The Survivor

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The Survivor

Liberals' Lion

The Life of Sen. Edward Kennedy

By Jon Meacham | NEWSWEEK
Published Aug 27, 2009


It fell to him, the youngest, to tell his father. On the afternoon of Friday, Nov. 22, 1963, Edward Moore Kennedy was in Washington, presiding over the U.S. Senate—a ceremonial chore assigned to junior lawmakers—when word came that the president had been shot in Dallas. He found his sister Eunice Shriver, and together they flew from the capital to Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod. From there they were driven to Hyannis. Ambassador Joseph Kennedy Sr., stricken by stroke but still mentally alert, was napping. Unsure how to break the news to the president's father, the household staff had unplugged the patriarch's television, telling the old man that it was on the blink. When the senior Kennedy pointed to the plug, Teddy put it back in the wall and surreptitiously ripped the wires out of the back of the set. The next morning, after mass, Teddy and Eunice returned to their father's bedroom. "There's been a bad accident," Teddy said. "The president has been hurt very badly." The ambassador, who had been looking out the window, turned his full attention to his youngest son, who managed: "As a matter of fact, he died."

In the horror of those hours, and in so many hours to come, Ted Kennedy was playing a role that would grow all too familiar: that of the survivor, soldiering on, assuming the burdens of his fallen brothers, always with an eye on caring for the family his father had built.

The Kennedys have long been both makers and mirrors of the larger American story. From the rise of ethnic politicians in the big cities to the Jazz Age to the birth of Hollywood to isolationism to JFK's cool liberalism and RFK's hot version, the family's history will forever be part of the nation's.

We know all that. What is less appreciated is how Kennedy's journey from youthful (and not-so-youthful) personal irresponsibility to legislative greatness illuminates the nuances and ironies of personality and power. As Kennedy knew firsthand, the world is a tragic place and will never fully conform to our wishes. Bills fail; cancer strikes; assassins kill. The important thing is to keep moving, trying to learn from our sins and working to redeem ourselves.

His was a life with its share of joys. He loved his children, his siblings, his nieces and nephews; he was the best of friends—warm and funny and always there. JFK and RFK were noble public servants, as was Teddy. But the youngest Kennedy brother was given something denied his more glamorous elders: the gift of years. Unlike them, he had world enough and time. He was at the weddings and the wakes and the baptisms and the Easters and the Christmases. He was a sailor whom the fates allowed to finish the voyage.

The public nostalgia on the occasion of Kennedy's death from brain cancer at 77 is not only a sentimental farewell to the Last Brother, but also a moment for the country to appreciate the complexity of life by contemplating the one Ted Kennedy led. In death, as in the Senate, Kennedy has surprising lessons to teach.

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http://www.newsweek.com/id/213875

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