In 1975, for example, the Park Foundation's two largest gifts were $10,000 to the Archbishop of Boston and $7,800 to the Pawling Central School in Pawling, N.Y., where the Stephen Smiths have a weekend estate.

A gift of $5,000 was made to the Collegiate School in New York, which a number of the Kennedy children have attended. And $1,000 went to Manhattanville College, alma mater for some of the Kennedy women.

For larger donations, the family turns to the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation. in 1975 the foundation gave $282,996 to Georgetown University, Mr. Smith's alma mater, and $191,785 to Harvard University, attended by Joseph Kennedy, his sons and some of his grandchildren.

In general, there seems to be a feeling among Wall Streeters that the Kennedy family fortune is handled conservatively, more as a holding action than as a fund to be aggressively manipulated.

Discussions with insiders reinforce that view. “We're very conservative,” said one Kennedy financial expert. “I wouldn't exactly say we go in for dollar averaging, but we're not too far from it.”

It's an approach that the patriarch would probably have agreed with. Although Joseph Kennedy was a restless adventurer in his own financial operations, he sometimes talked disparagingly of the business world. And he often boasted that his success in that world had given his sons the freedom to seek their life work elsewhere.

The seeds were well sown: Notwithstanding one summer of employment at the Merchandise Mart by Joseph P. Kennedy 3d, none of the Kennedy heirs has shown the slightest interest in a business career or in trying to pyramid the family millions into an even more massive fortune.

Stephen E. Smith

Thomas J. Walsh