Our Centers for Ethics:

Key events in the life of Edward M. Kennedy (1932-2009)

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While writing How Will We Remember Ted Kennedy? Michael Josephson gathered the following biographical information about the longtime U.S. Senator:

Before Ted Kennedy was 16, tragedy struck three of his eight siblings:

• In 1941, his sister Rosemary Kennedy (age 23) was incapacitated by a failed lobotomy recommended by her doctors and approved by her father to “help calm her mood swings that the family found difficult to handle at home.” The operation reduced Rosemary to an infantile mentality that left her incontinent and staring blankly at walls for hours. Her mother Rose was devastated and considered it the first of the Kennedy family tragedies. She was visited on regular occasions by her sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the founder of the Special Olympics and an advocate for the disabled on Rosemary’s behalf. Her father also made monetary donations to philanthropic agencies that he founded to help people with developmental disabilities. Rosemary lived out her life in this state in various residential homes until 2005 when she died of natural causes with sister Jean Kennedy Smith and Ted Kennedy at her side.

• In 1944, his eldest brother Joseph Jr. died in combat in World War II at age 29. He had left Harvard Law School to enlist and became a pilot and successfully flew 29 missions. Although eligible to return home, he chose to stay on.

• In 1948, his sister Kathleen was killed in an airplane crash over France at age 28. During World War II, she had married an English nobleman, but since he was an Anglican, only Joseph Jr. attended the wedding. Her husband was killed in action four months afterward. She later became the mistress of married English nobleman, and the couple planned to wed after his divorce. Both died on the plane trip. Only her father came to her funeral. It was said that Rose Kennedy discouraged Kathleen’s siblings from attending.

In 1950, Kennedy entered Harvard College where he was a highly regarded football player.

In May 1951, worried about staying eligible for football, he had a friend take his Spanish language examination for him. Both were caught and expelled.

In June 1951, Kennedy enlisted in the Army where he was assigned to an honor guard in Paris. It is believed his father’s political connections assured he would not be deployed to the Korean War. He travelled extensively on weekends and climbed the Matterhorn.

In 1953, he reentered Harvard. (The college allowed expelled students to apply for readmission after demonstrating good behavior.) He improved his study habits and became a second-string end for the football team. He declined a recruiting feeler from the Green Bay Packers because he wanted to attend law school and “go into another contact sport – politics.” He graduated with a B.A. in history and government.

In 1956, he enrolled in the University of Virginia School of Law. He graduated in 1959 in the middle of his class but won a prestigious Moot Court Competition.

In 1958, he managed his brother John’s 1958 Senate reelection campaign. Ted’s ability to connect to ordinary voters on the street helped vault his brother to a record-setting victory margin that gave credibility to John’s presidential aspirations.

In 1962, Ted was elected U.S. Senator during a special election to fill the seat of his brother John who had been elected president in 1960.

On November 22, 1963, while he was presiding over the Senate, an aide rushed in to tell him his brother had been shot. Later, his brother Robert told him the President died. Ted was tasked to tell his stroke-afflicted father.

On June 19, 1964, he was a passenger in a private plane that crashed. The pilot, a Kennedy aide, was killed. Senator Birch E. Bayh II, one of the passengers, pulled Ted from the wreckage. Kennedy spent months in a hospital recovering from his injuries. As a result, he suffered chronic back pain for the rest of his life.

In 1968, he supported the Vietnam War, but a trip to the battleground left him frustrated with the role our South Vietnam allies were playing. He publicly declared that the U.S. should tell South Vietnam, “Shape up or we’re going to ship out.”

On June 4, his brother Robert was assassinated. Ted was devastated because he was closest to Robert among all of the Kennedy family. A Kennedy aide said of seeing Ted at the hospital: “I have never, ever, nor do I expect ever, to see a face more in grief.” Ted’s eulogy at Robert’s funeral included this oft-quoted passage: “My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it. Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will someday come to pass for all the world. As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: ‘Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.’”

After his brothers’ deaths, Ted took on the role of surrogate father for their 13 children.

Despite a “Draft Ted” movement during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Kennedy rejected any move to place his name before the convention and declined consideration for the vice-presidential spot.

After Richard Nixon’s landslide victory over Hubert Humphrey in 1968, Ted was considered the front-runner for the 1972 Democratic nomination. He enhanced his credibility when he became the youngest Senate Majority Whip ever.

On July 18, 1969, Kennedy attended a party on Chappaquiddick Island in Martha’s Vineyard for a group of women who had worked on Robert’s campaign. As he drove away from the party with Mary Jo Kopechne, he accidentally drove off a small bridge into a tidal channel. There was speculation but no proof that he was under the influence of alcohol. Kennedy allegedly escaped the overturned vehicle, swam to safety, and left the scene without calling authorities until after Kopechne’s body was discovered the following day.

He later pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and was given a suspended sentence of two months in jail. In a nationally televised speech, he said, “I regard as indefensible the fact that I did not report the accident to the police immediately” but denied driving under the influence of alcohol and any immoral conduct between him and Kopechne.

In 1970, a grand jury issued no indictment but concluded that aspects of Kennedy’s story were untrue, and that “negligent driving appears to have contributed to the death of Mary Jo Kopechne.” Later that year, Kennedy easily won reelection to another term in the Senate.

In 1971, Kennedy became chair of the Senate subcommittee on healthcare and played a leading role in passing the National Cancer Act of 1971.

In 1972, he decided not to run for President because “It feels wrong in my gut.” He cited a need to gain more experience and to take care of his brothers’ children. At the Democratic National Convention, George McGovern tried to recruit him as his vice presidential running mate but was turned down.

In 1973, his 12-year-old son Edward Kennedy, Jr., was diagnosed with bone cancer and his leg was amputated. Ted’s wife Joan sought treatment for emotional strain and alcoholism and was arrested for drunk driving after a traffic accident. Meanwhile, Kennedy renewed his efforts for national health insurance, and in the wake of the Watergate scandal pushed campaign finance reform, becoming a leading force behind the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments that set contribution limits and established public financing for presidential elections.

In 1974, after a series of negative articles about Chappaquiddick, Kennedy announced that he would not run in the 1976 election, saying his decision was “firm, final, and unconditional.”

In 1977, Kennedy and Joan separated.

In 1978, he became chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. His disagreements with President Jimmy Carter on healthcare reform led his decision to oppose Carter’s bid for reelection in 1980.

In 1979, summer polls showed Kennedy leading Carter by a wide margin, and he decided to run. Carter was not intimidated: “If Kennedy runs, I’ll whip his ass.”

In November, the Iranian hostage crisis began and in December the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan caused the public to rally around Carter, knocking Kennedy’s campaign out of the headlines.

In 1980, despite the fact that Carter had enough delegates to clinch the nomination, Kennedy refused to quit and took his campaign on to the convention. On August 12, he finally withdrew, delivering his most famous speech in which he concluded by uttering: “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.”Kennedy shook Carter’s hand after his acceptance speech, but his failure to raise his arm in the traditional show of party unity was widely thought to indicate he would not mobilize his forces for Carter’s reelection. Carter was soundly defeated by Ronald Reagan.

Kennedy chose to become the ranking member of the Labor and Public Welfare Committee rather than of the Judiciary Committee, which he would later say was one of the most important decisions of his career, becoming a champion of women’s issues and gay rights. He established relationships with Republican senators in an effort to block Reagan’s actions and preserve and improve the Voting Rights Act, funding for AIDS treatment, and equal funding for women’s sports under Title IX.

In 1981, Ted and Joan Kennedy divorced.

In 1982, Kennedy joined the Armed Services Committee, opposed many aspects of Reagan’s foreign policy, and became a leading proponent of a nuclear freeze.

In 1985, Kennedy went on a controversial and dangerous trip to South Africa to spend a night at the home of Bishop Desmond Tutu and to visit Winnie Mandela, the wife of imprisoned black leader Nelson Mandela, defying the apartheid government’s wishes. He later pushed for economic sanctions against South Africa, helping pass the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act.

In 1986, he traveled to the Soviet Union to act as a go-between in arms-control negotiations with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev during which Kennedy also helped gain the release of a number of Soviet Jewish refuseniks, including Anatoly Shcharansky.

During this period, his weight fluctuated, he drank heavily, and he chased women frequently. He was involved in two drunken incidents in Washington restaurants, one triggering charges of unwelcome physical contact with a waitress.

He publicly cut short any talk that he might run in the 1988 presidential election, saying, “I know this decision means I may never be president. But the pursuit of the presidency is not my life. Public service is.” He helped pass the COBRA Act, which extended employer-based health benefits after leaving a job.

Kennedy was the dominant opposing force of Reagan’s effort to put Robert Bork on the Supreme Court. Within an hour of the nomination, which was expected to succeed, Kennedy announced his opposition on the Senate floor. The incendiary rhetoric of his “Robert Bork’s America” speech enraged Bork supporters, who considered it slanderous.

In 1987, when the Judiciary Committee hearings began, Kennedy challenged Bork on civil rights, privacy, women’s rights, and other issues. The nomination was defeated. The tone of the Bork battle changed the way Court nominee hearings worked from then on – with the majority of candidates experiencing all-out war waged against them.

In 1988, despite the election of George W. Bush, Kennedy negotiated with Bush chief of staff John H. Sununu and Attorney General Richard Thornburgh approval of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Kennedy considered its enactment one of the most important successes of his career.

Kennedy and Republican Orrin Hatch staged a prolonged battle against Senator Jesse Helms to provide funding to combat the AIDS epidemic and provide treatment for low-income people affected, which culminated in passage of the Ryan White Care Act.

In 1989, European paparazzi photographed him having sex on a motorboat.

In 1990, an article characterized him as “an aging Irish boyo clutching a bottle and diddling a blonde.”

On Easter weekend 1991, Kennedy left his family’s Palm Beach estate to visit a local bar with his son Patrick and nephew William Kennedy Smith. Patrick and Smith returned with women they met there. Smith and Patricia Bowman had sex on the beach that he said was consensual. Bowman claimed it was rape. Although not directly implicated in the case, Kennedy became the butt of jokes, with Newsweek calling him “the living symbol of the family flaws.”

The incident disabled Kennedy from opposing Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas who had been accused of sexual harassment by a former clerk, Anita Hill. Biographer Adam Clymer rated Kennedy’s silence during the Thomas hearings as the worst moment of his Senate career. Writer Anna Quindlen said “[Kennedy] was muzzled by the facts of his life.” A Gallup Poll gave Kennedy just a 22 percent national approval rating, and a Boston poll showed 62 percent of Massachusetts citizens thought Kennedy should not run for reelection.

Kennedy met Washington lawyer Victoria Anne Reggie at a dinner party and they married the following year. Vicki was credited with stabilizing his personal life and helping him become a increasingly effective legislator. During a speech at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Kennedy declared: “I am painfully aware that the criticism directed at me in recent months involves far more than disagreements with my positions ... [It] involves the disappointment of friends and many others who rely on me to fight the good fight. To them I say, I recognize my own shortcomings – the faults in the conduct of my private life. I realize that I alone am responsible for them, and I am the one who must confront them."

In December, the William Kennedy Smith rape trial was held. Ted’s testimony helped convince the public that his involvement had been peripheral and unintended. Smith was acquitted.

In 1994, Kennedy faced his first serious Senate challenger for his Massachusetts seat, the young, telegenic, and well-funded Mitt Romney. Romney was a successful entrepreneur and Washington outsider with a strong family image and moderate stands on social issues, while Kennedy was saddled with his recent past, the looming 25th anniversary of Chappaquiddick, and a shortage of money, which forced him to take out a second mortgage on his Virginia home.
Kennedy won a key debate against Romney, reconnected with his traditional bases of support, and won reelection.

In 1995, Kennedy’s role as a liberal lion in the Senate came to the fore when he rallied forces to combat the Republican Revolution that had taken control to fulfill the Contract with America led by Newt Gingrich. In the end, the Republicans overreached, most of the Contract failed to pass the Senate, and the Democrats once again moved forward with legislation, almost all of it coming from Kennedy’s staff.

In 1996, he secured an increase in the minimum wage law, a favorite issue of his. Following the failure of the Clinton healthcare plan, Kennedy went against his past strategy and sought incremental measures instead, working with Republican Nancy Kassebaum to pass the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The same year, his Mental Health Parity Act forced insurance companies to treat mental-health payments the same as others with respect to limits reached.

In 1997, he was the prime mover behind the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which used increased tobacco taxes to fund the largest expansion of taxpayer-funded health insurance coverage for children in the U.S. since Medicaid.

In 1998, Kennedy backed President Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. In the trial before the impeachment, Kennedy voted to acquit Clinton on both charges.

On July 16, 1999, a private plane piloted by John F. Kennedy, Jr. crashed, killing all aboard.
As patriarch, Ted Kennedy consoled the extended family that included Maria Shriver, Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Joseph Patrick Kennedy II. The Boston Globe wrote of his changed role: “Teddy, the baby of the family, who had grown into a man who could sometimes be dissolute and reckless, had become the steady, indispensable patriarch, the one the family turned to in good times and bad.”

In 2000, many Democrats didn’t want to work with incoming President George W. Bush, but Kennedy saw him as genuinely interested in a major overhaul of elementary and secondary education and the two partnered on the legislation.

On September 11, 2001, he was in a Senate meeting with First Lady Laura Bush when the airliner attacks took place. As two of the airplanes had taken off from Boston, Kennedy telephoned in the next few weeks each of the 177 Massachusetts families who had lost members and pushed through legislation to provide healthcare and grief-counseling for them.

Kennedy subsequently supported the American-led 2001 overthrow of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, but he strongly opposed the Iraq War from the start. He was one of just 23 senators who voted against the 2002 Iraq War Resolution. As the Iraqi insurgency grew in subsequent years, Kennedy pronounced the conflict “Bush’s Vietnam.”

In 2003, he became disenchanted with the No Child Left Behind Act and accused Bush of not living up to his word. Democrats said his penchant for cross-party deals had gotten the better of him. Despite the strained relationship, the two attempted to work together to extend Medicare to cover prescription-drug benefits. When he discovered the final draft of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act contained provisions to steer seniors toward private plans, Kennedy changed his mind and opposed it. When it passed, claimed he had been betrayed once again.

In 2005, Kennedy sought to partner with Republicans again on immigration reform by teaming with Republican John McCain on the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act. The “McCain-Kennedy bill” provided a template for further attempts at dealing comprehensively with legalization, guest-worker programs, and border enforcement.

In 2007, he returned again with the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, which was sponsored by a bipartisan group of senators and the Bush administration. Opponents labeled the bill an amnesty program, and it failed in the Senate.

In 2008, Kennedy endorsed Barack Obama despite ardent appeals by both Clintons not to do so.
In return, Kennedy gained a commitment from Obama to make universal health care a top priority of his administration.

On May 17, Kennedy suffered a seizure. Three days later, it was discovered he had a malignant and inoperable brain tumor. Kennedy decided to fight on anyway, seeking other opinions and deciding on the most aggressive and exhausting course of treatment.

On June 2, he underwent brain surgery. The next month, he surprised his colleagues by showing up in the Senate to break a Republican filibuster against a bill to preserve Medicare fees for doctors.

On August 25, Kennedy insisted on appearing on the first night of the Democratic National Convention. Introduced by his niece Caroline Kennedy, he delivered a speech in which he said: “This November the torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans.” He then echoed his 1980 concession speech: “The work begins anew. The hope rises again. And the dream lives on.”

On September 26, he suffered a seizure. He continued his treatments, sailed on his boat, and stayed in touch with legislative matters by phone. Senators began wearing “Tedstrong” bracelets.

On January 20, 2009, while attending Barack Obama's presidential inauguration in Washington, Kennedy suffered another seizure at the luncheon immediately afterward.

As the 111th Congress began, he gave up his spot on the Senate Judiciary Committee to focus his attentions on health-care issues, which he regarded as “the cause of my life” and made another surprise appearance to break a Republican filibuster against the Obama stimulus package.

In March, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that Queen Elizabeth II had granted him an honorary knighthood for his work in the Northern Ireland peace process. A bill reauthorizing and expanding the AmeriCorps program was renamed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act by Republican Orrin Hatch.

In April, he threw out the ceremonial first pitch at Fenway Park.

In July, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In August, his sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver died. He attended a private service but not the public funeral.

On August 25, two weeks later, Ted Kennedy died at age 77 at his home in Hyannis Port.

On August 28, his body was transported to the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston where more than 50,000 people filed by to pay their respects. The next day, a procession traveled from the library to the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica for a funeral Mass attended by President Obama, former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, Vice President Joseph Biden and three former Vice Presidents, many members of Congress, and several foreign dignitaries. Kennedy’s body was returned to Washington, D.C. for burial at Arlington National Cemetery near the graves of his brothers.