53rd Anniversary of Robert Francis Kennedy's death: RFK was shot on June 5, 1968, soon after a speech marking his victory in the California Democratic primary for president, and died the next day. The assassination of Robert Kennedy in Los Angeles on June 6, 1968, is perhaps the most ignored American historical milestone in the second half of the 20th century. Preceding his assassination were those of his brother President John Kennedy, Malcolm X, and RFK’s colleague Martin Luther King. All four of these deaths were caused by gunfire, and were redolent with suspicious circumstances. After Robert Kennedy was killed, the Democratic Party became a shadow of its former self. Six of the next nine presidents would be Republicans. It would be 22 years before a Democrat was elected to two full terms in office. After the Democratic Party’s 49-state loss to incumbent President Richard Nixon in 1972, the Democrats abandoned their core base—union laborers, minorities and blue-collar workers—and started catering to the Wall Street crowd instead. RFK's funeral mass in New York was watched by over 100 million spectators via television. At that funeral, SDS leader Tom Hayden and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley both choked back tears. Robert Kennedy was the buffer that kept people like Hayden and Daley from savaging each other; he was the inspiration that made students and peace activists believe the Vietnam War would soon end. Jackie Kennedy had wept over his casket at a private wake, something she did not do over her husband’s death. Two million people lined the railroad tracks to bid their final farewells as his corpse was transported back to Washington to be buried near his brother at Arlington Cemetery. —A Lie Too Big to Fail: The Real History of the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy (2018) by Lisa Pease
Why We Search for R.F.K.: "RFK was never afraid of the truth. He never fled from the facts. He also knew, in ways that politicians these days seem to have no understanding, that truth is the token of trust. It was his view of a political leader's function to tell them the truth, even though it made them uncomfortable, even though it may have made them dislike him, and even though it may have cost him in that audience. Richard Nixon offered international competence and strength, if only we would abandon idealism. Robert Kennedy saw his success as secondary to the benefit and success of the country and the people in it. We also remember Robert Kennedy for his tenderness. His thoughts and emotions were often blurted out, and sometimes they were harsh; yet he was careful to be gentle when he dealt with the weak. In retrospect, it's clear that Robert Kennedy was the last major leader who allowed us to at least imagine we could realize the ideals of American politics. Since his death we have chosen from a spectrum that offers us everything but dignity, self-respect and hope." —Adam Walinsky, who worked as legislative assistant to Robert F. Kennedy at the Justice Department and the Senate from 1963 to 1968. Source: nytimes.com
The Kennedy Tragedy: (
Boston stunned, saddened / Good night, sweet prince by Jim Smith & Harry Keaney): Former Boston mayor and Vatican ambassador Raymond Flynn said that JFK Jr. once told him during a conversation in Central Park that he might someday run for major political office. "But he didn’t want anything handed to him — he wanted to accomplish things on his own first," Flynn added. "That’s why so many of us with Irish roots feel connected to him and his family." Flynn said he had "no doubt" that, had JFK Jr. lived, he would have followed in is father’s footsteps toward the U.S. presidency. John Mooney, an executive with the Manhattan PR firm of M. Booth & Associates, recalled meeting JFK Jr. during an event marking the opening of the Sony building on 54th Street. “All the things people said about him were true,” Mooney said. “He could light up a room and heads would turn, and he was as polite as could be, even if people were snapping pictures of him right in his face.” Source: www.irishecho.com
"The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you." —David Foster Wallace (Infinite Jest, 1996)
JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy (
The Truth Behind Their Fights): In her book "Fairy Tale Interrupted," JFK Jr.'s personal assistant and confidante RoseMarie Terenzio reveals that the simmering tension between the Kennedy scion and his glamorous wife was the product of those never-ceasing flashbulbs. Long accustomed to the media following his every move, the son of President John F. Kennedy wasn't fazed by negative coverage. But his wife wasn't nearly as thick-skinned, and when Bessette Kennedy complained, she faced blowback from her husband. "It made him angry. He would say to her, 'Oh, big deal, so what? Get on with it," Terenzio told "20/20's" Chris Cuomo. "And sometimes that was hurtful." In her book, Terenzio wrote that Kennedy's insensitivity was "the biggest catalyst for their arguments." The nastier the press coverage got, she wrote, "the more Carolyn retreated into herself. The process was heartbreaking to witness." Source: abcnews.go.com
Citizen Kennedy: By many accounts, John Kennedy Jr. was a natural and precocious actor. “He’s got an incredible ear for mimicry, and he used to tell us all stories in an Irish brogue or in Russian character or Scottish,” his cousin Bobby once recounted. “This is starting when he was nine or ten years old, and he’d have all the grandchildren listening to him. A lot of us were a lot older than him, and he could keep us entertained.” Jackie Kennedy impressed upon her beloved son John Jr. that he had to lead a meaningful life. “Jackie was a loving but extremely demanding mother,” said her cousin John Davis. “John wanted to be an actor, and she dissuaded him. She didn’t think it was a dignified profession. She didn’t like Hollywood at all.” One of John’s closest friends heatedly denied that his mother’s influence steered him from his own chosen path: “John has a compass. He’s usually pointed in the right direction. Did Jackie guide him? Probably. But he went to law school because he likes to learn and law was a natural thing for him to do.” As an amateur actor, JFK Jr landed parts in campus productions of such plays as
The Tempest, Short Eyes, and
Playboy of the Western World. "He took direction well," said James Barnhill, professor emeritus of Theatre Art, "and he improvised well." Professor of Theatre Don Wilmeth, who directed
Playboy, said that, although Kennedy had the right charisma for acting, he never seriously considered it as a career: "I think he knew that his persona would be too difficult to overcome." Whatever the reason, John abandoned acting and he moved from the Upper West Side to an apartment he shared with Daryl Hannah, and then bought a loft in TriBeCa.
It looked as if JFK Jr was finally going to marry the Hollywood star. Daryl Hannah was once spotted buying an antique wedding dress at a flea market, and the couple went on a scuba trip to the South Pacific and Asia. “Daryl really liked him,” said Chicago novelist Sugar Rautbord. “She was desperate to marry him.” But only two months after tabloid reporters descended on Cape Cod, expecting a Kennedy-Hannah wedding, John was seen kissing Carolyn Bessette, a PR woman for Calvin Klein, near the finish line of the New York City Marathon. Jackie reportedly liked Daryl Hannah, but could not countenance her well-bred son marrying an actress. And Caroline, whom John openly adored, never forgave Hannah for dumping her brother in favour of rocker Jackson Browne just a week before Kennedy sat and failed his bar exam. Although the pair later kissed and made up, Caroline held firm. 'Kiddo,' she allegedly told John when he was considering marrying the flaky film star, 'she's nice but she's not the one.' John was still struggling with the driving Kennedy will to succeed. Would he enroll at Harvard’s John Fitzgerald Kennedy School of Government, or join the Clinton administration, or perhaps even run for Congress? He turned down a House race, said Owen Carragher, because “any semblance of privacy John has ever had, he’s had to fight for. The only claim he has to keep it is to remain a private citizen.” Source: https://mgross.com
"Once Carolyn became John’s regular date, she took a profound proprietary interest in him, beyond what any of his previous lovers had shown. Carolyn had a withering intensity, and whether she was the most interesting woman he had ever dated or merely the most difficult, she mesmerized John. When she turned her gaze on you, it was like being in an interrogation room lit by a bare lightbulb. She had a gift for honesty, a staggering candor with her friends. But it was her understanding and awareness of the world around her that made her so compelling to John. “She, of all his girlfriends, was the most honest and the most capable of delivering that honesty,” says Robert Littell. “She was so sensitive—sensitive to the pain and joys of life, and that made her vulnerable to ups and downs. She could parcel a human down within thirty seconds to a three-by-five card. And be 99 percent right.” Carolyn had a thoroughbred model’s bearing, perfect posture, and a sleek, easy walk. Some would write about her later as a Cinderella—her upbringing was so different from the world of the ultra-chic New York woman she had become. She had attended St. Mary’s Girls School and, like John, was the most nominal of Catholics." —Sons of Camelot: The Fate of an American Dynasty (2005) by Laurence Leamer
John Kennedy Jr.’s temper rarely reared its head in public, save for a fiery public fight he and Carolyn Bessette had in N.Y.C.'s Washington Square Park on February 25, 1996. Madonna, who loved to lean into the parallels between herself and Marilyn Monroe, had unsurprisingly not been a big hit with John’s mom, Jackie Kennedy, who reportedly didn’t love Madonna’s adoption of Catholic iconography into her style. Madonna said that John Jr. would get up in her face and scream at her at the top of his lungs when they were in a fight, Taraborrelli writes in
The Kennedy Heirs. Rumor had it that Caroline Kennedy hadn't warmed up to Carolyn Bessette. John was also reportedly dismayed at his relationship with his only sister, Caroline Kennedy. The two were barely on speaking terms prior to John's death, Taraborrelli claimed. Apparently, there was a dispute between the siblings as to what should be done with the family memorabilia at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port. John Kennedy Jr had reportedly known Carolyn Bessette since November 1992. They officially started dating in late December 1994, and after John asked her to quit her job in Calvin Klein, Carolyn moved to his Tribeca loft in July 1995. According to some sources, John Jr fell hard for Carolyn, but wasn't convinced she would adapt to his lifestyle and possible political aspirations, and after a tumultuous courtship during the summer and winter of 1993, they took a break until the next year's reconciliation.
Susanna Galanis: One would think that, stylistically speaking, Carolyn Bessette's best accessory was her husband and they were gorgeous together, but, even on her own she was stunning…she would “light up” the room. “No wonder he, [JFK Jr, the sexiest man and the most eligible bachelor in the world] married her,” that’s what I thought when I first met her. She was [and still is] a star! No wonder she is an icon and will always be… for eternity. I was fortunate enough to have met her while working at Versace back in December 1998. I remember the month because she had sent me the most beautiful Christmas flower arrangement along with a “thank you note” for something minimal I had done. Well, it was love at first sight with Carolyn…a few brief shining moments yet, unforgettable. She was gone 7 months after our first meeting. Between her loss and the yet another earlier tragic loss of my favorite designer and boss Gianni Versace the pain was tremendous. I still can’t talk about it. Yet, I treasure the memories… the beautiful memories. Source:
https://susannagalanis1.wordpress.com
-Larry King: Sasha, you had dinner with John in Manhattan about a week before his death. You remember he said what he thought about his future. What did he say?
-Sasha Chermayeff: He said a lot of different things that night. One of the things that really stuck with me was he had turned to me and we had spent a lot of -- I spent Memorial Day Weekend with him that year. I spent July fourth, my family, all of us together. We'd been together for days and days with the kids. I think it was just we had such a great time. He turned to me and said, I really want to have a child. And I just never forgot that, of course, because that was the last time I would see him, and it planted that memory in me that he must have -- he would have been such a great father. He would have been such a lovely father.
Bill Ebenstein, executive director of Reaching Up, a group founded by JFK Jr. to help front-line healthcare workers, said to Larry King: “John was tough -- he was very tough about how he wanted to run Reaching Up, and as, you know, people didn't hear much about it. To do this quietly and to do it in the way he did took -- you had to be tough. You had to know exactly what you were doing.” William Ebenstein, University Dean for Health and Human Services and Executive Director of the John F. Kennedy Jr. Institute for Worker Education added: “John wasn’t only interested in people with disabilities. He picked an issue that people weren’t talking about then but now they do all the time: that you can’t have a good service for people with disabilities unless you have a good, quality and educated workforce.” In 1989, John Jr launched Reaching Up, a nonprofit organization through the CUNY Consortium for the Study of Disabilities, and since Kennedy’s death in 1999, the John F. Kennedy Jr. Institute for Worker Education. Ebenstein worked closely with Kennedy for 10 years and together they expanded the Consortium. Ebenstein said he and Kennedy would pay surprise visits to CUNY colleges to meet with students in the Disabilities Studies program. “He was a great guy, very down to earth,” said Ebenstein. “We would take the subway together to Medgar Evers College and people would come up to him and he was always extremely, extremely polite and respectful to people in a very genuine way.” After Kennedy was tragically killed in a plane crash, his colleagues wanted to carry on his work. In 2000, with the support of the Kennedy family, they renamed this Consortium the John F. Kennedy Jr. Institute for Worker Education. “I received some very nice notes from Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Caroline Kennedy and Maria Shriver,” said Ebenstein, who in 2006 received a Mayoral Advocacy Award for his efforts to raise the quality of life for people with disabilities. “They were all encouraging.” The Institute, which still partners with Reaching Up, was integrated into the Office of the University Dean for Health and Human Services in 2007. The Kennedy family continued to support the work of the Institute. In 2009, Caroline Kennedy took part in the 20th-anniversary celebration of the Kennedy Fellows program. “John is to be respected for his vision because he saw that the destiny of people who are receiving the services is connected to the destiny of people who are providing them,” said Ebenstein. Source: https://sps.cuny.edu/about/jfkjrinstitute
William Kurtz (
Celebrity & Spectacle: The Making of a Media Event): The New York Post’s front page story from an anonymous source, a very badly sourced story, had alleged that Carolyn Bessette was a coke-head, the marriage was on the rocks, they hadn’t slept together for weeks, and badda-bing, badda-boom. The New York Post, one of the ten best papers in the US, published that story without comment. Two days later, they reprinted an excerpt from that? Once a story is printed and out there, God forbid you should leave it alone? I have a problem with these print guys and their unnamed sources. "John Jr and Carolyn’s every move became front-page news," Colin McLaren (author of
JFK: The Smoking Gun) said: "The headlines were not always complimentary to the Kennedy legend."
Laura Raposa (
Celebrity & Spectacle: The Making of a Media Event): People were saying John was such a kind and gentle soul, and I’m thinking, you know what? He was a daredevil. He had a nasty temper, and I thought he was going to hit me once. Remember that scene in Central Park where he and Carolyn were in a big brawl – we experienced that, and it wasn’t very nice. We were at the White House Correspondents Dinner, and the thing that you try to do is get a really good guest and that year we had Frank McCourt, who wrote
Angela’s Ashes, and Senator John Kerry, and we were way in back for the Herald. That’s what you do – you try and jockey to get a really good guest. So I saw John and Carolyn and I said, “Who’d you guys get as a guest?” We were talking and joking about it with him, and we said we had Frank McCourt. I thought, “Well, John Kennedy, he’s going to get a really good guest, like Barbra Streisand, Cindy Crawford, someone that was on the cover of that magazine.” He said, “Oh no, it’s just Carolyn and me. I said, “C’mon John, you can’t do any better than that?” All of a sudden, the veins started coming out of his neck, and he started shaking. I said, “What’s the matter with you?” He said, “That is the rudest thing you have ever said!” He started pointing his fingers and yelling at me in the lobby of the Capitol Building. I said, “Hey buddy, I was joking.” He said, “You weren’t joking. That was really nasty.”
Kevin Myron (
Celebrity & Spectacle: The Making of a Media Event): On one hand, John Jr. signifies Kennedy troublemaking, and above-the-lawness, which dates back to Grandpa Joe, because even though he is not the badly behaved one, he nevertheless represents these meanings as a Kennedy. On the other hand, John Jr. signifies purity and virtue since the act of publicly shaming his cousins is an attempt to separate himself from those negative connotations. There is also a discourse of family betrayal running through John’s figure, that he somehow broke the code of family protectionism. Here, we see that in life the acceptable discourses for a Kennedy figure might be much more complex and controversial than in death. Last, if we analyze all of the television tributes and coverage of John Jr.’s death, we get the realization of the American dream, where the Kennedy family is seen as American Royalty, with John Jr. as the fallen prince. We get a vision of politics, where liberal is not seen as a dirty word. John Jr. embodies the Kennedys’ brand of compassionate, pragmatic democratic politics even though he never ran for office himself. We saw John Jr. as the newest tragedy from a family virtually defined by the dialectic of tragedy/success. I want to address Carolyn here now.
As I say, she is a powerful image and certainly powerful from the perspective of the image of the marriage. She does a lot of things symbolically and from the perspective of a sign to perpetuate this. First of all, she fulfills the popular myth of Camelot. There must be a queen or at least a princess in Camelot, and she fills that purpose in a very, very compelling way. She brings a certain kind of sign value, which is different than no symbolic value. Her sign value has more to do with the fact, I think, that she’s fresh, she’s new, she’s unknown and she doesn’t cloud the glow of JFK Jr. In other words, she’s free to be imprinted with many, many kinds of images and values. —Celebrity & Spectacle: The Making of a Media Event/
Mediated Realities of the JFK Jr. Tragedy (November, 1999) edited by Gregory Payne
Richard Blow (author of American Son, 2002) hinted that John Jr. was an unlikely fan of his dad’s onetime political nemesis, Richard Nixon. “After my father’s death, Nixon was very kind to my mother,” Blow quotes JFK Jr. as saying. “He invited us to the White House once, and my mother and sister were convinced that I would spill my milk because I always did. So we sat down to dinner and after maybe 10 minutes, I knocked my glass of milk all over the table.” Did Nixon erupt? “Nah, not at all. He helped wipe it up,” John said. “Actually, I always liked Nixon. He and my father got along well after the election. Not many people can relate to life at that level of politics. Those who do feel a bond, regardless of what party they belong to.” Carol Wallace, managing editor of People magazine, which had declared JFK Jr. "The Sexiest Man Alive" in 1988, noted in 1999: "His movie-star facade intrigued people. He was great to look at! He tried to be as unassuming as he could, but he was an Adonis walking around.''
In USA Today, Billy Graham was quoted as saying: “John and his wife, Carolyn, came home from their honeymoon three days early to interview me for his magazine, ‘George.’ We had a wonderful time together, and I could see a great deal of love between them. John Kennedy Jr. was one of the most terrific young men I’ve ever met. I thought he could be anything he decided to be. He had humility, he was kind, he was gracious, and he was knowledgeable. Most important, he had a religious faith, but I think at that time he was searching for something more definite. He asked me, ‘In this life, where does our own free will end and God’s will begin? Are we always responsible for our own actions, or is there a point at which God’s will takes over?’ I told him there is a mystery to all of this and that I really didn’t know, but that I did know if he had faith in God and put his trust and confidence in Him, He would provide a peace and a joy and settle his life with certainty. I think John wanted Christ to take over his life.”
The Kennedy Curse by Edward Klein was first published on April 1st 2003. There is clearly a connection between the infamous article "Secrets and Lies" by Edward Klein that was published by Vanity Fair magazine in August 2003 and curiously, the next year Harper Books publishes "The Other Man" (2004) by Michael Bergin. Bergin allegedly co-wrote it with the help of gossip columnist Judith Regan, who was fired by HarperCollins Publishers in 2006. Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation had acquired Harper Publishing (in 1987) alongside William Collins (in 1990). Murdoch's News Corporation had a reputation for exploiting salacious news in the media. Ed Klein possibly got the bulk of his material for his book "The Kennedy Curse" from dubious allegations that were first reported on November 12, 1999, mainly by The Daily Mail. Michael Bergin's narrative resulted to be too contradictory and outlandish to be credible, so much that Bergin would have to apologize to a close relative of Carolyn Bessette for his disreputable (and discredited) book. Klein reportedly pushed Bergin to pen his derogatory portrayal of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy. But who pushed Klein? Could be someone associated with the Kennedy clan? Or the CIA? Or simply a polemicist like Ed Klein was seeking notoriety?
Carole Radziwill's Rebuttal of Ed Klein's allegations (
In Defense of John and Carolyn, October 2003, Letter to Vanity Fair magazine): “I was a very close friend of both John and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy. My husband, Anthony Radziwill, was John's cousin and best man at his wedding. Carolyn and I were like sisters. I understand that celebrities and public figures generate a unique fascination and I realize there are people who will promote untruths for self-aggrandizement or financial reward. But Mr. Klein's collection of unscrupulous accounts is so egregious it requires a response. Who is this group of anonymous friends of John and Carolyn's who were so helpful in writing Klein's book? No one in the Bessette or Kennedy family spoke to him, and I have spoken to many of Carolyn's closest friends - none of us were asked to cooperate. I was struck not only by the absurdity of Klein's portrayal of Carolyn but also by his misogynistic language. Through his distorted lens she was a "commoner" who had the audacity to think John was "lucky to have her." Where John is "besotted," she is "obsessed." She is "hysterical" and "demanding," flying into a "rage" at the slightest provocation. She is "domineering" and "meddling," and "poisoned" John's relationship with a friend. He stops just short of accusing her of witchcraft. His assertion of "street drug" abuse is ludicrous. In the 10 years that I knew Carolyn I never once saw her use drugs. She was as much a "cokehead" as Klein is a biographer.”
“Carolyn was kind and loving, and had an unassuming charm. She was devoted to her husband and to her family and friends. She spent countless days and nights with Anthony and me in hospitals, helping him endure the devastating effects of cancer treatment. Though it was difficult for some of Anthony's friends and relatives to deal with his illness, Carolyn embraced it with tireless and fearless compassion - she helped him live while he was dying. Her smile lit up every room she walked into and she cheered us all with an irresistible sense of humor that I miss terribly. I'd like to set the record straight on the state of their marriage. There was no separation. There was no impending divorce. As Carolyn's closest friend and John's cousin, I knew this better than anyone. In the context of the issues they were facing - a new marriage, intense public scrutiny, the terminal illness of a love one - their joint decision to seek counseling was positive. To draw a line from counseling to divorce is gratuitous. It's convenient for Klein's story, but real people to not abandon relationships at the first challenge; they address and work through them. Klein fumbles simple details, and then inserts a scene that never occurred. His intimacy is contrived, his imagination endless. Klein's most offensive suggestion—that Carolyn's pedicure was to blame for three tragic deaths—is beyond reproof. While Vanity Fair corrected some of Klein's other inaccuracies, you inexplicably included this story in your excerpt. It is an assertion with so little integrity that Klein's own publishers omitted it from his book. I'm curious why Vanity Fair chose to publish it. In essence, I disagree with everything Klein writes, and could dissect each passage in this excerpt. But Klein's tenacious effort to wring the shock value from every detail his questionable sources allege - to enhance his own book sales - says more about him than it ever will about John and Carolyn. Klein was most accurate when he wrote in this magazine in 1989, "I do not number myself among Jacqueline Onassis's close friends." Klein and Jackie Onassis were not friends. His public insistence that they were friends stems either from his eagerness to exploit the connection for personal gain. If there was a question about this, it should have been dismissed when Jackie had her attorney Alex Forger write a letter to Klein advising him to stop contacting her friends. The "Kennedy Curse" is as real as witches and goblins and enchanted forests. Their curse is people like Edward Klein, who write fiction as fact and parlay it into monetary gain with a complete lack of conscience, responsibility, or decency.” —Carole Radziwill
(In Defense of John and Carolyn-Letters to the Editor/Vanity Fair, October 2003)
The Daily Mail (1999) dubiously claimed: Thirty-eight-year-old Kennedy, a publisher, lawyer and the son of assassinated president John F. Kennedy, and Carolyn Bessette had been portrayed as having a fairytale marriage. But writers Annette Witheridge and Paul Bracchi claim the couple had been attending therapy and counselling sessions, trying to salvage their relationship as Carolyn battled the fame and attention that comes from being part of the Kennedy clan. Carolyn was combating her own problems with antidepressants and cocaine. Rebuttal of The Daily Mail article (by prestigious journalist and Hearts Communications editor-in-chief Joanna Coles, November 1999): So who were these so-called "close friends" and why would they choose the unlikely confessional of a British tabloid? And why, if they were indeed close friends, would they speak so ill of the dead couple? So I start by looking up the sole named source in the British edition, Bob Cohen, the well-known divorce lawyer whom, the story baldly states, Carolyn had asked to represent her in the break-up of her marriage. I call Mr Cohen to press him for further particulars. "It's categorically and absolutely untrue," he insists. "I have never, ever met or spoken with Carolyn Bessette or anybody acting on her behalf about anything. I am quite outraged by this. Let me say it again, I-have-never-ever-spoken-to-Miss Bessette." So I call an American friend, now married with a family, who briefly dated Kennedy before he met Carolyn, and who remained friends with the couple. Like the "friends" in the original article, she does not want to be named, but unlike them she remembers them fondly. "You know they always thought the best thing to do was to ignore what was written about them," she says sadly. She recounts, instead, her own experience of being their friend and of watching aghast as the irrelevant realities of their life were rapidly turned into sensational tabloid fodder. "At one point John cut his hand doing the dishes and so he wore a bandage, and the press said Carolyn had thrown things at him. Another time she went for a regular appointment to her gynecologist and the next day there was a photo of her outside the surgery saying she'd had an abortion. For God's sake, they wanted to have kids!" There may well have been bumps in the Kennedy marriage, but there is something egregiously unpleasant about this shrill post-mortem muckraking. With the subjects safely out of the way, and the libel bar removed, we are once more treated to the awful spectacle of journalistic vultures descending with impunity.
George Rush and Joanna Molloy (NY Daily News, 1998): Ask John Jr whether he has read Seymour Hersh's scathing biography of his father, the one that portrays JFK as a reckless womanizer in league with the mob, and the son shakes his head and grins: "Comic books are cheaper." Ask what he makes of the latest Kennedy ghoul show — the sale at Florida's Tragedy in U.S History Museum of the Lincoln Continental in which his father rode hours before his assassination. "I didn't know about it," he shrugs. Is he satisfied after the battle that he and his sister, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, waged to recover their father's diaries and a love letter from a Kennedy buff? "It wasn't a happy experience," the George editor-in-chief told us. "Ultimately, it was resolved. The sooner it's put in the past the better."
Carolyn Bessette was "elevated to the rank of top Cinderella", said Mr Oleg Cassini, a fashion designer whose clothes were often worn by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy would be the nation's new "style icon", the "epitome of American chic". With a look described as "calculated grunge" or "effortful effortlessness", Carolyn was soon noticed by Calvin Klein executives and posted to the designer's New York showroom, where she was soon handling celebrity clients. She rose rapidly, becoming Klein's publicist and later his fashion shows manager. Source: irishtimes.com
Crazy for Carolyn (Newsweek, October 1996): When she came to New York, Carolyn Bessette immediately became a denizen of such nightspots of the moment as MK, Rex and Buddha Bar. "She'd come in a lot,'' says former MK owner and veteran scenester Eric Goode: "But she wasn't wild and crazy or anything.'' Jonathan Soroff, a former nightlife writer for the Boston Herald who hung out with Carolyn in those years, recalled: "She was very good at what she did, a good networker, very professional. But she spent as little time as possible at the clubs. It was really not her.'' Tales of how she met John vary. The official version is that John met Carolyn when she was working in a Calvin Klein store. An unofficial story has them meeting at a trendy club. The most boring and probable scenario is that they were introduced by a mutual friend (maybe Billy Way). "Oh, he definitely chased her," Brian Steel (a colleague of John Jr) commented in the documentary The Last Days of JFK Jr. "Early on, he would be frustrated. He would say, 'I called her and she hasn't called me back'."
Another friend, Richard Wiese, told Vanity Fair: "John was attracted to women who were not intimidated by him. He liked women with a point of view." Angie Hobson worked in a different division of Calvin Klein, but often shared an uptown subway ride with Carolyn Bessette on the N or R lines to Times Square. "She was the kind of person who always smiled at everyone,'' Hobson said. "We always smiled and said hello, even though we weren't close friends.'' Zach Carr was working as Chief Creative Director at Calvin Klein from 1987–1997. In 2012, Zach Carr's brother George Carr, talking of his fashion muses, remarked: “Professionally, I have been completely enchanted by Zack’s amazing friend, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy. When I was with her, I would tell her, “Carolyn, I can’t let go of you.” She just had something so special, so unique.” Source: http://fashionwhirled.com
The Independent newspaper (September 20, 1997): “Ice Queen Carolyn Bessette initiated the 'No Face' face - glassy eyes, a shiver of make-up: the palest tabula rasa on which to project fantasy or a sudden gash of lipstick. With her skinny, angular, space-girl look, striding around in her boot-cuts and platinum sheet of hair, she marries Barbie and androgyne to create a much discussed and disconcerting look.” Reviewing RoseMarie Terenzio's book Fairy Tale Interrupted (2012), Jim Dunham, one of Carolyn's classmates from Boston University, wrote in May, 2013: “I will share the brief acquaintance that I had with Carolyn our sophomore year at Boston University. I will never forget the first time I saw her; she was sitting in a auditorium chair, leaning over the fold-over wooden writing surface, taking a test. Her long, blonde hair was reaching toward the floor and she flipped her hair. She and I were eventually assigned to the same study group where we did an end of the Semester project together. As a result, we spent many long hours together with a few other people writing a group project. She and I ended up writing most of it as the other members of our group were less than industrious. She was dating the Captain of the hockey team. She had a very approachable personality and she often made me laugh or smile even when she didn't mean to; I found her way of expressing herself unique and funny in an understated way. I never saw her lose her temper but when I once spoke very snidely to her because I was in a bad mood, she said "Whoaa, OK Tiger!" and I respected that. My impression was that she was not materialistic nor superficial, and did not like to draw attention to herself unnecessarily. She was beautiful, independent, not attention-seeking, humble, accessible, a defender of others and not materialistic. Then I suddenly heard that JFK, Jr. was engaged to some girl from Greenwich, CT, named Carolyn Bessette. The girl I knew was someone special that I would never forget even if she had never become a Kennedy.”
Around 1990, Carolyn Bessette tried modeling more seriously; posing for a series of pictures taken by her friend, photographer Bobby DiMarzo, who said, "She had everything it took. She was absolutely beautiful, had a great personality and was really cool in front of a camera." But modeling was not in the cards. And neither was a teaching career. "At the time, I felt a little underdeveloped to be completely responsible for twenty five other people's children," she told W magazine in 1995, when they profiled her as part of a feature on up-and-coming New Yorkers. So, after graduating from BU in 1988, Carolyn went to work for the Lyons Group, handling publicity for local Boston nightclubs. Later, she worked as a sales clerk in a Boston-based Calvin Klein boutique, where she was soon discovered by one of the designer's higher-ups, Susan Sokol, and transferred to Manhattan.
"She wasn't intimidated," Sokol told author Christopher Andersen. "She had a wonderful ease about her. She was comfortable with anyone, and she had a lot of self-confidence. Aside from looking great." "She was totally crazy about John," said fashion stylist Joe McKenna, according to People Weekly. "That fact that she was not a public person and made herself public for John says a lot about how she felt about him." In the same People Weekly article (July, 2000), Lynn Tesoro, a PR executive who worked with Carolyn Bessette at Calvin Klein, recalled: "I saw her the Wednesday before (the plane crash tragedy) and I thought she never looked better or sounded more in love." Source: people.com
Carole Radziwill remembers Carolyn Bessette and JFK Jr: "Her husband called her Mouse; she called him Mousy. She called her close friends Lamb. She could be as gentle as a kitten, but a lioness, too. She was fiercely protective of her husband, her family, her friends. She’d never let anyone hurt you, and she’d never betray a trust. There was no-one else like her and there won’t be. She was curious, smart, self-deprecating, kind. She was the most beautiful woman in any room she walked into and the least likely to see it. She was a minimalist and it showed in her style. She was lauded for her sense of fashion, her chic look, and she had a good laugh at that. She jokingly referred to her particular look as lazy: vintage Levi’s and white button down by day, tailored and black by night. For formal occasions she wore a touch of Bobbi Brown Ruby Stain on her lips, pulled her long, ivory hair back, and slipped into a Yohji Yamamoto dress. She could go from a long day at the hospital with me and Anthony, in jeans and a flannel shirt, to a dinner at the White House in 10 minutes. She was vivid in the way most people are dull. She wore colour on her toes in the summer — coral, her husband’s favourite. She was wild and vivid in a cautious and pale world, always burning a little more brightly than anyone around her. Her husband was beguiled by the dazzle she left in her wake. She made people into happier, bolder versions of themselves. She made her husband into a better man. Henry James wrote a story about a young girl named Isabel in The Portrait Of A Lady (1880); a girl as brave as she was beautiful, as pure of heart as she was unafraid to love. He was writing about Carolyn, more than a century before she was here." Source: www.dailytelegraph.com.au
According to Carole Radziwill, John Kennedy Jr’s connection with Carolyn Bessette was different from the connections he had with women he had dated in the past—including Daryl Hannah, or allegedly Madonna. “I met some of John’s previous girlfriends, but I knew the minute he introduced us to Carolyn that she was it,” said Carole Radziwill. “He was really besotted with her... He was so enthralled with her, and she with him, but she was kind of fierce. She was very confident. He liked that. She was very much her own person. She was this great combination of kind of seriousness and wild child. There was this instant chemistry. To say their marriage was on the rocks is just inaccurate." Former New York Post reporter Linda Massarella recalled JFK Jr being constantly photographed with whichever celebrity he was dating at the time, and the media frenzy only intensified when John F. Kennedy's son married Carolyn Bessette. At the time, the Secret Service wasn't assigned to the children of former presidents, so Kennedy was offered little protection once he turned 18. His celebrity status likely put his wife, Carolyn Bessette, at risk as well.
John Kennedy Jr: More Impressive Than Just His Lineage by Rebecca Cooper (ABC News, July 1999): "I met John Kennedy Jr. because of a late-night bet with my freshman roommate, Lori Stover, a longtime friend from our years spent at Heritage Hall. Impressed by his good looks and political lineage, we decided it would be a real bonus to my planned summer internship in New York City if I got a job working in the same government office where John worked in 1985. After phone calls and good luck, I landed a job working for John's boss, Lawrence Kieves, the Commissioner of the Mayor's Office of Business Development. Feeling sheepish, I initially tried to avoid him. But after I started, John and two friends took me to lunch to welcome me to the office. Despite his status as a major media "hunk," John and his friends joked about his claims that he was unlucky in love. He often dropped by my desk or invited me to his floor... It wasn't special treatment or attention, it was the way he treated everyone. Some found him standoffish but he was shy if he didn't know you, aware that people were scrutinizing him, his words and his actions. Once he got to know you, he was friendly and outgoing. Despite his wealthy, international upbringing, John was always laughing and joking with secretaries and support staff, whose own lives, spent commuting from Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx bore little resemblance to his Upper East Side existence. He gravitated to the least pretentious, most real people he met, not the most self-important. While John's relative normalcy is well known, what people often failed to appreciate was his intelligence. I was impressed by his inquisitiveness. He spoke passionately about history, his favorite subject at Brown. He took seriously his beliefs in giving and community service. John spent a great deal of time on a program mentoring and tutoring inner-city kids in Harlem. He spoke enthusiastically about the kids he met and felt he was getting as much as he was giving."
Carolyn Bessette was a very gracious and generous person, even towards people who weren't close friends with her. For example, she was concerned about Santina Goodman's welfare (Santina, who passed away in January 2019, had worked as a temporary assistant of Jackie Kennedy and was good friends with JFK Jr). Historian Steve Gillon (author of
America's Reluctant Prince: The Life Of John F. Kennedy Jr.) noted: “I got to know Santina in the course of writing my book. I considered dedicating the book to her. John would have appreciated that. But I could not do it without telling she was estranged from her family. Very lonely. She and John were very close at Brown University and stayed in touch afterwards. John used to hire her for small jobs to keep her afloat. Carolyn was wonderful to her and used to pay her therapy bills. Santina had always suffered from depression. Carolyn used to pay for her psychiatrist and medication.” Gillon also remarked: “John was not looking for a political wife. He was not that calculating. I believe John hoped to make the marriage work.” In an interview with ExtraTV (July, 2019), Gillon reiterated that despite their issues, Carolyn Bessette refused to give up on the marriage and as long as she held out hope, John Kennedy Jr was not willing to part ways.
In People magazine (Summer 1999), socialite and philanthropist Evelyn Lauder was quoted as saying: "During the Whitney Museum benefit in March, John and Carolyn couldn't wait to get up from dinner and go down to dance. They looked so in love. Afterward we all went up to Rao's restaurant in East Harlem. Carolyn was very protective of him. When we were talking about the future and whether she was going to have a family, she said she wanted to do whatever would be right for the two of them. She was very strong on her own, but it was important to her that the time would be right for him to have a family."
Investigators and experts later cited JFK Jr.’s “spatial disorientation” as the cause of the plane crash. At the time of the tragedy, the Bessette family released a joint statement with the Kennedy family, thanking the rescue teams who looked for the wreckage of the plane and the bodies of its occupants. “Each of these three young people–Lauren Bessette, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and John F. Kennedy Jr.–was the embodiment of love, accomplishment and passion for life,” the statement read, according to The Washington Post, adding that “John and Carolyn were true soul mates” and that the Bessette family took “solace in the thought that together they will comfort Lauren for eternity.” “We never co-operate with the media, no interviews, no questions, and that is still our position,” Lisa Bessette’s stepfather Richard Freeman told The Post. Source: nypost.com
