COM 0193.016 1996-1998 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

. U.~S. NEWS C~ WORLD REPORT NoveMBeR is, 1993 ~ COVER STORY morons, imbeciles"-all terms of scien- - tific precision used to classify different The most lasting levels of retardation. One surgery text- book recommended that "mongols" (those with Down's syndrome) not be given life-saving procedures because, Kennedy legacy [he text implied, they were subhuman, and some were allowed [o die. Families like the Kennedys that kept retarded family members at home as they How Eunice Shriver and hey anvil ehan ed grew up were the objects of considerable f y g scorn. Rosemary was born at the height the world {or the mental] retarded of the worldwide flu epidemic in 1918 J y and, though no one was ever sure what caused her relatively mild retardation, it owen.m""" became a difficult fact of life by the time , ~"1 she reached school age. Though the fam- ~ T _ ily tried to make things as normal as possible for her, she fell far behind in the ~ hypercompeti[ive environment as she got older. As she became a young wom- F ~ ~ an, her problems grew and she began to ~ lash out violently on occasion. The lobotomy. Eventually, Joseph Kennedy was told that there was a "mir- acle" surgical procedure called a pre- frontal lobotomy [hat could help Rose- mary. Without consulting anyone else in the family, he ordered the operation in - ` 1941 and i[ was botched. The surgery was supposed [o leave her mental functions relatively intact while eliminating her aggressive behavior. Instead, it rendered her zombielike and she was moved ro St. Coletta's in Jefferson, Wis., where she - still resides. Until Eunice's magazine ar- ticle, the family told inquiring reporters [hat she was in a convent. Joseph Kennedy was. tormented by the fate of his daughter. In 1946, he cre- ated [he Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Founda- tion (named after his deceased war- hero son) to help retarded people, and in the mid-1950s. he asked Eunice to otlongafterJohnKennedy determine how the foundation's grams entered the White House OCTOS[e 19fi PrcslAe°t 1(enneay mosses + could best be used. She traveled the na- in 1961, his sister Eunice pQ" tO ~ sbter K°"A°~ ~~"Q` [ion talking to the small number of ex- Kennedy Shriver began one of the s~PI"g n1B ~etl0" mat °h° "10re e°y01e perts willing to buck the forge[-'em most heartfelt campaigns any Ken- aaR to ~ ~B °°"te~' philosophy and visiting the notorious nedy ever undertook. She argued "snake pits" [hat housed most retarded to family members that it would be im- of the biggest moments in perhaps the Americans. "There was a complete lack mensely helpful if they revealed one of most important contribution the Kenne- of interest in them and lack of know]- their most closely guarded secrets: that dys made to the nation. edge about their capacities," she says. one of their own, [he president's sister What is stunning about the Kenne- "They were isolated because their fam- Rosemary, was mentally retarded. It dys'-and most particularly EuniceShri- dies were embarrassed and the public took more than a year to bring the idea ver's-role in changing the way [he was prejudiced." to fruition, and it finally won sanction world treated mentally retarded people Not surprisingly, Eunice Shriver-the after the clan's two central figures is how little noticed it has been. It is onefamilymemberwhocontinuedtocall blessed it: Patriarch Joseph Kennedy difficult to recall today the life such peo- her big brother "Jack" after his elec- made clear he could live with the disclo- plc faced in the generation before Ken- tion-hammered at the issue as JFK en- sure as long as President Kennedy sup- nedy's administration. Scores of thou- tered [he presidency. He responded by ported i[. In the spring of 1962, Eunice sands were warehoused in institutions settingupataskforceheadedbyeminent [old JFK she wanted to write a piece for located in the most remote sites avail- educator Leonard Mayo to devise a legis- the Saturday Evening Posr about Rose- able. That was especially true of women ]alive program [o attack mental retarda- mary, and he responded: "That's fine. because i[ was thought to be important lion. The president named White House Le[ me see it first." The article appeared to keep [hem from getting pregnant and in the September 22 issue, and it was one creating another generation of "idiots, us.xews ~ wow.D xsroxr, NovrntaEx r6. rest