♪♪ -They are an inspired story of nine siblings in different ways that each made a difference to this country and to the world, and so they remained heroes and ought to be heroes.

-He was this guy with this shock of hair, rather like Elvis, youthful looking, not wearing a hat.

-And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you.

Ask what you can do for your country.

[ Cheers and applause ] -Sometimes they try to hide the truth, depending on what their political desires are or where the society is.

-In ancient Rome, the gladiators went into the arena.

Let me win.

But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.

-But eventually they do the right thing and they end up helping thousands and millions of people around the world.

-Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings.

-Their legacy is that those who have the most are obligated to enter public service to do something for those who have the least.

♪♪ ♪♪ -As with many American families, the story of the Kennedys begins in Ireland, more precisely, in the small town of New Ross in County Wexford.

Here, in the suburb of Dunganstown, lies the Kennedy homestead.

♪♪ [ Indistinct conversations ] ♪♪ Today, a distant cousin of the family runs a small museum on the property.

It was here that his grandmother welcomed the first Catholic president of the United States of America with Irish roots.

-I live here at the Kennedy homestead.

My grandmother, Mary Kennedy Ryan, welcomed the president to our home in 1947 and '63.

We're actually eight generation living on the property as a family.

Now with the president, when he -- was visited at our house in '63, my grandmother, things were pretty rural, and we hadn't -- She hadn't all these modern conveniences, and her sofa was an old seat from the back of a car that was -- that was refurbished.

And president actually sat on an old Morris minor car seat, and the Morris minor car seat we still have here.

♪♪ -Patrick Kennedy, the great grandfather of the American Kennedy dynasty, is born here in 1823.

♪♪ From New Ross, he sails to the New World and settles in Boston.

♪♪ -1.5 million Irish come to the United States.

Almost all of them are Catholics.

And so the nativists are really worried now.

I mean, this is -- the Catholic numbers are growing.

So this kind of cements this Catholic identity.

-In the late 19th century, the Irish Catholics begin to emerge in state politics as well as city politics.

And two of the men who would have served here together, representing their neighborhoods in Boston, would have been P.J.

Kennedy, President Kennedy's grandfather on his father's side, and John Fitzgerald, President Kennedy's grandfather on his mother's side.

I'll be referring to him today as Honey Fitz, because he loved every chance he had to sing, pray and make speeches.

He said his voice is so sweet It's like you're listening to honey.

So he became Honey Fitz.

Now, one man who didn't call him Honey Fitz or didn't care for that was P.J.

Kennedy who didn't like him.

He felt he was attention seeking, always needed the camera in front of him.

Not what P.J.

was like.

They don't really get along, but a lot of the same political functions.

They actually vacationed the same areas in Massachusetts.

So their children, Joseph Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald, do get to know each other in spite of their father's dislike for each other.

-With Rose and Joe Kennedy, the founders of today's Kennedy dynasty have found each other.

Both of them are deeply rooted in the Catholic faith.

For Rose in particular, it is and remains the mainstay of her life.

Religion, and particularly, Roman Catholicism in many ways is everything to the Kennedys because it is a source of both pride, it's a source of faith.

It's a source of liturgy and pomp and circumstance.

And that appealed to them.

And they were raised in that tradition.

-From an early age, Joe shows an entrepreneurial spirit.

After graduating, he begins his career as a banker and quickly rises to the position of manager.

-He was the ultimate insider outsider.

He worked his way inside Wall Street, inside Hollywood, inside politics, inside the Democratic Party in the Roosevelt administration.

But he always felt that he was looked upon as an outsider.

Why?

Because though he had been to Harvard, his father was not educated.

His mother was not educated.

They were very, very well off and very prosperous.

They didn't belong to the elites, to the upper classes.

The Boston he grew up in was class dominated.

-In 1915, Joe and Rose's first child is born, Joseph Patrick, known as Joe Junior.

In 1917, their second son is born, John Fitzgerald Jack or JFK.

Their first daughter, Rosemary, is born in 1918.

Kathleen "Kick" follows two years later.

Eunice is born in 1921 and the fourth daughter in 1924, Patricia "Pat."

A year later, in 1925, the third son is born, Robert "Bobby."

Three years later, in 1928, Jean, the fifth daughter, follows, and in 1932, Edward "Ted," the fourth son and last child of the Kennedys, is born.

-The kids led a good life, you know?

[ Chuckles ] Uh, they were privileged from the moment they were born.

Their father was immensely successful.

So they -- they grew up with expectations, but they grew up with -- with regular lives.

What was remarkable about Joe Kennedy was he knew his kids.

In the early years, there was a -- there was a, how can I put it, a deal that Rose Kennedy would take care of the kids until they got to be 10, 11, 12, and then he would step in.

-But the Kennedy's childhood is not without its troubles.

From birth, JFK suffers from Addison's disease, which weakens him physically, but ironically leaves his skin tanned and looking healthy.

And from an early age, it becomes apparent that Rosemary's motor and intellectual responses are delayed, possibly as a result of oxygen deprivation at birth.

-Because they had money, they went to the best specialist at Harvard University and they were told your daughter is -- the term they use was mentally retarded and she should be institutionalized.

And Joe Kennedy said, well, what can an institution, an impersonal institution, do for her that we can't?

-She grew up, she was raised, she was educated at home.

When there was a school dance or a dance in Hyannis Port or in the country clubs in Florida, the boys would take her and the boys would dance with her.

-Once they taught her to swim, take her swimming, take her sailing, play tennis with her, she could do some of those things, maybe not at the level they all could, but she was quite athletic and enjoyed it.

-In 1928, Joe buys the family's now legendary summer home in the small community of Hyannis Port.

Over the years, the property is expanded and transformed into the Kennedy compound.

♪♪ -It was Joe Kennedy's dictum that the kids rise to the top of American government, and he operated like a football team.

He was the coach, and they all, uh, obeyed what he wanted.

And he provided all kinds of support, cash, introductions, policies.

Joe Kennedy was a bully, but at the same time he was brilliant the way he orchestrated this whole dynasty.

It was like salmon swimming upstream to the top of American government.

And the legacy is -- is really unique.

♪♪ -In gratitude for his support during the election campaign, President Roosevelt appoints Joe Kennedy ambassador to England in December of 1937.

-Joe Kennedy had dreamed himself of becoming the president, and it looked for a while like he might be able to do that.

He was somebody that Franklin Roosevelt thought highly enough that at a time when America's most important international relationship was with Britain, he appointed Joe Kennedy Sr. to be the US ambassador to the Court of St. James in Great Britain.

And Joe Kennedy had this extraordinary opportunity at a time at the cusp of World War II to make a positive name for himself.

-The American embassy in Princes Gate.

Ambassador Joseph Kennedy has been joined by part of his family.

Mrs. Kennedy has come from the United States with five of their nine children.

These are cameramen, not more children.

If this is an American invasion, it certainly looks a happy one.

♪♪ -All the boys, the older kids, as part of their education, their father and mother funded trips around Europe.

Joe Jr. was the first as the oldest, and he went to Germany under Hitler and the Nazis and was impressed.

-You know, it's an interesting thing that immigrants, when they rise up in the social order of things, they often become quite, um, racist.

They don't appreciate the society that brought them there.

And this is certainly true of Joseph Patrick Kennedy.

He, um...

He didn't appreciate American democracy as such.

He certainly didn't realize that Great Britain and its empire was a democracy in spite of everything, in spite of having an empire which isn't a very democratic thing.

And his eldest son, Joe, was an isolationist, America firster, which at the time meant stay out of European affairs, let Hitler do what he wants, basically.

Kathleen Kennedy, known as Kick, is the second eldest daughter of the Kennedys.

During her father's tenure as ambassador, Kick attends Queen's College in London and quickly develops a large circle of friends among the British aristocracy.

-I think, Kathleen, the same way that Joe Jr. was Joe and Rose's sense of the benighted kid and the kid who had all the charisma and intelligence to do things, including becoming president of the United States.

I think they also saw Kathleen as the special daughter and the one who could probably do anything, and she was special enough that she had a very independent mind.

She was not about to be dictated to by either her parents or an American standard of what was right.

-But the situation on the continent is coming to a head.

A war involving Britain and the U.S. seems inevitable.

However, Joe Kennedy Sr. is critical of the war and continues to pursue a policy of appeasement.

-After all, there are two terrible dilemmas in Europe -- economic chaos and war.

And anything that can keep us out of either of those should be tried.

After all, it's much better for the United States if there is no war in Europe, and therefore all efforts should be devoted to that end.

-Surely you haven't forgotten... -In order to get Joseph P. Kennedy back on track for the forthcoming presidential election, Roosevelt orders him to return home in October of 1940.

-And that ensured that Joe Kennedy, any potential for him to go anywhere in politics was essentially off the table.

And then he switched his vision from what he could do to what his children could do.

-With Kennedy on his campaign team, Roosevelt is reelected by a large majority.

And after the attack on Pearl Harbor and Germany's declaration of war on the U.S. on December 11, 1941, the Kennedy's sympathies for Germany seemed to be forgotten.

-It was clear to both Joe Kennedy Jr. and Jack Kennedy that they were now gung ho to fight either in the European theater or in the Pacific theater of war.

-I'm Janice Hudson, and I'm the supervisory museum curator at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, which we're standing in right now.

And this particular display is devoted to his World War II service.

He couldn't get into the army.

They -- he was 4F, unsuited for -- for duty in the army.

His father had arranged for him to have a desk job.

That wasn't what Kennedy wanted.

He wanted to be in active combat, and he was going to find a way to do that.

He decided to volunteer for PT boat service, which were patrol torpedo boats.

What happened was, um, Kennedy's craft was hit by a Japanese destroyer, split in half.

Two of his crew were immediately killed.

The survivors were led by Kennedy to safety eventually.

They spent something like, I think, 15 hours in the water just swimming.

-JFK and his crew are able to reach one of the Solomon Islands, but are officially listed as missing in action.

Four days later, Kennedy manages to carve a distress signal into a coconut shell and, with the help of two locals, sends it to the U.S. Navy.

After his rescue in the Pacific, JFK returns to the United States a beaming war hero, but he's in a state of poor health and suffering from malaria.

♪♪ In 1943, against her parents wishes, Kick Kennedy returns to England where she works as a volunteer for the Red cross.

-She not only fell in love with British culture, she fell in love with a British nobleman.

And this was, for Rose Kennedy particularly, about the worst thing that could happen to her daughter, her beloved and beautiful daughter.

[ Bells jingling ] -Because of their different denominations, Kick Kennedy and William Billy Cavendish are not married in church, but in a London registry office.

Of the Kennedy family, only Joe Jr., who was stationed in England, is present at the wedding.

-Billy Cavendish was in line to become the 11th Duke of Devonshire, and he was also, you know, in the Coldstream Guards.

And five weeks after they married, he was called off to war.

And sadly, in September of that year he was killed in action.

♪♪ Since 1943, Joe Jr., the eldest son of the Kennedys, is based in England, joining the war effort as a bomber pilot for the U.S. Navy.

Just before the end of the war, he volunteers for a particularly dangerous mission.

-It was intended to take out Hitler's V-2 missiles and to bail out, to essentially evacuate the plane right before it went as a drone kind of strike to Hitler's V-2 site.

The problem was the plane blew up.

Joe Kennedy blew up with it.

-Some think that he volunteered for this very dangerous mission in order to at least equal his brother in heroism, or perhaps best him.

-The living... -Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. dies on the 11th of August, 1944.

He is posthumously awarded the Navy Cross, the Air Medal and the Purple Heart for his service in the war.

♪♪ In the early 1940s, the mental health of his daughter Rosemary becomes an increasing problem for Joe Kennedy.

♪♪ -Joe, the father, thought that Rosemary, the daughter, could be an embarrassment to Jack and to Bobby and to all the things they hoped to accomplish politically.

And so initially, it was she was a little bit written out of the whole Kennedy story.

And then it was we will try a radical treatment that maybe will work and do something useful for her, but will certainly quiet her down.

-Dr. Watts described how he did the lobotomy.

He -- he took this knife that was like a butter knife and penetrated it into the brain and went around squishing around in the brain and asked her to repeat the national anthem, and when she couldn't do it anymore, then he stopped.

And that was -- that was lobotomy.

♪♪ After Billy's death, Kick returned to the United States for a short time, but her relationship with her mother is strained and Kick decides to return to England permanently.

She remains on good terms with her in-laws and often visits Lismore Castle, the Cavendish's Irish estate, with friends from the English aristocracy.

-Kick was widowed early.

She used to come across here every year and she would have house parties here at Lismore.

And in August of 1947, she had a special number of guests here -- Anthony Eden, Pamela Churchill, and of course, her brother John F. Kennedy.

He's intrigued by his Irish connection.

He wants to go to Dunganstown.

He wants to go to where the Kennedys came from.

He wants to go to visit the family farm.

She thinks this is kind of silly, but she gives him a car.

He goes there and he has a great time.

He has a wonderful time.

He enjoys it very much.

He's -- the connection he makes is really important to him.

-Back in England, Kick begins a new relationship with Peter Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, the eighth Earl of Fitzwilliam.

He is Kick's second great love, and although he is still married, the two become engaged.

Another disaster for her mother.

-The problem was that her boyfriends after her husband had died were also Protestant, and she was going to marry another Protestant.

-Joe is more open minded and so he travels to Paris on business, but also to meet Peter Fitzwilliam.

But before they meet with her father, they decide they'll make a quick trip to the south of France and go to the Riviera.

They're told the weather is quite stormy between Paris and the Riviera.

It would be best to wait, but Peter Fitzwilliam is impatient to get with his love in the south of France, and they take off.

♪♪ -Kathleen Kick Cavendish dies on the 13th of May, 1948.

To hide the fact that Kick was on her way to holiday with a married man.

the Kennedys agree to bury her in the Cavendish family plot.

JFK intends to fly to England for the memorial service, but turns back at the airport.

As a result, none of the Kennedys attend Kick's funeral.

-Joe never recovered.

He never recovered from the death of Joe Jr.

He never recovered from the death of Kick.

He -- He couldn't go to the funeral.

He didn't fly over to the funeral.

♪♪ -After serving in the House of Representatives since 1947, JFK runs for Senate in 1952 to represent his home state of Massachusetts.

One more step towards his father's goal.

-Jack Kennedy, whose vision in life was to either become an academic or a journalist, and suddenly, because his father wanted him to, he had to put his sights on politics almost overnight.

-I think that John F. Kennedy always felt pressed.

He really for -- I mean, firstly, he was a really sick man.

He had Addison's disease.

He was he -- he could have died at any time.

He had injured his back very badly.

He was in constant pain.

He felt himself to be a driven man, someone who had to do what his father wanted for him.

I think he was more of a contemplative person.

♪♪ -During the 1950s, Eunice Kennedy Shriver takes over as executive vice president of the family's Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation and realigns the foundation's focus.

The girl who I think was the most extraordinary and who showed what you could do in defiance of the father rather than because of the father was Eunice.

She, in my mind, started the movement for disability rights.

She decided that there needed to be a revolution in the way we treated people with mental disabilities.

-After graduating from Manhattanville College, Jean, the youngest of the Kennedy daughters, also joins the family political enterprise, particularly in primary election states like Texas and Wisconsin.

She goes door to door with her brother JFK to convince voters of his candidacy.

-From the time Jean was an adolescent, She worked in the campaign of brother Jack when he first ran for the Congress in 1946.

When Jack Kennedy ran for the first time for the Senate in 1952, Rose Kennedy and all the girls would go around to different parts of Massachusetts.

They would have these famous Kennedy teas, T-E-A-S, tea parties, where all the women in a town would be invited by the Kennedy campaign, and Rose would stand up and speak about when her husband was the ambassador to the UK and all of her travels throughout the world, and raising a big family.

And then the daughters would all be there, Eunice and Pat and Jean, to meet and greet.

And then young Jack would stand up and give a talk as the candidate.

-While her brothers pursue careers in politics, Patricia Kennedy, the sixth child of Joe and Rose, has been fascinated by the glamour of the film business from an early age.

-I think that Patricia did, ironically, what Papa Joe wanted for his girls, which was I think he was the ultimate chauvinist.

And I think what he wanted for his girls was to marry well.

He would have envisioned that Patricia would marry this charismatic actor named Peter Lawford, who was known best for being a good actor and being part of the Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. Rat Pack and the sort of whole Hollywood presence.

And Patricia ended up using that to bring Hollywood on board to Jack Kennedy's campaign for president.

Arguably, one of the most important people who campaigned for John Kennedy was Frank Sinatra.

-As JFK is preparing his campaign for the Senate, Bobby Kennedy, the second youngest son and the family's problem child, finishes his studies.

In 1950, he marries Ethel Skakel, a close friend of his sister Jean, and enters politics with the help of his father.

-The word that Joe Kennedy used was he was the runt of the litter.

What that meant was where all the Kennedys were sort of towering figures in a literal sense.

They were six footers and they were big people, Bobby was 5'9 1/2" and I think.

He was the smallest of them.

While all the Kennedys were eloquent, Bobby had a stutter and seemed like the one least likely to ever be able to deliver an effective speech.

Joe didn't want his kids to be competitors.

He wanted them to be winners.

So Bobby, even though he was small on the football field, was a demon, and Papa Joe got him a job with his pal, a man named Senator Joseph McCarthy.

-During his time with Senator McCarthy, Bobby begins to support his older brother on the campaign trail.

-I am today announcing my candidacy for the presidency of the United States.

The presidency is the most powerful office in the free world, through which leadership can come a more vital life for all of our people.

-Well, in his campaign, he -- he was savvy in that he made use of the medium of television.

This is the first time in a presidential campaign that that medium is used so intensely.

And the debate is -- is a wonderful illustration of that.

His debate against Richard Nixon, Because it's commonly known that the people who watched the debate on TV, they came away with the feeling that Kennedy had won the debate.

The people who listened to it on the radio came away with the feeling that Nixon had won.

♪♪ -♪ Everyone is voting for Jack ♪ ♪ Cause he's got what all the rest lack ♪ ♪ Everyone wants to back Jack ♪ ♪ Jack is on the right track ♪ ♪ Cause he's got high hopes ♪ ♪ He's got high hopes ♪ -During the election campaign, JFK and Bobby rely on celebrity supporters such as Harry Belafonte and Rat Pack singer Frank Sinatra, who is a good friend of Patricia Kennedy's husband, Peter Lawford.

Sinatra records the campaign hit "High Hopes" especially for JFK.

-♪ Oops, there goes the opposition, ker ♪ -The whole idea of the teas that they gave to woo women voters was something that some older politicians sort of -- sort of pooh poohed.

But it was hugely successful and began to be copied by other politicians.

-Senator Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline vote in his native town, Boston, Massachusetts.

Photographers and reporters are all around them, for this is the man who, in the next 24 hours, may become president of the United States and she First Lady of the land.

-The thing about John F. Kennedy and the presidency is that he managed to convey a whole new idea of what it means to be the U.S. president at a time when American society was changing and youth is beginning to look around and ask questions.

Bob Dylan is already singing at universities and has a following in Greenwich Village.

They wanted a brisk, young, active, handsome figure who sort of represented how America felt with relation to the rest of the world, and John F. Kennedy gave them that.

-JFK is sworn in in Washington on the 20th of January, 1961.

-Do you, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, do solemnly swear...

I, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, do solemnly swear.

-At the time of his inauguration, JFK is only 43 years old, the first Catholic president of the USA and the youngest to date.

-My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

[ Cheers and applause ] -Once again, JFK's sense of family is on display as he appoints his cabinet.

-He defied every bit of logic and history and made Bobby Attorney General.

And Bobby Kennedy defied every bit of logic and history and became what I would argue was the best Attorney General in American history.

-I understand and realize the great problems and difficulties that will be facing all of us in that position.

-Arguably the most important political position in the government is the Attorney General, because that's the person who decides whether what the president is doing is legally okay.

♪♪ -But JFK's sisters also have an influence on his politics.

Eunice is instrumental in her brother's establishment of the President's Panel on Mental Retardation in 1961, a panel for people with mental disabilities.

Just one year later, she founds the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development.

♪♪ It is also Eunice who reveals the family's long kept secret about Rosemary.

-Eunice Kennedy Shriver wrote an article for the mainstream media to say that her sister had been diagnosed with mental retardation early in her life, and that there had been this accident and this psychosurgery, and they put her in this convent.

By the time Jack was president, they could tell the truth.

They could bring peoples awareness to mental retardation.

-Eunice eventually sets up any number of charitable organizations which her kids run, which are devoted to caring for creating possibilities and opportunities for children, young people and adults who are in the same state as Rosemarie was before the lobotomy.

-After his brother is elected president, Edward Ted Kennedy takes over JFK's vacant Senate seat in 1962, a position he is to hold for the next 47 years.

♪♪ Also in the early 1960s, JFK and especially Robert Kennedy become socially aware of the injustices in their own country and the importance of the civil rights movement.

-And the first Republican that lost the Black vote in America was Richard Nixon running against Jack Kennedy.

And it was in part because of orchestrations that Bobby Kennedy made with Martin Luther King, bringing him on board.

-But both Robert and Jack Kennedy were slow to come to that position until 1963, when they saw what was happening in the South.

But they had enough of that and even decided to take the chance that they could lose reelection in 1964 if they sent this bill to the Congress and if it got through.

-During the summer of 1963, JFK makes a series of official visits to Europe.

On the 23rd of June, he lands at Koln-Bonn Airport.

After stops in Bonn, Koln and Frankfurt, Kennedy arrives in the divided city of Berlin.

♪♪ -Coming to Germany, for Kennedy was, um, a difficult thing.

Let's not forget early on in his presidency, 1961, he let the Russians build the wall in Berlin, and everyone was furious at him in Germany.

And it's interesting that it took Kennedy two years to come to the city where the wall had been built, because people were really angry at the time.

I was there, I remember.

So what Kennedy did was he said, I'm going to Germany and I'm going to be such a success with the people that no German politician will be able to be a German de Gaulle.

And he did just that.

♪♪ [ Applause ] -All, all free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin.

And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the word [speaks German].

[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ -After returning to the States, JFK and Jackie leave for Texas on November 21st of 1963.

A day later, they drive through the streets of Dallas with the Governor of Texas and his wife in an open Lincoln Continental.

The crowd cheers.

-The president's car is now turning onto Elm Street, and it will be only a matter of minutes before he arrives at the Trade Mart.

I was on Stemmons Freeway earlier, and even the freeway was jam packed with spectators waiting their chance to see the president as he made his way toward the Trade Mart.

[ Gunshot ] It -- It appears as though something has happened in the motorcade route.

Something, I repeat, has happened in the motorcade route.

[ Gunshot ] There's numerous people running up the hill alongside Elm Street there by the Stemmons Freeway.

Several police officers are rushing up the hill at this time.

Stand by just a moment, please.

Something has happened in the motorcade route.

Stand by please.

[ High-pitched tone playing ] [ "Taps" plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -On the 22nd of November 1963, John F. Kennedy dies following the attempt on his life.

He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery, just a few meters from the memorial stone for his brother, Joe Jr. ♪♪ -I don't think the United States ever recovered in the modern contemporary era from it, even people who weren't alive when it happened.

I think it's so sullied our public sphere because of how the president was assassinated and where, riding in an open car in a public street so horrifically and so, um, frankly, bloodily to -- to have that and then have that on video.

One person said, a senator said to a columnist, "I don't think we will be able to laugh ever again."

And the columnist said, "We'll be able to laugh again, but we won't ever be young again."

♪♪ -Bobby was devastated.

He served his brother.

He served him well, and he was just devastated when Jack was killed.

He was now the one who had to live the vision of what the family was all about, which was becoming important political figures, and ideally, becoming president.

-The way that we're going to make a difference is whether if people work together, if whites and blacks make an effort together.

If I'm elected president of the United States, I'm going to work for those who are deprived, those who are poor, those who lack jobs, those who lack decent education and lack of decent housing, whether they be white or black.

That I pledge.

-On the 16th of March 1968, Bobby Kennedy announces his candidacy for the U.S. presidency.

Over the next two and a half months, he campaigns in Indiana, Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington and California.

♪♪ -I want to just give you a sense of the tragedy of the Kennedys in the case of Bobby Kennedy.

He gave his victory speech in California at this Ambassador Hotel.

And the last things he said, his last words were, and now it's on to victory.

It's on to Chicago.

And the one time in that long campaign for the nomination when Bobby Kennedy didn't have at his side the ex-FBI agent who was his bodyguard was when he was on the podium and getting down in the podium that night from giving his victory speech.

Bobby said to this guy named Bill Barry, stay behind and help my pregnant wife, Ethel, get off the podium.

That meant that Bobby went unprotected into the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel, where he was gunned down.

-Robert F. Kennedy dies on the 6th of June, 1968, just five years after his brother JFK.

-The death of Bobby Kennedy left the baby of the family the fun loving, jolly, somewhat overweight Ted Kennedy in charge of this family.

♪♪ -After Bobby has died, and I think the family is trying to find if -- if the men are going to continue to be killed, how are we, the women, going to carry on with Teddy in the Senate and do what we can within government and outside government?

And so in the case of Eunice, she starts having these summer camps at her big estate in Maryland for children with mental handicaps, and that is what grows into by 1968 and '69, the first Special Olympics in Chicago.

-People look at you.

They stare.

They all stare.

They point at you.

They shout things.

They make you feel a different.

It's fantastic.

[ Cheers and applause ] -The girl who I think was the most extraordinary and who showed what you could do in defiance of the father rather than because of the father was Eunice, and an argument could be made that of all the Kennedy kids, Eunice had the most lasting impact.

She, in my mind, started the movement for disability rights, and that has swept the world and transformed more lives and probably anything that even the great president, Jack Kennedy, or the great almost president Bobby Kennedy did.

[ Applause ] -You are the stars and the world is watching you.

By your presence, you send a message to every village, every city, every nation.

A message of hope.

A message of victory.

The right, the right to play on any playing field, you have earned it.

The right to study in any school, you have earned it.

The right to hold a job, you have earned it.

The right... [ Cheers and applause ] -Today, the Special Olympics are the world's largest sports movement for people with intellectual and multiple disabilities.

♪♪ In the summer of 1969, Ted Kennedy is involved in a fatal car accident.

Afterwards, it takes him 10 hours to turn himself in to the police.

Although his jail sentence for leaving the scene of an accident is suspended, the incident shatters his hopes of becoming president.

♪♪ Nevertheless, in the decades following the Chappaquiddick affair, Ted becomes one of the most successful and influential U.S. senators.

-And he becomes a senator, and over the years working for progressive causes with the other half of him is, well, yes, this is what my brothers wanted.

I have to do it.

Becomes the grand old man of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, the person who Jimmy Carter wants to shake hands with, although he ran against Jimmy Carter, the person Obama wants to shake hands with.

The person every -- the person even the Republicans admire, which is amazing when you think today what's going on in the American Senate.

From the 1970s, as well as pursuing domestic politics, Ted Kennedy also campaigns for a non-violent civil rights movement and for political rapprochement between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

[ Crowd chanting ] ♪♪ In March of 1993, U.S. president Bill Clinton appoints Ted's sister Jean Kennedy Smith as U.S.

Ambassador to Ireland, where she actively works on the Good Friday Agreement.

♪♪ -And the movement to kind of towards the Good Friday Agreement is starting to -- starting to build through the 1990s to prove that to the IRA that politics works.

-Both Jean and Teddy Kennedy and their families were really thrilled to go to Northern Ireland for the various signings of the peace declarations and treaties, and the seeding of the new parliament at Stormont.

♪♪ -In the years that follow, Rosemary is brought back into the inner family circle.

On the 7th of January, 2005, her siblings Eunice, Jean, Patricia and Ted are present at her deathbed.

Just over a year later, on the 17th of September 2006, Patricia Kennedy dies.

♪♪ -While I was doing my book on his father, I spent some time with the senator and we were going to meet for an early dinner, and I showed up at 7:30 and the senator came in looking very tired.

He introduced me to his driver.

He said he had been held up because he had been trying to get through the Senate a law that made it possible for firemen whose states were supported by federal money to vote for or against joining a union.

So he had spent months lining up support in the Senate.

And at the last minute, Reed, Senator Reed, the leader of the Senate had withdrawn his support.

So Kennedy said, "I'm not going to let this happen."

And Kennedy invited firemen in their uniforms to come to the Senate.

And he spent the whole day walking around the Senate with these firemen, introducing them to his colleagues and lobbying for this legislation.

So he came home after a full day, absolutely exhausted, angry, but he owed it to these firemen to do everything he could.

Um, he left the next morning for Hyannis Port, and that evening was admitted to the hospital with the brain tumor that eventually killed him.

Eunice and her brother, Edward Kennedy, die within two weeks of each other on the 11th and 25th of August 2009.

Like his brothers before him, Ted is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

On the 17th of June 2020, Jean Kennedy Smith, the last of Rose and Jo's nine children, dies.

So after all these sacrifices, does anything remain?

And I'm afraid not as far as the dynasty is concerned.

Or maybe I'm glad.

Um, dynasties tend to span three generations.

And the Kennedy siblings, they were the third generation.

So the first generation strives to make it, uh, goes into politics, goes into business.

The second generation builds on that and becomes even richer, even more powerful.

And the third generation are free to do what they want, and they either become artists and whatnot and waste their family's money, or they, as the Kennedys did, identify themselves with the ambition of the parents and grandparents and try to make it.

But the fourth generation, it seems that mostly it can't be continued.

And this is the case with, um, this is the case with the Kennedys.

It's the case with the Netanyahus.

It's the case with the Bushs.

Um, and this is a good thing.

This shows that in democracies, it's impossible to create an aristocracy.

So if you say what remains of the Kennedys, what remains is what they did.

They can't be taken away.

But as a dynasty, they're finished.

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