The Hidden Kennedy Daughter: Why Her Father Had Rosemary Lobotomized

Rosemary Kennedy's lobotomy was kept out of the family's letters for twenty years. Weeks after the operation, her mother Rose Kennedy typed a cheerful letter to her children about the rain in Palm Beach, her golf game and the family dogs. Rosemary wasn't in it. This is the file on the hidden Kennedy daughter. We follow Rosemary from her birth in Brookline in 1918 to the London years, the operation her father Joseph P. Kennedy authorized in November 1941, and the two decades she spent out of sight in Wisconsin. Along the way we open the documents: Rose's 1942 letter from the National Archives, the 1941 magazine article that sold the lobotomy to America, the surgeon's own account, and the 1962 article in which her sister Eunice first spoke about Rosemary in public, and what she still left out. Every exhibit in this documentary is a real document. When a detail rests on a single witness, we say so. EXHIBITS A · Rose Kennedy, letter to her children, Jan. 12, 1942 (National Archives, NARA 192748) B · Rosemary Kennedy's letters (John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, shown as paraphrase) C · "Turning the Mind Inside Out," The Saturday Evening Post, May 24, 1941 D · Dr. James W. Watts, as quoted in Ronald Kessler, The Sins of the Father (1996) E · Eunice Kennedy Shriver, "Hope for Retardening Post, Sept. 22, 1962 F · Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys (1987) MAIN SOURCES Kate Clifford Larson, Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter (2015) Kennedy Library Forum with Kate Clifford Larson, Oct. 14, 2015 (JFK Library transcript) Ronald Kessler, The Sins of the Father (1996) Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys (1987) National Archives, NARA 192748 Subscribe and open the next file: https://wws?sub_confirmation=1 IMAGE & FILM CREDITS Family photographs of Rosemary Kennedy: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Kennedy Family Collection (incl. portraits by Angus McBean, 1938, and Associated Press, 1939). Used for commentary and criticism (fair use). Public-domain images: National Archives, Library of Congress (HABS), Wikimedia Commons. CC-licensed images: Craig House driveway (geograph.org.uk, CC BY-SA 2.0); Kennedy Compound (CC BY-SA 4.0); Doris Kearns Goodwin (CC BY-SA 4.0); Eunice Kennedy Shriver 1980 (CC BY-SA 4.0); Buckingham Palace, Fortepan 54192 (CC BY-SA 3.0); Watts–Freeman instruments, Wellcome Co Archival film (Prelinger Archives / Internet Archive, public domain): Prefrontal Lobotomy in Chronic Schizophrenia (1944); Symptoms in Schizophrenia (1940s); Divide and Conquer (1943); Safety Patrol (1937); Boats (1938); Midwest Holiday (1952); Massachusetts Catholic famil shown in hospital films are NOT RosemaryKennedy. Music: Mixkit (Mixkit License). Narration is AI-generated. #RosemaryKennedy #KennedyFamily #Kennedys #RoseKennedy #JosephKennedy #Lobotomy #HiddenKennedy #KennedyHistory #AmericanHistory #HistoryDocumentary #TheSealedPapers