Paula Byrne - Kick - The True Story of Kick Kennedy, JFK’s Forgotten Sister and the Heir to Chatsworth

William Collins

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This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2016

Copyright © 2016 Paula Byrne

Paula Byrne asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Cover photograph © Corbis

The author has made every effort to trace copyright holders of images reproduced in this book, but will be glad to rectify any omissions in future editions.

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Source ISBN: 9780007548149

Ebook Edition © May 2016 ISBN: 9780007548132

Version: 2017-03-08

For my boys, Tom and Harry

(Kennedys through and through …)

and in memory of my grandfather, Robert Kennedy

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue: Kicking the Surf

1. Rose and Joe

2. A Beautiful and Enchanting Child

3. Forbidden Fruit

4. Hyannis Port

5. Bronxville

6. Convent Girl

7. Muckers and Trouble

8. Mademoiselle Pourquoi

9. Gstaad and Italy

10. Travels with my Mother: Russia and England

11. Politics and Europe Revisited

12. The Ambassador

13. At the Court of St James’s

14. ‘I Get a Kick Out of You’

15. The Debutante

16. Lords a-Leaping

17. ‘A Merry Girl’

18. Billy

19. The Riviera

20. Peace for our Time

21. Chatsworth

22. St Moritz and Rome

23. The Gathering Storm

24. The Last Hurrah

25. ‘This Country is at War with Germany’

26. The Personality Kids

27. Operation Ariel

28. The Fourth Hostage

29. Billy and Sally

30. Kick the Reporter

31. Lobotomy

32. Scandal

33. ‘Did You Happen to See …’

34. Red Cross Worker of World War II

35. Coffee and Doughnuts

36. Sister Kick

37. Girl on a Bicycle

38. Parties and Prayers

39. Rosemary Tonks

40. Agnes and Hartie

41. Telegrams and Anger

42. ‘I Love You More Than Anything in the World’

43. The Marchioness of Hartington

44. Operation Aphrodite

45. Billy the Hero

46. ‘Life is So Cruel’

47. The Widow Hartington

48. Politics or Passion?

49. Joy She Gave Joy She Has Found

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Picture Section

Sources

Notes

Index

Also Available …

Also by Paula Byrne

About the Publisher

Hyannis Port, Cape Cod, 1937.

Joseph Patrick Kennedy stood on the veranda of his newly restored ocean-front beach-house, watching his seventeen-year-old daughter, Kathleen, water-skiing on Nantucket Sound at breakneck speed. Of all his girls, she was the one whom he loved the most. She was as plucky and fearless as her brothers, imbued with the same restless energy and drive. One of the reasons her father favoured her was because she wasn’t afraid of him. She wasn’t afraid of anyone. As she approached the sprawling white clapboard house with its green shutters, the speedboat and its tow-line abruptly began to jackknife, veering this way and that in spiky, jerking movements. Joe’s eyes narrowed as he watched the boat. Kathleen was dangerously close to the motor and he feared that she would be cut to pieces, crushed by the boat, carved up by the blades of the propeller. What on God’s earth was she doing?

His serious face suddenly broke into that radiant Kennedy smile and his shoulders relaxed. He saw exactly what she was doing. She was spelling out her name in the foamy surf.

K I C K

Kathleen Agnes Kennedy was born on 20 February 1920. Everyone, with the exception of her mother, who called her Kathleen, called her ‘Kick’. It began when her younger siblings found it hard to pronounce her name. She became Kick.1 Her moniker suited her perfectly. It was also said that K.K. was known as Kick because her ebullient personality reminded her father of a high-spirited pony.2 She was vivacious and quick-witted. As a little girl she loved to kick off her shoes, loved to run barefoot in the sand. When she became a debutante in London in the late 1930s, and a guest at England’s finest country houses, she would surprise polite society by her habit of kicking off her high-heeled shoes in company. Many a haughty aristocratic eyebrow would be raised, especially among the young debs put out by the unruly conduct of the Kennedy girl. But she soon charmed them all, winning them over with her jokes, her effervescence and her ease of manner.

She wasn’t a girl whom it was easy to constrain. Part of a large, clever family, she had to fight to be heard. She could be as headstrong as her boisterous brothers, but she was never belligerent or aggressive, as the male Kennedys could be. There was a sweetness and gentleness about her. Kick, blessed with an open, happy disposition, was cheerful and sunny, rarely moody or sulky. She was kind but tenacious. Children who are quietly determined, though seemingly malleable, are often the ones to be anxious about. They tend to get their own way.

That day when she traced out her name in the surf, Kick was showing off for her father, whom she idolized. But she was also doing it for herself. She had a very strong sense of self. She knew who she was. She was a Kennedy. She also had a stubborn streak. She would need those traits for what lay ahead. She would turn out to be the rebel of the family. She would kick against family, faith and country. And her name in the Kennedy family history would one day be erased, just as her ‘K I C K’ in the surf lasted only a moment before disappearing back into the ocean’s milky blue depths.

A very good polite Catholic.

Rose Kennedy

83 Beals Street, Brookline, January 1920.

Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy was eight months pregnant with her fourth child and she was about to walk out on her husband, Joe. Leaving her three little ones in the care of the Irish nanny, she packed a bag, slammed the door of her small townhouse in Brookline, Massachusetts, and returned home to Dorchester. She moved into her old bedroom, without saying a word to her parents. She was where she belonged, with her beloved father, and she said to herself that she was never going back. She had failed to heed his advice when he had warned her not to marry the upstart Joe Kennedy. After six years, her marriage was in crisis. Rose had made a big mistake.