Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show, fellow conspiracy realist. This is
Speaker 1: the week of an infamous anniversary in United States history,
Speaker 1: and that's why we're bringing you not only this classic,
Speaker 1: but another conversation with JFK expert Rob Ryder, who's done
Speaker 1: a couple of other things as well, a few so
Speaker 1: with this classic. You know, we've been looking at the
Speaker 1: JFK assassination for quite some time. It's part of modern
Speaker 1: American folklore, and with that, it's it's not surprising that
Speaker 1: there would be modern myths and legends built up around
Speaker 1: just this family.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Well, there have been so many deaths that
Speaker 2: just appear to be horrible accidents, right, But when you
Speaker 2: look at them all in order. Let's say, if you
Speaker 2: looked at all of the Kennedy families who've died in
Speaker 2: plane crashes, for instance, it all begins to or it
Speaker 2: seems like maybe a pattern.
Speaker 1: And how much of that is us searching for patterns
Speaker 1: or seeing those that don't exist, versus there being some
Speaker 1: sand to the so called Kennedy curse.
Speaker 3: Let's jump right into it.
Speaker 4: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 4: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 4: learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
Speaker 2: name is Noah.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben.
Speaker 1: We are joined with our super producer, Paul cape Cod Dectt.
Speaker 3: Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 1: You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
Speaker 1: want you to know. A Wicked Had episode, I should say,
Speaker 1: pack the cat, have it yad, Yes, Wicked Had Yes,
Speaker 1: just so, Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's how you do it the only way.
Speaker 1: We might run into a few of those accents in
Speaker 1: today's show. So, by the way, at the top of
Speaker 1: the show, go ahead and give us a call at
Speaker 1: one eight three three st d w y t K
Speaker 1: as you listen along and let us hear your craziest
Speaker 1: uh Northeastern accent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd love to hear, especially if you're not from there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, which we are not.
Speaker 5: By the way, chicking in the cay the guy won't go.
Speaker 5: It's different but similar.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there's also the pet cemetery main accents of
Speaker 1: my favorite you know you burry you out, I'll go
Speaker 1: into the road loss Hey said, I was a no
Speaker 1: I used to.
Speaker 5: Sometimes that is better.
Speaker 3: It was a knight, just like this.
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna agree with you again.
Speaker 5: Mom, Matt, you got this.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 5: Give us fun.
Speaker 3: You know you're not.
Speaker 5: You're not gonna grace us with your golden voice.
Speaker 3: It'll come with all right, that's fine, right, okay?
Speaker 1: Uh, why are we talking about Northeastern accents? Why are
Speaker 1: we talking about Massachusetts in particular? We're so glad you asked,
Speaker 1: because we are attempting to add a little bit of levity.
Speaker 1: What is going to be a story riddled with tragedy, lousey,
Speaker 1: with disaster, replete, and overflowing with untimely death. Today we
Speaker 1: are talking about the Kennedy family, one of the most
Speaker 1: influential political dynasties in recent US history. They're on the
Speaker 1: level of the Roosevelts or the Tats.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're the American political dynasty, I would say, rather
Speaker 2: than other than the Bushes perhaps, and maybe the.
Speaker 1: Clintons, and maybe the Clintons. The people would also often
Speaker 1: cite the years of the JFK presidency as the Camelot time, right,
Speaker 1: and they romanticize it.
Speaker 5: Did you guys say? There was a meme floating around.
Speaker 6: It was an image of Bill Clinton kind of peeking
Speaker 6: out from behind these bronze sculptures of George and Barbara
Speaker 6: Bush and the caption was Clinton hiding in the bushes.
Speaker 3: I have not seen that one.
Speaker 5: Nope, it's cute.
Speaker 1: Well, according to some, despite their tremendous success in the
Speaker 1: world of pr right in public diplomacy, the Kennedy family has.
Speaker 3: A dark side. That's also not a debate.
Speaker 1: But today's question is it's the Kennedy Family cursed. I
Speaker 1: don't know if many people have heard about this, Matt.
Speaker 1: I think you brought this one to us originally, right.
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, just because I've heard I've heard of it.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'm not sure. We perhaps were discussing JFK in
Speaker 2: an episode.
Speaker 3: I think it came up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Okay, Well, here are the facts. We've covered
Speaker 1: a lot of things related to the Kennedy family before,
Speaker 1: Like you said, with JFK RFK, we have that at
Speaker 1: least videos on that. We've also dove in poor choice
Speaker 1: of words to the chap Equittic incident. Yeah, let's just
Speaker 1: keep it.
Speaker 5: Let's just come on man own it.
Speaker 1: And we had a fantastic interview with the writers of
Speaker 1: chap Equittic. But this stuff all comes into play. This
Speaker 1: is a an overall look at these tragedies. But first
Speaker 1: we have to learn about who the Kennedys are, which
Speaker 1: I don't think we've ever done on this show. The
Speaker 1: Kennedy family origin, and let's do their early timeline. Surprise, surprise,
Speaker 1: they come from Ireland. Yeah, in case they didn't already
Speaker 1: get that across.
Speaker 6: Now, and this is a shot here, but do you
Speaker 6: think early Kennedy influence stemmed from those political machines that
Speaker 6: raised up Irish immigrants to positions of prominence.
Speaker 1: It's it's an interesting question, and I would I would
Speaker 1: say definitely, because you know, we hear a lot about
Speaker 1: Tammany Hall and New York, but Boston was not very different.
Speaker 5: I had their own I'm sure. I don't know what
Speaker 5: it's called.
Speaker 1: No, Yeah, well, well let's starting in Ireland. There's a
Speaker 1: guy named Brian Kennedy. As you could tell, this is
Speaker 1: close to his heart, and he says the origins of
Speaker 1: the family can be traced to a clan called which
Speaker 1: I will mispronounce because I don't speak Gaelic. Oh, and
Speaker 1: you know I went to Ireland recently. All the signs
Speaker 1: are in Gaelic and English.
Speaker 6: Which is a script of its own right. Almost like
Speaker 6: Cyrillic or like the Russian alphabet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 3: You can.
Speaker 1: I was trying to learn Gaelic just while I was there,
Speaker 1: to say cool phrases, but no one cared.
Speaker 3: Everyone spoke English.
Speaker 1: I saw one television channel I think was like a
Speaker 1: public education thing with these people speaking Gaelic.
Speaker 3: That sounded really cool.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, interesting.
Speaker 1: We've just been alerted by our super producer Paul that
Speaker 1: most people in Ireland do not, in fact call it Gaelic.
Speaker 1: They call it Irish. Irish, you speak Irish. Well, that
Speaker 1: was a long intro to something that I am about
Speaker 1: to mispronounce. Their family clan was osiniad Fione, which was
Speaker 1: one of three clans ruled a kingdom named or Mooned,
Speaker 1: and they resided in what is today Pecaine, County Tipperary
Speaker 1: in fifteen forty six, but they lost their social status
Speaker 1: in the New English Order in the Kingdom of Ireland
Speaker 1: and they had to move. They ended up in Donganstown,
Speaker 1: New Ross, County Wexford by seventeen forty and that is
Speaker 1: where a fellow named Patrick Kennedy is born in eighteen
Speaker 1: twenty three. Patrick cam Bridget Murphy are the first Kennedys
Speaker 1: to live in the US. Patrick worked as a cooper,
Speaker 1: which means he made barrels.
Speaker 2: Nice. That's a good thing. Make you need a lot
Speaker 2: of those in eighteen hundreds, especially.
Speaker 1: If you're going to get into bootlegging down the line spoilers.
Speaker 1: They have five kids, Patrick and Bridget, and one of
Speaker 1: these Patrick Joseph Kennedy or PJ to his buddies, which
Speaker 1: for some reason, I just love that as a nickname.
Speaker 1: He became a legitimate businessman.
Speaker 2: And a legitimate businessman.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and served in the state legislature. This makes him
Speaker 1: the first Kennedy politician here in the States. He's also
Speaker 1: the paternal grandfather of President JFK, one of Pj's kids.
Speaker 3: Guy, And it gets confusing here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's Patrick Joseph Kennedy and then he's got
Speaker 1: a kid named Joseph Patrick Kennedy.
Speaker 3: It's also known as Joe.
Speaker 2: So there's PJ and Joe.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they like that j and JP ye.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they got charged extra at the
Speaker 1: hospital for using new names and they just continually had
Speaker 1: to trade these out. But yeah, Joe was born in
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty eight and he is the one who became
Speaker 1: instrumental in the family's political and financial rise.
Speaker 3: And he was kind of a shady cat.
Speaker 5: Yeah he was.
Speaker 2: Let's say, he was known to associate with certain elements
Speaker 2: of the underworld.
Speaker 5: Elements I'm sorry, are you using hyperbole here?
Speaker 2: And also the mob, oh yeah, gangsters, yeah, the Irish Italians,
Speaker 2: some of the he had some friends in some places well.
Speaker 6: And again with the whole political machine thing that was
Speaker 6: an early version of like the mob, not an early version,
Speaker 6: but operated very similarly, make getting collections and influencing votes
Speaker 6: and you know, state events.
Speaker 1: Yeah, intimidating rival politicians. Even so, he is a character,
Speaker 1: fraud with mystery and could be an episode of his own.
Speaker 1: Not the nicest man. He was a controversial figure in
Speaker 1: Boston because, despite the fact that he made a ton
Speaker 1: of money through what he claims were legitimate means, in
Speaker 1: high society in Boston, money alone cannot pave your path
Speaker 1: to acceptance. It doesn't matter how much money you have,
Speaker 1: if you earned it in the last few generations, you're
Speaker 1: a peasant.
Speaker 5: It's gotta be old money, yeah, old old money.
Speaker 1: And he wanted to buy his way into this society
Speaker 1: to gain the acceptance but it was tough because when
Speaker 1: big rumors about him, even though he always say he
Speaker 1: was a legitimate businessman, one of the big rumors about
Speaker 1: him for decades that persist even today is that he
Speaker 1: was intimately involved with bootlegging.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we can recommend a book called The Patriarch,
Speaker 2: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy
Speaker 2: if you want to learn a lot more about him,
Speaker 2: right right.
Speaker 1: And he went on to work as a US ambassador
Speaker 1: to London, which started to gain him entrance into the
Speaker 1: upper echelons of the political class. And it's there that
Speaker 1: he continued to make some hard decisions. He got kind
Speaker 1: of house of cards with it, didn't he. But we'll
Speaker 1: get into that his time over the pond in a
Speaker 1: little bit. For now, maybe we can talk about some
Speaker 1: of the notable individuals of the Kennedy Klan.
Speaker 5: First we have JFK.
Speaker 6: John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty fifth President of these fair
Speaker 6: United States. Then we have his are there, Ted Kennedy,
Speaker 6: a Senator from Massachusetts, and I believe, guys, the long
Speaker 6: one of the longest standing senators my history of the office.
Speaker 2: Known as the Lion of the Senate, the Lion.
Speaker 6: Then we have Robert Bobby right Kennedy, Yes, who is
Speaker 6: Attorney General and later a senator from New York.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: And these are just the top three, right, We've got
Speaker 1: there's several other Kennedy's that are influential in business and
Speaker 1: that are influential to one degree or another in politics.
Speaker 1: The family overall has amassed a cartoonishly large fortune at
Speaker 1: this point. It's estimated to be five hundred million dollars
Speaker 1: if we're talking net worth. But that's just what's on
Speaker 1: the books, and there's some pretty compelling evidence that, you know,
Speaker 1: when you're at that level, there's pretty compelling evidence that
Speaker 1: they have the means to not be entirely transparent.
Speaker 5: To like offshore accounts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, offshore accounts maybe things that wouldn't be recognized in
Speaker 1: terms of assets or things that are you know, properties
Speaker 1: in other countries where reporting laws.
Speaker 2: Are a little looser, a little different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just like the accusations of the Bush family years
Speaker 1: back buying all that land in Paraguay.
Speaker 3: Right, do you remember that one?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I remember that. That one disappeared from the news too.
Speaker 6: Weird when that happens, you gotta wonder, I know, their machinations.
Speaker 3: Yeah, does it mean they were just wrong?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Or what you know, because one thing that we don't
Speaker 1: see a lot of nowadays is any attention paid to
Speaker 1: retractions in the news, right, because nobody came out and said, no,
Speaker 1: that never happened. The Paraguay thing, it just disappeared.
Speaker 5: We just if we don't talk about it anymore, it
Speaker 5: never happened.
Speaker 1: Like at the Pentagon where they say we don't lie,
Speaker 1: the truth just changes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, that's a real like they actually say lead. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you'll probably notice, fellow conspiracy realist, that at this
Speaker 1: point we have not mentioned anything particularly tragic, just the
Speaker 1: story of one's family's rise to the political elite of
Speaker 1: the US. But what if there is more to this tale?
Speaker 1: Could the Kennedy family in fact be cursed?
Speaker 2: We'll find out right after a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3: Years where it gets crazy. So how did this curse begin?
Speaker 6: If it's a curse, you just did two handed quotation
Speaker 6: fingers large. But yeah, but it's hard to argue with
Speaker 6: the level of seeming cursedness that we're about to delve into.
Speaker 3: There we go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a there's a guy named Edward Kleine who
Speaker 1: is billed as a political researcher, and he says that
Speaker 1: he thinks this curse has haunted the Kennedy family for
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty years, but there's no uh no,
Speaker 1: one really agrees on what events started it or how
Speaker 1: a curse is defined.
Speaker 6: Well, a curse is what happened when a witch will,
Speaker 6: let's have fingers at you and says, I curss thee.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it could be anybody if you know the evil eyes.
Speaker 1: That's true, I'm doing the evil.
Speaker 3: Double.
Speaker 2: Let's say, okay, let's put it this way. A lot
Speaker 2: of it's interesting that Klein puts it at one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty years because most everything seems to stem back
Speaker 2: to the offspring of Joe Kennedy, not the grandfather, but
Speaker 2: the father of Robert and JFK. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And
Speaker 2: a lot of times with a curse, the folklore of
Speaker 2: a curse, the history of curses, you curse a person
Speaker 2: in their bloodline essentially, right, so descendants from that curse, well,
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, a lot.
Speaker 5: Of times a pox upon your house.
Speaker 2: So it's interesting that they put one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: years because I wouldn't I wouldn't go back exactly that far.
Speaker 2: If I was the one saying, hey, this family looks cursed,
Speaker 2: I would probably put it on Joe rather than on
Speaker 2: Patrick Joseph Kennedy, just because it's mostly his kids in
Speaker 2: their offspring that are really getting the bad end of the.
Speaker 3: Stick, the fuzzy side of the lollipop.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as our old mentor used to say, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a really good point. So when we're talking about Joseph himself,
Speaker 1: let's go back to what he actually did across the
Speaker 1: pond that would later become controversial.
Speaker 2: So we mentioned before that he was he became an
Speaker 2: ambassador to England while he is working in his political career.
Speaker 2: Then you know, World War Two happened, and in the
Speaker 2: run up to World War two, as the Nazi Party
Speaker 2: begins taking over, there's a lot of debate in England
Speaker 2: as to, you know, how do we deal with this
Speaker 2: threat with these people that are threatening us, They're threatening
Speaker 2: all of our neighbors. They're doing unspeakable, horrible things. We're
Speaker 2: going to try and cut them off from a monetary
Speaker 2: perspective as much as we can, you know, by not
Speaker 2: buying and selling goods to them. Anyway, there are a
Speaker 2: lot of ideas that are floated around, and there are
Speaker 2: some people in high society in England who disagree completely.
Speaker 2: So we've got on one side. You've got let's go
Speaker 2: through this, Ben, We've got Neville Chamberlain who Nazi appeasement
Speaker 2: is what it's kind of referred to as right, but
Speaker 2: it's more of let's not necessarily give them everything they want,
Speaker 2: but let's try and work with them to a point
Speaker 2: where they're not gonna bomb the absolute crap out of
Speaker 2: us and just overthrow our government.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the idea being that maybe not entirely capitulating giving
Speaker 1: a few things to Nazi Germany at the time, would
Speaker 1: I guess stable eyes the country or sort of mitigate
Speaker 1: the aggression and also put them on a footing where
Speaker 1: the Western Powers were saying to Germany, we understand that
Speaker 1: you guys got pretty screwed after World War One.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, we see that you've got issues.
Speaker 1: We're sorry that you feel like you need an apology.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Do you get a sense though this wasn't entirely with
Speaker 6: evil intent, I mean it was, you know, it was,
Speaker 6: it was. It was one way of behaving to try
Speaker 6: to get things done right.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a philosophy on how to handle a
Speaker 2: very tough situation, because on the other end, when you've
Speaker 2: got military leaders who are saying no, we have we
Speaker 2: absolutely have to fight them on the beaches. We had
Speaker 2: to fight them everywhere. We got to say no, you bastards,
Speaker 2: get back.
Speaker 3: Can we play that? You play the let's Paul? Can
Speaker 3: we play the Churchill.
Speaker 8: Quote from Seats and Oceans. We shall fight with growing
Speaker 8: confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend
Speaker 8: our island, whatever the couch may be. We shall fight
Speaker 8: on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds.
Speaker 8: We shall fight in the fields and in the streaks.
Speaker 8: We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.
Speaker 2: That really was Gary Oldman's finest role is finest time.
Speaker 9: I mean he deserved the darkest I remember when we
Speaker 9: had we had an ad read for that ship, and
Speaker 9: we had to redo it because we said the darkest hour.
Speaker 5: It was actually just the darkest hour, the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we hope you enjoyed that ad reading. And
Speaker 1: it is a good film. I'll give him that. I
Speaker 1: really think that guy's a great actor. But as much
Speaker 1: as I like Gary Oldman, my one of my favorite
Speaker 1: historical figures at this day, at this point in time
Speaker 1: in the story is rip, roar and drunk. Look in
Speaker 1: Winston Churchill, that guy was insane. He like he helped
Speaker 1: win World War two and I don't know if he
Speaker 1: woke up remembering it most mornings.
Speaker 5: Yeah, just oh no, you're right, man.
Speaker 6: He definitely seemed sast almost any time he was on mic.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but you know what that's it's like, what is it?
Speaker 8: Uh?
Speaker 6: Hemingway says, you're not really a man until you're drunk,
Speaker 6: being like you're not your best self. Not to encourage
Speaker 6: the listeners here to just live life drunk, but there's
Speaker 6: something to be said in that when you see these
Speaker 6: people that are just like so in the zone through
Speaker 6: utter drunkenness.
Speaker 3: It was to.
Speaker 1: Behold, it was probably a you know, there's state dependent learning.
Speaker 1: They had normalized at that point, so they may not
Speaker 1: have been able. It's really sad to say they may
Speaker 1: not have been able to function.
Speaker 6: So same with those ad men, you know, like oh yeah,
Speaker 6: just the culture of like pitching these ideas while taking
Speaker 6: your nine a m glass of whiskey.
Speaker 1: You know what kind assass A frast fancy boy is
Speaker 1: too good for Martini at en right, Okay, So this
Speaker 1: so Winston Churchill said we have to go to war.
Speaker 1: Appeasement will not work. And you know, his side was right,
Speaker 1: but that is not the side that Joe was on.
Speaker 2: That's correct, and and so a lot of people think
Speaker 2: that perhaps some well actually Wilisia's go into this. He
Speaker 2: was maligned, like he was viewed in a very negative light,
Speaker 2: especially in the United States after this came out, that
Speaker 2: he was they you know, he was called the Nazi sympathizer.
Speaker 5: He was on the wrong side of history. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And again, like it's tough to say back then,
Speaker 2: like maybe he truly believed that this was a way
Speaker 2: to get out of it in a better way than
Speaker 2: just I mean, we're talking about scores of people, you know,
Speaker 2: British citizens who died as a result of the World
Speaker 2: War two and the Nazis. But at the time it
Speaker 2: was just a terrible thing, a terrible thing to do
Speaker 2: in the aftermath of World War Two. And then he
Speaker 2: had political aspirations in the US and ultimately those were
Speaker 2: just dashing against the wall because everybody looked at him
Speaker 2: in that light.
Speaker 5: Well it's rough too.
Speaker 6: Considering the outcome, he definitely comes off as like taking
Speaker 6: the moral low ground, you know.
Speaker 5: When you really knowing what we know or what you
Speaker 5: knew even just a little bit later, even like you know,
Speaker 5: toying with that.
Speaker 3: Notion was a bad look. They also had.
Speaker 1: There are indications that he had personal prejudice involved. As
Speaker 1: far as anti Semitism, well.
Speaker 2: There are their indications, and it is tough because a
Speaker 2: lot of it ends up being not rumor but a
Speaker 2: little more hearsay than you know, an actual thing you
Speaker 2: can prove.
Speaker 1: There's correspondence between some of the Kennedy family from Kennedy
Speaker 1: and Joe Junior in nineteen thirty four in which the
Speaker 1: son calls the Nazis dislike of Jewish people quote well founded,
Speaker 1: and the dad is saying, I'm very pleased and gratified
Speaker 1: at your observations of the German city situation.
Speaker 2: Geez, okay, that's worse than I understood.
Speaker 3: So could that have been How is that related to
Speaker 3: this curse?
Speaker 2: Well, the thought is, perhaps, you know, that's pre a
Speaker 2: lot of the cursing that's happening. I think nineteen forty
Speaker 2: four is the first one that we've like clocked later
Speaker 2: on in our timeline as to the first part of
Speaker 2: the curse. So it would make sense if there was
Speaker 2: a curse applied around this time, like beginning to middle
Speaker 2: of World War.
Speaker 1: Two, I as seem and that that kind of verges
Speaker 1: on a spiritual aspect.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, sure, well, well that's this is another theory
Speaker 2: that I've seen online, is that perhaps because of the
Speaker 2: way that Joe Kennedy amassed his fortune. You know, even
Speaker 2: though he says, oh, you know, I'm a businessman, just
Speaker 2: like his grandma, his father said, I'm a businessman, perhaps
Speaker 2: there was some ill gotten gains there, maybe a family
Speaker 2: that was you know, taken advantage of, or someone got hurt.
Speaker 2: So basically, either we've got in some of the theories
Speaker 2: that have been put forth, either he's been cursed in
Speaker 2: some way because of his involvement with World War two,
Speaker 2: in the Nazis, or with some other group that he
Speaker 2: wronged in amassing his fortune. Okay, that's what I have
Speaker 2: seen online.
Speaker 3: I like that, you say group. I like the idea
Speaker 3: of some.
Speaker 1: Real world interest pursuing someone. So you can already see
Speaker 1: some of the issues here, folks.
Speaker 3: There's no.
Speaker 1: Universally agreed on theory on what could have happened or
Speaker 1: triggered a curse. There are several compelling guesses. As you said, Matt,
Speaker 1: the most compelling timelines do seem to trace it to
Speaker 1: Joe Kennedy, absolutely, but most use of the term curse
Speaker 1: just centers on describing this strange collection of tragic events
Speaker 1: that appear to bedevil this family much more so than
Speaker 1: the average Jane and John Doe Smith Nuyan.
Speaker 5: Nuian.
Speaker 3: It's twenty eighteen. It's American.
Speaker 6: Man, that's a fun one. I never knew how to
Speaker 6: pronounce that until about twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, is it hyphenated Smith Nugan, I.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm picking a generic, average American family.
Speaker 6: So it's crazy, though, you guys, when you see these
Speaker 6: stacked up like in a list, it's a lot.
Speaker 3: It's a lot.
Speaker 2: But also remember there are a lot of Kennedy's, that's true,
Speaker 2: and associated Kennedy's.
Speaker 5: That's true. And then times were volatile.
Speaker 1: And there are people who are Kennedy adjacent sort of
Speaker 1: the way, like Redman is always hanging out with Wu Tang,
Speaker 1: but is not himself in Wu Tang.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what are okay?
Speaker 1: So, like, what are some examples of the curses I
Speaker 1: think are examples of the curse itself.
Speaker 2: Well, ultimately, there are a lot of deaths that we
Speaker 2: would consider to be untimely. Sure early deaths, every death
Speaker 2: is earlier than it should be, right or airplane accidents.
Speaker 2: That's a whole category that we can kind of put
Speaker 2: in here, because the Kennedys fly a lot. Most some
Speaker 2: of the most affluent people do fly the most because
Speaker 2: you can afford it, or perhaps you have your pilot's license,
Speaker 2: and in this case, the Kennedys did fly a whole lot.
Speaker 2: The first though, the first person who was killed in
Speaker 2: an aircraft accident was actually serving his country when when
Speaker 2: he was killed he was not a private pilot at
Speaker 2: the time. On August twelfth, nineteen forty four. Joseph Kennedy Junior.
Speaker 2: This is the older brother of JFK. He was killed
Speaker 2: in an aircraft explosion when he was serving during the
Speaker 2: Second World War. So nineteen forty four, Joseph Kennedy Junior.
Speaker 6: Okay, So, then in nineteen forty eight May thirteen, we
Speaker 6: have Kathleen Cavendish, who is JFK's sister and also the
Speaker 6: wife of the Marquis of Hartington.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, what is that?
Speaker 3: Ah?
Speaker 6: Yes, the Barque of Hartington make some kind of weird
Speaker 6: like like Connecticut local government position.
Speaker 2: Let's do a Google search.
Speaker 1: What's Yeah, it's a landed title in the UK. So
Speaker 1: what a lot of what a lot of political dynasties
Speaker 1: do to get around what they sell to you as
Speaker 1: a voter if you're in the US. What a lot
Speaker 1: of them do to get the aristocratic heights that they
Speaker 1: want as they marry into aristocratic families. So when it's
Speaker 1: voting season, they can still put on some I'll say it,
Speaker 1: they can still put on a pair of bullshit overalls
Speaker 1: in a baseball cap and act like they have remotely
Speaker 1: anything to do with ordinary people.
Speaker 5: Yeah, like a duke.
Speaker 2: An earl, duke over heydude.
Speaker 5: That's funny anyway.
Speaker 6: So we've got Kathleen Cavendish, the apparent husband to the
Speaker 6: Marquis of Hartington.
Speaker 5: She dies in a plane crash in France.
Speaker 3: Yep, yep.
Speaker 1: And there's another plane crash in June nineteenth of nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty four. Ted Kennedy is in this plane crash, and
Speaker 1: he and a senator named Birch Bob both survive with
Speaker 1: some pretty pretty grizzly injuries.
Speaker 5: And the Reaper is gunning for this fellow.
Speaker 1: One of Kennedy's aides dies in the crash, and the
Speaker 1: pilot of the plane also dies. I have a quick
Speaker 1: question with this. It seems like a ton of plane crashes.
Speaker 1: But to your earlier point, Matt, they were flying more
Speaker 1: than average. And also I'm wondering if plane technology, if
Speaker 1: aviation safety technology was just not where it is now.
Speaker 5: I'm certain they must be the cave well.
Speaker 2: And they're also in small private Yeah, I mean, if
Speaker 2: there's just a higher risk with those with those aircraft.
Speaker 5: No Kennedy will fly commercial unheard of.
Speaker 1: In sixty nine there is the infamous chap Equitic incident
Speaker 1: where Mary Joe Kopecni dies, is abandoned to drown by
Speaker 1: Ted Kennedy, who survives and somehow retains a political career.
Speaker 1: But that is commonly considered to be the nail in
Speaker 1: the coffin of his presidential ambitions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but again, somehow.
Speaker 3: I would say, rightly, so, yeah, but.
Speaker 2: Then you're right, somehow ended up being one of the
Speaker 2: most beloved senators out there.
Speaker 1: Somehow, soon we forget, so what else we have, because
Speaker 1: this isn't all of it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, is it?
Speaker 2: No? No, we're still going through all this. Okay, nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety seven, you have Michael L. Kennedy. He's one of
Speaker 2: Robert Robert Kennedy's children. He dies in a skiing accident
Speaker 2: of all things, out in Colorado, and apparently there was
Speaker 2: this Kennedy tradition of doing downhill skiing while playing American football.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So it's this weird thing where they would split up
Speaker 2: the like if you're looking the whole slope, they would
Speaker 2: split the slope up into varying fields. So like when
Speaker 2: you're in this section, you're in one field and you
Speaker 2: can score, then you're in this section you can score
Speaker 2: in this field, and it just kind of goes down, down, down, down.
Speaker 5: So what you're saying, mad is that he was asking
Speaker 5: for it.
Speaker 2: No geez no, no.
Speaker 5: Okay, alright, I misunderstood your meaning.
Speaker 2: I will. I will say that some onlookers who would
Speaker 2: view the this Kennedy tradition of playing this game thought
Speaker 2: it was extremely dangerous.
Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying. It sounds it sounds really dumb.
Speaker 3: Michael lemoy and Kennedy, why are you doing this name?
Speaker 2: Okay, so much to live for? Well, the strange thing
Speaker 2: is that you get rid of your polls, because you
Speaker 2: need your hands to catch the football and to throw it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you're just going down these big slopes and you're
Speaker 2: looking behind you sometimes to throw the ball, looking ahead
Speaker 2: of you throw the ball. And yeah, he unfortunately hit
Speaker 2: a tree.
Speaker 3: In thirty nine, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, to come through his injuries that way.
Speaker 3: Thirty nine years old.
Speaker 1: And then there's another aircraft incident, I believe.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, yes, this is John F. Kennedy Junior.
Speaker 3: Yes, his parents probably called him.
Speaker 1: They're probably just screamed Junior at him, Junia Junior, study
Speaker 1: wicked hot.
Speaker 2: Yes, so John F. Kennedy's son, the junior. He was
Speaker 2: on his way to Martha's vineyard up there in Cape
Speaker 2: Cod again, flying a light plane, like a small plane,
Speaker 2: and he crashed after he got a little disoriented. I
Speaker 2: guess while he was in flight. He was flying at night,
Speaker 2: which is you know, a little dangerous because if your
Speaker 2: instruments go bad, it's it's pretty rough out there. He
Speaker 2: ended up crashing in the ocean and he died there.
Speaker 6: Yes, it seems like these Kennedy's were risk takers.
Speaker 5: True.
Speaker 1: True, there's more to the story too, because this is
Speaker 1: just scratching the surface I'm sure you can figure out
Speaker 1: what we're going to dive into next, but see if
Speaker 1: you're correct or not.
Speaker 3: After this brick.
Speaker 1: We have returned, and we must also acknowledge the most
Speaker 1: widely known, untimely deaths in the Kennedy line. Those are
Speaker 1: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November twenty second,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three. As he rides through Dallas, Texas.
Speaker 6: Lee Harvey Oswald, who we later discover was his assassin,
Speaker 6: is gunned down at a police station two days later,
Speaker 6: and this created, as we on this show in this
Speaker 6: community very well know, widespread conspiracies about the president's death.
Speaker 5: You know, was there more than one shooter? Was he
Speaker 5: taken out by the government.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's too long days, the mob, the Russians,
Speaker 6: it just goes on.
Speaker 3: Yes, and his brother Robert F. Kennedy.
Speaker 1: Look, it doesn't matter if you consider yourself a fan
Speaker 1: of the Kennedys or not. They were super into nepotism,
Speaker 1: and nepotism is poisonous for the type of government that
Speaker 1: we are.
Speaker 3: Supposed to have.
Speaker 1: I just have to put that in there. I know
Speaker 1: that these people pasted. I know these assassinations were unjust,
Speaker 1: but it's doing everyone at disservice if we ignore the
Speaker 1: fact that nepotism is a very, very bad thing.
Speaker 5: You feel very strongly about this, Ben, You've mentioned it before.
Speaker 1: Them, absolutely, and I will continue mentioning it until somebody
Speaker 1: with a problem gets their brother or their cousin in
Speaker 1: office and shuts down our show because it matters that much.
Speaker 3: I hope I'm not poking the bear too much here, guys.
Speaker 1: But regardless, I'm not saying that they're I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that they are inherently bad.
Speaker 3: Roberto Robert F.
Speaker 1: Kennedy is the Attorney General, right, so he's holding one
Speaker 1: of the highest offices in the land legally speaking, while
Speaker 1: his brother is arguably holding one of the highest offices
Speaker 1: in the world.
Speaker 5: This is weird.
Speaker 3: That's weird.
Speaker 5: Now, this is the whole thing. Yeah, and then he
Speaker 5: gets he gets a bullet too. He gets an assassin's
Speaker 5: bullet too, right, I mean.
Speaker 6: Assassinations in US politics.
Speaker 5: I don't see them as being wide rife in this.
Speaker 2: They're relatively rare.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so he is.
Speaker 1: He's thirty eight years old, and he is calling for
Speaker 1: further investigations into the JFK assassination because he believes there's
Speaker 1: more to the story. Like the majority of Americans in
Speaker 1: the wake of the JFK assassination, he thinks someone is lying,
Speaker 1: and on June sixth, nineteen sixty eight, he is assassinated
Speaker 1: after winning the California Democratic primary. The gunman sir Han.
Speaker 1: Sir Han is alive now as we record.
Speaker 6: This isn't this the one where he was supposedly some
Speaker 6: kind of Manchurian candidate.
Speaker 1: He has at least maintained that he has no memory
Speaker 1: of this, that he was programmed somehow, and they're also
Speaker 1: He also argues that forensic evidence and eyewitness reports of
Speaker 1: the shooting back up his story that he was not
Speaker 1: the fatal shooter.
Speaker 2: It's fascinating if you started digging into it. I don't
Speaker 2: remember if we've done a huge thing on here and
Speaker 2: here here and did something. I know we talked about it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it may have been.
Speaker 6: Like a like a Hodgepodge kind of episode, but I
Speaker 6: definitely remember talking about this sleeper agent kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is frightening. And the big question is can
Speaker 1: you pull it off? How how much it's I guess
Speaker 1: it's more a degree of compulsion it's not can we
Speaker 1: make people do things that would not ordinarily do without
Speaker 1: their own knowledge of their actions. That's how advertising works.
Speaker 1: The question is how far can we push it?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 5: Can I take it? Just to quick aside?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 6: In service of this story, Have you guys seen the
Speaker 6: latest Darren Brown.
Speaker 5: Special on that miracle Miracle?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 6: And you guys, if you don't who Darren Brown is,
Speaker 6: he is what is deemed a mentalist. He is an
Speaker 6: expert at everything from hypnosis to some more kind of
Speaker 6: sketchy pseudosciencey things he's accused of doing. There's a neuro
Speaker 6: linguistic programming I think is one of them. And he
Speaker 6: is a master of implanting ideas into his subjects' heads.
Speaker 6: And he is very good at picking out who will
Speaker 6: be most susceptible too said implanted ideas, And when you
Speaker 6: see him do his thing, it's hard to like poo
Speaker 6: poo it, And it really does make me think, like
Speaker 6: what you were saying, Ben, how far could you push
Speaker 6: that if you weren't just a showman trying to make
Speaker 6: a cool Netflix special.
Speaker 3: I have followed that guy for years.
Speaker 5: Same I think.
Speaker 3: Longtime listeners have heard us mention some of his cooler tricks.
Speaker 6: It's weird that all of a sudden, though, he's getting
Speaker 6: Netflix specials and he's been around for twenty years.
Speaker 1: You think it's us, you guys hope so, I'd like
Speaker 1: to think so, But for our purposes, I think the
Speaker 1: fantastic players. There's so many questions that remain about these assassinations.
Speaker 1: We got pretty oustiously optimistic earlier this year when some
Speaker 1: formally classified statements about the JFK assassination were due to
Speaker 1: be released, but not much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, came out of it.
Speaker 3: It wasn't much in there got.
Speaker 1: A black ink yeah, yeah, like that old Onion article
Speaker 1: where the CIA says they found out they've been using
Speaker 1: black highlighters.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for the past few decades.
Speaker 1: So these are the two most popular ones. But there
Speaker 1: are other stories that get ignored, And we would be
Speaker 1: remiss if we did not point out a story, a
Speaker 1: tragedy in the Kennedy family that for decades was just
Speaker 1: not talked about, not just not talked about by the
Speaker 1: Kennedys themselves, but not talked about by their support staff,
Speaker 1: the various I guess people that they bound to obey
Speaker 1: them or however you would describe that relationship and they
Speaker 1: the president talked about it either. And that is Rosemary Kennedy,
Speaker 1: who was one of the daughters of Rose Kennedy and
Speaker 1: daughter of Joe Kennedy. She was arguably intellectually disabled in
Speaker 1: a family with very high standards, and her father scheduled
Speaker 1: a lobotomy for her, of course without her consent, a
Speaker 1: catastrophic operation that left her with the mental capacity of
Speaker 1: a toffler.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, when she was twenty three.
Speaker 10: This was forty one and nineteen forty one, so this
Speaker 10: predates all the other stuff. So there's also some rumors
Speaker 10: out there that maybe again you kind of got to
Speaker 10: go out on a limb for this stuff, but maybe
Speaker 10: somehow she's taken revenge on her family.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, such a barbaric thing to do to someone.
Speaker 6: And you know, it was just such a blind shot
Speaker 6: in the dark. You know's nothing backing it up. What
Speaker 6: would they have said was a reason that this would
Speaker 6: be a good thing to do.
Speaker 2: Well, by the way, she was assertive and she was
Speaker 2: rebellious as she was getting older. Oh so like she
Speaker 2: was endangering the Kennedy name. Essentially she had ideas, Yeah, seriously.
Speaker 1: So this and didn't perhaps have the sense of nuanced
Speaker 1: diplomacy and brand building that these folks were doing on
Speaker 1: their way to becoming your next American empire. So the
Speaker 1: way it was most likely sold was this will make
Speaker 1: her more amenable and docile. That's the way people handle
Speaker 1: the botomies. Oh my god, it'll help them be calm forever.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Spoiler alert for one flow over the cuckoo's nest like
Speaker 6: that time and one flew over the cuckoo's nest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there you go. Oh man, that's such a great book.
Speaker 2: By the way that I think, I think this is
Speaker 2: the best horror movie version of the Kennedy Curse is
Speaker 2: that they do this horrible thing to their one child,
Speaker 2: and it's kept a secret, and she's actually somehow taking.
Speaker 6: Especially the one child being somewhat precocious and willful. I
Speaker 6: guess right, and you know, and then I'm gonna shut
Speaker 6: you down. You didn't think I was good enough to
Speaker 6: be part of your you know, family line? Well, here
Speaker 6: we go.
Speaker 1: That's a very compelling. Oh yeah, that's a very compelling
Speaker 1: story that I have to ask you, guys and everyone listening,
Speaker 1: do you all believe in something like karma? Do you
Speaker 1: think it's a possibility.
Speaker 6: I don't know it's I think it's a name we
Speaker 6: give for something very ephemeral and indescribable. I said to
Speaker 6: someone the other day. God is the name we give
Speaker 6: for improbable happenstance, you know what I mean, where Like
Speaker 6: things just line up in a certain way, things work out,
Speaker 6: and you call it God or something. That's just I
Speaker 6: see this very similarly. It's the opposite, though, things align
Speaker 6: in a very horrible way over a long period of time,
Speaker 6: a dark coincidence, right.
Speaker 1: I don't know if bad things happen to people who
Speaker 1: deserve them. I think often people who are not constrained
Speaker 1: by things like empathy or the human race being viewed
Speaker 1: as a team sport. Yeah, I think they go around
Speaker 1: doing terrible things without foreseeable or predictable consequences.
Speaker 6: Because they just steamroller anyone that's in their way and
Speaker 6: they have no scruples.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you hear the kids. That's how you get ahead
Speaker 2: in life. You don't be nice, You become a steamroller,
Speaker 2: and then you hit go and that's it done.
Speaker 1: Until until the good, the good guys who do exist
Speaker 1: find you and stop you.
Speaker 2: It's just I don't know, Well, it's hard to stop
Speaker 2: a steamroll. The only way you can really stop a
Speaker 2: steamroller is if you've got a hill, then you're good.
Speaker 5: That's good man. Or with a bigger steamroller.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like a giant zamboni. I know they're not steam rollers.
Speaker 2: It's all good.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to say, zamboni. Have you seen they
Speaker 3: are fantastic inventions.
Speaker 5: Makes me think of a magician.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, uh me zamboni.
Speaker 5: Right, that's the ice you got, great zamboni.
Speaker 1: You know. So, Also, to be fair to the controversial
Speaker 1: figure of Joe Kennedy, it is completely possible that they
Speaker 1: legitimately thought this would help, that they wouldn't be crippling
Speaker 1: their daughter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you have a doctor telling you this is
Speaker 2: a little help, per No.
Speaker 6: I know even today we we we just we take
Speaker 6: the doctor's word at face value. Even with that, when
Speaker 6: it comes to our own health, it's so easy to
Speaker 6: just like, well, this is you're you're the expert.
Speaker 2: This company is paying me to tell you that this
Speaker 2: drug is awesome for what you got.
Speaker 6: Did you see that thing where an artist put a
Speaker 6: giant sculpture of a heroin spoon outside of that company
Speaker 6: that makes all the opioids?
Speaker 5: Whoa he got.
Speaker 6: Arrested for like impeding a thoroughfare. It's like a really
Speaker 6: ridiculous clause. That's the company's name now I can't remember.
Speaker 6: It's not bear It. It was the Purdue, the Purdue
Speaker 6: family pharmaceutical company.
Speaker 2: Not the chicken.
Speaker 1: Not the chicken. No, not to malign the chicken produce.
Speaker 1: They are unrelated to the opiate produce. But that you know,
Speaker 1: what's a great point about that, is there a lot
Speaker 1: of people with the last named Kennedy who are not
Speaker 1: themselves related.
Speaker 3: To these Kennedys. Yes, so we should we should point
Speaker 3: that out. We should also ask.
Speaker 1: Is this a true curse or is this just a
Speaker 1: murky set of terrible, indefensible coincidences. Skeptics argue that what
Speaker 1: appears to be a curse is more likely just cherry picking.
Speaker 1: We're only finding notably tragic events from this huge family,
Speaker 1: and that it's also not improbable or even unlikely for
Speaker 1: a similar large family to have similar disasters, regardless of
Speaker 1: their social standing. So if we just expand our sample
Speaker 1: size large enough from that Smith New Yen example or whatever,
Speaker 1: and will eventually be able to find someone who is
Speaker 1: in a playing crash, someone who got a very specific
Speaker 1: type of cancer.
Speaker 6: It's the same even when you start tracing people's lineages,
Speaker 6: and at the end of the day, everyone's related to everyone, right, Yeah,
Speaker 6: you get a long enough timeline, big enough sample size,
Speaker 6: stuff happens, right.
Speaker 5: But you guys, I'm just gonna ask you, Matt, curses.
Speaker 2: Do I believe in them?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 2: Man, that's tough, because if you don't believe in curses,
Speaker 2: you better believe you're getting cursed. But no, I don't
Speaker 2: really believe in curses. But that's just because I guess
Speaker 2: my life has been pretty good so far, so you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: what about You.
Speaker 5: Know, there's compelling stuff out there. I'm always a little
Speaker 5: bit of a.
Speaker 6: Fence sitter when it comes to this kind of stuff,
Speaker 6: But I don't know, sometimes I feel pulled.
Speaker 5: In one way or the other depending on what I'm
Speaker 5: looking at, you know what I mean. I don't know.
Speaker 6: I try not to have a hard fast no to anything.
Speaker 6: I try to be open curses, no, just in general.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 6: You know, I'm definitely skeptical about a lot of things,
Speaker 6: but I am always open to being convinced otherwise. And
Speaker 6: when you look at this stuff just stacked up the
Speaker 6: way we looked at it sums up, Well, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Here's the deal, do you? What do you think? Ben?
Speaker 3: Oh? Well, okay, so I am full disclosure.
Speaker 1: I should say that various parts of my family do
Speaker 1: completely believe in this, for various reasons that we will
Speaker 1: not get into. But Ted Kennedy himself seemed to believe
Speaker 1: that there was a curse afoot. He publicly mentioned the
Speaker 1: phrase in nineteen sixty nine when he was testifying about
Speaker 1: that time that he abandoned and drowned Mary Joe Kopecney.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that curse that, you know, befell him as he escaped.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I gotta be really tough for him to
Speaker 1: again his cushy job right to again leave a woman
Speaker 1: in a car to die of asphyxiation just for taking
Speaker 1: and ride with him.
Speaker 3: That's what he did.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that he didn't do good legislation, but
Speaker 1: he also again abandoned some what left of a car
Speaker 1: to die, basically got away with murder and got away
Speaker 1: with Yeah. So let's let's just play the clip. You
Speaker 1: can hear him say it's a curse.
Speaker 7: Whether some awful curse did actually hang over all the
Speaker 7: Kennedys whether there was some justifiable reason for me to
Speaker 7: doubt what had happened and to delay my report.
Speaker 1: And to your question, no, there's another factor here, and
Speaker 1: it's one that doesn't often get seriously considered in the
Speaker 1: mass media because when we call something a curse, we're
Speaker 1: conjuring these images, right of this, this nefarious warlock, a sorcerer,
Speaker 1: a witch, the evil eye, a pox on your house,
Speaker 1: and all this highly dramatic fictional stuff. Yeah, grim was
Speaker 1: I have newt right, secret, secret arcane markings in the
Speaker 1: house where you can't see, right, written.
Speaker 6: In blood, written in blood, Grandma's You ever been cursed
Speaker 6: by a grandma? That's pretty that's the worst kind of curse.
Speaker 3: A grandmother curse.
Speaker 1: The worst kind of curse in the first is the
Speaker 1: words of a grandmother.
Speaker 3: Right, so.
Speaker 2: Hold the horses, she's heading for the buckwheat. That's not
Speaker 2: my grandmother cursed.
Speaker 1: But there there can be something foul afoot the functions
Speaker 1: like a curse without it necessarily being supernatural. One of
Speaker 1: these could be. One example of this would be a
Speaker 1: blood feud. So if, for instance, and I will not
Speaker 1: use us as examples because I don't want to jinx us, right,
Speaker 1: that's just another version that's like like a low level curse.
Speaker 3: I want to jinx us.
Speaker 1: So let's say that's when you curse yourself by accident
Speaker 1: or whomever said I hated that game.
Speaker 3: When people we say the same thing. Yeah, I was
Speaker 3: trying to let people.
Speaker 2: Will says it's a conspiracy by the Coca Cola company
Speaker 2: to get you to buy other people cokes. Just so
Speaker 2: you know that.
Speaker 5: Oh that's right, it's one, two, three four you owe
Speaker 5: me a coke? Like what, Yeah, that's a big thing.
Speaker 2: You have to buy coke for a really yeah, conspiracy.
Speaker 1: So there can be a vendetta in curse form that
Speaker 1: functions like a curse but doesn't have supernatural stuff. It
Speaker 1: just has a group of people who have agreed to
Speaker 1: carry out actively, right.
Speaker 5: Just tormenting members of another.
Speaker 6: Like hat Fields and McCoy's or something like that, or
Speaker 6: you know, poisonings, political assassinations, you know, crimes of that level.
Speaker 3: Too, right, right, right, exactly.
Speaker 6: And when you're a big giant political dynasty like the Kennedy's, right,
Speaker 6: you're a target, man, you got a you're a moving target.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what I'm thinking because the primary examples for
Speaker 1: people who believe there is a curse in something that
Speaker 1: operates like it would be the allegations of the assassination
Speaker 1: of RFK being related to his investigation of his brother's assassination.
Speaker 3: That for people who believe they are related, and.
Speaker 1: I'm one, I rarely stayed my personal opinion on the show.
Speaker 1: But too much stuff, too much stuff adds.
Speaker 5: You really brought it full circle.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 5: That's really interesting.
Speaker 6: It's a really good point you make that this, you know,
Speaker 6: curse is another name for a phenomenon that you can't
Speaker 6: fully explain. But when you really start to look at
Speaker 6: this situation, it really starts to feel more like they
Speaker 6: just had a lot of enemies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, they definitely had quite a few conflicts.
Speaker 1: I don't think you can get it at that level
Speaker 1: without it. But whether you want to call it a curse,
Speaker 1: the result of being above the law for generations or
Speaker 1: just playing bad luck, the Kennedy family remains beset by
Speaker 1: problems in the modern day. That is correct, folks. The
Speaker 1: tragedies did not stop after the assassinations. They did not
Speaker 1: stop with the stuff we mentioned, and the Kennedys are
Speaker 1: not always the victims in these situations. In seventy three.
Speaker 1: Nineteen seventy three, August Joseph P. Kennedy the Second crashed
Speaker 1: a gep paralyzed his passenger. David Kennedy died of a
Speaker 1: drug overdose in Palm Beach in nineteen eighty four. In April,
Speaker 1: and then William Kennedy Smith was arrested and charged with
Speaker 1: the rape of a young woman in the Palm Beach
Speaker 1: Kennedy estate in April of nineteen ninety one. He has
Speaker 1: received numerous charges of sexual assault. This was the only
Speaker 1: one to go to court and he was acquitted.
Speaker 6: No way, Yeah, sarcastic if you couldn't.
Speaker 2: Tell if you're interested in that aspect of certain Kennedys.
Speaker 2: But if there's also rumors about a lot of the
Speaker 2: other male Kennedy's right having to do with sexual assault
Speaker 2: and rape in some of these things, most of these
Speaker 2: are allegations that cannot be proven. But you can go
Speaker 2: to the New York Post and you can read something
Speaker 2: by Maureen Callahan and it's called the Real Curse of
Speaker 2: the Kennedy and it deals a lot with some of
Speaker 2: these allegations.
Speaker 1: And then we have the case of Michael Skakeel, a
Speaker 1: nephew of Robert Kennedy's widow, Ethel Kennedy, who was convicted
Speaker 1: of bludgeoning his neighbor in two thousand and two.
Speaker 6: Wait, wait, wait, this is the first non Kennedy name
Speaker 6: we've had in this sordid tale. Why is the escape
Speaker 6: and not a Kennedy?
Speaker 1: This is the redman to the Wu Tangs kind of
Speaker 1: situation I have mentioned earlier. Yeah, both were fifteen at
Speaker 1: the time. I feel like we talked. Did we talk
Speaker 1: about this in the chap Equittic episode?
Speaker 2: I don't think we have.
Speaker 1: Oh well, he was accused of bludgeoning a girl named
Speaker 1: Martha Moxley to death with a golf club when they
Speaker 1: were both fifteen. There were some other kids that were there.
Speaker 1: He was granted a new trial in twenty thirteen and
Speaker 1: freed on bail. Three years later, prosecutors appealed the court
Speaker 1: reinstated his conviction. He's asked them to reconsider. He's still
Speaker 1: on bail.
Speaker 2: Jeez. So that was two thousand and two when he
Speaker 2: was first like taking a court for that stuff.
Speaker 3: That's when he was convicted.
Speaker 1: Yeah, gotcha, And he was convicted of doing that. But
Speaker 1: he was convicted in two thousand and two. But the
Speaker 1: crime occurred in nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 2: Okay, and then we had those two in the nineties,
Speaker 2: by the way, the skiing accident, and then I think
Speaker 2: one car accident or was that a plane crash, plane
Speaker 2: crash plane straight yeah, yeah, that was ninety nine JFK.
Speaker 2: Junior's plane crash. So two in the nineties. Then there
Speaker 2: after that, and then we get to twenty twelve May sixteenth,
Speaker 2: This is when Mary Richardson Kennedy was found. She had
Speaker 2: committed suicide. She was found there on the estate in Bedford,
Speaker 2: New York. And that remember that thing that we were
Speaker 2: talking about, the real curse of the Kennedys, It surrounds
Speaker 2: that particular suicide. If you're interested again, if you want
Speaker 2: to read more.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, on this note, of course, as Matt said,
Speaker 1: every death is too soon, and so we hope that
Speaker 1: we hope that.
Speaker 3: If except for Hitler, for Hitler, sure.
Speaker 1: And so of course we hope that your family is
Speaker 1: not beset by problems like this. We also want to
Speaker 1: know what do you think. Do you think there is
Speaker 1: a genuine curse or is this just an agglomeration of
Speaker 1: coincidence framed in a specific way.
Speaker 5: You know, m hm.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And if you do think it is a curse,
Speaker 2: why do you think it's happening. What's the core of it,
Speaker 2: the inciting incident, I guess because there's always one of those,
Speaker 2: if there is a curse.
Speaker 1: And I'm interested if a Kennedy ran for president today,
Speaker 1: once you vote for.
Speaker 2: Them, mm on principle, Like just because it's a name,
Speaker 2: is what we're asking you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like name recognition far Like how much does that
Speaker 1: play into the story.
Speaker 2: And we're just thinking about it's because we're thinking about
Speaker 2: changing our names honestly to Kennedy to so we can
Speaker 2: run for office. So all three of.
Speaker 3: Us are all four of us paulls out on this
Speaker 3: full disclosure.
Speaker 2: We're all going to start flying small aircraft ink cod but.
Speaker 1: You know, we'll be careful and it has to be
Speaker 1: four of us so that we're not kkk.
Speaker 3: Yep, you know what I mean. Just think of the
Speaker 3: memes we got to have.
Speaker 2: For once one of us goes down, though we're screwed.
Speaker 1: Maybe we should each just get take the name of
Speaker 1: a political dynasty.
Speaker 2: Okay, there could be a Roosevelt Roosevelt, Kennedy, Bush Clinton.
Speaker 1: Oh who got stuck with Bush I'll be bush.
Speaker 5: That's good.
Speaker 2: It's all.
Speaker 6: I knew the golden pipes would would rear their beautiful
Speaker 6: tones eventually.
Speaker 1: And since we we finally got some amazing uh map
Speaker 1: pressions Matt impressions there, that means.
Speaker 5: We can Matt libs, Matt lips.
Speaker 3: There we go. That's worth it.
Speaker 1: We can now bid this episode a do in peace,
Speaker 1: lay it to rest, and hope that stragedies do not
Speaker 1: continue in the Kennedy family, in your own family, heck,
Speaker 1: in any family.
Speaker 5: Haven't they suffered.
Speaker 2: Enough enough with the tragedies world and fate and whoever
Speaker 2: else controls this kind of thing. Stop it just be nice.
Speaker 1: But yeah, let us know what do you think it's
Speaker 1: a matter of karma? Is a coincidence? We want to
Speaker 1: hear your take. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook,
Speaker 1: and Twitter, where we are conspiracy stuff, conspiracy Stuff show
Speaker 1: some variation thereof.
Speaker 6: You can also find us on Facebook, and if you
Speaker 6: really want to go down a fun rabbit hole, you
Speaker 6: can join our Here's where It Gets Crazy Facebook group
Speaker 6: where you'll find things like this amazing poster of this
Speaker 6: upcoming movie starring Sam Elliott called the Man Who Killed
Speaker 6: Hitler and then the Bigfoot.
Speaker 2: Oh really both.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm both a ring Sam Elliott, Aiden Turner, Caitlin
Speaker 6: Fitzgerald and Larry Miller and our boy Ron Livingston. And
Speaker 6: at first people thought that it was a spoof, but
Speaker 6: it is a real picture my friends coming soon to
Speaker 6: a cinema near you.
Speaker 2: Wow. Okay, And that's the end of this classic episode.
Speaker 2: If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode,
Speaker 2: you can get into contact with us in a number
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Speaker 2: us a call. Our number is one eight three three STDWYTK.
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Speaker 2: us a good old fashioned email.
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