Still No Peace

Exploiting a Kennedy tragedy

After David Kennedy's death, at the age of 28, in a Palm Beach, Fla., hotel suite two weeks ago, his uncle Senator Edward Kennedy issued a statement expressing the family's grief and final hope: "With trust in God, we all pray that David has finally found the peace that he did not find in life." But the merciless public attention that tormented the third son of the slain Senator Robert F. Kennedy has intensified since the young man's death.

A Florida circuit court judge last week barred the release of an autopsy report, claiming that press coverage would hamper the criminal investigation under way to find the supplier of the 1.3 grams of cocaine found in David's room. Kennedy, had a history of drug and alcohol abuse, and initial tests found traces of cocaine and the prescription painkiller Demerol in his body. If David died of a drug overdose, under Florida law the person who sold him the cocaine can be charged with murder. Although withholding autopsy details is standard procedure in any homicide investigation, three Florida newspaper groups and a Miami TV station have sued the state to release the information.

The court controversy is adding to what many see as a morbid carnival surrounding the death. The New York Post recounted Kennedy's recent dates and romantic interests and printed a poem reportedly written by him while in a drug-rehabilitation facility. In the Los Angeles Times last week, Diane Broughton, a writer and cable television talk-show host, felt compelled to correct the story that David Kennedy was alone in a hotel room 16 years ago when he saw his father's assassination on television. Broughton, then a campaign worker for Senator Kennedy, says that she was babysitting with six of the Kennedy brood that night, including the twelve-year-old David. "He just sat there," Broughton remembers, "and I just got up right next to David and started stroking his hair."

All of this no doubt reflects an insatiable public craving for Kennedy lore--a craving that may have been the cause of some of David's troubles. In an interview with the New York Daily News, Paula Scully, a Boston-based fashion photographer and friend of Kennedy's, recalled watching David read an excerpt from The Kennedys: An American Dream, a soon-to-be-published book by David Horowitz and Peter Collier. "He bent his head over and said, 'My God, this is awful. It's trash,' " said Scully. "He felt betrayed and used," she added. "It was just one more time that he had been exploited."