The Kennedys

It’s a much smaller world today than it was in 1963 when Ambassador Joseph Kennedy came to my father’s institute. The Kennedy family was at the height of their powers. I’ve never met anyone in my generation who does not remember when they first learned that President John Kennedy had been murdered and assassinated. I was ten years old. My class at school had been evenly divided during the Presidential Campaign of 1960. Each boy proudly wore a Kennedy or Nixon button. When the president was assassinated, it didn’t matter what party you were in. Our young, handsome, often intelligent, and very strong president had been stolen from us.

The United States was never the same after that. We had lost a certain good innocence. It was outrageous and unspeakable that Robert Kennedy was also murdered. I have heard a highly educated, conservative, political journalist say that Robert Kennedy would have been the greatest president of his times.

Robert Kennedy visited the Institutes with a couple of his children. They came in a red convertible. I remember seeing the children in the convertible and wanting to go to talk to them, but not having the gumption to do so.

Somehow, some members of the very large and well-connected Kennedy family learned about my father’s work. Remember, Glenn Doman had started his work by treating adults with brain injuries, not children. The biggest single group of patients he treated were stroke victims. My father’s nascent neurological program had succeeded in getting many stroke patients back to walking and talking. These were people who had profound or severe strokes resulting in immobility, paraplegia, hemiplegia, loss of use of hands and/or language.

Some returned fully to their work and daily independence. Such results were unheard of in the 1960s and are exceedingly rare now.

President Kennedy kisses his father on the head, 1963. Joseph Kennedy had suffered a debilitating stroke in 1961.

After his stroke, Ambassador Kennedy could only say one word, “no”. He was paralyzed on one side of his body. My father said Kennedy has the most spastic wrist he had ever seen. The under part of his hand touched the under part of his wrist. If he could have opened his fingers, which he could not, he could have grasped the under part of his wrist and arm.

He had been treated at the Rusk Institute in Manhattan for many months, perhaps for as long as two years. They had made a full body brace to supposedly help him learn to walk. They had made a special expensive brace for his hand. After so many months of treatment he had actually gotten worse. He had no additional words of language. He could not take any steps in his expensive braces and his wrist had become much more spastic.

When the family contacted my father about seeing their father, my father said no. Kennedy had had a massive stroke. At his late age there was a large chance that he would have another stroke. If he had it at the Institutes, we could be blamed for having killed the late president’s father. Besides, at that point we had already transitioned to seeing children, not adults.

Different members of the family began to contact my father. Famous friends of the family contacted my father and said, “what do you have against Joe Kennedy?” Of course, my father had nothing against Ambassador Kennedy. The Institutes had already gone in a different direction from adults with brain injury. But my father was learning that you do not say no to the Kennedy family. Finally, someone said, “why don’t you just see him, maybe you’ll find that you can help him?” They added that he was in Florida, and they would send The Caroline to fly my father down to their home. That was the hook they needed for my father. Everyone in the United States had seen pictures of President Kennedy in his private airplane. As a lover of history, my father could not resist the opportunity to see where the president had been so many times.

My father took a prominent member of his medical staff with him, Dr. Edward B. LeWinn. Dr. LeWinn had been the Chief of Internal Medicine at Einstein Medical School here in Philadelphia. He and his wife were close friends of our family. He was like a grandfather to us children. When my father and Dr. LeWinn arrived at the beautiful property in Florida, they were told of the ambassador’s daily schedule. It was something like, ‘rise 8 am, have coffee and fresh orange juice at 9 am by the pool, etc.’ It was not the schedule of a man wanting to work to return to wellness. One of the Kennedy brothers, it may have been Teddy, spoke to my father and Dr. LeWinn before they met the ambassador. Teddy explained that if his father was unhappy, he might try to hit them with his cane which he held in his good hand.

Dr. LeWinn was very sophisticated and had a highly educated and professional bedside manner. When he began to examine Ambassador Kennedy, the ambassador threatened him with the cane. My father was shocked because Dr. LeWinn was already an elderly man. He broke off the examination and told Teddy they would not examine a man that did not want their help. They flew home to Philadelphia.

The Kennedys apologized and continued to push for my father’s help. With money that the Institutes didn’t have, my father had a suite of rooms totally renovated for the ambassador. He diplomatically explained to the family that my father would see him at the Institutes and treat him and would not charge any amount. My father did not want the Kennedys to believe that they could buy him or his work. The family explained this to the ambassador and urged him to cooperate.

The big day came when the ambassador and his crew moved into the new suite of rooms. My father began by removing the full body brace and putting it on himself. He was not able to walk in it! The fancy rehabilitation center in Manhattan had made a set of very expensive braces that even a well, very fit man could not walk in! Without the braces, my father taught the ambassador to stand and take steps. Within two weeks, the ambassador could walk across a room totally independently. A spectacular result compared to what the top rehabilitation center in Manhattan hadn’t accomplished in many, many months.

Having proved that the ambassador had considerable potential, my father met with Robert Kennedy. He proposed that Robert or Teddy join the Board of Directors of the Institutes. Robert explained that he and Teddy were very, very busy people. My father explained that he had been in that same condition for more than a decade. In the end, the Kennedys decided not to go forward with my father’s program. All were surprised by the decision. Joseph Kennedy had made the family fortune as a result of being a very tough businessman. He ruled his family like his business. Certainly, he did an exceptional job raising sons who were exceptional public servants.

It was a sad conclusion to a relationship that could have saved thousands of lives of children with brain injuries. The Kennedy Foundation was well known for donating generously to projects for people with brain injuries. One of Joseph’s children was severely brain injured. Doctors proposing the most “modern therapy” gave her a frontal lobotomy. This is brain surgery that basically disconnects the person from their cortex. It eliminates their intellectual development for life. It should have been made a criminal act.

If the Kennedys had worked with my father instead of supporting ineffectual therapies and institutions, they could have launched children with brain injuries into the 21st century and opened a world of opportunities for success and wellness.

Written by: Douglas Doman