What I Learned From Reading RFK Jr.’s Diaries

I gained extraordinary access to the diaries nearly a year after the suicide of Mary Richardson Kennedy, his second wife, who hanged herself in May 2012. At the end of a dinner with a trusted source at an Upper East Side bistro, I excused myself to go to the restroom, and when I returned, the diaries were in a plastic shopping bag hanging from the side of my chair. Nothing was spoken. I knew what I had.

Flipping through the unwieldy journals on the subway ride home, I confess I was only…