With the election of PresidentJohn F. Kennedy, he and his two then surviving brothers all held prominent positions in the Federal government, and received intensive publicity, often emphasizing their youth (relative to comparably influential politicians), glamour, education and their collective future in politics.
The family has undergone (then, before, and since) a series of deaths and other reverses that could not be fully remedied by wealth, sometimes called "the Kennedy curse"; it has included the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy, three aircraft crashes, a case of mental retardation leading to a prefrontallobotomy, and at least three sets of allegations against individual family members and their relatives by marriage, including a murder conviction and a controversial fatal single-car crash. Just how severely these events restricted the family's influence is unknowable, but the assumption that even the last surviving brother's role was drastically diminished is popular. On the other hand, a number of Kennedy family members have since held high office, and the idea that the family's influence was snuffed out in the 1960s is an exaggeration.
He died when taking part in an Operation Aphrodite wartime test as pilot of a modified B-24 Liberator drone bomber experiment which accidentally exploded and crashed in Suffolk England. For this act, he was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross. He was single at the time of his death and had no children, though he had been romantically linked to Edith Bouvier Beale, a cousin of his future sister-in-law Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, as well as Katharine Mortimer. (The latter reportedly rebuffed any more serious involvement with Joe Jr., claiming that his family was too active for her to contemplate marrying into.)
He was a U.S. representative, a U.S. senator and the 35th President of the United States. He was assassinated during a motorcade in Dallas, TX. The events surrounding his death remain controversial. He married New York socialite Jacqueline Lee Bouvier and had four children, of whom one was stillborn, one died soon after birth, and two survived to adulthood.
Likely dyslexic and considered to be slightly brain-damaged from birth, Rose Marie Kennedy (her christening name) was rendered incapable of intelligible speech or caring for herself by a lobotomy, a popular neurosurgical technique of the time, requested by her father, Joe Sr., that was intended to cure her increasing mood swings and make her more manageable. The operation instead reduced her to an infantile state. She lived in a residential care facility in Wisconsin until her death on 7 January2005.
Known as Kick, she married a Protestant, the son and heir to the Duke of Devonshire, over her mother's strenuous religious objections. After being widowed when her husband, the Marquess of Hartington, was killed in action in World War II, she was killed in a plane crash in France with her lover, the 8th Earl Fitzwilliam.
She is best known as the founder of the Special Olympics, an organization she began in honor of her sister Rosemary. She married Robert Sargent Shriver Jr., later a 1972 vice-presidential candidate, and they had five children.
Known as "Teddy" or "Ted", he has served as a senator from Massachusetts since 1962. Twice married, he has three children from his first marriage and two stepchildren from his second. On May 20, 2008, it was announced that he has a malignant brain tumor.
Robert Sargent Shriver III (b. 1954) - an attorney and President of RSS Inc., a Beverly Hills music, film and philanthropic company. Currently, he is also a Santa Monica city councilman. Married Malissa Ferzuzzi.
Maria Owings Shriver (b. 1955) - Former TV newsanchor and current First Lady of California and wife of Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Has four children.
Joseph Patrick Kennedy II - former U.S. representative from Massachusetts. Divorced from Sheila Rauch, two sons; currently married to Anne Elizabeth ("Beth") Kelly, no children.
Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr. - environmentalist and political commentator, attorney and law professor at Pace University School of Law. He is best known for his many successful litigations to prevent water pollution, primarily in the New York area. Divorced from Emily Ruth Black (two children); married in 1994 Mary Richardson, six children.
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