Triumph and Tragedy: the Life of Ted Kennedy

October 24, 3:06 PMLiterary ExaminerJohn T. Battaglia

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“I had been building an archive of my memories, both personal and political, through an oral history project at the University of Virginia.  I also had more than fifty years of personal notes and diaries that I kept.”  Former Senator Ted Kennedy’s recently released memoir,True Compass, begins in the spring of 2008, at the time of his collapse from a stroke in Hyannis Port, then circles back in time to London, where his ambassador father is assigned an impossible task by FDR: put a halt to the outbreak of World War II.  Joseph P. Kennedy, always referred to as “Dad,” is no ordinary man: young bank president; RKO movie producer; ambassador to Great Britain; first chairman of the Securities Exchange Commission; potential presidential candidate in the wake of Roosevelt; and the father of nine children, with Ted the youngest of the brood.  Dad had a way of inspiring his children, three of whom would become U.S. senators and presidential contenders, with JFK reaching the political peak as the country's thirty-fifth president.

Assisted by the assured hand of Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Powers (Mark Twain: A Life, 2005, etc.), the story of Edward M. Kennedy breezes through numerous triumphs and tragedies, and provides a look into the mind and heart of the long-serving Massachusetts Senator.  The memoir reaches four climactic points, three of which end in tragedy, the fourth in disappointment, from the assassinations of brothers Jack and Bobby, to the incident at Chappaquiddick, to the failed primary challenge against Jimmy Carter in 1980. During the first half of the book, Ted’s own story is often overshadowed by the successes and tragedies of his famous brothers: “As I think back to my three bothers [including the eldest, Joe Jr., who was killed in action during World War II], and about what they had accomplished before I was even out of my childhood, it sometimes has occurred to me that my entire life has been a constant state of catching up.”  The standard they set, along with Dad’s high expectations, inspire Ted to take the path of achievement.  Page forty is where he, as an early teen, receives the speech from Dad that changes his life: “You can have a serious life or a nonserious life, Teddy. I’ll still love you whichever choice you make. But if you decide to have a nonserious life, I won’t have much time for you. You make up your mind. There are too many children here who are doing things that are interesting for me to do much with you.”  It doesn’t take long for young Ted to decide which life is for him.

But when he enrolls at Harvard, following in the footsteps of his brothers, he is thrown out for cheating on a Spanish exam.  That doesn’t quite live up to the Kennedy standard, so he enlists in the army at Fort Dix, New Jersey, undergoing basic training there before journeying to France.  He later returns to Harvard, earning his degree in 1956 – along with an invitation to try out for the Green Bay Packers.  But football isn’t his calling, unless it’s a political football, that is.  In the same year Jack, now a U.S. senator, decides he will vie for the presidency.  With Jack’s White House election four years later and his appointment of Bobby as attorney general, the Massachusetts senate seat is open to Ted, who handily defeats George Cabot Lodge, thus beginning his illustrious political career at the upstart age of thirty. The following November, on the 22nd day, he hears a shout inside the Senate.  He reads a teletype machine, gathering the news that his brother, the president, has been killed.  Ted has Dad on his mind, who is ailing after having suffered two strokes.  Losing Joe Jr. in the war had crushed Dad: “I don’t think [he] ever fully recovered from the death of his eldest son.”  The death of Jack would add more pain. Ted calls home and speaks with Mother, who has heard the news.  Dad is asleep, however, unaware of the tragedy.  So Ted flies via helicopter to Hyannis Port along with his sister, Eunice.  There, he “[passes] a hellish night, and the following morning, I told Dad. To this day, the memory of that conversation brings me to tears.”

And there is more pain to come, much more, for Ted and his family.  In 1964, he survives a deadly plane crash and is laid up for six months of rehabilitation inside New England Baptist Hospital.  In 1968, Bobby is gunned down at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after narrowly defeating Eugene McCarthy in the California presidential primary.  And in July of 1969, he infamously runs his Oldsmobile off a narrow bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, resulting in the drowning death of passenger Mary Jo Kopechne, a campaign staffer during Bobby’s presidential bid. “I am not proud of these hours,” he writes of the aftermath at Chappaquiddick.  “My actions were inexcusable . . .  I was afraid.  I was overwhelmed.  I made terrible decisions.”  He is contrite about this unfortunate event, but otherwise doesn’t provide much detail.  Apparent is that “Chappaquiddick” effectively killed any hope of Ted ever becoming president.  It’s the incident that forever dogged his political life, and, as with other high tragedies, haunted him personally.  His constituents in Massachusetts didn’t hold this breach of conduct against him, reelecting him despite the Chappaquiddick stain with sixty-one percent of the vote in 1970, but on a national level, the incident’s baggage proved too much to bear.  Foreshadowing rough political waters is Senator Robert Byrd’s usurping of his position as majority whip in 1971.  In 1972, however, George McGovern asks him to run on the Democratic ticket (he declines).  It isn't until the summer of 1979, immediately after Jimmy Carter’s disheartening malaise speech to the nation, that he decides to enter the presidential fray.  But Democratic primary voters overwhelmingly choose to rally around the weakened incumbent instead of standing with Ted.  Losing a tough contest to Carter in the Iowa caucus sets the tone for the rest of the primary campaign, and also breaks precedent with Kennedy tradition: “I braced myself for a very unhappy duty,” he writes about the Iowa results. “I knew I had to call my mother and tell her the bad news, that I was the first Kennedy who had lost an election.”  He was successful only in further hobbling Carter’s chances in the 1980 general election against Ronald Reagan.

On Reagan, the stalwart liberal has this to say: “It is too early to really know what history’s verdict will be. I believe that he failed to meet the ultimate criteria of greatness.”  According to Ted, the country hasn’t seen a truly great president since FDR, and the one who came closest (besides his brother, Jack) was the Great Society visionary Lyndon Baines Johnson.  His issue with Reagan stems from what he considers his racial insensitivity, but he is willing to admit that “[Reagan] made people feel upbeat about the country, a welcome shift after the Carter era.”  Not exactly a fan of Vice President Dick Cheney, either, he writes, “[H]e had the power, but he lacked the good judgment to see beyond [his] extreme views.”  And in a swipe against Cheney’s boss, he writes, “The reelection of President Bush meant that it would be another four years before there might be a great leader in the White House.”  Vocal in his criticism of the invasion of Iraq, he repeats charges he’d made in the Senate that “[t]he war is a fraud, cooked up in Texas” and is “one of the worst blunders in the history of U.S. foreign policy.”  Disappointingly, he doesn't have much to share on the impact of 9/11.  But he has always been more of a domestic policy politician, dedicated to passing nationalized health care and coauthoring mounds of other major legislation, including the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act.  Whenever he did gear up for battle, it was usually to wage war against conservative judges nominated to the Supreme Court.  

In all, True Compass is a briskly paced memoir seeped in Kennedy history, from World War II on. It offers many points of wisdom and highlights the compassionate side of the steely-eyed senator. Ted is a gutsy individual, big on determination.  He’s the type of man who, within a year of suffering his stroke, throws the first pitch on opening day at Fenway Park not once, but twice, “until I got it right.”  It is in this spirit that True Compass will win you over, no matter your political affiliation.