Camelot grieves latest victims of ‘Kennedy Curse’
TWO members of the Kennedy family are presumed drowned in the latest tragedy to befall America’s most famous political dynasty.
Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean (40), granddaughter of former US attorney general Robert Kennedy, and her eight-year-old son Gideon, went missing while paddling a canoe on Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, last Thursday. David McKean, Maeve’s husband, said: “It’s clear Maeve and Gideon have passed away. The search for their recovery will continue.”
The pair were playing with a ball on land when it was kicked into the water. Mr McKean said: “They got into a canoe, intending to retrieve the ball, and somehow got pushed by wind or tide into the open bay.”
The day was windy and an ocean storm off the coast of New England made conditions treacherous.
Emergency services said they received calls around 4:30pm about a pair in a canoe struggling to return to shore. An overturned canoe matching the description of the one that went missing was later recovered
Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Maeve McKean’s mother, said: “My heart is crushed.”
Congressman Joe Kennedy III, also a grandchild of Robert, said: “Our family has lost two of the brightest lights.”
Maeve McKean, a public health and human rights lawyer, was executive director of the Georgetown University Global Health Initiative in Washington.
It was the latest in a long series of family tragedies.
Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968 while running for the presidency, five years after his brother, US president John F Kennedy, was also assassinated.
In August 1944 the eldest brother of the Camelot generation Joseph P Kennedy Jr died when the experimental B-24 bomber he was piloting accidentally exploded over England.
The youngest brother of the same generation, Ted Kennedy, was led to wonder in a televised statement about the Chappaquiddick incident in 1969, as to whether there really was a “Kennedy curse.”
In July 1999 JFK’s son John Kennedy Jr died when the light airplane he was piloting crashed into the Atlantic off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. His wife and sister-in-law were also on board and also died
Less than a year ago, Saoirse Kennedy Hill, another granddaughter of Robert and daughter of Guildford Four’s Paul Hill, died from an overdose at 22.