The Kennedys

In many ways, John Fitzgerald Kennedy and his young family were the perfect embodiment of the ‘60s. The decade began with a sense of idealism, personified by the attractive Kennedy, his beautiful and fashionable wife Jackie, and his young children. Months into his presidency, Kennedy exhorted the country to reach for the stars, calling upon the nation to send a man to the Moon and back by the end of the decade. In 1961, Kennedy made it seem like anything was possible, and Americans were eager to believe him. The Kennedy years were fondly and famously labeled “Camelot,” by Jackie herself, suggesting an almost mythical quality about the young President and his family.

As it turned out, the ‘60s closely reflected the glossy, idealistic portrayal of John F. Kennedy, as well as the uglier truths. The country would achieve Kennedy’s goal of a manned moon mission, and the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 finally guaranteed minorities their civil rights and restored equality, ensuring that the country “would live out the true meaning of its creed.” But the idealism and optimism of the decade was quickly shattered, starting with Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. The ‘60s were permanently marred by the Vietnam War, and by the time Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were assassinated in 1968, the country was irreversibly jaded. The events of the decade produced protests and countercultures unlike anything the country had seen before, as young people came of age more quickly than ever.

Jackie continued to fascinate Americans over the next several decades, acting as a living symbol of the Kennedy years and a popular unofficial representative for her country abroad. She famously went on to marry Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, earning her the nickname Jackie O, and she took up a career in publishing beginning in the mid-70s. Until her death in 1994, even in her 60s she continued to be the subject of popular interest and intense tabloid and paparazzi coverage.

In some ways, Robert Francis Kennedy (1925–1968) is the quintessential middle brother among the Kennedys, eclipsed in life while working in his brother John’s administration, eclipsed in death both by his older brother’s assassination and his younger brother’s long, influential career in the Senate as a liberal lion. And yet, the politics of the 1960s and the ultimate legacy of the Kennedys, including the “Kennedy Curse”, would have been incomplete without Bobby’s place in the narrative.

As Bobby’s private life and public life played out, the two came to mirror each other. Among the Kennedy clan, Bobby remained within the shadow of older brothers Joseph Jr. and John, both of whom their father thought were destined to become political scions. And ultimately, it was Ted who cast the longest political shadow, serving for decades in government. But Bobby may have been the most intellectual and ideological of them all. And it was Bobby who worked behind the scenes to help advance John’s political career, including his political campaigns and as Attorney General in his administration.

Ted may not have been the center of attention in the Kennedy family then or now, but he had the same charisma and skills of his older brothers, as well as the same controversial vices. And as fate would have it, Ted’s political legacy may have eclipsed them all. His brothers were victims of two of the country’s most tragic assassinations, two other siblings died in plane crashes, and he would have to eulogize nephews. But Ted had the extra gift of length of years, surviving his encounter with the “Kennedy Curse”, a 1964 plane crash that severely injured and nearly killed him. Although controversy ensured Ted would never be president, he spent nearly half a century in the U.S. Senate, forging a legacy that earned him the nickname “The Lion of the Senate”.