Bobby and Jackie up in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g after JFK’s death?

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/08/2009 (5878 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Bobby and Jackie

A Love Story

By C. David Heymann

Atria/Simon & Schuster, 226 pages, $34

 

This book should have been called Bobby and Jackie and Their Many Lovers.

Bobby is the U.S. presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy, assassinated in 1968. Jackie is the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, RFK’s sister-in-law and the widow of his brother, the slain U.S. president John F. Kennedy.

The premise of American writer C. David Heymann’s new release is that Bobby and Jackie were the loves of each other’s lives. This despite the fact that Bobby was married to Ethel Kennedy, mother of his 11 children, while he was allegedly having numerous liaisons on the side — and despite the allegation that Jackie was also not faithful during her marriage and after her husband’s assassination.

It strains credibility to regard Bobby and Jackie’s relationship as a passionate and profound romance when both of them allegedly indulged in infidelity while they were supposedly involved with each other.

Heymann claims that Jackie was simultaneously having affairs with Bobby and her eventual second husband. Aristotle Onassis. Bobby, meanwhile, was supposedly sleeping with the likes of Hollywood star Candice Bergen.

Thrice nominated for the U.S. Pulitzer Prize, Heymann has written three other bestselling tomes about the Kennedys. In this latest, he proves himself once again to be a terrific storyteller.

Heymann is also not the first author to allude to an affair between RFK and Jackie. He admits that his own previous research on the topic inspired at least four other Kennedy biographers to report in much less depth on a Bobby-Jackie romance. Still, at least one Kennedy biographer, Laurence Leamer, calls the book and the alleged romance "a total exaggeration."

However, Heymann incorporates previously unavailable reports and briefs from the U.S. Secret Service and FBI which were released to him two years ago under the Freedom of Information Act.

"Too often in earlier biographies, Robert Kennedy was depicted as something of a choirboy, Heymann writes, "when, in fact, he enjoyed the same proclivity for extramarital affairs as his brothers, Jack (JFK) and Ted (Senator Edward) Kennedy."

The Bobby-Jackie liaison occurred, Heymann writes, between 1964 and 1968, when they took solace in each other’s arms following JFK’s assassination. "In the 1960s, the private lives of public figures were simply not covered by the media."

He defends himself against critics who feel that the private lives of public figures are off limits. "As a biographer," he says, "it has always been my conviction that sexual or personal behaviour is integral to a fuller understanding of a person’s life, particularly in the case of public personalities."

For followers of the Kennedy family saga, much of the story, including the assassinations of both JFK and RFK, will seem extremely familiar yet poignant.

Heymann still manages to bring many new insights to the lives of two legendary personalities. For example, he writes that it was Jackie who gave the order to take Bobby off life support and signed the consent form.

It is replete with hearsay and circumstantial evidence, but Bobby and Jackie is still a fast and fascinating read.

 

Brenlee Carrington, a Winnipeg lawyer, mediator and journalist, is the Law Society of Manitoba’s equity ombudswoman.