Stills from the TV series "The Kennedys" (2011). According to reports from the British "Guardian" and other media, on July 2, local time, the biography "Don't Ask: The Kennedys and the Women They Ruined" written by American investigative journalist and columnist Maureen Callahan

Stills from the TV series "The Kennedys" (2011).

According to reports from the British "Guardian" and other media, on July 2, local time, the biography "Don't Ask: The Kennedys and the Women They Ruined" written by American investigative journalist and columnist Maureen Callahan " (tentative translation, ask not: the kennedys and the women they destroyed) was officially published and topped multiple Amazon sales lists within hours, attracting widespread attention.

"Kennedy" has always been synonymous with wealth and power in the United States, and this book reveals the family's unknown history of female exploitation. The author claims that "misogyny" is almost ingrained within this family. However, "they always get away with it."

The title of the book is a reference to John F. Kennedy's classic line in his 1961 inaugural address - "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." Chemical use. Callahan said it may be difficult for people to imagine that the 35th president of the United States is also a playboy who uses his power to abuse young women.

One of the women documented in the book is 19-year-old Mimi Beardsley. She worked in the White House press room when John F. Kennedy took her into a private residence and violated her. "Only when the First Lady was away was Mimi taken upstairs. Her job was to remind him of simple pleasures: small talk, bubble baths, sex, albeit always in a hurry," Callahan writes in the book. arrive. Beardsley also published a memoir, "Once upon a secret: my affair with president john f kennedy and its aftermath" (once upon a secret: my affair with president john f kennedy and its aftermath), although the book was criticized It was heavily criticized by the media, but it has long been at the top of the New York Times bestseller list.

"In 2021, when a life-size bronze statue of John F. Kennedy landed in Washington, D.C., not a single news report mentioned the president's treatment of women. Not a single media person, essayist, or critic asked, in our No one cares whether such a man deserves a monument in this day and age, and what message this continued remembrance sends to women today and to women in the future, really, don’t ask,” Callahan wrote.

English version book cover of "Don't Ask".

The book also records the true fate of many women in the Kennedy family. The one who received the most attention was Mary Richardson. The talented architect married Robert F. Kennedy Jr., John F. Kennedy's nephew, in 1994, and the two had four children. Mary was once again in the news when her body was found in a suburban New York home. At the time, it was widely believed to be a suicide. Callahan reviews the truth about Mary's death in detail in the book.

Robert and Mary spent less time together and more separation after their marriage. Mary suspected that Robert Jr. had cheated on her very early. She once dug out Robert Jr.'s diary and found that the last few pages listed a list of women with whom he had had an affair. Mary once said that Robert Jr. brought many beautiful and accomplished women to the home. Mary began to become distraught and began to drink and drink.

Robert Jr. always denied this and insisted that "Mary was crazy" and that she had ruined their marriage. In an interview with Mary's therapist, Sheenah Hankin, Callahan learned that when Robert Jr. asked her to diagnose Mary as mentally ill, Hankin refused, saying, "Your wife is not mentally ill. She is angry and very angry." Depressed, but she wasn't sick."

Mary's siblings said Mary's alleged depression was caused by her husband. He had threatened to take the children away "and use the full power of the Kennedy family against her." After Mary's death, Robert Jr. did not acknowledge the pain his actions had caused her in his eulogy, but said, "I know I did everything I could to help her."

Mary was buried in the Kennedy family cemetery in Massachusetts, but according to the Callahan investigation, "a week later, in the middle of the night, without telling Mary's siblings or obtaining the required legal permission, Robert Jr. removed Mary's casket. Excavated and moved seven hundred feet away...Mary was left facing heavy traffic, without a tombstone to mark her grave, and was buried alone."

In addition to the above-mentioned incidents, the book "Don't Ask" also records several other scandals in the Kennedy family. Callahan called it a gender reckoning with American political royalty. This includes the inside story of the 1999 plane crash of John F. Kennedy's son, John Kennedy Jr. In that accident, his wife Carolyn Bessette and sister Lauren were also killed. However, 25 years after the accident, Caroline was portrayed as "a drug-addicted vixen, the implication being that if Little John hadn't been in so much pain, he wouldn't have been so upset that he crashed the plane." But this is clearly not the case.

Coincidentally, in 1969, U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy drove his car off a bridge in Massachusetts, causing the car to overturn in a pond. He swam to safety, but his passenger, 28-year-old assistant Mary Jo Kopechne, died in the water-filled car.

Callahan found after investigation: "The diver who recovered Mary's body the next afternoon confirmed that Mary did not drown, but died of suffocation. He said that she was still alive in the water for at least an hour, or even longer." Later, Edward ·Kennedy was praised as the "Lion of the Senate," but Mary's name was almost never mentioned again.

Callahan uses archival materials, memoirs and contemporary news reports, as well as interviews with surviving family members and friends, to uncover more stories of women who have been obscured by the fame of the Kennedy family. Some of them have been involved in some of history's most notorious scandals and made lurid headlines, but many more have been marginalized and ultimately forgotten tragedies.

"Any victim who dares to fight back will find themselves face to face with the power of the Kennedy machine, which can mold any woman, no matter how rich, famous or powerful, into a crazy, vicious, vengeful, drug-addled "The image of a predator, a viper, a seducer." Callahan lamented in the book: "No matter how serious harm the Kennedy family caused them, the message is clear: they asked for it. Wrong. Therefore, Camelot (Editor's note: the transliteration of "Arthur's Palace" in English is said to be the palace where King Arthur and the knights held a round table meeting, which was later used as a metaphor for the sacred and lofty political expectations in the hearts of the people) - that story about today The fairy tale of the Kennedy family still stands.”

Reference link:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/jul/02/maureen-callahan-kennedy -family-women

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13592263/maureen- callahan-kennedy-biography-best-seller.html

compiled by Shen Lu

edited by Wang Han

proofread by Yang Li