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December 3rd, 2009
Santa Cruz, California
Received by FAB
I am here, Robert Kennedy.
I did have an early sense of a great destiny, though it was not
wholly conscious. Yes, this is true, despite the fact that I lived
in my father's and my brothers' shadows. The chosen Kennedy children
were raised to strive and achieve, and there was something in my
nature that eventually responded to this. And it encouraged a sense
of wanting to do great things, as my adult life unfolded.
You are now reading a biography of my life [Robert Kennedy, His
Life, by Evan Thomas]. It is excellent. I will check in with you
as you continue to read.
(later) Yes, my father was not as attentive to me as he was to
my brothers, but I did absorb that atmosphere. In fact, his relative
inattention had the effect later on of giving me a sense of independence
and freedom, the feeling that I could do what I wanted, that I could
shape my own destiny.
Now, you are reading that I suffered in childhood because I was
considered an underachiever, "the runt," and this is true.
There is this in the biography: "in about 1939, the same year
RFK left for boarding school, a friend asked his sister Eunice how
the Kennedy brood was doing. All very well, except for Bobby, came
the reply. He was 'hopeless' and would 'never amount to anything.'
Many years later, Robert Kennedy seemed to have felt the same way
himself."
That was my sister's perception of me, and I did think that way
too. I had to fight against it. My awkwardness and clumsiness only
compounded a sense of isolation. I was not perceived in my family
as "tough." It was rocky for me in those early years.
But there was something else in me, that was obscured by those
early tribulations, and I drew upon it later in life. I am referring
to my sense of a higher destiny for myself.
I said earlier that my father's inattention to me encouraged in
me a sense of independence, but what you are reading seems to contradict
this,. Well, I struggled against various psychological handicaps,
and the eventual effect was to push me to succeed, though this was
not wholly apparent in those early years. But as adulthood approached,
it was these very handicaps that showed me I could succeed if I
tried. I was complex, as human nature is, Yes, I did seem to drift
in the early years. But I was unformed, as children usually are.
This early sense of a great destiny became conscious to me much
later in life. I was able to connect with it, remembering that it
was in me in childhood. The psychological environment with my family
discouraged it, since I was not seen as fitting the proper Kennedy
mould. But there it was.
At Portsmouth Priory [the Roman Catholic school he attended], I
did rather poorly. But I loved history because I was able to connect
with it. I enjoyed reading about the lives of great achievers in
history. This corresponded to a secret and hidden desire on my part
to do the same. But this desire was squashed by adversity.
My great love and care for my mother were misunderstood, and I
was made fun of because of it. I realize now that I felt close to
her because I was able to connect with more feminine qualities in
myself, even though this was discouraged.
I know that what I am saying seems to fly in the face of what you
are reading, but you need to understand that my less than privileged
position in my family coincided with my father's rather exalted
view of his sons' destiny. He was ambivalent as to me. I clearly
did not "shape up" in his eyes. But I was his son, and
I did sense intuitively that he felt, however dimly, that I would
muddle through. After all, despite it all, I was a Kennedy. So it
was doubly difficult for me. I was saddled with issues not of my
own making. I did not correspond with my father's view of how a
man, a Kennedy man, should be.
Your confusion regarding my sense of independence can be clarified
by my saying that the lack of my father's wholehearted support hurt
and damaged me in my early years, but it caused me to struggle all
the harder. Independence meant for me the intense need to prove
to myself that I could succeed, despite a difficult early start.
Because I really had to struggle almost against the odds, my breaking
free of these early restraints did cause eventually a great sense
of hewing my destiny, precisely because it did not come easy for
me.
You have just read about my devout behavior as a Roman Catholic
at school, so I want to talk to you now about my early relationship
to religion. My devout behavior was completely sincere. I was trying
my best to be faithful to God because my soul wanted this. In this
way, I was completely different from my brothers. This too was misunderstood.
My mother was concerned about me, but she did not celebrate this
early earnest religious temperament. That wasn't what a Kennedy
son was supposed to do. So again, I was wounded because I did not
fit in.
You have just read that I felt keenly the injustice my family experienced
because of prejudice against the Irish. This was a manifestation
of my burning love of justice, which would surface in later years
as well.
I was also very sensitive. This aggravated my suffering and confusion.
I was completely incapable of taking life and its problems lightly.
So I was under a lot of pressure in my early years, which was almost
unbearable. It fractured my soul and disrupted my life. As I look
back on it now, I realize that this pressure was completely unnecessary.
It had nothing at all to do with who I was and who I wanted to be
as a person. It was my parents' view of how I should be, not who
I really was. So people must realize that growing up in a privileged
environment can be a curse as well as a blessing. But at the time,
I did also identify with my parents' and society's notions of how
a privileged boy should behave This caused a lifelong split in my
personality and my soul.
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