"Other than the trust funds, the only real legacy they have to pass on to the next generation is the mystique, the legend," he says. "Therefore, anything that would threaten to undermine that is something they would react to swiftly. . . . They don't need a book now that reawakens interest in Joe Kennedy's ties to organized crime. And there's a (NBC) miniseries looming."
*
Still, much of the criticism against McGinniss involves his sense of literature, not politics. In particular, he's been hammered for regurgitating old, unsubstantiated speculation that Joseph Kennedy had a daughter, Rosemary, institutionalized then given a frontal lobotomy allegedly to silence her charges of sexual molestation.
McGinniss says he was trying to prove a point, not extend a grubby finger: "The point . . . is that documentation that could resolve this question has not been made available by the family. So these kinds of speculation are going to continue as long as they keep all the papers locked up and hidden from public view."
Another section implies that after John Kennedy's assassination, brother Teddy, distraught and pressured by family, walked on a beach with suicide in his thoughts.
States the paragraph: "Suppose--not that there is any evidence he considered this--he suddenly just veered left, away from his sister and plunged, fully clothed into the rolling, frigid waters of Nantucket Bay? Just swam out into the mist until exhausted?"
If there is no evidence, why suggest it?
McGinniss says it was a metaphorical reference "and I might as well have had a sea gull land on the beach and have Teddy wish that he could have flown away. I've suggested that it would not have been an aberrational moment if he were to look out at the ocean and say: 'Gosh, just get out there, just plunge, just disappear.' Not that he was seriously contemplating suicide. I'm certainly not arguing that."
He does argue that his book unearths no new and dirtier linen. Nor is it the end product of original research. McGinniss says the only thing new is his view--"the interpretation, the refocusing, the prism through which I'm looking at Teddy Kennedy."
He believes front-parlor psychology is a valid technique. Truman Capote used it, as did Norman Mailer.
"What interested me was: How do you cope with the pressures of being a myth when you are having enough trouble being a man? I have posed the question. I have suggested answers. I have written a book about it with Teddy Kennedy center stage," he says. "It remains one man's opinion. It is not the definitive biography of Teddy Kennedy, nor did I intend it to be."
*
The criticism, of course, hurts.
"But does that mean I should modify my approach to my work in order to be more popular to more people in certain circles?" McGinniss asks. "I haven't for 25 years and I don't think I'm going to start now."
He claims that he has developed a deeper understanding of Teddy Kennedy: There were too many boarding schools before Kennedy was a teen; the enormous shadows of three older brothers; even family photographs show Teddy Kennedy in his delegated position--off to the side, never a full participant.
McGinniss insists his book does not bury Teddy Kennedy: "I did not write it to either help him or hurt him. I wrote it to try and describe him. And I think that people who read the book, people who don't like him, will come away with a better understanding of why he may have acted in those ways that caused them to dislike him."
In many instances, McGinniss considers Kennedy an effective legislator, and the author pledges to put his trust in that belief:
"As a resident of Massachusetts, I still plan to vote for him next year."
