EVEN among the go-go-go Kennedys, Ethel Skakel Kennedy is real gone. At 32, she has seven boisterous children, is a tough touch-football player, a skilled skier, water-skier, swimmer, horsewoman, golfer and tennis player. She is also an enthusiastic twister who would dance the whole night through—if there were anyone else left around. Last week, taking her abundant energies onto the global road with Husband Bobby, Ethel set a stiff pace. And by week's end it seemed that she had at least half of Tokyo following her advice to everyone she met: "Just call me Ethel."
At 8:15 on her first morning in Tokyo, Ethel, wearing a red suit with black trim and matching hairbows, set off without Bobby from the U.S. embassy for a day of adventure on her own. Her first stop was the University of the Sacred Heart, whose superior, Mother Anne Stoepel, had been a teacher at Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart in Purchase, N.Y., when Ethel and her Kennedy sisters-in-law, Eunice Shriver and Jean Smith, were schoolgirls there. (Mother Stoepel was transferred to Japan by her religious order in 1959.) To the grey-uniformed girls of the upper school, Ethel delivered a little speech that was warmly applauded even though its train of thought was a bit hard to follow. Said she: "I always thought that the United States was more liberal than this country, but it's not true. At Manhattanville, in my day, we were very virtuous. I understand now that you are allowed to get married." Visiting the lower school, she noted that "over three generations of Kennedys have attended convents of the Sacred Heart all over the world. Over 30 members." A little later, looking up from her written text, she entered a laughing aside: "Gosh, this sounds like a terrible graduation address." Dropping by a class on flower arrangement, she was enthusiastic: "They ought to teach flower arrangement back home. It's terrific." And in a calligraphy class, she wrote three Japanese characters on the blackboard meaning "Japanese and American friendship." (Ethel had worked hard at learning a few phrases and characters on the plane to Japan; she generally mangled the language, but the Japanese seemed delighted with her efforts.)