Word: esther
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There were deep personal troubles. His 25-year marriage to Esther Yanofsky Pike, his second wife, ended in divorce in 1967. Less explicable in terms of his own energetic personality, but even more tragic, were the suicides of two people close to him. One had been Pike's personal secretary and close friend. The other was his 20-year-old eldest son, James Jr., who shot himself in a New York hotel in 1966. Not long after that tragedy, Pike began involving himself in psychic research and spiritualism. His efforts to reach his dead son were unabashedly and painfully...
...Esther Newberg...
...friends describe Esther, 26, as sophisticated, reasonably chic and tough-minded. "In contrast to some of the other girls in the office," recalls one of Robert Kennedy's former aides, "she gave the impression of having something else in her life besides working for Robert Kennedy. For some of the younger girls, that was all there was." Esther's mother is a former Democratic National Committeewoman from Connecticut. Esther worked for the Senate subcommittee on government reorganization before she joined R.F.K.'s staff in 1968. She now assists the vice president of the Urban Institute in Washington...
...prove conclusively, of course, that Kennedy was telling the truth about this aspect of the incident, but most evidence indicates that he was, if for no other reason than that an affair in the night seemed totally out of character for Mary Jo (see box, overleaf). Says Esther Newberg: "Mary Jo was not a stranger or a pickup. She was like a member of the family." On the other hand, says a longtime Kennedy watcher, "one can also sense that Kennedy, jovial, relaxed, perhaps high, might have said: 'Come on, Mary Jo, and let's have a look...
...Kennedy Drunk? According to his television statement, he was "not driving under the influence of liquor" and, says Esther Newberg, "it was a steak cookout, not a Roman orgy. No one was drinking heavily." Still, it is unlikely that Kennedy abstained entirely?he never said that he did?and the lack of a blood or breath test afterward can only arouse suspicion, justified or not. Kennedy has been drinking more heavily since his brother was murdered last year, but he is far from being a drunkard. He has been quite sober at several parties where liquor flowed freely...