INTRODUCTION
A DAUGHTERS STORY
THIS BOOK BEGAN AS the completion of a conversation I had with my father throughout my childhood. I grew up with Robert Kennedy. He was part of my waking life. I can remember him as clearly as I can remember my fatherand yet I dont know that I ever met him. He was assassinated when I was six years old. In life and death he was a part of our household, as a man, a refuge, a set of lasting aspirations, and a figure of tragedy. The events of my life and, of course, the life and times of my father, Kenneth ODonnell, are completely intertwined with Robert Kennedy, or Bobby, as my father always called him. I bristle when people say to me, You know, he preferred to be called Bobhe disliked being called Bobby. I dont know what the rest of the world called him. I do know that my father was his friend beginning from their days at Harvard College, loved him all his life, treasured his friendship, was challenged by his life and devastated by his death, and always called him Bobby. That is what I will call him in these pages.
The last conversation I had with my father was about Robert Kennedy. At the time of his death in 1977, my father was deeply disturbed that people were going to forget what Bobby had lived for and what he had ultimately given his life for. My dad was worried that his workand their work togetherwas in vain, and that Americans didnt understand who Robert Kennedy really was. I am not even sure my father completely understood him. I know he did not always agree with him; from football games to Vietnam, they disagreed, argued, and remained friends. But what my father did know in his heart and his gut about Bobby Kennedy was that he had the talent, the brains, and ultimately the courage to change this country. He really believed, as did Bobby Kennedy, that the system can work to help those most in need. He wanted to ensure that America would not neglect Bobbys life work and his own. At the end of his life, my father knew well what the passage of time could mean for their story in the hands of unscrupulous journalists and uncaring historians if neither he nor Bobby was alive to keep vigil on the truth.
He often said, We mustnt live on might-have-beens. Sadly, he didnt follow his own advice. He became trapped by the deaths of John and Bobby Kennedy in a realm of lost possibilities. My father never recovered from Bobbys death. Two years later his own beloved brother Warren was shot while attempting to stop a robbery in progress on the way home from work, and he later died from complications from his wounds. This may have been the final blow to my fathers will to live. After those two tragedies, he never cared about politics again, and he never gave his heart over to another politician again. When tragedy struck, my fathers confidant and protg Paul G. Kirk, Jr., would explain to me, your dad not only lost his best friend. His professional life lost its compass and its direction.
My father tried hard; he wanted to move forward but he seemed frozen by tragedy. My mothers growing alcoholic illness and his own skyrocketing dependence on alcohol were contributing factors. After my mothers death, my stepmother would try valiantly to help him, to get him on track, but it was too late; the fight in the man was gone. Though it was alcoholism that would be the technical cause of both my mothers and fathers deaths, in reality they died long before their last breath was released.
My father was a public man. As a member of the inner circle of both John and Robert Kennedy for his entire adult life, he moved in the realms of power and helped shape the agenda for a newly reinvigorated nation. Because he was also an intensely private man, a man who shared his deepest feelings and thoughts with only a few others and whose public presence, in the set of his jaw and the coldness in his eyes, radiated a warning to any and all who might presume to pry into his inner world, it is with a certain sense of trepidation that I presume to tell part of his story, which is an integral part of Jack and Bobbys story as well. But I believe there is so much in his life from which we might all learn, and, in the end, that outweighed my reservations.
While I grew up surrounded by Robert Kennedy, indeed all the Kennedys, I also grew up very much my fathers daughter. I was his favorite; he was my friend, my confidant, and my pal. As a child, I enjoyed being the center of my father and mothers attention. My aunt remembers one evening when several couples had joined my parents for dinner. As a six- or seven-year-old sitting next to my dad as the adults were talking politics, I tried to speak. My mother and father immediately ordered all conversation to cease. Be quiet, my father commanded. Helen has something to say. I doubt whatever I had to say was earth shattering, but the story illustrates how I grew up with the assurance that I had a right to a place in the world, and that whatever came my way, I could handle it: After all, I was Kenny ODonnells daughter.
We spent a lot of time together. Those who knew Kenneth ODonnell as President John F. Kennedys taciturn doorkeeper, intimidating people with a simple stare, would be startled by his gentleness and his delight in his children. Our routines included walks around Jamaica Pond with my cocker spaniel, Biscuit, and my dads longtime friend Junior Carr. I rarely spoke on these walks, but I would get to listen to the two men talk and reminisce about past glories during their campaign days and Kennys time in the White House. Some nights my dad would come by my brother Marks and my room about 3:00 A.M., and we would sneak downstairs without my mother knowing, to join him for Charlie Chan and Sherlock Holmes movies, complete with bowls of chocolate and vanilla ice cream, laden with chocolate sauce and tons of Cool Whip. We would sit in the dark, watch the movie, and try to guess the killer. Whoever guessed wrong had to get everyone else more ice cream. Funny, but my brother and I dont remember my father ever guessing wrong.
My father taught me how to play tennis, which was quite an effort for him, since from the time I was a child his hands had been crippled with Depuytrens contracture. He had to force a tennis racket into his hand with my help. Unlike my brothers and sisters, I was not gifted athletically, but my dad was tremendously patient. The first time I got the ball over the net, he was clearly proud of me. You can do anything you set your mind to, he told me. You will always have to work harder than the next guy, but you are tough and you will succeed. I could never have imagined on that sunny afternoon how often I would need to rely on that counsel.
