Did presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cheat on his important Harvard dissertation by letting his roommate do some, most, or all of the work?
Some believe he did.
Kennedy’s roommate of all four years, Peter Kaplan, was the editor-in-chief of the 1980s business magazine Manhattan, Inc., the executive producer of Charlie Rose when Kennedy had a PBS show, and the long-running He worked as an editor and later became one of the most prominent journalists of his generation. He is the executive director of the New York Observer, which was bought by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
At Harvard, Kaplan was a stringer for Time magazine.
By contrast, Kennedy, who thought it would be fun to take snakes to Harvard, apparently had no loftier ambitions than getting high and chasing women.
It’s a story that began before the Kennedy scions even attended Harvard, as I revealed in my best-selling, unofficial biography, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Dark Side of Dreams.
In the spring of 1972, after being expelled from two elite boarding schools for misbehavior and drug use, 18-year-old Kennedy finally made it to fourth grade at an ultra-progressive school outside Boston. . , and he was about to choose a university.
Naturally, there was only one university. Harvard, the college he considered his “birthright”, is the college where his two generations of Kennedy ancestors, including his late father, attended.
However, to his surprise, his senior classmates claimed that he submitted his application with just two words, “Kennedy” and “Harvard,” and was accepted.
Years later, when a close friend heard about what he allegedly did, she called it “disgusting.” It just reeks of arrogance. “
Kennedy entered Harvard in the fall of 1972 and was placed in a dorm room at Harvard’s Hurlbut Hall, where he was paired with Kaplan, an American studies major.
This combination was even more polar opposites. Kennedy, a Catholic scion of a billionaire family, shared a room with his public-school-educated Jewish son in South Orange, New Jersey. The two became lifelong friends.
“Bobby was considered a ‘harvard cutie,'” recalled a classmate. “Bobby wasn’t often fucked just because his name was Kennedy. He was a gorgeous animal at the time, an incredibly attractive guy, and there were girls in his dorm room.” They kept coming.”
To some, the bright, bespectacled Kaplan seemed like Kennedy’s slave, willing to do anything for him.
It began with experimenting with cocaine and marijuana, and, unlike Kennedy, Kaplan, who had never dabbled in drugs for recreation until he met Kennedy, extended to helping Kennedy with his classes.
In the fall of 1975, Kennedy, who had just survived three years at Harvard, began working on his thesis with Kaplan.
The two, accompanied by Kennedy’s setter Hogan, traveled by jeep to the Deep South. Kennedy’s goal, perhaps an idea put forward by Kaplan, was to write about the “recent historical and political developments” of Alabama.
“Were you a slave to Peter Bobby?” says a close friend from Harvard. “No, it’s not.
“But Bobby saw Peter as an academically brilliant man, and whenever Peter could tap into his brilliant mind, he was ready to write Bobby’s papers in whole or in part.” A friend argues.
“Peter was to Bobby what Google is to people today.”
They chose the “Dixie Heart” state because its governor was George Wallace, a charismatic Democrat and hardcore racist. Wallace was shot by an assassin during the 1972 presidential campaign, leaving him paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair.
“Wallace was sitting behind his desk in a wheelchair and looking pretty awful,” Kaplan later said. “But it was clear he felt a great bond with Bobby.
“When Wallace was shot, [Kennedy’s mother] Ethel went to see him and invited him to stay here. [the Kennedy home] hickory hill. He hadn’t done it, but he hadn’t forgotten the offer. “
During their tour of the South, they heard an interesting story about liberal federal judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr., who oversaw civil rights cases. Kennedy, in consultation with Kaplan, decided to make Johnson the subject of his senior thesis.
Back at Harvard, my dissertation was completed and accepted by the university.Kennedy boasted He won the ‘Come Plus’, which is equivalent to an A in honors.
But it was questionable how much, if not all, of it was actually written by Kennedy.
A close friend of Kennedy and Kaplan claims:
“He felt he was helping his friends, and I think he felt honored to be seen as useful, an intellectual and a writer. He was.
“Peter was exploited to some extent, but it was a two-way street. He was interested in being friends with Bobby, enjoying the excitement and fun and brilliance of the Kennedys.”
Bobby clearly seemed to be following in his uncle John F. Kennedy’s footsteps.
John F. Kennedy was also accused of not finishing his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1957 book, A Profile of Courage.
Theodore Sorensen, a speechwriter and political strategist for JFK, reportedly “wrote the first drafts of most of the chapters and helped with the word choice for many of the sentences,” according to Sorensen’s 2008 memoir in The Wall. Reviewed by The Street Journal.
After JFK’s victory, Pulister Sorensen “was willing to accept large sums of money” for his editorial work.
In 1977, Bobby Kennedy’s men arranged for the manuscript to be sent to Phyllis Gran, a notable new boss at major publisher Putnam.
It took a lot of editing and rewriting “to make it more like a commercial book,” Gran said. “I was thrilled that it was by Kennedy. Who wouldn’t?”
Kennedy told The New York Times that he had “changed the focus” of his papers in the book, but did not mention Kaplan.
“I personally found Gov. Wallace to be a lot of fun. He has some admirable qualities,” he told The Times. “He is seriously concerned with state rights, not racism. I changed the focus of the paper, which was broadly about the integration of Alabama, but a balanced portrayal of the governor.” I am trying to do.”
The review of the 288-page tome “Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr.: A Biography,” published in the summer of 1978, was scathing.
A New York Times reviewer asserted that the book “doesn’t adequately define Judge Johnson’s role in modern Southern history, nor does it capture a compelling, intertwined narrative.”
And the Harvard Law Review, a publication from Kennedy’s prestigious alma mater, called the book “a grave disappointment…”.
In an interview with The People, Kennedy attributed his failure to being part of a “controversial political dynasty” and “because of the publicity, people’s expectations of the book were higher than they originally were.” ‘ said. “
The loyal Mr. Kaplan, who died of cancer in 2013 at the age of 59, took everything he knew about researching, writing and editing Kennedy’s papers to the grave. The Kennedy campaign did not respond to the Post’s request for comment.
A memorial service was held a year after Kaplan’s death shocked the journalism world he was so loved and respected for.
Kennedy, one of Kaplan’s memory exchanges, recalls his “encyclopedic memory” and, decades earlier, while on a thesis adventure in the South, met Clansman in Alabama, and Peter. I remembered introducing him to his great wizard as “that Jew.” and modified it with the adverb “Real dang”. ”
Kennedy and the others in the room laughed heartily.
Jerry Oppenheimer is the author of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Dark Side of the Dream, published by St. Martin’s Press.
