First years, brothers' assassinations Kennedy was sworn into the Senate on November 7, 1962. and sister-in-law
Jacqueline, walks from the
White House for the funeral procession accompanying President Kennedy's casket to
Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle. On November 22, 1963, Ted was
presiding over the Senate—a task given to junior members—when an aide rushed in to tell him his brother, President John F. Kennedy,
had been shot. His brother Robert soon told him that the President was dead. The pilot and Edward Moss (one of Kennedy's aides) were killed. Kennedy was pulled from the wreckage by Senator
Birch Bayh, Kennedy took advantage of his convalescence to meet with academics and study issues more closely, and the hospital experience triggered his lifelong interest in the provision of
health care. gaining a reputation for legislative skill. He was a leader in pushing through the
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which ended a quota system based upon national origin. He played a role in the creation of the
National Teachers Corps. Ted was in San Francisco when his brother Robert won the crucial California primary on June 4, 1968, and then after midnight,
Robert was shot in Los Angeles and died the next day. The 36-year-old Kennedy was seen as the natural heir to his brothers, and "Draft Ted" movements sprang up from various quarters. After the deaths of his brothers, Kennedy took on the role of a surrogate father for their children. By some reports, he also negotiated the October 1968 marital contract between
Jacqueline Kennedy and
Aristotle Onassis. Kennedy denied this. Following Republican
Richard Nixon's victory in November, Kennedy was assumed to be the front-runner for the 1972 Democratic nomination. In January 1969, Kennedy defeated
Louisiana Senator
Russell B. Long by a 31–26 margin to become
Senate Majority Whip, the youngest person to attain the position. While this further boosted his presidential image, he appeared conflicted by the inevitability of having to run for president;
Chappaquiddick incident On the night of July 18, 1969, Kennedy was at
Chappaquiddick Island hosting a party for the
Boiler Room Girls, a group of young women who had worked on his brother Robert's presidential campaign. A week after the incident, Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and was given a
suspended sentence of two months in jail. In January 1970, an inquest into Kopechne's death was held in
Edgartown, Massachusetts. The presiding judge, James A. Boyle, concluded that some aspects of Kennedy's story of that night were untrue, and that negligent driving "appears to have contributed" to the death of Kopechne. A
grand jury conducted an investigation in April 1970 but issued no indictment, after which Boyle made his inquest report public. In May 1970, Reuther died and Senator
Ralph Yarborough, chairman of the full
Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee and its Health subcommittee, lost his primary election, propelling Kennedy into a leadership role on the issue of
national health insurance. Kennedy introduced a bipartisan bill in August 1970 for
single-payer universal national health insurance with no
cost sharing, paid for by payroll taxes and general federal revenue. Despite the Chappaquiddick controversy,
Kennedy easily won re-election to the Senate in November 1970 with 62% against underfunded Republican candidate
Josiah Spaulding, although he received about 500,000 fewer votes than in 1964. at
Bonn,
West Germany, in April 1971 In January 1971, Kennedy lost his position as
Senate Majority Whip to Senator
Robert Byrd of West Virginia, 31–24, probably because of Chappaquiddick. He later told Byrd that the defeat had allowed Kennedy to focus more on issues and committee work, where he could exert influence independently from the Democratic party apparatus. Kennedy began a decade as chairman of the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the
Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee. In February 1971, Nixon proposed health insurance reform—an employer mandate to offer private health insurance if employees volunteered to pay 25 percent of premiums, federalization of
Medicaid for the poor with dependent minor children, and support for
health maintenance organizations. Hearings on national health insurance were held in 1971, but no bill had the support of House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committee chairmen Representative
Wilbur Mills and Senator
Russell Long. Kennedy was sharply criticised by the British and Ulster unionists, and he formed a long political relationship with
Social Democratic and Labour Party founder
John Hume. In scores of anti-war speeches, Kennedy opposed Nixon's policy of
Vietnamization, calling it "a policy of violence [that] means more and more war". In December 1971, Kennedy strongly criticized the Nixon administration's support for Pakistan and its ignoring of "the brutal and systematic repression of East Bengal by the Pakistani army". He traveled to India and wrote a report on the plight of the
10 million Bengali refugees. In February 1972, Kennedy flew to Bangladesh and delivered a speech at the
University of Dhaka, where
a killing rampage had begun a year earlier. Nevertheless, in November 1971, a
Gallup Poll still had him in first place in the Democratic nomination race with 28 percent.
George McGovern was close to clinching the Democratic nomination in June 1972, when various anti-McGovern forces tried to get Kennedy to enter the contest at the last minute, but he declined. At the
1972 Democratic National Convention, McGovern repeatedly tried to recruit Kennedy as his vice presidential running mate, but Kennedy turned him down. When McGovern's choice of
Thomas Eagleton stepped down soon after the convention, McGovern again tried to get Kennedy to take the nod, again without success. McGovern instead chose Kennedy's brother-in-law
Sargent Shriver. In 1973, Kennedy's 12-year-old son
Edward Jr., was diagnosed with
bone cancer; his leg was amputated and he underwent a long, difficult, experimental two-year drug treatment. Son
Patrick was suffering from severe
asthma attacks. In February 1974, Nixon proposed more comprehensive health insurance reform—an employer mandate to offer private health insurance if employees volunteered to pay 25 percent of premiums, replacement of Medicaid by state-run health insurance plans available to all with income-based premiums and cost sharing, and replacement of Medicare with a federal program that eliminated the limit on hospital days, added income-based out-of-pocket limits, and added outpatient prescription drug coverage. In April 1974, Kennedy and Mills introduced a bill for near-universal national health insurance with benefits identical to the expanded Nixon plan—but with mandatory participation by employers and employees through payroll taxes—both plans were criticized by labor, consumer, and senior citizen organizations because of their substantial cost sharing. In the wake of the
Watergate scandal, Kennedy pushed
campaign finance reform; he was a leading force behind passage of the
Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974, which set contribution limits and established public financing for presidential elections. In 1974, Kennedy travelled to the
Soviet Union, where he met with leader
Leonid Brezhnev and advocated a full nuclear test ban as well as relaxed emigration, met with
Soviet dissidents, and secured an exit visa for cellist
Mstislav Rostropovich. Kennedy's Subcommittee on Refugees and Escapees continued to focus on Vietnam, especially after the
Fall of Saigon in 1975. Kennedy had initially opposed
busing schoolchildren across racial lines, but grew to support the practice as it became a focal point of civil rights efforts. After federal judge
W. Arthur Garrity ordered the
Boston School Committee in 1974 to racially integrate Boston's public schools via busing, Kennedy made a surprise appearance at a September 1974 anti-busing rally in
City Hall Plaza to express the need for peaceful dialogue and was met with hostility. The predominantly white crowd yelled insults about his children, hurled tomatoes and eggs at him as he retreated into the
John F. Kennedy Federal Building, and broke one of its glass walls. Kennedy's concerns about his family were strong, and Chappaquiddick was still in the news, with
The Boston Globe,
The New York Times Magazine, and
Time magazine all reassessing the incident and raising doubts about Kennedy's version of events. In 1977, the
Times described Chappaquiddick as Kennedy's Watergate. In September 1974, Kennedy announced that for family reasons he would not run in 1976, declaring that his decision was "firm, final, and unconditional." Kennedy told reporters he was content with his congressional role and denied presidential ambitions, but by late 1977 Carter reportedly saw Kennedy as a future challenger to his presidency. Kennedy held Health and Scientific Research Subcommittee hearings in March 1977 that led to public revelations of extensive
scientific misconduct by contract research organizations, including
Industrial Bio-Test Laboratories. Kennedy visited China on a goodwill mission in December 1977, meeting with leader
Deng Xiaoping and eventually gaining permission for several mainland Chinese nationals to leave the country; in 1978, he visited the Soviet Union and Brezhnev and dissidents there again. During the 1970s, Kennedy showed interest in
nuclear disarmament, and as part of his efforts in this field visited
Hiroshima in January 1978 and gave a speech to that effect at
Hiroshima University. He became chairman of the
Senate Judiciary Committee in 1978, by which time he had amassed a wide-ranging Senate staff of a hundred. Kennedy and his wife Joan separated in 1978, though they still staged joint appearances. As a candidate, Carter had proposed health care reform that included key features of Kennedy's national health insurance bill, but in December 1977, Carter told Kennedy his bill must preserve a large role for private insurance companies, minimize federal spending (precluding payroll tax financing), and be phased-in to not interfere with Carter's paramount domestic policy objective—balancing the budget. Kennedy and labor compromised and made the requested changes, but broke with Carter in July 1978 when he would not commit to pursuing a single bill with a fixed schedule for phasing-in comprehensive coverage. In May 1979, Kennedy proposed a new bipartisan universal national health insurance bill—choice of competing federally regulated private health insurance plans with no cost sharing financed by income-based premiums via an employer mandate and individual mandate, replacement of Medicaid by government payment of premiums to private insurers, and enhancement of
Medicare by adding prescription drug coverage and eliminating premiums and cost sharing. In June 1979, Carter proposed more limited health insurance reform—an employer mandate to provide catastrophic private health insurance plus coverage without cost sharing for pregnant women and infants, federalization of Medicaid with extension to all of the very poor, and adding catastrophic coverage to Medicare. and the failure to come to agreement represented the final political breach between the two.
1980 presidential campaign Kennedy decided to seek the
Democratic nomination in the
1980 presidential election by launching an unusual, insurgent campaign against the incumbent Carter. A midsummer 1978 poll showed that Democrats preferred Kennedy over Carter by a 5-to-3 margin. Through summer 1979, as Kennedy deliberated whether to run, Carter was not intimidated despite his 28 percent approval rating, saying publicly: "If Kennedy runs, I'll whip his ass." He had already received substantial negative press from a rambling response to the question "Why do you want to be President?" during an
interview with Roger Mudd of
CBS News a few days earlier. The
Iranian hostage crisis, which began on November 4, and the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which began on December 27, prompted the electorate to rally around the president and allowed Carter to pursue a
Rose Garden strategy of staying at the White House, which kept Kennedy's campaign out of the headlines.
Chris Whipple of
Life, who was present for the interview, wondered if Kennedy's answer was "consciously or otherwise, an act of political self-destruction ... The campaign was over. His heart just wasn't in it". The Chappaquiddick incident emerged as a more significant issue than the staff had expected, with columnists and editorials criticizing Kennedy's answers on the matter. In the January 1980
Iowa caucuses that initiated the primaries season, Carter demolished Kennedy by a 59–31 percent margin. Nevertheless, Kennedy lost three New England contests. During a
St. Patrick's Day Parade in Chicago, Kennedy had to wear a bullet-proof vest due to assassination threats, and hecklers yelled "Where's Mary Jo?" at him. In the key March 18 primary in Illinois, Kennedy failed to gain the support of Catholic voters, and Carter won 155 of 169 delegates. Although Carter now had enough delegates to clinch the nomination, Kennedy carried his campaign on to the
1980 Democratic National Convention in August in New York, hoping to pass a rule there that would free delegates from being bound by primary results and open the convention. Drawing on allusions to and quotes of
Martin Luther King Jr.,
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and
Alfred Lord Tennyson to say that
American liberalism was not passé, he concluded with the words: The
Madison Square Garden audience reacted with wild applause and demonstrations for half an hour. Later that year, Kennedy created the
Friends of Ireland organization with Senator
Daniel Moynihan and
House Speaker Tip O'Neill to support initiatives for peace and reconciliation in
Northern Ireland. Kennedy easily defeated Republican businessman
Ray Shamie to
win re-election in 1982. Senate leaders granted him a seat on the
Armed Services Committee, while allowing him to keep his other major seats despite the traditional limit of two such seats. Kennedy became very visible in opposing aspects of the
foreign policy of the Reagan administration, including U.S. intervention in the
Salvadoran Civil War and U.S. support for the
Contras in
Nicaragua, and in opposing Reagan-supported weapons systems, including the
B-1 bomber, the
MX missile, and the
Strategic Defense Initiative. Kennedy became the Senate's leading advocate for a
nuclear freeze and was a critic of Reagan's confrontational policies toward the Soviet Union. A 1983 KGB memo indicates that Kennedy engaged in back-channel communication with the Soviet Union. According to a May 1983, memorandum from
Chairman of the KGB Viktor Chebrikov to general secretary
Yuri Andropov, former U.S. Senator
John V. Tunney—a friend of Kennedy's—visited Moscow that month and conveyed a message from Kennedy to Andropov. The memo indicates that the stated purpose of the communication was to "'root out the threat of nuclear war', 'improve Soviet-American relations' and 'define the safety of the world'". After the Chebrikov memo was unearthed, Tunney and a Kennedy spokesperson denied it was true. His weight fluctuated wildly and he drank heavily – though not when it would interfere with his Senate duties. In 1987, Kennedy and a young female lobbyist were surprised in the back room of a restaurant in a state of partial undress. , February 1987 After again considering a candidacy for the
1988 presidential election, Following the
1986 congressional elections, the Democrats regained control of the Senate, and Kennedy became chair of the Labor and Public Welfare Committee. Kennedy had become what colleague and future President
Joe Biden termed "the best strategist in the Senate". Bork responded, "There was not a line in that speech that was accurate." In 1988, an analysis published in the
Western Political Quarterly of
amicus curiae briefs filed by
U.S. Solicitors General during the
Warren and
Burger Courts found that during Bork's tenure in the position during the
Nixon and
Ford Administrations (1973–1977), Bork took liberal positions in the aggregate as often as
Thurgood Marshall did during the
Johnson Administration (1965–1967) and more often than
Wade H. McCree did during the
Carter Administration (1977–1981), in part because Bork filed briefs in favor of the litigates in civil rights cases 75 percent of the time (contradicting a previous review of his civil rights record published in 1983). However, the Reagan administration was unprepared for the assault, and the speech froze some Democrats from supporting the nomination and gave Kennedy and other Bork opponents time to prepare the case against him. When the September 1987 Judiciary Committee hearings began, Kennedy challenged Bork forcefully on civil rights, privacy, women's rights, and other issues. After prolonged negotiations during 1989 with Bush chief of staff
John H. Sununu and Attorney General
Richard Thornburgh to secure Bush's approval, he directed passage of the landmark
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. It captured Kennedy as "an aging Irish boyo clutching a bottle and diddling a blonde," portrayed him as an out-of-control
Regency rake, and brought his behavior to the forefront of public attention. He then voted against the nomination. Thomas was confirmed by a 52–48 vote, one of the narrowest margins ever for a successful nomination. Due to the Palm Beach media attention and the Thomas hearings, Kennedy's public image suffered. A
Gallup Poll gave Kennedy a 22 percent national approval rating. They became engaged in March 1992, and were married in a civil ceremony by Judge
A. David Mazzone on July 3, 1992, at Kennedy's home in
McLean, Virginia. She would gain credit for reportedly stabilizing his personal life and helping him resume a productive Senate career. against Republican challenger
Mitt Romney by
municipality. In the
1994 U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts, Kennedy faced his first serious challenger, the young, telegenic, and very well-funded
Mitt Romney. Kennedy's campaign ran short on money, and belying his image as endlessly wealthy, he was forced to take out a
second mortgage on his Virginia home. Kennedy responded with a series of
attack ads, which focused both on Romney's shifting political views and on the treatment of workers at a paper products plant owned by Romney's
Bain Capital. In the November election, despite a
very bad outcome for the Democratic Party nationally, Kennedy won re-election by a 58 percent to 41 percent margin, the closest re-election race of his career. Kennedy's mother
Rose died in January 1995. From then on, Kennedy intensified the practice of his Catholic faith, often attending
Mass several times a week. which used increased
tobacco taxes to fund the largest expansion of taxpayer-funded health insurance coverage for children in the U.S. since
Medicaid began in the 1960s. Senator Hatch and Hillary Clinton also played major roles in SCHIP passing. Kennedy was a stalwart backer of President Clinton during the 1998
Clinton–Lewinsky scandal, often trying to cheer up the president and getting him to add past Kennedy staffer
Greg Craig to his defense team, which helped improve the president's fortunes. In the trial after the 1999
impeachment of Clinton, Kennedy voted to acquit Clinton on both charges, saying "Republicans in the House of Representatives, in their partisan
vendetta against the President, have wielded the impeachment power in precisely the way the framers rejected, recklessly and without regard for the Constitution or the will of the American people." On July 16, 1999, Kennedy's nephew
John F. Kennedy Jr. was killed when his
Piper Saratoga aircraft
crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of
Martha's Vineyard. John Jr.'s wife,
Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and his sister-in-law,
Lauren Bessette, were also killed. Ted was the family patriarch, and he and President Clinton consoled his extended family at the public memorial service. Kennedy got 73 percent of the general election vote, with Robinson splitting the rest with
Libertarian Carla Howell. During the
long, disputed post-presidential election battle in Florida in 2000, Kennedy supported Vice President
Al Gore's legal actions. After the bitter contest, many Democrats in Congress did not want to work with incoming President
George W. Bush. and accused Bush of not living up to his personal word on the matter. going on. Kennedy was a supporter of the
American-led 2001 overthrow of the
Taliban government in
Afghanistan. However, Kennedy strongly opposed the
Iraq War from the start, and was one of 23 senators voting against the
Iraq War Resolution in October 2002. and had strong support from the Bush administration. and despite Kennedy's last-minute attempts to salvage it, failed a cloture vote in the Senate. Kennedy was philosophical about the defeat, saying that it often took several attempts across multiple Congresses for this type of legislation to build enough momentum for passage. Also in 2006, Kennedy released a political history entitled
America Back on Track. In 2006, a
Cessna Citation 550 in which Kennedy was flying lost electrical power after being struck by lightning and had to be diverted. In November 2006, Kennedy again easily
won re-election to the Senate, winning 69 percent of the vote against Republican language school owner
Kenneth Chase, who suffered from very poor name recognition.
Obama, illness , Kennedy staged a campaign appearance with Obama in
Hartford, Connecticut, on February 4, 2008, the day before the
Super Tuesday primaries. Kennedy initially stated that he would support John Kerry again if he were to make another bid for president in 2008, but in January 2007, Kerry said he would not make a second attempt for the White House. Kennedy then remained neutral as the
2008 Democratic nomination battle between Senators Hillary Clinton and
Barack Obama intensified, because his friend
Chris Dodd was also running for the nomination. The initial caucuses and primaries were split between Clinton and Obama. When Dodd withdrew from the race, Kennedy became dissatisfied with the tone of the Clinton campaign and what he saw as racially tinged remarks by Bill Clinton. Kennedy gave an endorsement to Obama on January 28, 2008, despite appeals by both Clintons not to do so. In a move that was seen as a symbolic passing of the torch, and raised the possibility of improving Obama's vote-getting among unions,
Hispanics, and traditional base Democrats. On May 17, 2008, Kennedy suffered a
seizure, which was followed by a second seizure as he was being rushed from the
Kennedy Compound to
Cape Cod Hospital and then by helicopter to
Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Within days, doctors announced that Kennedy had a
malignant glioma, a type of
brain tumor. The grim diagnosis brought shocked reactions from many senators of both parties and from President Bush. On June 2, 2008, Kennedy underwent
brain surgery at
Duke University Medical Center in an attempt to remove as much of the tumor as possible. The 3½-hour operation—conducted by Dr.
Allan Friedman while Kennedy was conscious to minimize any permanent neurological effects—was deemed successful. Opinions varied regarding Kennedy's prognosis: the surgery typically extends survival time for only a few months, but people can sometimes live for years. in
Denver, Colorado, while delegates hold signs reading "KENNEDY" The operation and follow-up treatments left Kennedy thinner, prone to additional seizures, weak and short on energy, and hurt his balance. In addition, Kennedy was ill from an attack of
kidney stones. Against the advice of some associates, The dramatic appearance and speech electrified the convention audience, On September 26, 2008, Kennedy suffered a mild seizure while at home in Hyannis Port; he immediately went to the hospital, was examined and released later that same day. Doctors believed that a change in his medication triggered the seizure. Kennedy relocated to Florida for the winter; he continued his treatments, did a lot of sailing, and stayed in touch with legislative matters via telephone. Doctors attributed the episode to "simple fatigue". He was released from the hospital the following morning, and he returned to his home in Washington, D.C. was signed, April 21, 2009, four months before Kennedy's death When the
111th Congress began, Kennedy dropped his spot on the Senate Judiciary Committee to focus all his attentions on national health care issues, which he regarded as "the cause of my life". He saw the characteristics of the
Obama administration and the Democratic majorities in Congress as representing the third and best great chance for universal health care, following the lost 1971 Nixon and
1993 Clinton opportunities, and as his last big legislative battle. although the move caused some controversy in the UK due to his connections with
Gerry Adams of the
Irish republican political party
Sinn Féin. Later in March, a bill reauthorizing and expanding the
AmeriCorps program was renamed the
Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act by Senator Hatch in Kennedy's honor. Kennedy threw the
ceremonial first pitch at
Fenway Park before the
Boston Red Sox season opener in April, echoing what his grandfather "Honey Fitz" – a member of the
Royal Rooters – had done to open the park in 1912. Even when his illness prevented him from being a major factor in health plan deliberations, his symbolic presence still made him one of the key senators involved. However, Kennedy's tumor had spread by spring 2009 and treatments for it were no longer effective; this information was not disclosed to the public. By June 2009 Kennedy had not cast a Senate vote in three months, and his deteriorating physical health had forced him to retreat to Massachusetts, where he underwent another round of chemotherapy. In his absence, premature release of his health committee's expansive plan resulted in a poor public reception. Kennedy's friend
Chris Dodd had taken over his role on the
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Democrats also missed Kennedy's ability to smooth divisions on the health proposals. Kennedy did cut a television commercial for Dodd, who was struggling early on in his
2010 re-election bid. In July,
HBO began showing a documentary tribute to Kennedy's life,
Teddy: In His Own Words. A health care reform bill was voted out of the committee with content Kennedy favored, but still faced a long, difficult process before having a chance at becoming law. At the end of July 2009, Kennedy was awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom. He could not attend the ceremony to receive this medal, and attended a private service but not the public funeral when his sister
Eunice Kennedy Shriver died at age 88 on August 11, 2009. In his final days, Kennedy was in a wheelchair and had difficulty speaking, but consistently stated that "I've had a wonderful life". ==Death==