career of
judged too weak to be president
presidential races
Schlesinger and
as UN ambassador
Stevenson, Adlai Ewing
Stevenson, Letitia
Stimson, Henry
Stimsonian statesmen
administrative state and
backgrounds of
Bobby’s break with
defined
demise of
factions
free market economy and
Johnson and
lack of intellectual and imaginative excellence among
lack of political base
national security state and
paternalistic view of government
pleasures of the empire and
practical achievements of
problem of individual self-confidence and
public service and
reverence of English aristocracy
schooling of
spiritual life and
Stimsonian establishment
twentieth-century liberalism and
welfare state and
see also names of individuals
Stover at Yale (Johnson)
Styron, William
Suffering, human
Bobby’s compassion for
the paternalistic state and
Sunday-night supper club
Sunday Telegraph
Supreme Court
Lemon test
New Deal and
Swanson, Gloria
Syme, Ronald
Tacitus
Taft, Robert A.
Tampa, Florida
Tancred (Disraeli)
Taylor, Elizabeth
Taylor, Telford
Teamsters Union
“Teddy’s Women Problem/Women’s Teddy Problem”
Thomas, Evan
Thoreau, Henry David
Time
Tocqueville, Alexis de
Tory Party
To Seek a Newer World (Kennedy)
“Tradition and the Individual Talent”
Tree, Ronald
Trilling, Diana
Trilling, Lionel
Truman, Harry S
Truman Doctrine
Tuchman, Barbara
Turkey
United Nations
University of Virginia Law School
Updike, John
Urban riots of 1967
Vance, Cyrus
vanden Heuvel, William
Victura
Vidal, Gore
Vietnam
Vietnam War
Bobby and
Dien Bien Phu
Tet offensive
Village Voice, The
Wagner, Robert
Wagner Act
Walden (Thoreau)
Wales, Prince of
Walinsky, Adam
Bedford Stuyvesant restoration project and
Police Corps and
Wallace, George
Walton, Bill
Warren Commission report
Washington, George
Washington Monthly, The
Wasserman, Lew
Watson, Thomas J., Jr.
Watts riots of 1965
Waugh, Evelyn
Wayne, John
Weld, William
Welfare state
Bobby and, see Kennedy, Robert F. “Bobby,” welfare state and
bureaucracy of, see Bureaucracy
intellectual origins of
Stimsonians and, see Stimsonian statesmen, welfare state and undermining of individual’s capacity for achievement
welfare reform bill of 1996
Welles, Sumner
Wharton, Edith
White, Byron R. “Whizzer”
Whitney, Dick
Why England Slept
Whyte, W. H.
Williams, Edward Bennett
Williams, G. Mennen “Soapy”
Williams, Hosea
Wills, Garry
Wilson, Edmund
Wilson, Harold
Wilson, Sloan
Wilson, Woodrow
Women in political life
Wood, Gordon
Wood, Natalie
Woodin, William
Yale Law School
Yale University
Yalta conference
Young, Andrew
Young England movement
About the Author
Michael Knox Beran was born in Dallas, Texas, in 1966. He graduated from Groton School in 1984 and holds degrees from Columbia and Cambridge Universities as well as from Yale Law School. A lawyer, he lives in Westchester County, New York, with his wife, Mary. You can sign up for email updates here.
PRAISE FOR THE LAST PATRICIAN
“Unorthodox and stimulating … [The Last Patrician] will force many to reevaluate the Kennedy they thought they knew.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A lively, audacious argument.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“The Last Patrician is likely to provoke and enlighten readers, regardless of their predispositions. As such, it is a rare work, well worth the read.”
—Mobile Register
“A fascinating portrait of an American aristocracy that sought grandeur and importance in government service.… The Last Patrician is both engaging and effective.”
—The Roanoke Times
“Utterly convincing … [Beran] reminds us how much we lost when Bobby Kennedy fell to an assassin’s bullet thirty years ago.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“This stunning and most reflective of the current RFK books ponders the historical and intellectual roots of his political philosophy.”
—Library Journal
“This is a book of wide breadth that questions many of our assumptions.… Highly recommended.”
—Booklist
“Fascinating … A truly exciting book, by a very young author, one of those all-too-rare experiences where the reader is drawn back again to rethink and reconsider what he thought he knew.”
—History Book Club
“Beran writes so gracefully.…”
—Salon
“Spirited and thoughtful…”
—The Globe and Mail (Canada)
“[A] remarkable book…”
—The Boston Globe Magazine
“A welcome rejoinder to the customary take on the Kennedy family.…”
—Tucson Weekly
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Note
Epigraph
Introduction: A Patrician in Pain
Part I: The Making of an Aristocrat
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part II: The Portrait of a Rebel
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Conclusion: The End of Aristocracy
Sources
Notes
Index
About the Author
Praise for The Last Patrician
Copyright
THE LAST PATRICIAN: BOBBY KENNEDY AND THE END OF AMERICAN ARISTOCRACY. Cop
yright © 1998 by Michael Knox Beran. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Frontispiece: Bobby Kennedy on the Acropolis, mid-1960s (AP/Wide World Photos).
Part One, here: Mr. and Mrs. Joseph P. Kennedy posed with their nine children for this photo in 1938 in Bronxville, New York. From left, seated, are Eunice, Jean, Edward (on lap of his father), Kennedy, Patricia, and Kathleen, and standing, Rosemary, Robert, John, Mrs. Kennedy, and Joseph Jr. (AP/Wide World Photos).
Part Two, here: Bobby Kennedy campaigns in Greenburg, Indiana, in May 1968 with a chipped tooth and a bruised lip. Bobby was pulled from his convertible in a motorcade the night before by enthusiastic supporters (AP/Wide World Photos).
eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.
First St. Martin’s Griffin Edition: June 1999
eISBN 9781250088017
First eBook edition: May 2015
* “One mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose.”
* There will always be a difficulty in ascertaining just when a particular family entered the ranks of the so-called Protestant establishment, when it ceased to be nouveau, gauche, arriviste, non-U, and received the approbation of the arbiters of society. In his study Philadelphia Gentlemen, Digby Baltzell wrote that as late as 1940 families whose fortunes were made after the Civil War “were still considered ‘new.’” But although men with freshly made fortunes are at first despised by the old guard, the snobs eventually relax their vigilance and are usually grateful to marry their daughters to the rich parvenu’s sons. The processes by which one generation’s plutocrats are transformed into the next generation’s aristocrats are subtle and mysterious, and the careless historian is only too likely to overlook the intricate pattern of social fissures that separate the older elements of society from the new.
* The ritual of the washing of the feet on the Thursday before Easter is still carried on in the Roman Catholic Church.
* In the 1945 general election.