Senator Edward M. Kennedy, 1932–2009

Of the four sons of Joseph P. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, only Edward Moore “Teddy” Kennedy lived past the age of fifty; Senator Kennedy died yesterday, August 25, at the age of seventy-seven. This portrait of Senator Kennedy, by artist Boris Chaliapin, is part of the collections at the National Portrait Gallery.

All of the Kennedy men led dynamic lives, although the three oldest sons died tragically and suddenly.

Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., the oldest Kennedy son, was killed on August 12, 1944, when the navy PB4Y Liberator he was flying with 22,000 pounds of dynamite exploded. Biographer Robert Dallek writes that the munitions arming system in the Kennedy-piloted craft was armed while in flight by a stray British electronic signal, a possibility unrealized by the U.S. air command, which was a “crucial, and fatal, error.”

John F. Kennedy, the second son and thirty-fifth president of the United States, an immensely popular and charismatic individual, was killed by an assassin in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Robert F. Kennedy, the third son, died in 1968 while campaigning for the Democratic nomination for president. Like his brother John, Robert was popular and charismatic; also, like John, Robert Kennedy was murdered by an assassin.

The remaining Kennedy son was committed to public service like his brothers, and Edward Moore Kennedy entered the United States Senate at the age of thirty, in 1962. During his time in office, Senator Kennedy proudly served as the standard-carrier for the Democratic Party’s liberal wing, although it is often recorded that his willingness to cross the aisle to bring a project to fruition is what made him a great statesman.

An automobile accident at Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, in 1969 marred Senator Kennedy’s career, although he gathered some support in 1980 and made an unsuccessful bid to unseat incumbent President Jimmy Carter.

Kennedy spent much of his time working on health-care initiatives, among them the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act of 1990. The senator’s Web site reads today, “Kennedy has authored more than 2,500 bills throughout his career in the United States Senate. Of those bills, several hundred have become Public Law.”

Sources:

Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John Kennedy (New York: Back Bay Books, 2003).