Severes.

1013
01:06:17,720 --> 01:06:20,400
Speaker 1: Original music by Joshua Tapolski.

1014
01:06:20,080 --> 01:06:21,880
Speaker 3: Editing by Graham Gibson.

1015
01:06:21,680 --> 01:06:23,360
Speaker 1: Mixing and mastering by Doug.

1016
01:06:23,200 --> 01:06:26,360
Speaker 3: Bame, Research by Dave Bruce and Austin Thompson.

1017
01:06:26,560 --> 01:06:28,160
Speaker 1: Our producer is Carmen Laurent.

1018
01:06:28,400 --> 01:06:30,560
Speaker 3: Our executive producer is Jenna Cagele.

1019
01:06:30,760 --> 01:06:32,040
Speaker 1: Created by Lyra Smith.

1020
01:06:32,280 --> 01:06:34,720
Speaker 3: United States of Kennedy is a production that by her

1021
01:06:34,800 --> 01:06:35,320
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