Unsolved:Kennedy curse

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Short description: Term for a series of deaths and calamities involving members of the American Kennedy family


The Kennedy curse is a series of premature deaths, accidents, assassinations, and other calamities involving members of the American Kennedy family.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] The alleged curse has primarily struck the children and descendants of businessman Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., but it has also affected family friends, associates, and other relatives. Political assassinations and plane crashes have been the most common manifestations of the "curse". Following the Chappaquiddick incident in 1969, Ted Kennedy is quoted saying he questioned if "some awful curse did actually hang over all the Kennedys."[9] However skeptics argue that it is not improbable for a large extended family to experience tragic events over the course of several generations.[10][11]

Chronology

Events that have been treated as evidence of a curse include:

Kennedy deaths

  • August 12, 1944 – Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. died when the aircraft he was piloting accidentally exploded over East Suffolk, England.
  • September 9, 1944 – William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington, newlywed husband of Kathleen Kennedy was fatally shot by a German sniper while leading his company near Heppen, Belgium.[12]
  • May 13, 1948 – Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy (formally known as Kathleen Cavendish, Marchioness of Hartington) died in a plane crash in France .[4][5][6][13]
  • August 9, 1963 – Patrick Bouvier Kennedy died of infant respiratory distress syndrome two days after his premature birth on August 7 in Otis Air Force Base, Massachusetts.
  • November 22, 1963 – U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas.
  • June 5, 1968 – U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy, was shot by Sirhan Sirhan in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on the night of his victory in the California primary; Robert died the following morning.[4][5][6][13]
  • April 25, 1984 – David A. Kennedy died of a drug overdose in a Palm Beach, Florida hotel room.
  • December 31, 1997 – Michael LeMoyne Kennedy died in a skiing accident after crashing into a tree[14] in Aspen, Colorado.[1][4][5][6][15][13]
  • July 16, 1999 – John F. Kennedy Jr. died when the plane he was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.
  • September 16, 2011 – Kara Kennedy died of a heart attack while exercising in a Washington, D.C. health club.
  • May 16, 2012 – Mary Richardson Kennedy died by suicide on the grounds of her home in Bedford, New York.[13][16]
  • August 1, 2019 – Saoirse Kennedy Hill, granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy, died of accidental overdose after being found unresponsive at the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.
  • April 2, 2020 – Maeve Kennedy McKean disappeared with her eight-year-old son, Gideon, during a short canoe trip in the Chesapeake Bay.[17]

Other incidents

  • November 1941 – Rosemary Kennedy, age 23, struggled to read and write, and she suffered from mood swings, seizures, and violent outbursts. During birth, Rosemary was deprived of oxygen as her mother and nurse waited for the doctor to arrive.[18] As she grew older, she became more rebellious and the family worried she would do something that could tarnish the Kennedy reputation.[19] In an attempt to cure or treat his daughter, Joseph Kennedy secretly arranged for her to undergo a prefrontal lobotomy, which was seen as a promising treatment for various mental illnesses. Instead of saving Rosemary, the now-discredited procedure left her mentally and physically incapacitated. Rosemary remained institutionalized in seclusion, in rural Wisconsin, until her death in 2005.[4][5][6][15][13] Her family remained distant for most of Rosemary's life, but Eunice Kennedy Shriver, her sister, grew close with Rosemary later in life. Eunice went on to found the Special Olympics and the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation which researches developmental and intellectual disabilities.[19]
  • June 19, 1964 – U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy survived a plane crash that killed one of his aides as well as the pilot. The plane was on its way to a Democratic State Endorsing Convention in Springfield.[20] The small plane crashed in an apple orchard near Southampton, Massachusetts. The senator was pulled from the wreckage by passenger (and fellow senator) Birch Bayh. Kennedy spent five months in a hospital recovering from a broken back, a punctured lung, broken ribs, and internal bleeding.[4][5][13][21] Following the crash, Bobby Kennedy remarked to aide Ed Guthman: "Somebody up there doesn't like us."[22]
  • July 18, 1969 – Ted Kennedy accidentally drove his car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts , resulting in the drowning death of 28-year-old passenger Mary Jo Kopechne.[4][5][6][7][13] In his televised statement a week later, Ted said that on the night of the incident he wondered "whether some awful curse did actually hang over all the Kennedys."[23] Ted did not report the accident to the police until the next morning and pled guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident.[24]
  • August 13, 1973 – Joseph P. Kennedy II was the driver of a Jeep that crashed and left his passenger, Pam Kelley, paralyzed. Fellow passenger brother David A. Kennedy was injured.[4][6][15] Kelley died in 2020.
  • November 17, 1973 – Edward M. Kennedy Jr., age 12, had his right leg surgically amputated as a result of bone cancer. He underwent an experimental two-year drug treatment to cure the cancer.[25][26]
  • April 1, 1991 – William Kennedy Smith was arrested and charged with the rape of a young woman at the Kennedy estate in Palm Beach, Florida. The subsequent trial attracted extensive media coverage.[27] Smith was acquitted.[1][3][4][15]
  • May 4, 2006 – Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy crashed his automobile while intoxicated into a barricade on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., at 2:45 a.m. He later revealed an addiction to prescription medications Ambien and Phenergan and pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of prescription drugs, sentenced to one year probation and a fine of $350.[28][29]

See also

  • Curse of Tippecanoe
  • Sedgwick family, another prominent New England family that faced a similar tragedy
  • Von Erich family, an American professional wrestling family that faced similar tragedies

References

Citations

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Kennedy Family Tragedies". The Washington Post. July 18, 1999. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/jfkjr/timeline.htm. 
  2. ↑ Carr, Pat; Hulteng, Lee. "Kennedy Family Tragedies". The Courant (Hartford, Connecticut). http://www.courant.com/news/politics/20090826_tragedies_kennedy,0,5261652.graphic. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 McGrory, Brian (July 18, 1999). "Family Overshadowed by a Litany of Tragedy". The Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/news/packages/jfkjr/mcgrory.htm. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 Klein, Edward (2004). The Kennedy Curse: Why Tragedy Has Haunted America's First Family for 150 Years. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-31293-0. https://archive.org/details/kennedycursewhyt00klei. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 Jones, Sam; Tran, Mark (August 26, 2009). "History of the Kennedy Curse". The Guardian (London). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/aug/26/kennedy-curse-senator-ted-death. 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 "The Kennedy Curse". Hartford, Connecticut. http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-kennedy-curse-pictures,0,1958578.photogallery. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Is Pat's Crash Part of Kennedy Curse?". Good Morning America (ABC News). May 5, 2006. http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=1926999. 
  8. ↑ Lacayo, Richard (August 26, 2009). "Ted Kennedy, 1932–2009: The Brother Who Mattered Most". Time (magazine). http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1918758,00.html?cnn=yes. Retrieved August 26, 2009. 
  9. ↑ Selk, Avi. "Ted Kennedy spoke of a family curse after deadly Chappaquiddick crash. Maybe he was right". National Post. https://nationalpost.com/news/world/ted-kennedy-spoke-of-a-family-curse-after-deadly-chappaquiddick-crash-maybe-he-was-right. 
  10. ↑ "Kennedy Curse". The Skeptic's Dictionary. http://www.skepdic.com/kennedycurse.html. Retrieved August 29, 2009. 
  11. ↑ O'Dowd, Niall (September 18, 2011). "Talk of a Kennedy Curse Is Nonsense, Latest Death of Kara Revives Idle Chatter". IrishCentral. http://www.irishcentral.com/story/news/periscope/talk-of-a-kennedy-curse-is-nonsense-latest-death-of-kara-revives-idle-chatter-130061473.html. Retrieved May 19, 2012. 
  12. ↑ "Obituary: Major Lord Hartington". The Times: p. 6. 19 September 1944. 
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5 13.6 Negrin, Matt (May 16, 2012). "Kennedy Curse: A Political Family's Troubled Life". ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/kennedy-curse-political-familys-troubled-life/story?id=16362763. 
  14. ↑ "Legacy of Untimely Death Continues". The Washington Post. January 2, 1998. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/kennedy/kennedy.htm. 
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 King, John (July 17, 1999). "Tragedy Has Repeatedly Stalked Kennedy Clan". CNN. http://edition.cnn.com/US/9907/17/kennedy.tragedies/. 
  16. ↑ "RFK Jr.'s Troubled Estranged Wife Found Dead in NY". Google News. Associated Press. May 16, 2012. https://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jsfT2VoGbAR2P9uBoMOiCBb6817g?docId=788fa9391b1f42e993f59fe3312a837b. 
  17. ↑ Osborne, Mark (April 4, 2020). "Daughter, grandson of Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, RFK's daughter, presumed dead in canoe accident". ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/US/daughter-grandson-kathleen-kennedy-townsend-rfks-daughter-drown/story?id=69964861. 
  18. ↑ Serena, Katie (November 2, 2017). "The Forgotten Kennedy Sibling Who Was Lobotomized So That JFK Could Succeed". https://allthatsinteresting.com/rosemary-kennedy-lobotomy. 
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 "Rosemary Kennedy, The Eldest Kennedy Daughter (U.S. National Park Service)". https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/rosemary-kennedy-the-eldest-kennedy-daughter.htm. 
  20. ↑ "Senator Kennedy Tells of His Rescue in Plane Crash (Published 1964)". The New York Times. October 20, 1964. ISSN 0362-4331. https://www.nytimes.com/1964/10/20/archives/senator-kennedy-tells-of-his-rescue-in-plane-crash.html. 
  21. ↑ "The Luck of the Kennedys". Check-Six.com. May 8, 2008. http://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/Kennedy-N344S.htm. 
  22. ↑ Larry Tye. Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon, p. 320
  23. ↑ Kennedy, Edward. "Address to the People of Massachusetts on Chappaquiddick." 25 July 1969. https://americanrhetoric.com/speeches/tedkennedychappaquiddick.htm
  24. ↑ Pruitt, Sarah. "Ted Kennedy's Chappaquiddick Incident: What Really Happened". https://www.history.com/news/ted-kennedy-chappaquiddick-incident-what-really-happened-facts. 
  25. ↑ BG Series
  26. ↑ Clymer, A Biography, pp. 205–208.
  27. ↑ Dunne, Dominick (March 1992). "The Verdict". Vanity Fair. http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/archive/1992/03/dunne199203. Retrieved May 17, 2012. 
  28. ↑ "Rep. Kennedy entering rehab after crash - May 5, 2006". CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/05/kennedy.accident/. 
  29. ↑ "Life After Fender Bender - Roll Call". August 21, 2009. http://www.rollcall.com/issues/52_5/hoh/14255-1.html. 

Book sources

  • Klein, Edward (2004) The Kennedy Curse: Why Tragedy Has Haunted America's First Family for 150 Years. New York: St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 978-0-312-31293-0[1]




  1. ↑ "The Kennedy Curse | Edward Klein | Macmillan". https://us.macmillan.com/thekennedycurse/edwardklein/9780312312930. 
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