Up from tragedy
Ted Kennedy's long journey, from survivor to master senator
Rise of Ted Kennedy
Bella English, Neil Swidey, Jenna Russell,
Sam Allis, Joseph P. Kahn, Susan Milligan, and Don Aucoin
Edited by Peter S. Canellos
Simon & Schuster, 464 pp., illustrated, $28
An emergency call from the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port last May planted the seeds for this biography. Following US Senator Ted Kennedy's seizure, the diagnosis was grim; a malignant mass was found in his left parietal lobe, indicating an aggressive cancer.
Kennedy's dire prognosis produced an outpouring of editorials, columns, and tributes on the Senate floor, most in the tone of pre-obituaries. One of these was from John McCain, who called him the Senate's "last lion," from which this biography's title is drawn.
Dozens of books have been written about Kennedy, but the last good one, "Edward M. Kennedy," was written in 1999 by Adam Clymer of The New York Times. The Globe's morgue files on the Kennedys, especially Ted, must take up a gymnasium, so where better to find a team of reporters to do the job quickly and well?
And they have. With barely a nod toward the many stories of early Kennedy family history, the book sticks to the subject of Edward Moore Kennedy. It is organized chronologically, and leaves little doubt that the youngest son got a nice head start in life. Boston Cardinal Richard Cushing officiated at Teddy's christening. When his father was appointed the first Irish-American ambassador to the Court of St. James, he received his first communion from Pope Pius XII at the Vatican. When he married the first time, Cardinal Francis Spellman was the officiate.
That's the ecclesiastical side. On the political side, his godfather and later best man was John F. Kennedy, the US senator and future president. When JFK reached the White House, he arranged to have his college roommate appointed to serve the rest of his Senate term, a seat warmer waiting for Teddy to turn 30, the required age for that office.
To be sure, Ted Kennedy took the easy way up, and that provides an important subtext for this book: Would the kid brother ever measure up?
For a long time that was a very real question, and the section of "Last Lion" dealing most directly with that is called "The Trials and Tribulations." This is the period before and after Chappaquiddick, which the authors call his second bachelorhood. Two long chapters are devoted to the night that Kennedy's car went off the bridge, and nothing is held back. Nor are any punches pulled about the consequences to his political career, his eroded moral authority, and his personal life of excessive appetites, heavy drinking, and sexual escapades.
That's the personal side. But even in the worst of times, the youngest Kennedy brother was a growing presence within the Democratic Party, steadily building expertise and influence on the job in the Senate, and expected each four years after Robert Kennedy's 1968 assassination to be a candidate for president. When Ted challenged incumbent Jimmy Carter in 1980 and failed, that ambition finally was put to rest. Once he overcame the notion that one day he would be president, the authors argue, Kennedy's greatness began to build.
Kennedy's legislative style is crafted on four principles. First, stake out the issues that matter. While he has authored roughly 2,500 major bills over his 46 years, universal health care heads his wish list.
Second, be ready to work with Republicans, which Kennedy has, ranging from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush.
Third, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. His secret, says Republican Alan Simpson, is: "You take a crumb when you can't get a loaf." Kennedy learned that in 1971, when he lost his best chance for universal health care by rejecting a compromise with President Nixon.
Finally, defeating flawed legislation and blocking bad appointments are every bit as important goals as passing good laws. In Kennedy's case, think of his undercutting Robert Bork's Supreme Court confirmation and preventing President Reagan from rolling back civil rights laws.
The authors generously depict Kennedy as a supremely successful legislator, but in truth his record includes some truly mediocre lawmaking. Examples include the creation of HMOs and the No Child Left Behind program, on which he partnered with President George W. Bush.
The section titled "The Redemption" chronicles the abandonment of Ted's drinking, carousing, and womanizing, for which the authors credit the daughter of an old Kennedy crony, Judge Edmund Reggie of Louisiana. Vickie Reggie, a divorcee two decades his junior, arrived on the scene when Ted was both needy and ready. The chapters on Vickie and Ted, telling how she remodeled his life, are more thoughtful and insightful than anything I have read on the subject anywhere.
"Last Lion" is a fine biography, a graceful summing up of an extraordinary life that is not yet over. It shows little sign of having been written by a team of seven, and it does not carry the tone of an obituary. With its anecdotes and political tales, it captures the wit, humor, and grace of Ted Kennedy and establishes his place, "as much a part of the Capitol as the dome or the Rotunda beneath it."
In the spring of 2007, Ted sat at Hyannis Port with Edmund Reggie, reflecting on his life and accomplishments in the Senate. Reggie urged Kennedy to retire and be content to rest on his laurels. "Some people say you and Daniel Webster are the greatest senators of all time," he said.
In a jesting tone, Kennedy responded, "What did Webster do?" Then, after his father-in-law listed more reasons for him to end his career, he added, "No, I don't think so. I'll stay in the Senate."
Ken Bode is the former politics editor of The New Republic and national political correspondent for NBC News. 