That was considered cutting-edge treatment then - and no pun intended. He spared no expense to help his daughter. Plenty of people received lobotomies because highly- educated medical doctors said that it would be the best way to treat them.
Remember thalidomide? Another case where what was thought to be a “miracle cure” at the time turned out to have monstrous consequences.
If in ten years, it turns out that materials used in hip and knee replacement joints actually causes an inoperable cancer, will you interpret the family support of the people who had the operations really as a hidden plan to murder them painfully? No - because at the time, they made the best choice they could with the information they had.
Joe Kennedy was a mighty big SOB, but that is not why he or Rose had this surgery performed on their daughter.
According to the literature that I’ve read, Joe arranged for that surgery for Rosemary on his own, in secret. He never told Rose because she would never have permitted it. Rose was furious when she found out what he’d done. That is why he was an SOB, among other reasons.
Rosemary was very pretty and rather slow — but she functioned just fine in a social setting. He was afraid that she was going to be promiscuous and would embarass the family. I think he was Ambassador to King James Court at the time, although I may have my dates mixed up.
Rosemary was one of the early victims of the lobotomy run of horror. There is no excuse for a family of supposed 130+ IQ's to tell a quack, go ahead amd take a knife to my recalcitrant daughters conscious brain. Do you know how they decided when to stop slashing? When she (the allegedly retarded and mentally ill viticm) could no longer recite the Lord's Prayer. Good intentions? They say the road to hell is paved with them.