Patrick Kennedy on JFK, Jr. Tragedy (posted July 27, 1999)

Kennedy: "I'm very conscious of how this [media] environment is so out of hand. I don't want to add to the frenzy....I really am not interested in exacerbating the media attention. I know if I answer a lot of these questions, invariably what happens is I said something new, it becomes another topic for discussion....We had such an overwhelming outpouring of condolences and sympathies from people from all over the world....My cousin Caroline wants to get these books of consolences and I know it's going to mean a lot to her right now to know that her only brother is in everyone's thoughts and prayers....Principally, all I wanted to do is acknowledge the men and women of the Coast Guard and through them everybody that was part of the search and rescue mission. It helped us through that first period....I loved my cousin John dearly. I am so grateful for the relationship that I had with him. I feel the loss immensely. I feel the joy of having been able to know him and be moved by him and to know that I will always remember him....He carried his name with such great dignity and I know I share that same name with him in a sense. We share the same responsibility to carry it....He really was interested in what we were doing in the House. He loves -- loved -- politics. He was very supportive of my efforts, and it meant a lot to me when he said I was doing well. I had a big luxury. I could do it and not have it be a federal case. He couldn't have afforded to make any of the blunders and mistakes that I've made, because they would have stuck with him so heavily and they would have been so over-reported and publicized. If and when he decided to get into it [politics], it would have been a period when he would have been able to define it on his terms. He would have been talking to an audience that was more familiar with him than with his father."