August 2009

By Jonathan D. Salant Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) — Senator Edward Kennedy , whose life was marked by triumph and tragedy as he evolved from a dubious choice for high office into one of the most influential senators in U.S. history, has died. He was 77. A Massachusetts Democrat , Kennedy died late yesterday at home in Hyannis Port on Cape Cod, his family said in a statement. A malignant brain tumor was diagnosed in May 2008 and doctors operated on it the following month. “We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family,” the family said in the statement. “He loved this country and devoted his life to serving it.” The trajectory of his public life had many dramatic swings, spanning the civil rights movement in the U.S. to the election of the first black president. He gained entry into the Senate only because the seat opened up after his brother John was elected U.S. president. A family friend, Benjamin Smith, temporarily filled the seat until the younger Kennedy was old enough to run. Once elected in 1962, he never left. Barack Obama , when running for president, called him a “lion of the Senate” when he received his endorsement. President Obama said in a statement that he and his wife Michelle were “heartbroken” to learn of Kennedy’s death. “An important chapter in our history has come to an end,” Obama said from Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, where he is vacationing. “Our country has lost a great leader, who picked up the torch of his fallen brothers and became the greatest United States senator of our time.” ‘Political Dexterity’ Kennedy showed “how much could be done on Capitol Hill with great skill and political dexterity,” said Sean Wilentz , a professor of history at Princeton University in New Jersey. “In a conservative age, he endured.” Kennedy’s funeral will be held Aug. 29 at a historic Boston church and he will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, where his two slain brothers are interred, according to his office. The president will speak at the funeral mass, according to an administration official. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and Senator Robert Kennedy of New York was shot moments after claiming victory in the California presidential primary in 1968. Ted Kennedy, the youngest of nine children and the last surviving brother, gained a bully pulpit that he took advantage of with his booming voice, soaring rhetoric and legislative acumen. Presidential Bid His own bid for the nation’s highest office, challenging then-President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic nomination in 1980, failed, partly because of personal and political flaws. Over time, his political accomplishments in the Senate cemented his reputation as a lawmaker. “Politically, he has towered over his time,” Adam Clymer , a former New York Times reporter, wrote in his 1999 biography of Kennedy, “even if his failures outside the Senate have fascinated the supermarket tabloids.” Kennedy’s endorsement of Obama in January 2008 helped provide critical validation for the first-term senator, effectively conferring the family legacy to Obama’s candidacy. “I know what your support means,” Obama told Kennedy. “I know the cherished place the Kennedy family holds in the hearts of the American people.” Kennedy was the dominant congressional figure in shaping U.S. health care, civil rights and education policy for decades, working to raise the minimum wage, overhaul immigration laws and allow 18-year-olds to vote. Greatest Legacy Former Senator Birch Bayh , 81, an Indiana Democrat first elected with Kennedy in 1962, said his colleague’s greatest legacy might have been his successful battles to remove obstacles to blacks who wanted to vote. “Once they had the right to vote, they could take care of a lot of their grievances,” Bayh said. Kennedy wrote more than 2,500 bills throughout his more than 46 years in the Senate, with several hundred becoming law, and cast more than 15,000 votes. “One of the great senators in American history, whose career has had more impact on our national life than some of our presidents,” historian Michael Beschloss said in describing Kennedy. “His brother John, while a senator, was part of a committee assigned to select the most important senators in history, to be portrayed on a Capitol wall,” Bayh said. “If such a committee were meeting today, there’s no doubt that Ted Kennedy would be one of the first selections.” Chappaquiddick Accident His presidential campaign was shadowed by a 1969 accident in which a woman passenger died when he drove his car off a bridge at Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts. Also, early in his presidential campaign, Kennedy faltered in a national television interview with CBS News reporter Roger Mudd when he was asked to articulate why he was running. “Well, I’m, were I to make the announcement, and to run, the reasons that I would run is because I have a great belief in this country,” Kennedy said. After his defeat, he started to become a far more influential senator. He thwarted or reshaped some of the policies of Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush even as he reached across party lines to work with Republicans on legislation. He joined President George W. Bush in enacting the No Child Left Behind education law, though he later said the president wasn’t adequately funding the program. He worked with Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona to draft legislation that would have given undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship. ‘Deserves Recognition’ Kennedy played an active diplomatic role with the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam and Ireland. He supported airline deregulation and the denial of parole in federal prisons. He also opposed the wars in Vietnam and Iraq. “He deserves recognition not just as the leading senator of his time, but as one of the greats in its history, wise in the workings of this singular institution, especially in its demand to be more than partisan to accomplish much,” Clymer wrote in the biography. Kennedy’s speeches often started calmly and ended with a high-volume, arm-waving, red-faced defense of programs that benefited the poor or disabled. He would “literally blow you away with his rhetoric,” said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Major Fundraiser Caroline Kennedy , the late president’s daughter, described her “Uncle Teddy” as a “powerful force” for human rights and dignity around the world. “More than any senator of his generation, or perhaps any generation, Teddy has made life better for people in this country and around the world,” she said as she introduced the senator at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. “He’s been a senator for all who believe in a dream that’s never died.” He was a major fundraiser for his party, and for the Republicans as well, who spent a generation branding their opponents as “Ted Kennedy liberals.” “Nothing will bring a Republican audience to its feet faster than a speech against high taxes, against federal control, and against Ted Kennedy,” Lamar Alexander , a Tennessee Republican, said on the Senate floor during a 2007 tribute marking Kennedy’s 15,000th vote. Edward Moore Kennedy was born on Feb. 22, 1932, in Boston, the youngest of nine children to Joseph P. and Rose Kennedy. After serving in the Army from 1951 to 1953, Kennedy graduated from Harvard University in 1956 and the University of Virginia’s law school in 1959. Elected in 1962 He was an assistant district attorney in the Massachusetts county of Suffolk before winning election in 1962 to the Senate seat vacated by his brother John. In addition to his political triumphs, his history also included reckless behavior. In 1969, Kennedy was giving a political aide a ride home after a party when his car went off a bridge. The aide, Mary Jo Kopechne, died, and Kennedy didn’t immediately report the incident to authorities. He later pleaded guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident and was given a suspended sentence of two months in jail. In a televised address , he apologized for his actions: “No words on my part can possibly express the terrible pain and suffering I feel over this tragic incident. This last week has been an agonizing one for me and for the members of my family, and the grief we feel over the loss of a wonderful friend will remain with us the rest of our lives.” William Kennedy Smith Later, in 1991, he accompanied nephew William Kennedy Smith to a nightclub in Florida, a night that ended with Smith accused of rape. Smith was later acquitted of the charges. Such incidents ended by the time Kennedy married Victoria Reggie in 1992. Kennedy had been urged to run for president ever since his brother Robert’s assassination. After his 1980 campaign failed, he gave a rousing speech at the Democratic National Convention in New York. “For all those whose cares have been our concern,” he said, “the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.” Kennedy returned to the Senate and served longer than all but two members in history, Robert Byrd of West Virginia and the late Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Bork Nomination A former chairman of the Senate panel that reviews U.S. Supreme Court nominees, Kennedy helped block President Ronald Reagan ’s 1987 bid to appoint Robert Bork to the court. Bork, as solicitor general under President Richard Nixon , carried out what was known as the “Saturday Night Massacre,” firing Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox in 1973, after Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus refused to act. Nixon resigned in 1974. In a speech on the Senate floor, Kennedy said that in Bork’s America, “women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids.” Biographer Clymer called it “the most important and most controversial floor speech of his career.” Kennedy opposed Bush’s war in Iraq from the beginning. He voted against the 2002 resolution allowing the president to use force, calling it the best vote he cast in the Senate. In a January 2007 speech at the National Press Club, Kennedy likened Iraq to another unpopular conflict. “Iraq is George Bush ’s Vietnam,” Kennedy said. “As with Vietnam, the only rational solution to the crisis is political, not military.” Senate Committees After serving as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Kennedy later chaired the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, where he helped push through an increase in the minimum wage. He was also a member of the Armed Services and Congressional Joint Economic committees. His son Patrick represents part of Rhode Island in the U.S. House, nephew Joseph represented a Massachusetts congressional district, and niece Kathleen Kennedy Townsend served eight years as lieutenant governor of Maryland. “We still believe in the importance of public service and the honor, the high honor that one has in elective office,” Kennedy said on the Senate floor in 2007. “There are many of those who dismiss that concept as an old-fashioned viewpoint, but I think any of us who have read the history of this nation and who understood its history know there is no higher personal honor than to have that opportunity.” Two Brothers Besides the loss of two brothers to assassins’ bullets, Kennedy himself narrowly missed death in a 1964 plane crash that killed the pilot and one of his aides. “You go through something like that and you think the man upstairs had us in the palm of his hand and there is some unfinished business we need to take care of,” said Bayh, who pulled Kennedy from the wreckage. In addition, his eldest son, Teddy Jr., lost a leg to cancer, and Patrick has fought drug addiction and depression. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in March 2009, calling the honor “moving and personal.” Since he was not a British subject, he couldn’t be called “Sir Ted.” Kennedy’s first marriage, to Virginia Joan Bennett, ended in divorce after 24 years in 1982. He is survived by his second wife, Victoria; three children and two stepchildren. To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan D. Salant in Washington jsalant@bloomberg.net