Biggest cover-up of mental health in history

WHEN 86-year-old Rosemary Kennedy, sister of President John F Kennedy, died in January 2005, the New York Times ran a story saying she had been born mentally disabled.

This, it seemed, was the final chapter in what Dr Bertram Brown, an advisEr to President Kennedy and one of few who knew the truth about Rosemary, called the biggest cover-up of mental health in history.

The truth was that in the autumn of 1941, when Rosemary was 23, her father Joe arranged for a frontal lobotomy to be performed on her.

It left the young woman in an almost vegetative state, and she was hidden away in an institution for the rest of her life.

Born in 1918, she was the third child of Joe and Rose Kennedy. While she was always seen as slower than her siblings, she was good-natured and in her teens could write letters, keep a diary, and do arithmetic. However as she grew older, her behaviour became problematic.

She became increasingly assertive, and subject to violent mood swings. Worried about her future, her parents gave permission for a new surgical procedure aimed at calming such behaviour — then being pioneered in the US by Dr Walter Freeman.

While Dr Freeman supervised, another doctor, Dr James Watts, did the surgery. In the only interview he ever gave on the subject he described how he performed the lobotomy.

“After Rosemary was mildly sedated, we went through the top of the head. I think she was awake. She had a mild tranquilliser. I made a surgical incision in the brain through the skull. It was near the front. It was on both sides. We just made a small incision, no more than an inch.”

As Dr Watts cut, Dr Freeman asked Rosemary questions. For example, he would ask her to sing God Bless America or to count backwards. As he cut, her pulse became more rapid, and her blood pressure rose.

“We made an estimate on how far to cut based on how she responded,” Dr Watts said. “I would make the incisions, and Dr Freeman would estimate how much to cut as she talked. He talked to her. He would say that’s enough.”

According to Dr Watts, when Rosemary began to become incoherent, they stopped. It was immediately apparent the procedure had failed horribly. Yes it had stopped Rosemary’s violent behaviour, but it left her with the mental capacity of a two-year-old, incontinent and unable to speak intelligibly.

So Rosemary had been mentally ill — and not “retarded” as the family claimed. And misguided efforts to cure her left her severely damaged.

Mental retardation, it seems, was more acceptable to the Kennedy family than mental illness.

Perhaps it was to somehow make up for what happened to her sister that Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who passed away this week, spent her life championing people with disabilities.

Eunice told the world of her sister’s condition in 1962 in a moving magazine article, now widely seen as a turning point in the way society treated the developmentally disabled. In it she wrote: “Early in life Rosemary was different. She was slower to crawl, slower to walk and speak than her two bright brothers. My mother was told she would catch up later, but she never did.

“Rosemary was mentally retarded. At 22, [Rosemary] was becoming increasingly irritable and difficult. Her memory and concentration and her judgment were declining.

“My mother took Rosemary to psychologists and dozens of doctors. All of them said her condition would not get better and that she would be far happier in an institution, where competition was far less and where our numerous activities would not endanger her health. It fills me with sadness to think this change might not have been necessary if we had known then what we know today — that 75% to 85% of the retarded are capable of becoming useful citizens with the help of special education and rehabilitation.

“My mother found an excellent Catholic institution that specialised in the care of retarded children and adults. Rosemary is there now. She has found peace in a new home where there is not need for ‘keeping up’, or for brooding over why she can’t join in activities as others do. This, coupled with the understanding of the sisters in charge, makes life agreeable for her.”

While this admission was groundbreaking at the time, Eunice never admitted the truth of what really happened to Rosemary.

Perhaps she could not, as father to the clan Joe orchestrated a cover-up. When asked about her, he would tell writers who were given access to the Kennedys that Rosemary taught retarded children.

The sad truth was that Rosemary did not fit in with the picture perfect all-American Kennedy clan and her father’s desire to achieve it left her severely handicapped. Dr Brown believes the family’s treatment of Rosemary led to her mental illness.

“I think it’s likely she was somewhat slower than the others,” he is reported as saying. “Then she was treated as if she was retarded. Then it becomes reactive depression, including rages and loss of control. That is mental illness. The reason she got depressed was that she reacted to being treated as a lesser member of the family, given the highly competitive environment of the Kennedy family, they could not help but to communicate to her that she was not up to their standards.”