Ask not The Kennedys and the women they destroyed

For generations, Kennedy men have held some of the nation's highest positions of power--ambassador, attorney general, senator, and especially, president. They have also exhibited the lowest forms of behavior--bullying, emotional blackmail, psychological cruelty, and physical violence, including rape and murder. At the time of their occurrences, these scandals captured less national attention than their details warranted. Protected by praise and privilege, the perpetrators were never held accountable in any meaningful way. Over time, however, the steady drip of rumored dalliances, alleged assignations, and, ultimately, headline-grabbing crimes pooled into an undeniable pattern of callous abuse. Lives were lost, reputations destroyed. Callahan profiles 13 women, some famous, some infamous, some conveniently unknown, who had the misfortune of falling into the Kennedy orbit. Her focus goes beyond Jack, Bobby, and Ted to include their offspring, including current presidential candidate RFK Jr. The Kennedys, Callahan asserts, are the epitome of men behaving badly. Taken as a whole, their decades-long misogynistic and malevolent exploits must be recognized as being as legacy-defining as their political successes.

A sharp-edged exposé of Kennedy men. Investigative journalist Callahan, author of American Predator, reports on the physical and psychological abuse--neglect, public humiliation, rape, murder--meted out by generations of Kennedy men. Drawing on interviews and archival sources, the author provides ample evidence of the "perverse double standard--in the press, in the justice system, and in the court of public opinion" that allowed the men's insidious behavior to persist. The infamous family tree begins with Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., "financially and sexually rapacious," and includes his sons Jack, Bobby, and Ted; Bobby's son Robert F. Kennedy Jr.; and Jack's son John Jr., who was killed, along with his wife, Carolyn Bessette, and her sister when the plane he was piloting--irresponsibly and in bad weather--crashed. Like his father and uncles, John Jr. was risk-taking, arrogant, spoiled, demanding. But women, some who married them and remained married despite betrayals, others who had affairs with them, were drawn to their glamour and charisma. Ted, a "legendary drunk and womanizer," denigrated his wife; Jack didn't try to hide his affairs with students, interns, coworkers, and Marilyn Monroe. The family's power protected them: When Ted, driving drunk with an expired license, plunged his car into the waters off Cape Cod, leaving his companion to die, the media presented the event as a tragedy for him; his young victim, Mary Jo Kopechne, was hardly mentioned. Callahan reports on the murder of Martha Moxley, for which Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel was convicted--a conviction that later was vacated through the family's machinations. "The most famous of these women," she writes, "have too often been recast as architects of their own demise, or as women who were asking for it, or as imminent threats to the Kennedy dynasty." An informative and gossip-filled history of a notorious clan. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.