Edward M. Kennedy, the youngest son who emerged from the long shadow of two murdered brothers and a legacy of family sorrow to find his political destiny in the United States Senate, died Tuesday night after a struggle with brain cancer.
President Barack Obama said he and wife Michelle were “heartbroken” by the news. The president is vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard, just 20 miles across Nantucket Sound from the Kennedy family compound in Hyannis Port, where the senator died at home,
“An important chapter in our history has come to an end,” Obama said. “Our country has lost a great leader, who picked up the torch of his fallen brothers and became the greatest United States senator of our time.”
at Arlington Cemetery» Sen. Edward Kennedy will be laid to rest Saturday near his brothers John and Robert in a closed ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.» Kennedy’s body will first be taken from the family compound in Hyannis Port, Mass., on Thursday for a public viewing at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum near Boston. The body will be in repose for public view again on Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.» A closed memorial service will be held Friday night at the library, including speakers Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. John McCain.» On Saturday morning, President Barack Obama will speak at a private funeral Mass for Kennedy at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica in Boston, after which Kennedy’s body will be brought to Arlington.
Toward the end of his life, Kennedy returned to the Massachusetts coast that nurtured his family for generations and that served as the lovely and poignant setting for its political careers, weddings, sailing trips — and many funerals.
“We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family,” the Kennedy family said in a statement. “He loved this country and devoted his life to serving it.”
With his large, grizzled head, outsized appetites and a personal history that was variously distinguished, sorrowful and profligate, Kennedy was iconic on a scale that few politicians ever dream to be.
“Ted Kennedy was a seminal figure in the United States Senate — a leader who answered the call to duty for some 47 years, and whose death closes a remarkable chapter in that body’s history,” said former President George H.W. Bush.
Kennedy was first elected senator in 1962 at age 30. After a failed White House run in 1980 during which he was famously unable to tell journalist Roger Mudd why he wanted to be president, Kennedy stopped looking ahead to his next political move.
Instead he turned his full attention to the Senate, and found in the clubby, collaborative chamber a natural home for his personality, which was embracing and collegial. By history’s verdict, he lacked the hard-driving ambition of his brothers, John and Robert.
Obama, who in large part owes his own presidential nomination to Kennedy’s endorsement last year, called the senator a galvanizing leader who transcended shallow partisanship.
“He could passionately battle others and do so peerlessly on the Senate floor for the causes that he held dear, and yet still maintain warm friendships across party lines,” the president said.
Whether Kennedy’s passing gives renewed vigor to the faltering effort to reform health care remains an open question. In the last months of his life, even though he was away from Washington, Kennedy reportedly remained engaged on the issue, which he called “the cause of my life.”
Vice President Joe Biden, who spent 36 years with Kennedy in the Senate, said Kennedy helped him through his own sorrows when Biden’s wife and child were killed in a car accident early in his political career.
“Every day I was with him — and this is going to sound strange — but he restored my sense of idealism and my faith in possibilities of what this country could do,” Biden said. “He was kind of like an anchor.”
Kennedy in 1980 addressed the Democratic National Convention, ending his presidential bid in what is widely regarded as the most powerful speech of his career and rededicating himself to the liberal principles that formed his world view.
“For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end,” Kennedy said. “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.”
