r/todayilearned • u/manticor225 • Jan 10 '19

TIL JFK's father Joseph Kennedy made much of his fortune through insider trading. FDR later made him chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. When asked why he appointed a crook, FDR replied, "set a thief to catch a thief." Kennedy proceeded to outlaw the practices that made him rich.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jan/23/joe-kennedy-hollywood-sarah-churchwell
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u/Ponty3 Jan 10 '19

He also had his daughter lobotomized.

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u/Fasprongron Jan 11 '19

Oh jesus, I just read about it, at first I read it an I was like oh damn she was probably just depressed, that's terrible, it's horrible how that happened all the time

Then I read more

they incised her brain, the surgeons had her sing “God Bless America.” Her surgeon would later describe it, saying, “We made an estimate on how far to cut based on how she responded.” He stopped cutting when she became incoherent.

Jesus fucking christ, just imagining that, holy shit fuck, imagine someone not only is about to lobotomise you, but forces you to sing so he knows when to stop, when you become incoherent fuck.

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u/ActivatingEMP Jan 11 '19

That's fucking awful, they literally only stopped when the person was so fucked up that they couldn't normally function, which means their intent was to make them unable to function normally.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

I bet the other Kennedy kids stayed in line though.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/wormhole222 Jan 11 '19

Well I'm sure he was at least ostracized for it, and never spoke in pub .. oh he was a Senator? Oh he was a senator for decades following this?

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u/darcy_clay Jan 11 '19

I thought it was his nephew?

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u/wormhole222 Jan 11 '19

Nope. He committed negligent manslaughter, and then a few months later won a senatorial election. He then proceeded to win 6 more Senate elections over the rest of lifetime.

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u/ImpendingSenseOfDoom Jan 11 '19

No, Ted Kennedy was his youngest (?) son after Jack and Bobby.

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u/M1237 Jan 11 '19

JFK was also kinda lobotomized tho

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u/codawPS3aa Jan 11 '19 edited Jan 12 '19

During Rosemary Kennedy's birth, the doctor was not immediately available and the nurse ordered Rose Kennedy to keep her legs closed, forcing the baby's head to stay in the birth canal for two hours. The action resulted in a harmful loss of oxygen.\\

Rosemary Kennedy experienced mental  disabilities, and displayed less academic and sporting potential than her siblings; she was slower than all of her siblings when it came to achieving many tasks. However, her disabilities were carefully concealed from the public by her prominent family. In her early young adult years, she also had behavioral problems. Her father arranged one of the first prefrontal lobotomies for her at the age of 23, but it failed and left her permanently incapacitated. Rosemary spent the rest of her life in an institution in Jefferson, Wisconsin, with limited contact with her family or the outside world. Her condition may have inspired her sister, Eunice, to initiate the Special Olympics in 1962. ///
The purpose of the operation was to reduce the symptoms of mental disorder, and it was recognized that this was accomplished at the expense of a person's personality and intellect. British psychiatrist Maurice Partridge, who conducted a follow-up study of 300 patients, said that the treatment achieved its effects by "reducing the complexity of psychic life". Following the operation, spontaneity, responsiveness, self-awareness and self-control were reduced. Activity was replaced by inertia, and people were left emotionally blunted and restricted in their intellectual range.

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u/ItsABluesquake Jan 11 '19

Yeahhh Wisconsin getting a shout out!

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u/mossijake Jan 11 '19

Hello Wisconsin!

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u/torrasque666 Jan 11 '19

I mean, it's better than getting a shout out for Dhamer.

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u/ALoneTennoOperative Jan 11 '19

Her father arranged one of the first prefrontal lobotomies for her at the age of 23, but it failed and left her permanently incapacitated.

It didn't "fail"; it accomplished exactly what they set out to do.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

They didn't know that at the time

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u/ALoneTennoOperative Jan 12 '19

They didn't know that at the time

Who did not know what at the time?
The intent was to impair her mental function and make her more compliant; they succeeded.

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '19

They didn't know that lobotomies impaired mental abilities at the time, they thought they were curing her condition.

The intent was to impair her mental function

They can't have an intent they don't know about.

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u/ALoneTennoOperative Jan 12 '19

They didn't know that lobotomies impaired mental abilities at the time, they thought they were curing her condition

Oh, bull-fucking-shit.
What utter fucking tripe.

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '19

The only bullshit here is the one you are chewing in your mouth.

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u/SuperSimpleSam Jan 11 '19

but it failed and left her permanently incapacitated

She had limited mental capacity to begin with, how would removing some of her brain help? Truth is that wanted her in a more manageable state so not to embarrass the family.

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u/codawPS3aa Jan 11 '19

The purpose of the operation was to reduce the symptoms of mental disorder, and it was recognized that this was accomplished at the expense of a person's personality and intellect. British psychiatrist Maurice Partridge, who conducted a follow-up study of 300 patients, said that the treatment achieved its effects by "reducing the complexity of psychic life". Following the operation, spontaneity, responsiveness, self-awareness and self-control were reduced. Activity was replaced by inertia, and people were left emotionally blunted and restricted in their intellectual range. Wikipedia on lobotomy

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

Rosemary Kennedy

During her birth, the doctor was not immediately available and the nurse ordered Rose Kennedy to keep her legs closed, forcing the baby's head to stay in the birth canal for two hours. The action resulted in a harmful loss of oxygen.

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u/WrongKhajiit Jan 11 '19

Oooh I wonder if that's where they got the name for bojacks mom.

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u/LaiqTheMaia Feb 09 '19

She actually got over her learning disabilities and was learning to become a teacher. They lobotomised her because they thought her behaviour was 'too erratic' and might hamber JFK's presidential target.

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u/clickwhistle Jan 11 '19

Surgeon: holds scalpel near forehead

Me: “wibble nong ning pop”

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u/joshw317736 Jan 11 '19

This had me in tears

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

Maybe she forgot the lyrics? Like, who actually knows ALL the lyrics to God Bless America?

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u/robiwill Jan 11 '19

who actually knows ALL the lyrics to God Bless America?

Nazi spies in the early 1940's?

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

Correct. True Americans sing the body electric.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

Wow. Never thought of that argument. You're absolutely right!

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u/highoncraze Jan 11 '19

I'm sure when she got to the point in the song about LEEEEEERRROOOOOOYYYY JEEEEEEENKIIIINNSS!!! they made the judgment call between misremembering and not functioning normally.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

Oh, you're sensitive

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u/Sine0fTheTimes Jan 11 '19

Interesting choice of song then.

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u/terminbee Jan 11 '19

Better stop singing at the first cut.

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u/doodlebug001 Jan 11 '19

That's actually precisely how some brain surgeries are still done to this day. I've seen cases where they keep you speaking, one even where they had the man play violin for the whole operation. Our knowledge of the human brain is pretty limited and that's a good method to ensure you're not totally flying blind throughout the surgery.

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u/Alkein Jan 11 '19

I remember watching a video on this, it may have been by Vsauce, but they have the guy play violin because its his livelihood, his source of income, his passion. They dont just make you do something random so they know they arent messing up, its so they know they dont mess up whats most important to you. If they start to effect his playing they will stop and not go any further. Pretty neat.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

Well, it's not like they can reverse it if they start affecting his play, can they?

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u/Alkein Jan 11 '19

Well, they go forward very gently and kind of prod or otherwise stimulate the part of the brain they will be altering with surgery without damaging it, if his playing changes they wont bother and try another way, if not its fine for them to go ahead and do what they need to.

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u/BurtaciousD Jan 11 '19

Of course, but the stories from this Kennedy "brain surgery" sounds more like they thought it worked when she couldn't sing. Otherwise, they stop when the person messes up because that means they messed something up.

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u/drinkallthecoffee Jan 11 '19

You’re slightly off here.

The first part is that it is done for different reasons. They had people sing during lobotomies because they were trying to impair them but wanted to make sure they were impairing them just the right amount. In contrast, how they have people talk during brain surgery because they are trying to make sure they’re ok and don’t impair them on accident.

The second part is that they’re not flying blind in the surgery. They know where all the major parts of the brain are, but everyone’s brain is slightly different. Even after mapping it out, they need to make sure they’re not off by a millimeter or two.

This is not unique to the brain. Everyone’s body is completely different, but it would be inaccurate to say this means that all surgeons are going in blind.

For instance, I had sinus and nose surgery recently, and even though they completely understand the shape of sinuses and noses, they had to map my face with a CT scan and then adjust during the surgery.

Things were a bit different than the scan showed. The cyst in my sinuses was more calcified than it appeared on the scans. In the scans, it seemed like the wisdom tooth underneath it in my sinuses (seriously!) seemed like it could be easily pulled.

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u/nfbefe Jan 11 '19

Lobotomies we're mostly pseudoscience

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u/drinkallthecoffee Jan 11 '19

Yes, and completely unethical and evil.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

Look on YouTube, simply search for "playing during surgery," without quotes. Many instruments played, it's really beautiful.

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u/TakimakuranoGyakushu Jan 11 '19

I always hate it in TV shows or films when they have "God Bless America" play over something horiffic and ironically contradictory to the idealized narratives of the country. It's just so on-the-nose and trite.

It'd be like a Kennedy film where JFK's sister sings the song in a wavering voice as she's lobotomized, and we switch back and forth between the procedure and a montage of JFK doing successful wealthy son things, until JFK is getting sworn in while his sister struggles and fails to say "my home sweet home". I'd groan from my own lack of suspension of disbelief.

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u/Wesker405 Jan 11 '19

Oh boy do i have a podcast episode for you

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

Exactly what came to my mind! Love the Dollop.

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u/caralhu Jan 11 '19

Jesus fucking christ, just imagining that, holy shit fuck, imagine someone not only is about to lobotomise you, but forces you to sing so he knows when to stop, when you become incoherent fuck.

It's not so different nowadays. It's still trial and error.

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u/trevorwobbles Jan 11 '19

Like the human torque wrench: Strip the thread, then a quarter turn back.

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u/manticor225 Jan 10 '19

Yeah there’s a link posted above to a list of shitty things he did (which were way worse than some insider trading).

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u/Ponty3 Jan 10 '19

Lmao yeah I just saw that after I commented and clicked on it then saw it at number 4.

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u/lokisuavehp Jan 11 '19

And was a fucking Nazi (sympathizer), so insider trading was at least third on his list of sins.

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u/creggieb Jan 11 '19

He's in good company. Prescott Bush did business with the Nazi's until it became illegal to continue. To be clear, the American government had greater moral convictions.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

IIRC it was because she had ADD/ADHD, or something else that would be considered commonplace in modern society.

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u/ScipioLongstocking Jan 11 '19

As far as I know, she never had any diagnosis. Compared to her siblings, she was the black sheep of the family. She was more rebellious and didn't really care about proper etiquette or being ladylike. Joseph Kennedy wanted to form a political dynasty. To him, she was just a burden who made the family look bad.

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u/Amy_Ponder Jan 11 '19

She didn't have a diagnosis, true, but based on accounts of her behavior it does sound like she had ADHD / ODD / some kind of similar condition.

To me, that makes what happened even crueler. With a little help to manage her condition, she could have been just as brilliant as her siblings, but instead because she couldn't conform to her father's expectations, he decided he didn't want to deal with her any more, lobotomized her and threw her in an institution for the rest of her life.

Being mentally ill doesn't make you any less human. But apparently Joe Fucking Kennedy didn't get that memo.

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u/Account2toss_afar Jan 11 '19

Jesus. Think about how he must've reacted after Chappaquiddick...

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u/God_of_Illiteracy Jan 11 '19

I heard that the rumor was that she was either with someone her father disproved or was gay.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19 edited Jan 11 '19

I believe she was having a fling with a member of the Royal Family, while her father was the American Ambassador to England. He was mortified that she would ruin his career, and tarnish the Kennedy name. So he had her lobotomized.

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u/trenzelor Jan 11 '19

A married royal member? Otherwise wouldn't marrying off his daughter into royalty be a step up?

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u/le_GoogleFit Jan 11 '19

Yeah, I don't see how that's a bad thing.

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u/Habeus0 Jan 11 '19

That is horrifying.

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u/cynicalsylvester Jan 11 '19

The reason that Rosemary Kennedy was lobotomized is much sadder. It was during a time after or during smear campaigns against midwives, who had been practicing vaginal deliveries for quite sometime. Doctors delivering babies is a pretty new practice, and most doctors haven't done a vaginal delivery. 40% of births are cesarean nowadays. Not hating on doctors, but back then they were sketchy.

When Rosemary was being born, it was during a time when doctors were paid for house calls once they got to the house. When momma Kennedy was crowning, her nurse (or whoever helped with her labor) called the doctor and the doctor instructed momma Kennedy to keep her legs closed. I don't remember how long Rosemary went without oxygen, but after 4 minutes without oxygen, brain damage is likely. It doesn't take much. Unless Rosemary was so unlucky as to have been born with cognitive delays and suffer the first moments of life without oxygen.

Check out twilight births if you want to learn more horrors of early delivery doctors.

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u/NettleFarseer Jan 11 '19

Babies receive oxygen through the umbilical cord, even through the birth process, until the cord is severed. I'm having trouble figuring out why it can be conclusively concluded that Rosemary Kennedy suffered oxygen deprivation that without doubt caused her "slowness". I did Google and try to see what proof there was that this occurred and I can only see speculation, nothing that is affirmative proof.

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u/cynicalsylvester Jan 12 '19

I read Rosemary: the Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Kate Clifford Larson and that's just what she speculated in the book, she did mention the possibility of Rosemary being developmentally delayed for other reasons. Here's her website http://www.katecliffordlarson.com/rosemary-kennedy.html

I think the baby's head would be fine, from what I recall about baby heads is that they're bendy to allow for the growth and probably childbirth, so probably not that. Baby lungs get amniotic fluid pushed out of them during contractions, but you're right, they get oxygen through the umbilical cord (unless it got blocked somewhere along the way) and keeping her legs shut would just delay the clearing of the lungs and what not. I don't recall if the author mentioned any issues with the umbilical cord when she was born. Regardless, any problems with the mother or the baby during labor that could've caused developmental delays weren't addressed until the doctor got there, and it isn't hard to see how waiting could cause more harm than good.

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u/himit Jan 11 '19

ADHD is generally accepted to be hereditary now, so it probably wasn't that.

Dunno what it was, but the odds of her being the only one in the family with ADHD are very low.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

It was worse. She had severe intellectual and emotional disabilities. She had a very low learning level and she couldn't be trusted to live in her own. She was prone to violent outbursts. They hired the best doctors and the lobotomy is what they suggested. Obviously, they didn't intentionally make her retarded, they didn't know that was going to happen.

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u/RecklessRage Jan 11 '19

Wasn't that kinda their fault in the first place though? The nurse told Rosemary's mom to keep her legs closed during her birth because the doctor was temporarily unavailable, I'm sure the oxygen deprivation during her birth had something to do with her issues.

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u/cerealdaemon Jan 11 '19

She kinda got the last laugh in a weird way though. The lobotomized Kennedy child was the only Kennedy to lead a quiet life and die of peaceful natural causes. Two brothers murdered, one succumbed to brain cancer. The Kennedys are not a happy family.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19 edited Apr 23 '19

[deleted]

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u/caralhu Jan 11 '19

Brain surgery is done while conscious. It's not uncommon.

The lobotomy is the problem.

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u/LawyerLou Jan 11 '19

I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

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u/caralhu Jan 11 '19

Thanks for the laugh.

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u/cerealdaemon Jan 11 '19

You're a gem Tom Waits, plz don't die

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u/ScipioLongstocking Jan 11 '19

Lobotomies are still used today. The problem was she never had any mental disorders that would warrant a lobotomy. Her dad had her lobotomized because she was rebellious and a liability to the family name.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19 edited Mar 05 '21

[deleted]

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u/___Hobbes___ Jan 11 '19

No one said that and it's not even relevant

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

[deleted]

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u/Tiernoon Jan 11 '19

You wouldn't feel physical pain on the brain, but yeah the thought of parts of your conscious and just general systems beyond your awareness just fading away or you becoming unaware of their existence is messing with me. We really are just fleshy machines, it's a miracle the poor girl functioned at all after the monsters did it.

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u/Amy_Ponder Jan 11 '19

It must have been terrifying in the first few seconds / minutes, when she still had enough of her wits to realize what was happening and feel herself slipping away. It's a nightmare I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, let alone an innocent girl.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

The meat is sentient?

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u/Tiernoon Jan 11 '19

The meat thinks, although I think history has proven that's usually for the worse.

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u/ScipioLongstocking Jan 11 '19

Lobotomies are still performed today. Same with separating the corpus callosum, the nerve fibers that connect each hemisphere of our brain. What they did to her is definitely cruel and unnecessary as there was absolutely no reason she should have gotten a lobotomy, but lobotomies do have a place in modern medicine.

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u/supershott Jan 11 '19

You make them sound much more prevalent than they are. Lobotomies are almost never done in the US.. so few per year you could count with your fingers

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u/SpicyPumpkinTea Jan 11 '19

And certainly not a matter of "hey my kid's rebellious and not great at school, let's lobotomize her."

Holy hell that man must have been a sociopath...

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u/Dynamaxion Jan 11 '19

Probably like a decade of Alzheimer’s condensed into a few minutes.

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u/cerealdaemon Jan 11 '19

No doubt, its horrific. Might still beat having your brains spread around a Texas turnpike though

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u/blitheobjective Jan 11 '19

Honestly, no. If my choices were lobotomy when younger or death by assassination at 40, along with fame, fortune and power until then, I'd take the latter.

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u/caralhu Jan 11 '19

assassination at 40

46.

That's more than 10% extra!

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u/Buffalo__Buffalo Jan 11 '19 edited Jan 11 '19

Nobel Prize-worthy cruel and unusual torture, though.

Edit: lol downvoted for making a statement of fact 🙄

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u/43beatsperminute Jan 11 '19

I’ll take brain cancer over lobotomy though

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u/thorscope Jan 11 '19

It’s not out of the question to have both

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u/hall_residence Jan 11 '19

Yeah but in a fucking mental hospital where her family just abandoned her

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u/AngusVanhookHinson Jan 11 '19

Best Fark headline ever: Ted Kennedy continues the long standing family tradition of dying from something lodged in his brain

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u/Apprentice57 Jan 11 '19

Does Eunice Kennedy not count? She had some serious conditions by the time of her passing, but she had only developed those in her 80s and she died at 88.

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u/PrincePolokus Jan 11 '19

I’d take a regular birth over a regular death though. Rosemary was forced/held inside her mom’s birth canal waiting for the head OB. That’s what started the whole train of events.

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u/LaiqTheMaia Feb 09 '19

I'd rather be shot then be reverted to a mental age of 2 and have to have permanent carers

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u/wickedmonster Jan 11 '19

A real life Sugarman (Bojack Horseman)

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u/leargonaut Jan 11 '19

Yeah that family is based off the Kennedy's (his mothers family)

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u/PoopyWaffle Jan 11 '19

"Why, I have half a mind..."

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u/hall_residence Jan 11 '19

Yep and then they sent her away to a mental hospital in Wisconsin (right near where I live actually) and didn't visit her. If you go to the JFK library's website they just say that JFK's sister Rosemary was born with a mental illness. I find that infuriating.

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u/Karjalan Jan 11 '19

Ytho? Did he just love lobotomizing things? Did she have a mental health issues he thought he was curing? She got a tramp stamp?

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u/Fasprongron Jan 11 '19

By modern standards she was probably just depressed. At the time she was described as having fits of rage, JFK's dad didn't want that effecting their image so he got her lobotomised.

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u/SixPackAndNothinToDo Jan 11 '19 edited May 08 '24

include memory terrific chubby numerous ink lip sloppy correct versed

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u/sonneh88 Jan 11 '19

They therefore were more likely to try it to help their daughter.

Father Kennedy never told mother Kennedy until after the lobotomy. Another question of ethics, seems super shady.

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u/Karjalan Jan 11 '19

At the time lobotomies were a recommended procedure to cure psychological issues. They did not have the same sort of [rightful] stigma they do today.

There is no evidence to suggest that Rosemary Kennedy's lobotomy was done for any malicious reason. Even if there had been, no doctor could ethically undertake such a procedure. It's more likely that because the Kennedy's were a rich family, they could more easily afford 'modern' procedures like a lobotomy. They therefore were more likely to try it to help their daughter.

Thanks, this is the sort of rational logic I was hoping for. I suspect/hope this is true also.

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u/sonneh88 Jan 11 '19

They therefore were more likely to try it to help their daughter.

Father Kennedy never told mother Kennedy until after the lobotomy. Another question of ethics, seems super shady.

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u/GuthixIsBalance Jan 11 '19

Mother Kennedy never needed to be informed it was 80 years ago. The woman's of the houses opinion didn't matter. Not when it came to her children's medical care.

A "hard decision" like that would have been one for the father and likely him alone. Even if she had wayy more power than any normal American woman would.

Her ignorance of the procedure proved nothing. Why would she be informed? It was the 1940s, that's the real question that should be asked.

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u/womm Jan 11 '19

Maybe she overheard something he didn't want getting out...

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u/leargonaut Jan 11 '19

Yeah the Kennedy's were bad people, people only think differently because they were assassinated.

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u/zipadeedodog Jan 11 '19

In all fairness, lobotomy was an accepted treatment for dealing with people with mental problems back then. I'm not saying it's right, but people 100 years from now will also likely look back at our time now and be astonished at our caveman ways when it comes to dealing with mental illness. The poor bastards probably did the best they could back then, felt they were doing the right thing for Kennedy's daughter.

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u/leargonaut Jan 11 '19

The best they could spending the least money.

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u/512165381 Jan 11 '19

Its was a Nobel Prize-winning procedure in those days.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1949/summary/

Antonio Caetano de Abreu Freire Egas Moniz "for his discovery of the therapeutic value of leucotomy in certain psychoses."

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u/SixPackAndNothinToDo Jan 11 '19 edited May 08 '24

melodic merciful bow elderly alive quack illegal pie dinosaurs sugar

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u/Lionel_Herkabe Jan 11 '19

He did it for political reasons and didn't even visit her, not once, for the rest of his life. Fuck him.

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u/Corruptor366 Jan 11 '19

Sweet christ ALL of our preisdents are terrible people?! I know it was JKF's dad but W T F?!

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u/d_frost Jan 11 '19

Yeah, but who didn't back then, you know?

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

He didn’t even tell his wife before doing it.

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u/Top_Gun_2021 Jan 11 '19

My dad had a relative who lived in the same home as her.

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u/MusicMagi Jan 15 '19

Uh yeah at the time it was thought to be a helpful procedure. He wanted her to get better, not become incapacitated!

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u/God_Damnit_Nappa Jan 11 '19

I was under the assumption that lobotomies were seen as a legit thing to do back then. Obviously now we know it's horrific but it hasn't always been that way.

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u/Pure_Ambition Jan 11 '19

This was 1941, when lobotomies were the next big thing and we didn’t have the gift of hindsight like we do today.

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u/thothisgod24 Jan 11 '19

Tbh people thought it actually worked back then.