Kennedy Smith

Read together, "The Kennedy Women" and "The Other Mrs. Kennedy" are an almost overwhelming catalog of tragedy, dysfunction and scandal, along with endless details on clothes, china and silver patterns. Inevitably, gossip columns have started to seize on what is new, emphasizing the more sensational revelations. These include:* Adultery: According to "The Kennedy Women," Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy not only ignored the philandering of Joseph Kennedy Sr.; she advised her daughters-in-law that that was their lot as well.

William Kennedy Smith married girlfriend Anne Henry Saturday in a picturesque white chapel on Tilghman Island, then treated busloads of wedding guests to a reception and fireworks display at the $1.1 million waterfront farmhouse he bought in September. That's according to a real estate agent and inn keeper who, like many people on the 3-mile island, were aware of the goings-on. Smith, a nephew of President John F. Kennedy who was acquitted of rape and battery in 1991 by a Florida jury, did not respond to an e-mail message seeking comment.

At first, they say, they kept silent, fearing no one would believe their stories.Years later, when allegations against William Kennedy Smith emerged, the women say they felt a need to disclose their secrets, both to help the Florida woman who had accused Smith of rape and to prevent future acquaintance rapes.The three well-educated and upper-middle-class women, who apparently do not know each other, recently gave statements to Palm Beach, Fla., police, accusing Smith of attacking them. One says she was raped.

Read together, "The Kennedy Women" and "The Other Mrs. Kennedy" are an almost overwhelming catalog of tragedy, dysfunction and scandal, along with endless details on clothes, china and silver patterns. Inevitably, gossip columns have started to seize on what is new, emphasizing the more sensational revelations. These include:* Adultery: According to "The Kennedy Women," Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy not only ignored the philandering of Joseph Kennedy Sr.; she advised her daughters-in-law that that was their lot as well.

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Nearly a week after a woman said she was raped at the Kennedy family compound, police have made no arrests and the woman's family complained that the investigation was going nowhere.The stepfather of the alleged victim said yesterday he was growing impatient with the progress of the case and might soon hire an attorney to represent his family."I'm thinking of getting a lawyer," the man said in a telephone interview, as the media laid siege to his stepdaughter's home.Meanwhile, Capt.

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Accompanied by his mother, William Kennedy Smith surrendered to police yesterday to face charges that he assaulted and raped a Florida woman Easter weekend.Steadfastly maintaining his innocence, Mr. Smith, 30, a member of America's best-known political family, insisted to reporters here yesterday that the alleged victim had concocted her story about a rape.He called the allegation an "outrageous lie" and said it represented an attack on him and his family.Mr. Smith said he looked forward to a trial, vowing, "The truth will come out."

Crowning touch Opera tenor Luciano Pavarotti made a trip to a Newark, N.J., hospital Wednesday, but he wasn't worried about his health. He helped dedicate a $25 million hospital wing named in his honor.The Luciano Pavarotti Pavilion at Columbus Hospital features surgical services and maternal-child health units. The Italian star, who is preparing for a concert in New York's Central Park this weekend, performed a benefit concert for the hospital in 1981.Medicine's origins are all Greek to himGreece granted citizenship yesterday to Dr. Christiaan N. Barnard, the South African surgeon who performed the world's first human heart transplant.

JUPITER, Fla. -- A Jupiter woman secluded herself in her home yesterday while nearly two dozen reporters stood vigil outside, believing her to be the person who told police she was raped at the Kennedy family's seaside mansion in Palm Beach, Fla.The woman, who has not been publicly identified, would not answer her door and appeared outside only briefly.Members of the Kennedy clan, meanwhile, continued to distance themselves from the alleged Easter weekend sexual assault."I think all the members of the Kennedy family are obviously distressed by the reports that have come out of Florida over a period of the past few days," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and his son Patrick issued statements yesterday saying they were not involved in a sexual assault that allegedly took place at the Kennedy compound here over the weekend.A 30-year-old woman says she was raped at the Kennedy family's beachfront estate early Saturday, after encountering Senator Kennedy, one of his sons and one of his nephews at a luxurious nightclub here.The woman, whose name has not been released, has identified an assailant by name, but investigators have yet to confirm her accusations, said Joseph L. Terlizzese, the chief of the Palm Beach Police Department.

William Kennedy Smith, telling his side of the story publicly for the first time since being charged with rape seven months ago, suggested that he is the true victim in the case and that his accuser is a "real nut" who is punishing him for forgetting her name during sex.Prosecutors say Smith, 31, met the woman in a Palm Beach bar in March and and accompanied her to the Kennedy estate, where he attacked her. But Smith countered that the 30-year-old Jupiter,...

Crowning touch Opera tenor Luciano Pavarotti made a trip to a Newark, N.J., hospital Wednesday, but he wasn't worried about his health. He helped dedicate a $25 million hospital wing named in his honor.The Luciano Pavarotti Pavilion at Columbus Hospital features surgical services and maternal-child health units. The Italian star, who is preparing for a concert in New York's Central Park this weekend, performed a benefit concert for the hospital in 1981.Medicine's origins are all Greek to himGreece granted citizenship yesterday to Dr. Christiaan N. Barnard, the South African surgeon who performed the world's first human heart transplant.

William Kennedy Smith, telling his side of the story publicly for the first time since being charged with rape seven months ago, suggested that he is the true victim in the case and that his accuser is a "real nut" who is punishing him for forgetting her name during sex.Prosecutors say Smith, 31, met the woman in a Palm Beach bar in March and and accompanied her to the Kennedy estate, where he attacked her. But Smith countered that the 30-year-old Jupiter,...

The Florida woman who charges William Kennedy Smith raped her was to face his lawyers for the first time today when she begins three days of questioning under oath.But attorneys for the 30-year-old single mother have told the court their client would refuse to answer any questions about her sexual history. If the judge orders the woman to respond, her lawyers have said they plan an immediate appeal that could delay the trial, set to start Oct. 30."This is in no way intended as a threat or anything else," Douglas N. Duncan said to Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Mary E. Lupo in July.

At first, they say, they kept silent, fearing no one would believe their stories.Years later, when allegations against William Kennedy Smith emerged, the women say they felt a need to disclose their secrets, both to help the Florida woman who had accused Smith of rape and to prevent future acquaintance rapes.The three well-educated and upper-middle-class women, who apparently do not know each other, recently gave statements to Palm Beach, Fla., police, accusing Smith of attacking them. One says she was raped.

Now that formal charges have been filed in the alleged Kennedy compound rape, now that the experts on rape have bored us with countless hours on TV talk shows, now that witnesses have made what could easilybe viewed as self-serving statements in public, it is time to make some assessment about the probable truthfulness of the alleged victim's charges.It is necessary to make some assessment from the released investigative records because a U.S. criminal trial is not a search for the truth.

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Patrick Kennedy called the woman in the Kennedy estate case a "Fatal Attraction" character and testified that his cousin, William Kennedy Smith, told him after the episode that he thought he was being "set up."Mr. Kennedy's account came from more than 1,000 pages of witness statements and reports that police released yesterday."In my view this was a person, like I said, sort of a 'Fatal Attraction' you couldn't get rid of and was saying all sorts of wild things and that is the way he had conveyed it to me," said Mr. Kennedy, 24, a Rhode Island legislator and son of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.

Now that formal charges have been filed in the alleged Kennedy compound rape, now that the experts on rape have bored us with countless hours on TV talk shows, now that witnesses have made what could easilybe viewed as self-serving statements in public, it is time to make some assessment about the probable truthfulness of the alleged victim's charges.It is necessary to make some assessment from the released investigative records because a U.S. criminal trial is not a search for the truth.

Boston. -- In the days after the cry of rape turned the Kennedy compound into a media campground, we read much about the woman who accused William Kennedy Smith.She is 29 years old, 5 feet 7 inches tall, blonde. She has a 2-year-old daughter. She is the only child of an Ohio auto-maintenance worker and a secretary who got divorced. She was a C student in an Akron high school. Her stepfather is a retired well-to-do industrialist who divorced his wife and married her mother after a long affair.

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Lawyers for William Kennedy Smith disclosed yesterday that an eyewitness disputes a 29-year-old woman's allegation that Mr. Smith raped her at the Kennedy family estate here and can testify that "nothing untoward" occurred.Existence of the eyewitness, whose name was not revealed, came as the defense lawyers sought to pressure Palm Beach police from making public more than 1,300 pages of investigative files that the attorneys claim are incomplete.The files give "an unfair, one-sided" summary of the investigation, Mark P. Schnapp, Mr. Smith's Palm Beach lawyer, said in a letter yesterday to David H. Bludworth, Palm Beach County state attorney.

PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Accompanied by his mother, William Kennedy Smith surrendered to police yesterday to face charges that he assaulted and raped a Florida woman Easter weekend.Steadfastly maintaining his innocence, Mr. Smith, 30, a member of America's best-known political family, insisted to reporters here yesterday that the alleged victim had concocted her story about a rape.He called the allegation an "outrageous lie" and said it represented an attack on him and his family.Mr. Smith said he looked forward to a trial, vowing, "The truth will come out."