When the Kennedy clan gathered at Massachusetts General Hospital to be with Sen. Edward Kennedy following his diagnosis of a brain tumor last year, they “disrupted the entire floor” with their “merrymaking.”
So says Edward Klein’s new book, “Ted Kennedy: The Dream that Never Died,” which is excerpted in the new issue of Vanity Fair. Klein quotes an unnamed family friend who says that Kennedy’s nephew, Joseph P. Kennedy, ordered a “larger flat-screen TV” and a feast of seafood into the room. “Mass. General is used to the Kennedys’ bluster, but this got over the top. … One of the head nurses stepped in and spoke with Joe, who told her in no uncertain terms to mind her own business.”
Other revelations in the book:
* Benedict Fitzgerald, who was Rose Kennedy’s personal attorney, said Rose wanted to turn the family compound in Cape Cod over to the Benedictine monks, but “when Ted found out about it, he ripped [the legal papers] in half. There was no way he was going to have the place turned into a monastery.”
*When Caroline Kennedy expressed interest in the open Senate seat from New York and Gov. David Paterson made her wait for his answer, she “seethed” and “vented her rage” in calls to prominent Democrats. It took an intervention by her children, who told her she was “above this,” before she reconsidered her interest in the seat.
