The Kennedy Curse

The Kennedy curse refers to a series of premature deaths, accidents, and other calamities involving members of the American Kennedy family. The alleged curse has primarily struck the children and descendants of businessman Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., but it has also affected family friends, associates, and other relatives. Political assassinations and plane crashes have been the most common manifestations of the "curse".

Chronology

Events that have been cited as evidence of a curse include:

Kennedy deaths

August 12, 1944 – Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. died when the BQ-8 aircraft he was piloting accidentally exploded over East Suffolk, England. (A BQ-8 was a B-24 Liberator converted into a radio-controlled flying bomb.

May 13, 1948 – Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy (formally known as Kathleen Cavendish, Marchioness of Hartington) died in a plane crash in France.

August 9, 1963 – Patrick Bouvier Kennedy died of infant respiratory distress syndrome two days after his premature birth on August 7 in Otis Air Force Base, Massachusetts (the 20th anniversary of his father's rescue after the sinking of PT-109).

November 22, 1963 – U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas by Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald was later shot dead by Jack Ruby two days later. In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald was the lone assassin. However, in 1979, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) concluded that the assassination was the result of a conspiracy and that Oswald did not act alone.

June 5, 1968 – U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, on the night of his victory in the California Democratic presidential primary, was shot by Sirhan Sirhan in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles; Kennedy died the following morning.

April 25, 1984 – David A. Kennedy died of a drug overdose in a Palm Beach, Florida hotel room.

December 31, 1997 – Michael LeMoyne Kennedy died in a skiing accident in Aspen, Colorado.

uly 16, 1999 – John F. Kennedy Jr. died when the plane he was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. The crash was attributed to pilot error and spatial disorientation. His wife and sister-in-law were also on board and also died.

September 16, 2011 – Kara Kennedy, daughter of Ted Kennedy, died of a heart attack while exercising in a Washington, D.C. health club. Kara had reportedly suffered from lung cancer nine years earlier, but she had recovered after the removal of part of her right lung.

May 16, 2012 – Mary Richardson Kennedy, former wife of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., committed suicide on the grounds of her home in Bedford, Westchester County, New York.

August 1, 2019 – Saoirse Roisin Kennedy Hill, granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy, died of an accidental drug overdose at the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts on Cape Cod.

April 2, 2020 – Maeve Kennedy McKean, granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy Sr., and Gideon McKean, her 8-year-old son, went missing during a canoe trip in the Chesapeake Bay. McKean's body was found on April 6; Gideon’s body was found on April 8.

Other incidents

November 1941 – Rosemary Kennedy, age 23, struggled to read and write, and she suffered from mood swings, seizures, and violent outbursts. In an attempt to cure or treat his daughter Joseph Kennedy secretly arranged for her to undergo a prefrontal lobotomy, which was seen as a promising treatment for various mental illnesses. Instead of saving Rosemary, the now-discredited procedure left her mentally and physically incapacitated. Rosemary remained institutionalized in seclusion, in rural Wisconsin, until her death in 2005.

September 9, 1944 — Only four months after "Kick" Kennedy married the English ducal heir Billy Hartington, and only a month after Joe Jr. was killed, Billy was himself killed in action in Belgium. When "Kick" was then killed in a plane crash four years later, it was Billy's family, the Devonshires, who organized her funeral near their ancestral home.

October 3, 1955 – Ethel Kennedy's parents, Ann and George Skakel, died in a plane crash in Oklahoma.

December 19, 1961 – Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. suffered a massive stroke which left him paralyzed on his right side. He also struggled with aphasia, which severely affected his ability to speak.

June 19, 1964 – U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy survived a plane crash that killed one of his aides as well as the pilot. The small plane crashed in an apple orchard near Southampton, Massachusetts. The senator was pulled from the wreckage by passenger (and fellow senator) Birch Bayh. Kennedy spent five months in a hospital recovering from a broken back, a punctured lung, broken ribs, and internal bleeding. Following the crash, Bobby Kennedy remarked to aide Ed Guthman: "Somebody up there doesn't like us."

July 18, 1969 – Ted Kennedy accidentally drove his car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, resulting in the drowning death of 28-year-old passenger Mary Jo Kopechne. In his televised statement a week later, the senator said that on the night of the incident he wondered "whether some awful curse did actually hang over all the Kennedys."

August 13, 1973 – Joseph P. Kennedy II was the driver of a Jeep that crashed and left his passenger, Pam Kelley, paralyzed. Fellow passenger brother David A. Kennedy was injured.

November 17, 1973 – Edward M. Kennedy Jr., age 12, had his right leg surgically amputated as a result of bone cancer. He underwent an experimental two-year drug treatment to cure the cancer.

April 1, 1991 – William Kennedy Smith was arrested and charged with the rape of a young woman at the Kennedy estate in Palm Beach, Florida. The subsequent trial attracted extensive media coverage. Smith was acquitted.

May 4, 2006 – Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy crashed his automobile while intoxicated into a barricade on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., at 2:45 a.m. He later revealed an addiction to prescription medications Ambien and Phenergan and pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of prescription drugs, sentenced to one year probation and a fine of $350.