All of these may have been present simultaneously. Human motivation is rarely singular, and the motivations of a man as complex and driven as Joseph Kennedy are unlikely to have reduced to one thing. What the evidence does not support is a simple reading of the decision as purely cynical — a father disposing of an inconvenient daughter for political reasons. And equally, it does not support the exculpatory reading that Joe was simply following the best medical advice available and could not have known what would happen.
He knew enough to be warned. His wife’s research, conducted through Kathleen’s conversation with John White, had produced a clear recommendation against the procedure: the results were bad. Kathleen told Rose. Rose was relieved. Joe proceeded anyway.
Whatever else can be said about his decision, this sequence establishes that the warning was received and set aside. The decision was not made in ignorance of available evidence that the procedure was risky and unreliable. It was made in spite of that evidence.
The Name and the Person
Rose Marie Kennedy. Rosemary. Rosie, as her siblings called her.
She was born in a house in Brookline, the first daughter of a family that would eventually produce a President, two Senators, an Ambassador to Ireland, the founder of Special Olympics, and enough political energy to fill a dynasty. She was the one who didn’t fit that template, the one whose developmental differences made her a management challenge in a family organized around achievement, and eventually the one whose situation her father chose to address with an experimental brain surgery that destroyed her.