Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed

by Maureen Callahan

RFK Jr. wrote that one of the teens was “obsessed” with Martha’s “beautiful blonde hair” and that both young men decided to go “caveman” on her. Imagine anyone but a Kennedy leveling such racist, baseless accusations. The media would, rightly, be aflame with indignation. Yet all these decades later, the Kennedys benefit from a perverse double standard—in the press, in the justice system, and in the court of public opinion. It’s a double standard that is clearest and most insidious when it comes to the crimes that Kennedy men have committed against women and young girls. What was done to Mary and Martha are only two recent examples. Any victims who dare to fight back will find themselves confronting the awesome power of the Kennedy machine, one that recasts any woman, no matter how wealthy or famous or powerful, as crazy, spiteful, vengeful; a drug addict, a viper, a seductress. Whatever grievous harm a Kennedy man may have done to her, the message remains clear: She was asking for it. It was her fault. Thus Camelot, that fairy tale of Kennedy greatness and noble men, still stands.