For Kennedy, service stirs up memories of JFK

WASHINGTON -- For the senior senator from Massachusetts, the state funeral for President Reagan yesterday brought back memories of another head of state laid to rest in the nation's capital more than 40 years ago.

Foremost in Senator Edward M. Kennedy's thoughts in the days since Reagan's death, aides say, has been former first lady Nancy Reagan and the former president's children. But memories of the senator's late brother, President John F. Kennedy, filled the tribute yesterday.

''That was a very personal time and that's stored well in my heart and my soul," Kennedy said. ''But we're thinking now of the kind of grief Mrs. Reagan has. She's an extraordinary woman."

The senator recounted fond memories of President Reagan yesterday on the Senate floor.

''He was very generous to the Kennedy family on many public and private occasions," Kennedy said. He recalled that when, in 1985, his brother's children, John and Caroline, asked Reagan to participate in an event honoring their father, he replied: ''Of course I'll help you. You don't have a father to help."

''At the dinner a few weeks later, he stood with us in the receiving line and shook the hand of every guest," Kennedy added. ''He was quick to mention that he hadn't supported President Kennedy in 1960. 'I was for the other fellow,' he told us." But in that speech at the Kennedy Library in Dorchester, Reagan delivered ''one of the finest tributes that my brother ever received," Kennedy said. ''He summed it up by saying of my brother: 'You have to enjoy the journey. I think that's how his country remembers him, in his joy, and it was a joy he knew how to communicate.'

''That's how America remembers Ronald Reagan, too."

BRYAN BENDER