Oral history promises new look at Kennedy
WASHINGTON --Over the past few years, Sen. Edward Kennedy has sat for nearly three dozen interviews to recount personal anecdotes and insights about his storied life and times.
The recorded conversations -- which have never been made public -- are the heart of an ambitious oral history project by the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs. The six-year project has gained even more significance since the 76-year-old senator was diagnosed this spring with brain cancer.
Most of the interviews with the Massachusetts Democrat have already been completed, so the project should be wrapped up on time in 2010, James Sterling Young, the director of the Kennedy project, said in an interview with The Associated Press.
"We've covered a lot of territory with him," Young said. "I think we've got a very rich ... spoken history by him, but there are some gaps that need to be filled."
Dozens of Kennedy's current and former aides, political activists, family members, foreign officials, friends and Senate colleagues are being interviewed. The overall project is about halfway completed, said Young.
Kennedy, whose career spans nine presidents and nearly five decades of political battles ranging from civil rights to health care to immigration, helped seek out someone to record his oral history in 2004.
Steve Grossman, a Kennedy family friend and a former Democratic National Committee chairman, said Kennedy has been enthusiastic about the oral history from the start.
"He has very high hopes for it," Grossman said. "He's very excited about it. He's devoted a lot of time and energy to it. And I think we're fortunate that so much of the work got done before he got sick."
The recordings, none of which will be made available to the public until the project is finished, are expected to provide fresh insights on Kennedy's Senate career, his personal life and the historical forces that shaped his times.
"The whole idea is to provide a resource for the future, for those who study the Senate and how it worked and how it has changed over the years," Young said. "It's a story of the Senate. It's a story of a very extraordinary person."
Most of the interviews with Kennedy were conducted on weekends at his homes in Washington and Hyannis Port, Mass. They were usually done in the mornings and generally lasted two or three hours. Only digital audio recordings were made of the sessions.
"I think the man has enormous drive and he's a person of great faith, which he does not wear on his sleeve," Young said. "Most people don't understand that. I think it will come out in the oral history, to understand the importance of his faith to him and the lessons he learned in childhood about country, faith and family -- core values."
Young has found Kennedy to be a skilled storyteller who loves a good joke.
"He's just had me on the floor," Young said. "He's a person of very great cheer and nothing seems to get him down."
The oral history will also touch on Kennedy's personal life, how he grew up in one of America's most famed families and how he got into politics.
The family's darker chapters are not off-limits, including Kennedy's 1969 automobile accident at Chappaquiddick Island on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts that resulted in the death of a young Pennsylvania woman, Mary Jo Kopechne.
"This was understood at the beginning, that there were no holds barred," said Young, adding that the oral history project's approach is a far cry from the supermarket tabloid National Enquirer.
Young said he doesn't tick off a list of questions for Kennedy. Instead he explores particular topics and urges Kennedy to get beyond what's already in the written record, what's known. The evolving relationship between Congress and the White House has been a prime subject.
"You're talking to the next generation here," Young said. "What do you have to teach them about you and your time? The way it was. The upside, the downside. It's to give people a sense of political life the way it really is, spoken by the people themselves."
The liberal Kennedy's political adversaries as well as his allies have been included. Young said he had hoped to interview former Republican Sen. Jesse Helms, but the conservative North Carolina senator who died recently was too ill.
Kennedy's work ethic made a strong impression on Young, who cited the famed briefcase known as "The Bag" that Kennedy takes home every night loaded with briefing papers, memos, correspondence, legislation and other material requiring the senator's attention.
"It comes back in the morning marked up," Young said. "He masters the subject matter of whatever he's going to commit himself to. He's remarkable in that respect, his energy. I'm a retired professor, he can run circles around me."
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On the Net:
Kennedy's Senate Web site: http://Kennedy.senate.gov
The Miller Center: http://millercenter.virginia.edu 