Ted Kennedy

Early life and education

Edward Moore Kennedy was born at St. Margaret's Hospital in the Dorchester section of Boston, Massachusetts, on February 22, 1932. He was the youngest of the nine children of Joseph Patrick Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald, members of prominent Irish-American families in Boston. They constituted one of the wealthiest families in the nation after their marriage. His eight siblings were Joseph Jr., John, Rose, Kathleen, Eunice, Patricia, Robert, and Jean. His older brother John asked to be the newborn's godfather, a request his parents honored, though they did not agree to his request to name the baby George Washington Kennedy (Kennedy was born on President George Washington's 200th birthday). They named the boy after their father's assistant and longtime friend.

As a child, Kennedy was frequently uprooted by his family's moves among Bronxville, New York; Hyannis Port, Massachusetts; Palm Beach, Florida; and the Court of St. James's, in London, England. His formal education started at Gibbs School in Kensington, London. He had attended 10 schools by the age of eleven; these disruptions interfered with his academic success. He was an altar boy at the St. Joseph's Church and was seven when he received his First Communion from Pope Pius XII in the Vatican. He spent sixth and seventh grades at the Fessenden School, where he was a mediocre student, and eighth grade at Cranwell Preparatory School, both in Massachusetts. He was the youngest child and his parents were affectionate toward him, but they also compared him unfavorably with his older brothers.

Between the ages of eight and sixteen, Kennedy suffered the traumas of his sister Rosemary's failed lobotomy and the deaths of two siblings: Joseph Jr. in an airplane explosion and Kathleen in an airplane crash. Kennedy's affable maternal grandfather, John F. Fitzgerald, was the mayor of Boston, a U.S. congressman, and an early political and personal influence. Kennedy spent his four high-school years at Milton Academy, a preparatory school in Milton, Massachusetts, where he received B and C grades. In 1950, he finished 36th in a graduating class of 56. He did well at football there, playing on the varsity in his last two years; the school's headmaster later described his play as "absolutely fearless ... he would have tackled an express train to New York if you asked ... he loved contact sports". Kennedy also played on the tennis team and was in the drama, debate, and glee clubs.

College, military service, and law school

Like his father and brothers before him, Ted graduated from Harvard College. In his spring semester, he was assigned to the athlete-oriented Winthrop House, where his brothers had also lived. He was an offensive and defensive end on the freshman football team; his play was characterized by his large size and fearless style. In his first semester, Kennedy and his classmates arranged to copy answers from another student during the final examination for a science class. At the end of his second semester in May 1951, Kennedy was anxious about maintaining his eligibility for athletics for the next year, and he had a classmate take his place at a Spanish exam. The ruse was discovered and both were expelled for cheating. As was standard for serious disciplinary cases, they were told they could apply for readmission within a year or two if they demonstrated good behavior during that time.

In June 1951, Kennedy enlisted in the United States Army and signed up for an optional four-year term that was shortened to the minimum of two years after his father intervened. Following basic training at Fort Dix in New Jersey, he requested assignment to Fort Holabird in Maryland for Army Intelligence training, but was dropped without explanation after a few weeks. He went to Camp Gordon in Georgia for training in the Military Police Corps. In June 1952, Kennedy was assigned to the honor guard at SHAPE headquarters in Paris, France. His father's political connections ensured that he was not deployed to the ongoing Korean War. While stationed in Europe, Kennedy traveled extensively on weekends and climbed the Matterhorn in the Pennine Alps. After 21 months, he was discharged in March 1953 as a private first class.

Kennedy re-entered Harvard in the summer of 1953 and improved his study habits. His brother John was a U.S. Senator and the family was attracting more public attention. Kennedy joined The Owl final club in 1954 and was also chosen for the Hasty Pudding Club and the Pi Eta fraternity. Kennedy was on athletic probation during his sophomore year, and he returned as a second-string two-way end for the Crimson football team during his junior year. He barely missed earning his varsity letter. Green Bay Packers head coach Lisle Blackbourn asked him about his interest in playing professional football. Kennedy demurred, saying he had plans to attend law school and "go into another contact sport, politics." In his senior season of 1955, Kennedy started at end for the Harvard football team and worked hard to improve his blocking and tackling to complement his 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m), 200 lb (91 kg) size. In the season-ending Harvard–Yale game in the snow at the Yale Bowl on November 19 (which Yale won 21–7), Kennedy caught a pass to score Harvard's only touchdown; the team finished the season with a 3–4–1 record. Academically, Kennedy received mediocre grades for his first three years, improved to a B average for his senior year, and finished barely in the top half of his class. Kennedy graduated from Harvard at age 24 in 1956 with an AB in history and government.

Family and early career

In October 1957 (early in his second year of law school), Kennedy met Joan Bennett at Manhattanville College; they were introduced after a dedication speech for a gymnasium that his family had donated at the campus. Bennett was a senior at Manhattanville and had worked as a model and won beauty contests, but she was unfamiliar with politics. After the couple became engaged, she grew nervous about marrying someone she did not know that well, but Joe Kennedy insisted that the wedding should proceed. The couple was married by Cardinal Francis Spellman on November 29, 1958, at St. Joseph's Church in Bronxville, New York, with the reception being held at the nearby Siwanoy Country Club. Ted and Joan had three children: Kara (1960–2011), Edward Jr. (b. 1961) and Patrick (b. 1967). By the 1970s, the marriage was in trouble due to Ted's infidelity and Joan's growing alcoholism.

Ted and Joan established Massachusetts residency after buying a townhouse on Charles River Square in Boston, and a home on Squaw Island, Cape Cod. During Ted's tenure in the U.S. Senate, the Kennedys lived in a townhouse in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., and later, a 12,500-square-foot house in McLean, Virginia. From 1982 until his death in 2009, the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts became Ted's principal residence.

In 1959, Kennedy was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar. In 1960, Ted's brother John announced his candidacy for President of the United States and Ted managed his campaign in the Western states. Kennedy learned to fly and during the Democratic primary campaign he barnstormed around the western states, meeting with delegates and bonding with them by trying his hand at ski jumping and bronc riding. The seven weeks he spent in Wisconsin helped his brother win the first contested primary of the season there and a similar time spent in Wyoming was rewarded when a unanimous vote from that state's delegates put his brother over the top at the 1960 Democratic National Convention.

Following his victory in the presidential election, John resigned from his seat as U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, but Ted was not eligible to fill the vacancy until his thirtieth birthday on February 22, 1962. Kennedy initially wanted to stay out west rather than run for office right away; he said, "The disadvantage of my position is being constantly compared with two brothers of such superior ability." Kennedy's brothers were not in favor of his running immediately, but Kennedy ultimately coveted the Senate seat as an accomplishment to match his brothers, and their father overruled them. John asked Massachusetts governor Foster Furcolo to name Kennedy family friend Ben Smith as interim senator for John's unexpired term, which he did in December 1960. This kept the seat available for Ted.

U.S. Senate (1962–2009)

First years, brothers' assassinations

Kennedy was sworn into the Senate on November 7, 1962. He maintained a deferential attitude towards the senior Southern members when he first entered the Senate, avoiding publicity and focusing on committee work and local issues. He lacked his brother John's sophistication and Robert's intense, sometimes grating drive, but was more affable than either. He was favored by Senator James Eastland, chair of the powerful Judiciary Committee. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, despite his feuds with John and Robert, liked Ted and told aides that he "had the potential to be the best politician in the whole family."

On November 22, 1963, Ted was presiding over the Senate—a task given to junior members—when an aide rushed in to tell him his brother, President John F. Kennedy, had been shot. His brother Robert soon told him that the President was dead. Ted and his sister Eunice flew to the family home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, to give the news to their invalid father, who had had a stroke two years earlier.

On June 19, 1964, Kennedy was a passenger in a private Aero Commander 680 airplane that was flying in bad weather from Washington, D.C. to Massachusetts. The plane crashed into an apple orchard in Southampton, Massachusetts, on final approach to the Barnes Municipal Airport in Westfield. The pilot and Edward Moss (one of Kennedy's aides) were killed. Kennedy was pulled from the wreckage by Senator Birch Bayh, and spent months in hospital recovering from a back injury, a punctured lung, broken ribs and internal bleeding. He suffered chronic back pain for the rest of his life. Kennedy took advantage of his convalescence to meet with academics and study issues more closely, and the hospital experience triggered his lifelong interest in the provision of health care. His wife Joan did the campaigning for him in the regular 1964 U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts, and he defeated his Republican opponent by a three-to-one margin.

Kennedy was walking with a cane when he returned to the Senate in January 1965. He employed a stronger and more effective legislative staff. He took on President Johnson and almost succeeded in amending the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to explicitly ban the poll tax at the state and local level, gaining a reputation for legislative skill. He was a leader in pushing through the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which ended a quota system based upon national origin. He played a role in the creation of the National Teachers Corps.

Chappaquiddick incident

On the night of July 18, 1969, Kennedy was at Chappaquiddick Island hosting a party for the Boiler Room Girls, a group of young women who had worked on his brother Robert's presidential campaign. Kennedy left the party with 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne.

Driving a 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88, he attempted to cross the Dike Bridge, which did not have a guardrail. Kennedy then lost control and crashed in the Poucha Pond inlet, a tidal channel. Kennedy escaped from the overturned vehicle, and, by his description, dove below the surface seven times, vainly attempting to rescue Kopechne. He swam to shore and left the scene, with Kopechne still trapped inside the vehicle. Kennedy did not report the accident to authorities until the next morning, by which time Kopechne's body had already been discovered. Kennedy's cousin Joe Gargan said that he and Kennedy's friend Paul Markham, both of whom were at the party and came to the scene, had urged Kennedy to report it.

A week after the incident, Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and was given a suspended sentence of two months in jail. That night, he gave a national broadcast in which he said, "I regard as indefensible the fact that I did not report the accident to the police immediately," but he denied driving under the influence of alcohol and denied any immoral conduct between him and Kopechne. Kennedy asked the Massachusetts electorate whether he should stay in office or resign; after getting a favorable response in messages sent to him, Kennedy announced on July 30 that he would remain in the Senate and run for re-election the next year.

In January 1970, an inquest into Kopechne's death was held in Edgartown, Massachusetts. At the request of Kennedy's lawyers, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ordered the inquest to be conducted in secret. The presiding judge, James A. Boyle, concluded that some aspects of Kennedy's story of that night were untrue, and that negligent driving "appears to have contributed" to the death of Kopechne. A grand jury conducted an investigation in April 1970 but issued no indictment, after which Boyle made his inquest report public. Kennedy deemed its conclusions "not justified." Questions about the incident generated many articles and books.

1970s

At the end of 1968, Kennedy had joined the new Committee for National Health Insurance at the invitation of its founder, United Auto Workers president Walter Reuther. In May 1970, Reuther died and Senator Ralph Yarborough, chairman of the full Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee and its Health subcommittee, lost his primary election, propelling Kennedy into a leadership role on the issue of national health insurance. Kennedy introduced a bipartisan bill in August 1970 for single-payer universal national health insurance with no cost sharing, paid for by payroll taxes and general federal revenue.

Despite the Chappaquiddick controversy, Kennedy easily won re-election to the Senate in November 1970 with 62% against underfunded Republican candidate Josiah Spaulding, although he received about 500,000 fewer votes than in 1964.

In January 1971, Kennedy lost his position as Senate Majority Whip to Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, 31–24, probably because of Chappaquiddick. He later told Byrd that the defeat had allowed Kennedy to focus more on issues and committee work, where he could exert influence independently from the Democratic party apparatus. Kennedy began a decade as chairman of the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee.

In February 1971, Nixon proposed health insurance reform—an employer mandate to offer private health insurance if employees volunteered to pay 25 percent of premiums, federalization of Medicaid for the poor with dependent minor children, and support for health maintenance organizations. Hearings on national health insurance were held in 1971, but no bill had the support of House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committee chairmen Representative Wilbur Mills and Senator Russell Long. Kennedy sponsored and helped pass the limited Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973. He played a leading role, with Senator Jacob Javits, in the creation and passage of the National Cancer Act of 1971.

In October 1971, Kennedy made his first speech about The Troubles in Northern Ireland: he said that "Ulster is becoming Britain's Vietnam", advocating for the withdrawal of British troops, called for a united Ireland, and declared that Ulster Unionists who could not accept this "should be given a decent opportunity to go back to Britain" (a position he backed away from within a few years). Kennedy was sharply criticised by the British and Ulster unionists, and he formed a long political relationship with Social Democratic and Labour Party founder John Hume. In scores of anti-war speeches, Kennedy opposed Nixon's policy of Vietnamization, calling it "a policy of violence [that] means more and more war". In December 1971, Kennedy strongly criticized the Nixon administration's support for Pakistan and its ignoring of "the brutal and systematic repression of East Bengal by the Pakistani army". He traveled to India and wrote a report on the plight of the 10 million Bengali refugees. In February 1972, Kennedy flew to Bangladesh and delivered a speech at the University of Dhaka, where a killing rampage had begun a year earlier.

1980 presidential campaign

Kennedy decided to seek the Democratic nomination in the 1980 presidential election by launching an unusual, insurgent campaign against the incumbent Carter. A midsummer 1978 poll showed that Democrats preferred Kennedy over Carter by a 5-to-3 margin. Through summer 1979, as Kennedy deliberated whether to run, Carter was not intimidated despite his 28 percent approval rating, saying publicly: "If Kennedy runs, I'll whip his ass." Carter later asserted that Kennedy's constant criticism of his policies was a strong indicator Kennedy was planning to run. Labor unions urged Kennedy to run, as did some Democratic party officials who feared Carter's unpopularity could result in heavy losses in the 1980 congressional elections. Kennedy decided to run in August 1979, when polls showed him with a 2-to-1 advantage over Carter; Carter's approval rating slipped to 19 percent. Kennedy formally announced his campaign on November 7, 1979, at Boston's Faneuil Hall. He had already received substantial negative press from a rambling response to the question "Why do you want to be President?" during an interview with Roger Mudd of CBS News a few days earlier. The Iranian hostage crisis, which began on November 4, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which began on December 27, prompted the electorate to rally around the president and allowed Carter to pursue a Rose Garden strategy of staying at the White House, which kept Kennedy's campaign out of the headlines.

Kennedy's campaign staff was disorganized and he was initially an ineffective campaigner. There is little evidence Kennedy truly wanted to be president; to observers such as Ellen Goodman and Anthony Lewis, the Mudd interview confirmed their belief that he did not want the job. The incoherent answer to Mudd was an example of what Walter Mondale, who knew Kennedy well from the Senate, described as his way of avoiding a topic by "using words, but they didn't come together somehow". Chris Whipple of Life, who was present for the interview, wondered if Kennedy's answer was "consciously or otherwise, an act of political self-destruction ... The campaign was over. His heart just wasn't in it". The Chappaquiddick incident emerged as a more significant issue than the staff had expected, with columnists and editorials criticizing Kennedy's answers on the matter. In the January 1980 Iowa caucuses that initiated the primaries season, Carter demolished Kennedy by a 59–31 percent margin. Kennedy's fundraising immediately declined and his campaign had to downsize, but he remained defiant, saying "[Now] we'll see who is going to whip whose what." Nevertheless, Kennedy lost three New England contests. Kennedy did form a more coherent message about why he was running, saying at Georgetown University: "I believe we must not permit the dream of social progress to be shattered by those whose premises have failed." However, concerns over Chappaquiddick and issues related to character prevented Kennedy from gaining the support of many who were disillusioned with Carter. During a St. Patrick's Day Parade in Chicago, Kennedy had to wear a bullet-proof vest due to assassination threats, and hecklers yelled "Where's Mary Jo?" at him. In the key March 18 primary in Illinois, Kennedy failed to gain the support of Catholic voters, and Carter won 155 of 169 delegates.

1980s

The 1980 election saw the Republicans capture not just the presidency but the Senate as well, and Kennedy was in the minority party for the first time in his career. Kennedy did not dwell upon his presidential loss, but instead reaffirmed his public commitment to American liberalism. He chose to become the ranking member of the Labor and Public Welfare Committee rather than of the Judiciary Committee, which he would later say was one of the most important decisions of his career. Kennedy became a committed champion of women's issues, and established relationships with select Republican senators to block Reagan's actions and preserve and improve the Voting Rights Act, funding for AIDS treatment, and equal funding for women's sports under Title IX. To combat being in the minority, he worked long hours and devised a series of hearings-like public forums to which he could invite experts and discuss topics important to him. Kennedy could not hope to stop all of Reagan's reshaping of government, but was often nearly the sole effective Democrat battling him.

In January 1981, Ted and Joan Kennedy announced they were getting a divorce. The proceedings were generally amicable, and she received a reported $4 million settlement when the divorce was granted in 1982. Later that year, Kennedy created the Friends of Ireland organization with Senator Daniel Moynihan and House Speaker Tip O'Neill to support initiatives for peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland.

Kennedy easily defeated Republican businessman Ray Shamie to win re-election in 1982. Senate leaders granted him a seat on the Armed Services Committee, while allowing him to keep his other major seats despite the traditional limit of two such seats. Kennedy became very visible in opposing aspects of the foreign policy of the Reagan administration, including U.S. intervention in the Salvadoran Civil War and U.S. support for the Contras in Nicaragua, and in opposing Reagan-supported weapons systems, including the B-1 bomber, the MX missile, and the Strategic Defense Initiative. Kennedy became the Senate's leading advocate for a nuclear freeze and was a critic of Reagan's confrontational policies toward the Soviet Union.

A 1983 KGB memo indicates that Kennedy engaged in back-channel communication with the Soviet Union. According to a May 1983, memorandum from Chairman of the KGB Viktor Chebrikov to general secretary Yuri Andropov, former U.S. Senator John V. Tunney—a friend of Kennedy's—visited Moscow that month and conveyed a message from Kennedy to Andropov. The memo indicates that the stated purpose of the communication was to "'root out the threat of nuclear war', 'improve Soviet-American relations' and 'define the safety of the world'". Kennedy reportedly offered to visit Moscow "'to arm Soviet officials with explanations regarding problems of nuclear disarmament so they may be better prepared and more convincing during appearances in the USA'" and to set up U.S. television appearances for Andropov.

Early 1990s

Kennedy's personal life came to dominate his image. In February 1990, Michael Kelly published his lengthy profile "Ted Kennedy on the Rocks" in GQ magazine. It captured Kennedy as "an aging Irish boyo clutching a bottle and diddling a blonde," portrayed him as an out-of-control Regency rake, and brought his behavior to the forefront of public attention. Kennedy's brother-in-law, Stephen Edward Smith, died from cancer in August 1990; Smith was a close family member and troubleshooter, and his death left Kennedy emotionally bereft. Kennedy pushed on, but even his legislative successes, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which expanded employee rights in discrimination cases, came at the cost of being criticized for compromising with Republicans and Southern Democrats.

On Easter weekend in March 1991, Kennedy was at a get-together at the family's Palm Beach, Florida, estate. After reminiscing about his brother-in-law, Kennedy was restless and maudlin when he left for a late-night visit to a local bar. He got his son Patrick and nephew William Kennedy Smith to accompany him. Patrick and Smith returned with women they met there, Michelle Cassone and Patricia Bowman. Cassone said that Ted Kennedy subsequently walked in on her and Patrick; Ted was dressed only in a nightshirt and had a weird look on his face. Smith and Bowman went out on the beach, where they had sex that he said was consensual but she said was rape. The local police made a delayed investigation; Kennedy sources were soon feeding the press with negative information about Bowman's background, and several mainstream newspapers broke an unwritten rule by publishing her name. The case quickly became a media frenzy. While not directly implicated in the case, Kennedy became the frequent butt of jokes on The Tonight Show and other late-night television programs. Time magazine said Kennedy was being perceived as a "Palm Beach boozer, lout and tabloid grotesque" while Newsweek said Kennedy was "the living symbol of the family flaws".

Bork and Clarence Thomas were the two most contentious Supreme Court nominations in United States history to that point. When the Thomas hearings began in September 1991, Kennedy pressed Thomas on his unwillingness to express an opinion about Roe v. Wade, but the nomination appeared headed for success. When Anita Hill brought the sexual harassment charges against Thomas the following month, the nomination battle dominated public discourse. Kennedy was hamstrung by his past reputation and the ongoing developments in the William Kennedy Smith case. He said almost nothing until the third day of the Thomas–Hill hearings, and when he did it was criticized by Hill supporters for being too little, too late.

Late 1990s

Kennedy's role as a liberal lion in the Senate came to the fore in 1995, when (after the 1994 US House of Representatives elections) the Republican Revolution took control and legislation intending to fulfill the Contract with America was coming from Newt Gingrich's House of Representatives. Many Democrats in the Senate and the United States overall felt depressed but Kennedy rallied forces to combat the Republicans.

By the beginning of 1996, the Republicans had overreached; most of the Contract had failed to pass the Senate and the Democrats could once again move forward with legislation, almost all of it coming out of Kennedy's staff.

In 1996, Kennedy secured an increase in the minimum wage, which was one of his favorite issues; there would not be another increase for ten years. Following the failure of the Clinton health care plan, Kennedy went against his past strategy and sought incremental measures instead. Kennedy worked with Republican Senator Nancy Kassebaum to create and pass the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act in 1996, which set new marks for portability of insurance and confidentiality of records. The same year, Kennedy's Mental Health Parity Act forced insurance companies to treat mental health payments the same as others with respect to limits reached. In 1997, Kennedy was the prime mover behind the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which used increased tobacco taxes to fund the largest expansion of taxpayer-funded health insurance coverage for children in the U.S. since Medicaid began in the 1960s. Senator Hatch and Hillary Clinton also played major roles in SCHIP passing.

Kennedy was a stalwart backer of President Clinton during the 1998 Clinton–Lewinsky scandal, often trying to cheer up the president and getting him to add past Kennedy staffer Greg Craig to his defense team, which helped improve the president's fortunes. In the trial after the 1999 impeachment of Clinton, Kennedy voted to acquit Clinton on both charges, saying "Republicans in the House of Representatives, in their partisan vendetta against the President, have wielded the impeachment power in precisely the way the framers rejected, recklessly and without regard for the Constitution or the will of the American people."

On July 16, 1999, Kennedy's nephew John F. Kennedy Jr. was killed when his Piper Saratoga aircraft crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. John Jr.'s wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and his sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette, were also killed. Ted was the family patriarch, and he and President Clinton consoled his extended family at the public memorial service. He paraphrased W. B. Yeats by saying of his nephew: "We dared to think, in that other Irish phrase, that this John Kennedy would live to comb gray hair, with his beloved Carolyn by his side. But like his father, he had every gift but length of years." The Boston Globe wrote of the changed role: "It underscored the evolution that surprised so many people who knew the Kennedys: Teddy, the baby of the family, who had grown into a man who could sometimes be dissolute and reckless, had become the steady, indispensable patriarch, the one the family turned to in good times and bad."

2000s

Kennedy had an easy time with his re-election to the Senate in 2000, as Republican lawyer and entrepreneur Jack E. Robinson III was sufficiently damaged by his past personal record that Republican state party officials refused to endorse him. Kennedy got 73 percent of the general election vote, with Robinson splitting the rest with Libertarian Carla Howell. During the long, disputed post-presidential election battle in Florida in 2000, Kennedy supported Vice President Al Gore's legal actions. After the bitter contest, many Democrats in Congress did not want to work with incoming President George W. Bush. Kennedy, however, saw Bush as genuinely interested in a major overhaul of education, Bush saw Kennedy as a potential major ally in the Senate, and the two partnered together on the legislation. Kennedy accepted provisions governing mandatory student testing and teacher accountability that other Democrats and the National Education Association did not like, in return for increased funding levels for education. The No Child Left Behind Act was passed by Congress in May and June 2001 and signed into law by Bush in January 2002. Kennedy soon became disenchanted with the implementation of the act, however, saying for 2003 that it was $9 billion short of the $29 billion authorized. Kennedy said, "The tragedy is that these long overdue reforms are finally in place, but the funds are not," and accused Bush of not living up to his personal word on the matter. Other Democrats concluded that Kennedy's penchant for cross-party deals had gotten the better of him. The White House defended its spending levels given the context of two wars going on.

Kennedy was in his Senate offices meeting with First Lady Laura Bush when the September 11, 2001, attacks took place. Two of the airplanes involved had taken off from Boston, and Kennedy telephoned each of the 177 Massachusetts families who had lost members in the attacks. He pushed through legislation that provided healthcare and grief counseling benefits for the families, and recommended the appointment of his former chief of staff Kenneth Feinberg as Special Master of the government's September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. Kennedy maintained an ongoing bond with the Massachusetts 9/11 families in subsequent years.

Kennedy was a supporter of the American-led 2001 overthrow of the Taliban government in Afghanistan. However, Kennedy strongly opposed the Iraq War from the start, and was one of 23 senators voting against the Iraq War Resolution in October 2002. As the Iraqi insurgency grew in subsequent years, Kennedy pronounced that the conflict was "Bush's Vietnam." In response to losses of Massachusetts service personnel to roadside bombs, Kennedy became vocal on the issue of Humvee vulnerability, and co-sponsored enacted 2005 legislation that sped up production and Army procurement of up-armored Humvees.

Obama, illness

Kennedy initially stated that he would support John Kerry again if he were to make another bid for president in 2008, but in January 2007, Kerry said he would not make a second attempt for the White House. Kennedy then remained neutral as the 2008 Democratic nomination battle between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama intensified, because his friend Chris Dodd was also running for the nomination. The initial caucuses and primaries were split between Clinton and Obama. When Dodd withdrew from the race, Kennedy became dissatisfied with the tone of the Clinton campaign and what he saw as racially tinged remarks by Bill Clinton. Kennedy gave an endorsement to Obama on January 28, 2008, despite appeals by both Clintons not to do so. In a move that was seen as a symbolic passing of the torch, Kennedy said that it was "time again for a new generation of leadership," and compared Obama's ability to inspire with that of his fallen brothers. In return, Kennedy gained a commitment from Obama to make universal health care a top priority of his administration if he were elected. Kennedy's endorsement was considered among the most influential that any Democrat could get, and raised the possibility of improving Obama's vote-getting among unions, Hispanics, and traditional base Democrats. It dominated the political news, and gave national exposure to a candidate who was still not well known in much of the United States, as the Super Tuesday primaries across the nation approached.

On May 17, 2008, Kennedy suffered a seizure, which was followed by a second seizure as he was being rushed from the Kennedy Compound to Cape Cod Hospital and then by helicopter to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Within days, doctors announced that Kennedy had a malignant glioma, a type of brain tumor.

The grim diagnosis brought shocked reactions from many senators of both parties and from President Bush.

Doctors initially informed Kennedy that the tumor was inoperable, but Kennedy followed standard procedure and sought other opinions. He decided to follow the most aggressive course of treatment possible.

On June 2, 2008, Kennedy underwent brain surgery at Duke University Medical Center in an attempt to remove as much of the tumor as possible. The 3½-hour operation—conducted by Dr. Allan Friedman while Kennedy was conscious to minimize any permanent neurological effects—was deemed successful. Kennedy left the hospital a week later to begin a course of chemotherapy and radiation treatment.

Death

Kennedy died of a brain tumor on August 25, 2009, at the age of 77, at his home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, two weeks after the death of his sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver. In a statement, Kennedy's family thanked "everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice".

Reaction

President Obama said that Kennedy's death marked the "passing of an extraordinary leader" and that he and First Lady Michelle Obama were "heartbroken", while Vice President Biden said "today we lost a truly remarkable man," and that Kennedy "changed the circumstances of tens of millions of Americans". Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts governor and Kennedy's opponent in the 1994 Senate race, called Kennedy "the kind of man you could like even if he was your adversary" and former first lady Nancy Reagan said she was "terribly saddened". She went on, "Given our political differences, people are sometimes surprised how close Ronnie and I have been to the Kennedy family. ... I will miss him." Senator Robert Byrd, the President pro tempore of the Senate, issued a statement on Kennedy's death in which he said "My heart and soul weeps at the loss of my best friend in the Senate, my beloved friend"; Byrd had cried uncontrollably on the Senate floor when Kennedy's cancer diagnosis was made public the previous year.

There were also tributes from outside politics. Before a Boston Red Sox game, flags at Fenway Park were flown at half-staff and "Taps" was performed as players stood along the baselines, and the Yankees observed a moment of silence before a game at Yankee Stadium.

Funeral services

Kennedy's funeral procession traveled 70 miles (110 km) from the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port to the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, where his corpse lay in repose; over 50,000 members of the public filed by to pay their respects. On Saturday, August 29, a procession traveled from the library to the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica in Boston, for a funeral Mass. Present at the funeral service were President Obama and former presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush (also representing his father, former president George H. W. Bush, who decided not to attend), along with Vice President Biden, three former vice presidents, 58 senators, 21 former senators, many members of the House of Representatives, and several foreign dignitaries. President Obama delivered the eulogy.

The funeral service also drew attendees from outside politics from Boston, Washington, and across the United States, including journalists Bob Woodward, Tom Brokaw and Gwen Ifill; singers Tony Bennett and Plácido Domingo; cellist Yo-Yo Ma; actors Jack Nicholson, Lauren Bacall, and Brian Stokes Mitchell; presidents and chancellors of Boston-area colleges and universities including Harvard University President Drew G. Faust and University of Massachusetts President Jack M. Wilson; and sports figures including former Boston Celtics basketball player Bill Russell, as well as the top management of the Red Sox.

Kennedy's remains were returned to Washington, D.C., and laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery, near the graves of his assassinated brothers. Former Cardinal and Washington, D.C., Archbishop Theodore McCarrick presided over his burial service, which was attended by Biden, Kennedy's widow Vicki, and other members of the Kennedy family. Kennedy's grave marker is identical to his brother Robert's: a white oak cross and a white marble foot marker bearing his name and years of birth and death.

Aftermath

True Compass, the memoir that Kennedy worked on throughout his illness, was published three weeks after his death. It debuted atop the New York Times Best Seller list and by mid-December 2009 had sold some 400,000 copies.

A special election was scheduled for January 19, 2010, for the U.S. Senate seat from Massachusetts left vacant by Kennedy's death. Shortly before his death, Kennedy had written to Democratic Governor of Massachusetts Deval Patrick and the Massachusetts legislature, asking them to change state law to allow an appointee to fill a U.S. Senate vacancy for a term expiring upon the special election. Kennedy had been instrumental in the prior 2004 alteration of this law to prevent Governor Mitt Romney from appointing a Republican senator should John Kerry's presidential campaign succeed. The law was amended, and on September 24, 2009, Paul G. Kirk, former Democratic National Committee chairman and former aide to Kennedy, was appointed to occupy the Senate seat until the completion of the special election. Kirk announced that he would not be a candidate in the special election. In that election, Republican State Senator Scott Brown won the seat in a stunning upset, ending Democratic control of it going back to 1953.

Brown's victory ended the 60-vote supermajority in the Senate that the Democrats had held since mid-2009. Democrats rallied and passed health care reform legislation; Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was instrumental in doing so, credited Kennedy in her closing remarks on the House floor before the final vote. Kennedy's widow Vicki attended the signing of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, at which both she and President Obama wore blue "Tedstrong" bracelets. Congressman Patrick Kennedy brought a copy of a national health insurance bill his father had introduced in 1970 as a gift for the president. He laid a note on his father's grave that said, "Dad, the unfinished business is done." Patrick's earlier decision not to seek re-election meant that in January 2011, a 64-year-long period in which a Kennedy held Federal elective office came to an end, but resumed in January 2013 (due to the November 2012 election) with Ted's great-nephew, Joseph P. Kennedy III, becoming a member of the House. Democratic control of Kennedy's former Senate seat was also regained following Brown's 2012 loss to Elizabeth Warren.

Political positions

Political scientists gauge ideology in part by comparing the annual ratings by the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) with the ratings by the American Conservative Union (ACU). Kennedy had a lifetime liberal 90 percent score from the ADA through 2004, while the ACU awarded Kennedy a lifetime conservative rating of 2 percent through 2008. Using another metric, Kennedy had a lifetime average liberal score of 88.7 percent, according to a National Journal analysis that places him ideologically as the third-most liberal senator of all those in office in 2009. A 2004 analysis by political scientists Joshua D. Clinton of Princeton University and Simon Jackman and Doug Rivers of Stanford University examined some of the difficulties in making this kind of analysis, and found Kennedy likely to be the 8th-to-15th-most liberal Senator during the 108th Congress. The Almanac of American Politics rates congressional votes as liberal or conservative on the political spectrum, in three policy areas: economic, social, and foreign. For 2005–2006, Kennedy's average ratings were as follows: the economic rating was 91 percent liberal and 0 percent conservative, the social rating was 89 percent liberal and 5 percent conservative, and the foreign rating was 96 percent liberal and 0 percent conservative.

Various interest groups gave Kennedy scores or grades as to how well his votes aligned with the positions of each group. The American Civil Liberties Union gave him an 84 percent lifetime score as of 2009. During the 1990s and 2000s, NARAL Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood typically gave Kennedy ratings of 100 percent, while the National Right to Life Committee typically gave him a rating of less than 10 percent. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence gave Kennedy a lifetime rating of 100 percent through 2002, while the NRA Political Victory Fund gave Kennedy a lifetime grade of "F" (failing) as of 2006.

Cultural and political image

When Kennedy died in August 2009, he was the second-most senior member of the Senate (after President pro tempore Robert Byrd of West Virginia) and the third longest-serving senator of all time, behind Byrd and Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Later that same year, he was passed by Daniel Inouye of Hawaii. Kennedy therefore held the record as the longest-serving Democratic member of Congress to solely serve as a senator until October 2021, when he was surpassed by fellow Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont.

During his tenure, Kennedy became one of the most recognizable and influential members of his party and was sometimes called a "Democratic icon" as well as "The Lion of the Senate". Kennedy and his Senate staff authored around 2,500 bills, of which more than 300 were enacted into law. Kennedy co-sponsored another 550 bills that became law after 1973. Kennedy was known for his effectiveness in dealing with Republican senators and administrations, sometimes to the irritation of other Democrats. During the 101st Congress under President George H. W. Bush, at least half of the successful proposals put forward by the Senate Democratic policy makers came out of Kennedy's Labor and Human Resources Committee. During the 2000s, almost every bipartisan bill signed during the George W. Bush administration had significant involvement from Kennedy. A late 2000s survey of Republican senators ranked Kennedy first among Democrats in bipartisanship. Kennedy strongly believed in the principle "never let the perfect be the enemy of the good," and would agree to pass legislation he viewed as incomplete or imperfect with the goal of improving it down the road. In April 2006, Kennedy was selected by Time as one of "America's 10 Best Senators"; the magazine noted that he had "amassed a titanic record of legislation affecting the lives of virtually every man, woman and child in the country" and that "by the late 1990s, the liberal icon had become such a prodigious cross-aisle dealer that Republican leaders began pressuring party colleagues not to sponsor bills with him". In May 2008, soon-to-be Republican presidential nominee John McCain said, "[Kennedy] is a legendary lawmaker and I have the highest respect for him. When we have worked together, he has been a skillful, fair and generous partner." Republican Governor of California and Kennedy relative Arnold Schwarzenegger described "Uncle Teddy" as "a liberal icon, a warrior for the less fortunate, a fierce advocate for health-care reform, a champion of social justice here and abroad" and "the rock of his family". At the time of Kennedy's death, sociologist and Nation board member Norman Birnbaum wrote that Kennedy had come to be viewed as the "voice" and "conscience" of American progressivism.

Awards and honors

Kennedy's honors include an honorary knighthood bestowed by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, the Order of the Aztec Eagle from Mexico, the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Order of Merit of Chile, and honorary degrees from several institutions including Harvard University.

Writings

Kennedy, Edward M., ed. (1965). The Fruitful Bough (Collected essays on Joseph P. Kennedy). privately published.

Kennedy, Edward M. (1968). Decisions for a Decade: Policies and Programs for the 1970s. Doubleday.

Kennedy, Edward M. (1972). In Critical Condition: The Crisis in America's Health Care. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-21314-5.

Kennedy, Edward M., ed. (1979). Our Day and Our Generation: The Words of Edward M. Kennedy. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-24133-9.

Kennedy, Edward M.; Hatfield, Mark (1982). Freeze!: How You Can Prevent Nuclear War. Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-553-14077-4.

Kennedy, Edward M. (2006). America Back on Track. Viking Adult. ISBN 978-0-670-03764-3.

Kennedy, Edward M. (2006). My Senator and Me: A Dog's-Eye View of Washington, D.C.. Small, David (illus.). Scholastic Press. ISBN 978-0-439-65077-9.

Kennedy, Edward M. (2009). True Compass. Twelve. ISBN 978-0-446-53925-8.