The Non-Candidate's Wife

SHE is a golden-haired Cinderella grown up, a fairy-tale heiress to a legacy of ambition and success, a curiosity, a sex symbol. As did Jackie and Ethel in their time and turn, Joan Kennedy has become a public personality in her own right. On the gilt and antique gristmill that is the Washington cocktail circuit, she has been no less a source of speculation in recent months than Teddy himself. One day, she is a shy, self-styled homebody. The next, she is playing the piano on nationwide television, or shocking Washington with dresses cut down to there or slit up to here. Asks one annoyed Democrat: "What is Joan Kennedy all about? Is she trying to make sure her husband does not get nominated?" -

When Joan arrived in Washington, the youngest--and some thought the prettiest--of the Kennedy wives, she entered the world of the Kennedys at its dazzling height. Now, nine years, two assassinations and a fatal accident later, that has all changed. She knows the hatred and passions the Kennedy name inspires, lives daily with the threats that come with unnerving frequency against her husband's life. "I don't want to be First Lady," she has said repeatedly, and her friends believe her. Says one intimate: "She is terrified that things are moving in such a way that Ted is going to wind up running. Terrified."

Still, she has acquired that Kennedy fatalism, and of her fears she says, "That's something you live with." She has made plain her view that the stakes are not worth the risks. "When Jack was in the White House," she says, "I saw what hard work it was. I don't see it as glamorous--it's everything that's unattractive." But if her husband decides to run, she will stand by him. "She is in awe of Ted," says a Kennedy cousin. "If he said, 'Jump,' she wouldn't argue or even ask why. She'd just ask, 'Head first or feet first?' "

Lissome, leggy, striking, Joan, 36, ought to be a visible asset to any campaign. On the hustings she does her part diligently. The last election, for Ted's re-election to the Senate in 1970, fought in the shadow of Chappaquiddick, was very clearly a strain on her; yet she gamely made the rounds of banquets and teas. Says Kathy Beatty, one of her closest friends: "I wondered for a while how she was going to get through those rough times, but she did it. That was when I felt she had moxie."

For the record, Joan has put Chappaquiddick in the past, and she believes that others have. In recent months, she has grown increasingly impatient with the public's insatiable curiosity about her. "Joan is not basically an outgoing person," says Kathy Beatty. And Joan admits that despite the starry existence people imagine she leads, "my life is rather lonely. When we entertain, it's just a few for dinner. And once in a while a bigger buffet--usually after a concert." There are also long hours spent presiding over family affairs. The Kennedy home in suburban McLean, Va., is superbly managed by a French cook, a governess, a social secretary, a gardener, a regular cleaning woman and various fill-ins. But Joan pays all the family's personal bills, oversees both the McLean and Hyannisport homes, writes endless rounds of letters, and does such thoughtful chores as sending snapshots to parents of children who attend the three Kennedy youngsters' birthday parties. Such traits come naturally to the daughter of a prosperous New York ad executive. Raised in Westchester, she attended stylish Manhattanville College, where she majored in classical music and English literature. -

What, then, of the six recitals of Peter and the Wolf from Bonn to Tanglewood, the piano concerts in Boston, New York and Philadelphia, her guest appearance on the Andy Williams show? Some say they are a vehicle for escaping from the Kennedy shadow. Although she is not a gifted professional musician, she does play very well, and her favorable reviews are a source of gratification. "She wants it for her own identity," Kathy Beatty agrees. Yet the yearning for privacy is there too. Asked for an adjective to describe herself recently, Joan thought for a moment and suggested, "Vulnerable. I guess that's it."

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