by Edward Klein
As a result, said Peter Hart, Ted’s chief pollster, “there was no sense of central leadership…. I don’t think that I was ever asked or given the opportunity to really explore [Chappaquiddick]…. I don’t think I ever did a focus group for Senator Kennedy, and I’m not sure that there was ever a focus group done in that campaign.”12
An even bigger problem was the candidate himself. Ted Kennedy had always been ambivalent about the presidency. Amateur psychologists speculated that Ted was torn by the idea of leaping over the Kennedy family hierarchy, superseding his dead brothers, and perhaps even succeeding where they had faltered and failed.
There was also a far simpler explanation. “My view,” said CBS’s Roger Mudd, “is that he wasn’t prepared, because he had never really sat down and asked himself [the] question: Why do I, Edward Moore Kennedy, want to run this country? Who are my enemies, who are my friends? Who am I going to reward? Who am I going to punish? He’d never been up to the top of the mountain. And I think he’d never asked himself that question. Simply because he, I suspect … could sort of ascend to the nomination and he didn’t have to go through that rigorous self-examination that [other politicians] went through and they all are supposed to go through.”13
EVERYTHING THAT FOLLOWED the Mudd interview was anti-climactic. On November 4, 1979, Ted’s announcement of his candidacy was buried by the news that Iranian students had taken over the United States embassy in Tehran and held fifty-two American diplomats hostage. The sudden upsurge in patriotism and support for President Carter was largely responsible for Ted’s defeat in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. The hostage crisis would last for 444 days and color the entire primary campaign. On March 11, 1980, Carter annihilated Ted in the Florida primary, 60.7 percent to 23.2 percent.
Later that month, Jackie Kennedy Onassis convened a group of friends in her New York apartment to discuss how Ted could gracefully bow out of the contest. But then, suddenly, Ted won two primaries in a row—in New York and Pennsylvania. “We were always looking for a clean opportunity to get out,” a member of the Kennedy inner circle told the writer Theodore H. White. “We said if we lost in New York, we could get out; if we lost in Pennsylvania, we could get out. But we won in both, so we couldn’t get out.”
Those victories only prolonged the agony. For although Ted won the last batch of primaries in June, Carter’s lead in the delegate count had become insurmountable. On June 5, 1980, Frank Moore and Bill Cable, who handled congressional liaison for President Carter, sent a “confidential” memo to Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan:
About 11:40 A.M. Senator Kennedy talked to the Speaker [Tip O’Neill]. After his phone call the Speaker called Bill Cable and told him the following. The President should not push hard with Kennedy at their meeting this afternoon—he should not be confrontational. The Senator is pleased that his victories on Tuesday gave him a dignified way out and raised his stature within the Senate and within the Democratic constituencies…. According to the Speaker, “Ted sounds like a changed man—very relieved.”
HE WAS A changed man. The gut-wrenching experience of the primary campaign had changed him. But not in the way Speaker O’Neill meant.
At the start of the campaign, when the Carter administration seemed at a total loss over how to cope with long gas lines, runaway inflation, and the Iranian revolution, everyone told Ted Kennedy that he was a shoo-in for the nomination. And he believed them—first, because he wanted to, and second, because it bolstered his belief in the legend of Kennedy invincibility.
“And he sort of then started to look at the race in a tactical manner,” said Ted’s pollster, Peter Hart. “And as he looked at it in a tactical manner he lost the strategic advantage that he really had. His voice. Which was his strength. And his voice was his vision…. I would tell you that Edward Kennedy lost his way during that period of time…. And it wasn’t until he had lost the nomination that he got back the fundamentals. That was the ultimate irony of the election. He found his [liberal] voice.”14
Susan Estrich, the deputy campaign manager, witnessed firsthand how Ted evolved during the campaign. “I have a very positive view of that [campaign] and what happened,” she said, “and the evolution of attitudes toward women, and toward abortion and a whole range of issues…. The 1980 [Democratic Party] platform was the first time that sexual orientation ever appeared in a party platform. And it was because of… Ted.”15
Ted had become the tribune not only of the sick and poor and helpless but also of women and gays and lesbians. Ted’s speech at the 1980 Democratic National Convention ranked with the great convention speeches of the past—William Jennings Bryan’s “cross of gold” speech in 1896; Hubert Humphrey’s “bright sunshine of human rights” speech in 1948; and Adlai Stevenson’s “talk sense to the American people” speech in 1952.
“I congratulate President Carter on his victory here,” Ted said. “… And someday, long after this convention, long after the signs come down and the crowds stop cheering, and the bands stop playing, may it be said of our campaign that we kept the faith. May it be said of our Party in 1980 that we found our faith again…. For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end. For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”16
PART FOUR
“Victory out of Failure”
16
AFTER THE DEMOCRATIC Convention, Ted and Joan flew to the Cape, and there, in their gray-shingled home on Squaw Island overlooking Hall’s Creek, Joan brought up the subject of divorce.
“I remember Ted saying to me … ‘You’re doing so great, Joansie, how about moving back to Washington, to McLean?’ He didn’t say, ‘I love you’ or ‘I want you to come back’ or ‘I’m going to be good.’ … But I sort of knew that he would never make any changes.
“And I guess I just decided that I felt too good about myself to put up with what—I had been putting up with for some time,” Joan continued. “He said, ‘I want to stay married to you.’ He said I could have all the freedom I wanted. I could carry on with my life. ‘You could see anybody you want to see.’ How many women are offered that? The money, the prestige, the freedom.”1
Racked with doubts about her decision, Joan turned for support to her favorite sister-in-law, Jackie Kennedy Onassis.
“I spent four hours talking to Jackie,” Joan recalled. “She said she’s crazy about Ted, but she’s known for years that I should have done it fifteen years ago. She was so supportive. She even suggested I use her New York lawyer. If Jackie recommends him and says he’s distinguished, he must be good. Jackie said not to worry about Ted, that he’ll be fine. She said I should look out for myself.
“Jackie also told me that she wishes she had given me this advice before and maybe I wouldn’t have gotten so sick,” Joan continued, referring to her alcoholism. “But back then, fifteen years ago, I probably wouldn’t have been able to take her advice.”2
Even now, it wasn’t easy. Joan knew that a divorce from Ted Kennedy would change everything—where she lived, the amount of money she could spend, how people would treat her. If only she were thick-skinned enough to tolerate Ted’s philandering. But she wasn’t a hardened case like Rose Kennedy, who had taught herself to look the other way whenever her husband strayed. Joan wore her heart on her sleeve, which, ironically, was one of the qualities that had drawn Ted to her in the first place.
Ted did not welcome the circus of publicity that was sure to accompany the announcement of a Kennedy divorce. And yet, he still cared enough for Joan to realize that, at this lamentable stage of their marriage, divorce was probably her best course. However, he asked her for a favor: would Joan postpone the announcement of their decision to divorce until after the inauguration of Jimmy Carter? As a loyal Democrat, Ted was expected to campaign for his old adversary, and he wanted Joan to join him on the hustings. Joan agreed, and for the next couple of months, they appeared as a loving couple at Carter
campaign rallies.
After the election was over, Joan was represented at the divorce proceedings by Alexander Folger, the attorney recommended by Jackie Kennedy. Folger’s upper-class demeanor led some people to suppose that he abided by the legal equivalent of the Marquess of Queensberry rules. That, however, was not the case; he was as tough as the toughest Massachusetts divorce lawyer. And from the outset, the two sides engaged in a contentious battle over the terms of the financial settlement.
“To determine [Joan’s] living allowance, the [Kennedy] lawyers were averaging her expenses of the last four years,” her assistant, Marcia Chellis, observed. “Joan felt that the past year was a more realistic one, but Ted’s lawyer pointed out that people spend more during a campaign year.”3
As part of the settlement, Joan wanted Ted to pay for repairs and improvements in her Boston condo and the Squaw Island house. She drew up a list of what needed to be done—everything from painting and slipcovering to remodeling and cabinetwork.
“Ted ignored me [during our marriage],” she told Marcia Chellis. To which Chellis commented: “But that was in the past…. In her battles with Ted she may have been both difficult and demanding, but she would no longer be ignored.”4
Indeed, Joan surprised everyone—perhaps most of all herself—by her resolve and willpower. She was shrewd enough to guess that Ted would be vulnerable just before the start of a reelection campaign, when he was polishing his image in the media. As the election year 1982 approached, the last thing Ted wanted was an angry wife complaining to the media about his adulteries.
“I’m going to stick this out until I get what I want,” Joan said. “He thinks I’m too nice to fight, but I’ll play my trump card…. I’ll say, ‘He throws millions at the poor, but he’s stingy with his wife.’ He wants this over before the Senate election next fall, but I’m in no rush. They are treating me like an alcoholic who is still drinking and I won’t let them.”5
In the settlement, Joan received a lump-sum payment of $5 million, plus child support and annual alimony of $175,000. But Ted was adamant about keeping the Squaw Island home.
“When Ted and I were getting a divorce,” Joan said, “he insisted on the house. ‘You can go over and get a really nice house in Osterville with all your Republican friends. This is Kennedy territory.’ I really took offense [at that remark]. ‘Like hell it is. The Bennetts were here in 1901…. This is where I’m staying….
“That house means more to me than any other place in the world,” she went on. “It’s where my children, their friends, and I go from late May until September, and we are there often in the winter months, too. I use the house as a retreat. I go there to be alone to think, read, walk on the beach, play my piano. Just a few days there and I’m renewed.”6
The frail and delicate Joan Bennett Kennedy wouldn’t budge. She was determined to have the deed to ownership of the house transferred to her name. What’s more, she insisted on making Ted pay for its upkeep.
In the end, Joan won on both counts.
SHORTLY BEFORE CHRISTMAS in 1985, Ted called Bob Shrum, who had written the famous “the dream shall never die” speech, and asked him to come to Hyannis Port. Speculation was mounting that, after the New Year, Ted would announce his intention to run for the White House in 1988.
“I know, you’re not going to run for president,” Shrum said, as the two men settled down over their martini glasses in the living room of the Big House.
“That’s right,” Kennedy said. “And I don’t want to argue.”
“I’m only going to say one thing,” Shrum said. “You get to run against George [Herbert Walker] Bush and that really is your best chance.”
“I know that,” Kennedy said, “and I don’t want to run.”7
Ted made the formal announcement in a five-minute speech on TV. “I will run for reelection to the Senate,” he said. “I know that this decision means that I may never be president. But the pursuit of the presidency is not my life. Public service is…. The thing that matters most, the greatest difference we can make, is to speak out, to stand up to lead, and to move this nation forward. For me at this time the right place is the Senate.”
HE HAD LIBERATED himself from the long shadow of the presidency—or, as he put it, from “the fog surrounding my political plans.”8 From now on, he wanted to be judged by one thing and one thing only: his performance in the Senate.
“Kennedy is at his best when he is not in the running,” wrote Garry Wills. “… [T]he reporters following him in 1980 noticed a sense of freedom growing on him as his chances faded. He performed best when he was showing his mettle as a survivor, not bidding to take over. Forced by fame, by his name, toward power, he tightens up. Allowed to back off, he relaxes.”9
Ted threw himself into his Senate work. In 1985, he and Republican Lowell Weicker mustered the necessary votes to override a veto by President Reagan of legislation to impose economic sanctions on the apartheid government of South Africa. That same year, Ted and Chris Dodd introduced a bill that granted employees up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave to deal with a family medical crisis.
During the eight conservative years of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, Ted remained an unrepentant liberal. He traveled widely to the poorest sections of Appalachia, including the hamlet of Little Mud, Kentucky, where he pledged to be the advocate for the average man and woman, “a voice for the voiceless.”
“He is the first Kennedy to be a loser in politics, and he gives every sign of not anticipating a second chance,” wrote the columnist Murray Kempton. “He makes witness now, not as a candidate, but as a kind of steward; he travels to call attention not to himself but to the needs of others…. Since no tactic can avail him any longer, we have to assume that only principle carried him to Little Mud. His generation of the Kennedys can never command again; it endures in him only to oppose, the most elevated of all political functions. If he lives wherever ghosts may live, John F. Kennedy, the grandest of successes, must be surprised and proud to have a brother who could bring such a victory out of failure.”10
Despite his profound political differences with Ronald Reagan, Ted maintained a cordial relationship with the president. But in July 1987, when Reagan nominated Judge Robert H. Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court, Ted unleashed a torrent of invective. For those with a short memory, Ted reminded them that it had been Bork, as solicitor general, who had done Richard Nixon’s dirty work and fired Archibald Cox as the special Watergate prosecutor.
“Robert Bork’s America,” Kennedy said, “is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is—and often is the only—protector of the individual rights that are at the heart of our democracy.”
Ted came in for some well-deserved criticism for painting Bork as a wild-eyed fascist, which was patently unfair to the judge. Bork’s conservative supporters accused Ted of indulging in demagoguery, but they never really recovered from Ted’s initial salvo. Three months later, and after hundreds of hours of testimony, the Senate rejected Bork’s nomination 58–42.
Republicans responded to their defeat at the hands of Ted Kennedy with a mixture of emotions—anger, frustration, bemusement, and grudging respect. “Just think of Kennedy’s monumental hypocrisy of defending women by attacking Bork, while Kennedy harassed women all his life,” Tony Blankley, the former editorial-page editor of the conservative Washington Times, told the author of this book. “On the other hand, Republicans understood that Kennedy was just taking care of business.”11
Grover Norquist, the conservative grand sachem who founded Americans for Tax Reform in 1985 at the request of President Reagan—and served on the board of directors of the National Rifle Association and the Ameri
can Conservative Union—expressed admiration for Ted’s political skills.
“I’ve worked with Kennedy on several issues, including the deregulation of railroads and airlines,” Norquist told the author of this book. “He had the brilliance to think three steps ahead. I’ve also worked with him on immigration issues and the goal of bringing Iraq War translators to the United States. We put together a left-right coalition, which included David Kean, chairman of the American Conservative Union; Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas; and Ted Kennedy. Ted was always civil. He always made a point of calling me himself. Recently, I was in Utah and I got a call from Kennedy telling me that everything was moving ahead. He’s pleasant, cheerful, easy to work with.”12
BUT TED’S METAMORPHOSIS was only half complete. When he wasn’t accomplishing parliamentary miracles on the floor of the Senate, he was still behaving like a frat boy on a drunken toot. He and his bachelor pal, Senator Chris Dodd, were involved in a couple of sleazy episodes that made news, including the sexual harassment of a waitress at La Brasserie, a well-known restaurant on Capitol Hill.
Following his divorce, Ted moved into the “Big House”—his father’s house—in the Kennedy Compound, where his mother still lived. He had always viewed Hyannis Port, not McLean, Virginia, or Washington, D.C., as his true home. On weekends, after the Senate adjourned, he would fly to the Cape with one of his girlfriends. His schedule rarely varied: He and the girl would arrive between 6:00 P.M. and 8:00 P.M. at the Big House, where his private chef, Neil Connolly, had dinner waiting for them. Often they would be joined by friends, usually Senator Chris Dodd or former senator John Varick Tunney, both of whom brought along their weekend companions.
Host and guests would unwind with a glass or two of Irish whiskey, and then sit down for a large seafood dinner on the verandah overlooking the ocean. Cordials were passed around after dessert. Sometimes Ted would screen a movie in the Kennedys’ private theater.