“Atonement is a process that never ends,” Ted Kennedy writes in his memoir, confronting the shame shadowing his life that was avoided in a weekend of tributes--the death of a young woman at Chappaquiddick.
In a preview of the 532-page volume to be published later this month, the New York Times discloses that Kennedy "called his behavior after the 1969 car accident that killed Mary Jo Kopechne 'inexcusable' and said the events might have shortened the life of his ailing father, Joseph P. Kennedy.
"In that book, 'True Compass,' Mr. Kennedy said he was dazed, afraid and panicked in the minutes and hours after he drove off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island with Ms. Kopechne as his passenger.
"The senator, who left the scene and did not report the accident to the police until after her body was found the next day, admitted in the memoir that he had 'made terrible decisions' at Chappaquiddick."
Such candor has not been typical of the Kennedys, who fought fiercely to protect their family myth over decades. That's underscored in this month's Vanity Fair story of how Jacqueline Kennedy commissioned William Manchester's book about JFK's assassination, "Death of a President," and then went to court to force him to cut parts of it that family advisers (she herself couldn't bear to read it) deemed personally or politically incorrect.
During that period, I published excerpts from a light-hearted book by Red Fay, a college friend of JFK's who had been his Undersecretary of the Navy. After strong-arming the publisher into cutting dozens of such harmless revelations as two-year-old John Jr. splashing his father at poolside and calling him "poo-poo head," Robert Kennedy solemnly thanked me for going along to "protect the children."
In the 21st century, such control is long-gone. In its account of the Ted Kennedy memoir, the Times notes, "The book does not shy from the accident, or from some other less savory aspects of the senator’s life, including a notorious 1991 drinking episode in Palm Beach, Fla., or the years of heavy drinking and women-chasing that followed his 1982 divorce from his first wife, Joan."
The last of the Kennedy brothers lived long enough to learn that the public now insists on seeing its heroes in the full, warts and all.
Showing posts with label Chappaquiddick. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chappaquiddick. Show all posts
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Montage From an American Funeral
Distilled from a half century of seeing Kennedys up close and reporting their history, feelings about today's mass in Boston prompt renewed wonder about the complexity and unpredictability of American life.
President Obama's eulogy, eloquent as always, was after all the tribute of someone who has known Ted Kennedy for only a few years, graciously lauding him as "a Happy Warrior" and "a kind and tender hero."
His words were part of a much larger tableau, the sense of how love and conflict, wealth and ambition, personal failings and the search for redemption play out across generations of a public family.
The weekend's celebration was graciously orchestrated by Ted Kennedy's second wife, Vicki, who saved him when his personal and political fortunes were at low ebb in the early 1990s.
There was only a passing mention of his first wife, Joan, mother of his children, a stunningly beautiful woman who wrote about her chronic alcoholism for me in McCalls before their divorce in the 1970s and, of course, none at all of Chappaquiddick, which in 1969 marred the legend of Camelot and ruined the chances of another Kennedy in the White House.
Fittingly enough, an unspoken theme in that church today was atonement, and Ted Kennedy's most impressive advocates were his sons, Ted Jr., telling how his father's relentless devotion carried him through the loss of a leg to cancer and Patrick, still visibly shaky from addiction, testifying to the healing power of paternal love.
Their tributes brought no outward reaction from two men in the first row who grew up without that, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, but it would have taken a heart of stone not to be moved by them.
As Ted Kennedy is taken to join his brothers in Arlington Cemetery, what comes to mind is something JFK said in an interview with me only weeks before he died.
He was talking about the brutal and violent instincts of human beings that, in his words, “have been implanted in us growing out of the dust.” In controlling those destructive impulses, John Fitzgerald Kennedy said sadly, “we have done reasonably well——but only reasonably well.“
He would have been proud of what his little brother did about that in the 77 years he was granted on earth.
President Obama's eulogy, eloquent as always, was after all the tribute of someone who has known Ted Kennedy for only a few years, graciously lauding him as "a Happy Warrior" and "a kind and tender hero."
His words were part of a much larger tableau, the sense of how love and conflict, wealth and ambition, personal failings and the search for redemption play out across generations of a public family.
The weekend's celebration was graciously orchestrated by Ted Kennedy's second wife, Vicki, who saved him when his personal and political fortunes were at low ebb in the early 1990s.
There was only a passing mention of his first wife, Joan, mother of his children, a stunningly beautiful woman who wrote about her chronic alcoholism for me in McCalls before their divorce in the 1970s and, of course, none at all of Chappaquiddick, which in 1969 marred the legend of Camelot and ruined the chances of another Kennedy in the White House.
Fittingly enough, an unspoken theme in that church today was atonement, and Ted Kennedy's most impressive advocates were his sons, Ted Jr., telling how his father's relentless devotion carried him through the loss of a leg to cancer and Patrick, still visibly shaky from addiction, testifying to the healing power of paternal love.
Their tributes brought no outward reaction from two men in the first row who grew up without that, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, but it would have taken a heart of stone not to be moved by them.
As Ted Kennedy is taken to join his brothers in Arlington Cemetery, what comes to mind is something JFK said in an interview with me only weeks before he died.
He was talking about the brutal and violent instincts of human beings that, in his words, “have been implanted in us growing out of the dust.” In controlling those destructive impulses, John Fitzgerald Kennedy said sadly, “we have done reasonably well——but only reasonably well.“
He would have been proud of what his little brother did about that in the 77 years he was granted on earth.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Moon Landing and Chappaquiddick
Forty years ago this weekend, two events marked the end of the Kennedy era--Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, as JFK had promised, and his brother Ted drove off a bridge at Chappaquiddick to signify the end of Camelot.
"I believe," President John F. Kennedy had told Congress the year Barack Obama was born, "that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth."
For those old enough to remember, that juxtaposition of Apollo 11 and Chappaquiddick will always mark the 1960s as a reminder of the essential truth about politics: high ideals being pursued by flawed human beings.
The jubilation over the moon landing ("one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind") was tempered back then by the trauma of a president's brother, and likely future candidate himself, involved in the death of a young woman and a scandal worsened by attempted coverups and a Nixonlike Checkers speech to save a political career.
Looking back 40 years later, does all this confirm Martin Luther King's contention that "the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice," as often cited now by the first African-American president in history?
Chappaquiddick destroyed Ted Kennedy's hopes for the White House and led to 40 years of honorable service in the Senate, ending now with a terminally ill man devoting his remaining strength to the cause of health care reform.
Are the Kennedys' moral books balanced? A Higher Power will have to make that judgment.
"I believe," President John F. Kennedy had told Congress the year Barack Obama was born, "that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth."
For those old enough to remember, that juxtaposition of Apollo 11 and Chappaquiddick will always mark the 1960s as a reminder of the essential truth about politics: high ideals being pursued by flawed human beings.
The jubilation over the moon landing ("one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind") was tempered back then by the trauma of a president's brother, and likely future candidate himself, involved in the death of a young woman and a scandal worsened by attempted coverups and a Nixonlike Checkers speech to save a political career.
Looking back 40 years later, does all this confirm Martin Luther King's contention that "the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice," as often cited now by the first African-American president in history?
Chappaquiddick destroyed Ted Kennedy's hopes for the White House and led to 40 years of honorable service in the Senate, ending now with a terminally ill man devoting his remaining strength to the cause of health care reform.
Are the Kennedys' moral books balanced? A Higher Power will have to make that judgment.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
The Last of Our Kennedy Past
For my generation, the sadness over Ted Kennedy's diagnosis today goes deeper than the sudden awareness of one man's mortality. He is our last link to a time of youth and hope.
The youngest of Joe and Rose's nine children, he grew up in the shadow of not only Jack and Bobby, but the oldest brother Joe, who died in World War II. When JFK was elected president, Teddy had to wait two years before he turned thirty and could run for and win his brother's vacated Senate seat.
Over the next 44 years, he won eight more elections, survived both the accident at Chappaquiddick and the ensuing scandal, made a half-hearted attempt to run for the White House in 1980 and then worked hard and tirelessly to become a figure worthy of the Kennedy legend.
The shock and grief on the faces of his Congressional colleagues today testify to his accomplishments both as a keeper of the Kennedy flame and a figure of accomplishment in his own right.
As we prepare to turn a new page in our political history, Ted Kennedy is a living reminder of some of the best that preceded it. Millions will be praying for him.
The youngest of Joe and Rose's nine children, he grew up in the shadow of not only Jack and Bobby, but the oldest brother Joe, who died in World War II. When JFK was elected president, Teddy had to wait two years before he turned thirty and could run for and win his brother's vacated Senate seat.
Over the next 44 years, he won eight more elections, survived both the accident at Chappaquiddick and the ensuing scandal, made a half-hearted attempt to run for the White House in 1980 and then worked hard and tirelessly to become a figure worthy of the Kennedy legend.
The shock and grief on the faces of his Congressional colleagues today testify to his accomplishments both as a keeper of the Kennedy flame and a figure of accomplishment in his own right.
As we prepare to turn a new page in our political history, Ted Kennedy is a living reminder of some of the best that preceded it. Millions will be praying for him.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Will Ted Kennedy Tell All?
The last survivor of the twentieth century's great brother act is writing his memoirs, fittingly for one of the largest advances of all time, north of $8 million.
"I've been fortunate in my life to grow up in an extraordinary family and to have a front row seat at many key events in our nation's history," Ted Kennedy said in a statement.
He will be the first of his generation to live long enough to tell the story of those lives that were marked by grandeur, scandal and grief.
The youngest of nine children, Edward Moore Kennedy was thrown out of Harvard for cheating but, with one brother as President and another Attorney General, he overcame adversity by winning Jack's former Senate seat, which had been kept warm for him by a family friend until he turned 30 in 1962 and was eligible to run for it.
In the 1960s, he was seen at TV funerals of both brothers, became the surrogate father of their 13 children and ended the decade, on the weekend of the first moon landing, driving a car into the waters off Chappaquiddick island, resulting in the drowning of the young woman who was with him.
That scandal would have ended any other political career but, in 1980, he was preparing to challenge unpopular incumbent Jimmy Carter for the Democratic Presidential nomination. I know because I published a 90th birthday reminiscence by his mother that summer, arranged by loyal JFK staffers as part of Ted Kennedy's public rehabilitation.
But his heart was not in it. In a CBS special just before announcing the candidacy, his answer to the question of why he wanted to be president was so vague, rambling and unsure that poll numbers plummeted and it was over.
When he looks back on all that and a remarkable 45-year career in the Senate that includes championing gun control, alternative energy and immigration reform as well as voting against invading Iraq in 2002, Ted Kennedy will have a lot to tell in his autobiography but, for better or worse, most potential readers will have strong opinions about him even before they turn the first page.
"I've been fortunate in my life to grow up in an extraordinary family and to have a front row seat at many key events in our nation's history," Ted Kennedy said in a statement.
He will be the first of his generation to live long enough to tell the story of those lives that were marked by grandeur, scandal and grief.
The youngest of nine children, Edward Moore Kennedy was thrown out of Harvard for cheating but, with one brother as President and another Attorney General, he overcame adversity by winning Jack's former Senate seat, which had been kept warm for him by a family friend until he turned 30 in 1962 and was eligible to run for it.
In the 1960s, he was seen at TV funerals of both brothers, became the surrogate father of their 13 children and ended the decade, on the weekend of the first moon landing, driving a car into the waters off Chappaquiddick island, resulting in the drowning of the young woman who was with him.
That scandal would have ended any other political career but, in 1980, he was preparing to challenge unpopular incumbent Jimmy Carter for the Democratic Presidential nomination. I know because I published a 90th birthday reminiscence by his mother that summer, arranged by loyal JFK staffers as part of Ted Kennedy's public rehabilitation.
But his heart was not in it. In a CBS special just before announcing the candidacy, his answer to the question of why he wanted to be president was so vague, rambling and unsure that poll numbers plummeted and it was over.
When he looks back on all that and a remarkable 45-year career in the Senate that includes championing gun control, alternative energy and immigration reform as well as voting against invading Iraq in 2002, Ted Kennedy will have a lot to tell in his autobiography but, for better or worse, most potential readers will have strong opinions about him even before they turn the first page.
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