After Camelot: A Personal History of the Kennedy Family--1968 to the Present

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  Patricia Kennedy Lawford was survived by her son, Chris, three daughters, Sydney, Robin, and Victoria Frances, and ten grandchildren.

  Ted Kennedy and the Obama Endorsement

  I’m proud to stand here with him today and offer my help, offer my voice, offer my energy, my commitment to make Barack Obama the next president of the United States.”

  It was January 2008 and a now older Ted Kennedy—in his fifth decade as a senator—stood next to his niece Caroline Kennedy onstage at a morning campaign rally in Bender Arena on the campus of American University in Washington, D.C., delivering a ringing endorsement of Barack Obama’s campaign for the nomination of his party for president.

  Almost ten years had passed since the death of John Kennedy Jr.—ten years of family life, of children, grandchildren, and the passing of glorious summers in Hyannis Port. Back in 2002, “No Child Left Behind,” which Ted had cosponsored, was signed into law, giving states and school districts more freedom over how they spent federal dollars, but also requiring them to raise student achievement. He was very proud of that legislation. Then, in 2006, Ted easily won an eighth term that was to extend his Senate career to an even fifty years in 2012. A year later, Congress approved an increase in the federal minimum wage, something else Ted had been fighting for in the Senate for quite some time. Indeed, though many things had changed over the years for the Kennedys, some things remained the same—such as Ted Kennedy’s commitment to public service, his need to be of assistance, and, most of all, his ability to get things done.

  Throughout 2007, Ted had remained neutral in the race even though his support had been avidly sought by all three presidential contenders—Obama, Senator Hillary Clinton, and Senator John Edwards—proving pretty much the obvious: that a political endorsement by Ted Kennedy was still significant almost fifty years after his brother Jack took office. It was Caroline Kennedy who first spoke to Ted about endorsing Obama. She believed in him and had decided to lend her support. It wasn’t an easy decision. She would not be able to forget Chelsea Clinton’s emotional support six weeks after John died when Chelsea joined Caroline and her family on a sailing and waterskiing trip off Martha’s Vineyard. Chelsea had been a good friend, and Caroline also counted Hillary and Bill Clinton as close friends. She called all three and spoke to them personally to tell them that she had decided to support Obama. Those were difficult calls, say sources close to the Clintons. “Bill understood and seemed to roll with it, but Hillary and Chelsea were very hurt and they let Caroline know it,” said the source. “But Caroline has been around politics long enough to know that you can’t take it personally, and she was surprised that Hillary and Chelsea didn’t see it that way.”

  The Kennedys’ support of Obama was a crushing blow to New York senator Hillary Clinton, who had been a colleague and a friend of the Kennedy family for years. In fact, the Clintons had long been friends with Ted and Vicki. On a personal level, they had entertained the couple at Martha’s Vineyard—along with Jackie when she was alive—and, professionally, Bill Clinton had sought Kennedy’s counsel when he was threatened with impeachment over the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Also, of course, when John Jr.’s plane went down, President Clinton mobilized the full resources of the federal government in searching for the plane and the victims of the crash. Moreover, Ted had worked closely with Hillary Clinton on health care reform and other legislation. Ted liked Mrs. Clinton and advised her not to make the same mistake he made in 1980 when it came to the Secret Service. He said that he felt that the Service had made it impossible to connect with voters during his campaign that year and warned her to try to keep them at bay, even though, of course, they needed to do their job in protecting her and her husband. However, Hillary didn’t seem to be Ted’s cup of tea as a politician. She was too brash and, he felt, divisive. He was also quite disenchanted when Bill Clinton made some statements suggesting that the primary reason Obama had so much momentum was because of the support of African Americans, thus injecting race into the campaign, at least in Ted’s view. He had appealed to Bill to stop making such statements in a couple of very heated telephone calls, but to no avail. Later, many people in the Clinton camp would say that she lost Kennedy’s support because of her husband, and in fact Bill did play a lesser role in her campaign after the Kennedys endorsed Obama.

  In the end, though, Ted just didn’t think Hillary could win, even though some of his own family strongly disagreed, such as Ethel’s children, former Maryland lieutenant governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Bobby Jr., who was now a global environmentalist, and Kerry, a human rights activist. Ethel was also behind Barack Obama. In 2005, she had invited him to speak at a ceremony commemorating what would have been Bobby’s eightieth birthday and she said at the time that she felt he would be “our next president.” “I think he feels it. He feels it just like Bobby did,” Mrs. Kennedy said in an interview that day, comparing her late husband’s quest for social justice to Mr. Obama’s. “He has the passion in his heart. He’s not selling you. It’s just him.” Jean was also behind Obama, which was difficult for her because, after all, Bill Clinton had named her ambassador to Ireland. “But as I think back on my brothers’ lives and John Hume’s words and example, I know that my experience, my conscience, and my heart all point to Barack Obama, the messenger of hope, who speaks to the same principle of unity and the common good that John Hume and my brothers believed in,” Jean said at the time. “He offers the right moral vision for America in our dangerously divided but increasingly interconnected world.” Rarely had the family ever been so split on their support of a political candidate, and Arnold Schwarzenegger went on record saying that in thirty years he had never seen such a thing happen. His wife, Maria Shriver, sided with Ted Kennedy in his support of Obama, while Republican Schwarzenegger eventually backed his party’s candidate for office, John McCain.

  “There was another time, when another young candidate was running for president and challenging America to cross a new frontier,” Ted said in his endorsement of Obama. “He faced criticism from the preceding Democratic president, who was widely respected in the party,” Kennedy said, referring to Harry S. Truman. “And John Kennedy replied, ‘The world is changing. The old ways will not do…. It is time for a new generation of leadership.’ So it is with Barack Obama,” he added. “Now, with Barack Obama, there is a new national leader who has given America a different kind of campaign—a campaign not just about himself, but about all of us. A campaign about the country we will become, if we can rise above the old politics that parses us into separate groups and puts us at odds with one another. With Barack Obama, we will turn the page on the old politics of misrepresentation and distortion. With Barack Obama, we will close the book on the old politics of race against race, gender against gender, ethnic group against ethnic group, and straight against gay.”

  Ted, who had been introduced by Caroline that morning, said that Obama “offers that same sense of hope and inspiration” as did her father. “Your mother and father would be so proud of you today,” he told Caroline.

  Ted’s son, Representative Patrick Kennedy, also endorsed Obama from the stage that day, saying that “we now find ourselves standing on a precipice of crisis…. We need a leader who can galvanize a new generation of citizens.”

  “Today isn’t just about politics for me. It’s personal,” Obama, who was forty-six at the time, said when it came time for him to speak. “I was too young to remember John Kennedy and I was just a child when Robert Kennedy ran for president. But in the stories I heard growing up, I saw how my grandparents and mother spoke about them, and about that period in our nation’s life—as a time of great hope and achievement.” He added, “I know what your support means. I know the cherished place the Kennedy family holds in the hearts of the American people. And that is as it should be, because the Kennedy family, more than any other, has always stood for what is best about the Democratic Party and what is best about America.”

  Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign issu
ed a statement from Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. “I respect Caroline and Ted’s decision, but I have made a different choice,” Ms. Townsend said in her statement, adding, “At this moment when so much is at stake at home and overseas, I urge our fellow Americans to support Hillary Clinton. That is why my brother Bobby, my sister Kerry, and I are supporting Hillary Clinton.”

  Within days of his endorsement speech, Ted Kennedy hit the road in support of his candidate. New Mexico, California, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Pennsylvania, Washington, Maryland, Virginia, Ohio—the schedule was grueling but Ted loved it, as did Vicki. “I felt joyous and exuberant through the inevitable exhaustion of the Democratic primary campaign,” he wrote in his memoir, True Compass, “as I had felt in Wyoming and West Virginia in 1960 for Jack, and in Indiana and California in 1968 for Bobby.”

  Doubtless, the persuasive power of Ted Kennedy helped Barack Obama secure the nomination of his party. In effect, Kennedy had set aside any fears that Obama didn’t have the experience to be president just by virtue of being willing to go out on a limb and lend him his support. After all, one of the greatest criticisms Hillary Clinton had of Obama was his lack of experience. Once that became a nonissue, Obama’s candidacy seemed all but guaranteed. It was an important time not only for the country, but for Ted Kennedy as well. He felt invigorated by the possibility of what was to come. It was just the beginning. And maybe nothing said it better for him than when, in Maine on February 8, 2008, he led the crowd of Obama supporters in song, as he often did from the podium after a rousing speech. On this day it was a familiar old chestnut about his heritage of which he was so proud, one he had sung at rallies more times over the years than he could possibly remember. It was “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.” Indeed, in the midst of making a big difference by supporting the candidacy of a man who could be America’s first African American president, it was a time in Ted Kennedy’s life when all the world seemed bright and filled with hope.

  Ted’s Diagnosis

  As the primary season came to a close, Ted Kennedy, who was now seventy-six, was at his home preparing for the start of the sailing season in Hyannis when he suffered a seizure on Saturday, May 17, 2008. “We woke up as usual, went downstairs to have coffee,” Vicki—who by this time had been married to Ted for sixteen years—would later recall. “He took the dogs [Sunny and Splash, both Portuguese water dogs] out for their first walk, as usual, and read the newspapers. Then he was taking the dogs out again, and suddenly I heard Judy, a wonderful friend of ours who’s been with us at the Cape for a long time. [ Judy Campbell was the Kennedys’ household assistant.] She said, ‘Vicki! Vicki!’ And I ran into the dining room, and Ted was sitting in a chair there. I knew something very grave was happening.” Ted later recalled, “I felt disoriented. I moved toward the door leading to the porch, where several spacious chairs face the lovely prospect that I’ve known since childhood: a view to Nantucket Sound and the several masted boats at anchor in the nearby harbor. ‘Well,’ I told myself, ‘I’ll just go outside and get some air.’ I didn’t make it outside…. I lowered myself into a chair. That’s the last thing I remember until I awoke in the hospital.”

  Ted was rushed to the Cape Cod Hospital and then flown by medevac helicopter to Massachusetts General Hospital. His children hurried to his side, as did Caroline. Tests were conducted, the results of which were swift and shocking. By Tuesday, doctors were certain Ted had a malignant brain tumor. One doctor opined he had two to four months to live. “It just didn’t compute with him,” Vicki said. In truth, Ted would never accept such a diagnosis. He’d seen cancer in his own family—Ted Jr. when he was a boy and, more recently, his daughter, Kara. Seven years earlier, Kara was told that she had “inoperable” lung cancer and that there was little if any hope for her survival. She was only forty-two and the mother of two children, Grace and Max. It was devastating news, but Ted refused to give in to it. He called in the best doctors from all over the country to confer about possible treatments before settling on one that was risky but held the best hope, basically the removal of part of Kara’s lung. It was everything he could do to keep his daughter’s spirits up as she underwent aggressive chemotherapy and radiation. Where Joan was concerned, Ted also did what he could to help her through the ordeal, too. This time, unlike when Ted Jr. was sick, Ted was really there for Joan. In fact, today Joan credits Ted with “saving my daughter’s life,” because, somehow, Kennedys being who they are, Kara beat the odds. Now, seven years later, she was still alive and doing very well, as was of course Ted Jr. Ted Kennedy had not given up on his kids, and he certainly wasn’t going to give up on himself either.*

  The news hit hard across party lines. Ted had so much respect from both Democrats and Republicans, it was difficult to imagine a time when he would not be in the Senate fighting tooth and nail for his beliefs. “I think you can argue that I would not be sitting here as a presidential candidate had it not been for some of the battles Ted Kennedy has fought,” said Barack Obama. “He is someone who battled for voting rights and civil rights when I was a child. I stand on his shoulders.”

  The family was distraught at this sudden turn of events. It seemed impossible to imagine that a time might be imminent when Ted would no longer be with them. Ethel, for one, simply refused to believe that Ted was dying—which is perhaps not so surprising. “I will not accept this,” she told Ted’s son Patrick, according to his later recollection. “Teddy can beat this,” she said. “He has to. He just has to…”

  “The fact that he had always been there to take care of everything was an incredible relief to us,” Ted Jr. said in 2009. “He instantly took on the situation, whatever it was. Whether it was John’s death or whatever situation was facing our family, he was in the director’s chair and he really helped all of us emotionally and logistically.”

  Though the next few months would be difficult, rarely did Ted allow his illness to get the best of him. He continued on the good path his wife Vicki had set for him years earlier. “He was incredibly generous to anyone who approached him on the Cape,” says Karen Jeffrey, a reporter for the Cape Cod Times. “He made an effort to stay in touch with people, to reach out to people, especially on the Cape. If he heard someone in a family he knew even vaguely was sick, he would send a card or make a phone call. He wrote his own thank-you notes, and I am in receipt of some of them. For instance, when he was sick on the Cape, I happened to say to a press person who knew him, ‘Tell the senator he should spend as much time on that porch getting sun as possible. And tell him I hope he’s feeling a lot better.’ Two days later a handwritten note came in the mail, thanking me! He had very nice handwriting and the first thing you thought of when receiving one of his notes was, ‘Rose trained him well.’ It was definitely a throwback to another era, the handwritten note. Jackie was known for it as well. There are probably thousands of notes from Jackie circulating about from people who received them in her lifetime, and the same is true of Ted.”

  Ted’s greatest comfort at this time was, as it always had been, sailing on his boat, the Mya, and enjoying the Nantucket Sound on a blustery day just the way Kennedys had been doing for so many decades. “When you’re out on the ocean, do you ever see your brothers?” the former award-winning Boston Globe columnist Mike Barnicle, a friend of Kennedys’, once asked Ted. “Sure,” Ted answered. “All the time… all the time. There’s not a day I don’t think of them. This is where we all grew up. There have been some joyous times here. Difficult times, too. We all learned to swim here. Learned to sail. I still remember my brother Joe, swimming with him here before he went off to war. My brother Jack, out on the water with him… I remember it all so well. He lived on the water, fought on the water. The sea,” Ted concluded, “there are eternal aspects to the sea and the ocean. It anchors you.”

  Mike Barnicle has many telling stories about Ted, including this one:

  In August 2009, Barnicle would resign from the Boston Globe after a stellar twenty-five-year career, over charg
es of plagiarism concerning two of the approximately four thousand columns he had written for the paper. It was a dark time for Barnicle. One night at about 11:30, there was a knock on the screen door at his home on Cape Cod, not far from the Kennedy compound. He opened the door to find Ted. “You have to hang in there,” Ted told Mike, handing him a pair of rosary beads. “Everything passes, even the darkest of nights.” That’s the kind of man Ted Kennedy had become by this time in his life.

  Another close friend of his recalls a conversation he had while sailing with Ted on the Mya under a low gray sky. Ted was wearing his favorite straw hat and windbreaker. “You know, I think sometimes, why me? But then I think, hell, why not me?” he observed. “Maybe it’s my turn, you know? I think about Joe and Kick. Jack and Bobby. And Mother and Father. And Jackie. And David and Michael. And John Jr. and Carolyn. I think, none of them wanted to go either, did they? So, maybe I’m going now. Maybe it’s my time to go.” His friend refused to accept such reasoning from Ted. “It’s not your time,” he insisted. “Don’t give in to it, Ted.” Ted smiled. “It’s okay,” he said. “This is a slow thing. It gives me a chance to say goodbye. It gives everyone that chance. We didn’t have it with my brothers Jack and Bobby. So I’m glad to have it,” he concluded.

  The Troops Rally

  Ted Kennedy’s goal was to be well enough to speak at the Democratic convention in August. It was a long shot, but he knew he could do it if he just kept a positive attitude and also, of course, prayed. Meanwhile, despite many health setbacks in the next few months, he was eager to continue to work—he was in the process of drafting legislation for universal health care that he hoped to give Obama should he win the election—and, maybe more important, to enjoy the good life on the Cape.