My real name is Joe Kennedy, but if you live in Massachusetts, you can't sign 'Joe Kennedy.' So, back in 1957, I stuck the X on my name to be different from those people in Hyannis Port.
Declassified papers report that John Kennedy was taking eight different medications a day. He was so wasted, his Secret Service code name was Ted Kennedy.
My son's full real name is Duncan Zowie Haywood. As a toddler he was called by his second name Zowie. But it was such an identifiable name during the Seventies that if I called him loudly in public places, everyone would turn to stare, so I started calling him Joey to take the pressure off. It has the same sound and number of syllables as Zowie. And Joe stuck for most of his childhood. Now he has reverted to his real name, Duncan. Haywood was my father's name.
When I was in Congress, I worked with Joe Kennedy to rename the Justice Department for Bobby, and when I retired, Teddy Kennedy sent me this Roy Lichtenstein print of his brother, inscribed: 'Bobby would have been proud of you.'
When I was a West Virginia lad of 17, I met a Massachusetts lad of 42 by the name of John F. Kennedy. At the time, I was in a bright orange suit that I had just purchased to wear to the 1960 National Science Fair, where I hoped my home-built rockets would win a medal. Kennedy was in West Virginia trying to win the state's presidential primary.
My uncle Claude was my favorite uncle he was also my godfather. He and I were really, really close. He used to take me to see cowboy movies all the time when I was a little boy because I loved cowboy movies. He got a cowboy name for me, which was Smokey Joe. So from the time I was three years old if people asked me what my name was I didn't tell them my name was William, I told them my name was Smokey Joe.
In August 1961, I visited President Kennedy at Hyannis Port. The Berlin Wall was going up, and he was about to begin a huge military buildup - reluctantly, or so he said, as he puffed on a cigar liberated by a friend from Castro's Cuba.
Like environmentalists, politicians generally privilege flora and fauna over folks. (NIMBYs excepted. Senator Edward Kennedy is a not-in-my-backyard environmentalist: he opposes wind farms in Nantucket Sound, offshore from his Hyannis Port compound.)
Joe Kennedy is one of the biggest crooks who ever lived.
Joe Kennedy was a massive figure on all kinds of levels.
She was very kind to us when Joe and I went through the darkest days of the leak of my name in 2003. And, of course, Joe worked in the Clinton White House.
It's my real name. My mother's name is Rose Rock. It was the worst name as a kid to have. They called me Piece of the Rock, Plymouth Rock, Joe Rockid, and Flintstones. Now they call me Mister Rock.
I remember [Joe] Lovano came around to me at that time [of Monk competition]. And I had taken some lessons with Joe and I had seen Joe on the scene. He had always been so great to me, such and inspiration and so kind. One lesson that I had with Joe was just amazing. I'm just such a fan and an admirer of his on every level. He was like, "Don't worry... you're just out here. You just do what you're doing. Don't worry if it doesn't make you a household name or anything."
I could be like Joe Kennedy and say, 'My kids are going to run for president!'
Joe Kennedy isn't in the habit of having incompetents around. I wouldn't have lasted three months if I didn't have some ability.
When I was a kid, Eisenhower had been President forever, and all of a sudden, everything in the world was all about Jack Kennedy. I was 12, interested in politics; my father was from Massachusetts, had an accent like Kennedy.
I decided that I was going to be the Kennedy who makes her own name and finds her own job and works like a dog. My comeuppance was when Arnold got elected - I became the Kennedy who was married to the governor.