missed any of it and thank you so much for being with us watching and thank you, mr. speaker, for being here for three hours taking our viewer questions. >> great fun. ..

>> good evening everyone. i'm from wbr-radio boston. it's a pleasure to be here tonight to talk about "the last lion" and if you look at me, if you look toward my right, you'll see a field as big as the democratic presidential primaries in new hampshire every four years. this is a remarkable arc of history that we're going to try to cover tonight, and interestingly enough, it's a remarkable arc of the his tore of the "boston globe" we're covering tonight. i think of at the beginning, some of the hall of famers, marty knomarty noland, curtis w,

among others, all leading to the people, the reporters and the columnists before you here, so with that big an arc and that much history to cover, we're going to have to start moving quickly. the third section tonight will be questions and answers from the floor, so feel free to come down. there's a microphone right here, and if you have questions, you can cue up. we have c-span with us tonight and they're recording as you'll notice, so let's begin. begin. >> congratulations. >> thank you. >> this is really an extraordinary kind of project. highly unusual.

>> how did this project came about clear how did this project come about? >> this project came about, i think after senator kennedy announced his illness, announces brain cancer people began to look at him a slightly different eyes. he is a very polarizing figure. he is somebody bought him people tended to have very fixed views. there were a lot of people love ted kennedy from the '60s. there were a lot of people who decided he wasither too liberal for them or morally compromised figure in just that sort of a caricature in their mind of ted kennedy. when they realized that he was suffering from brain cancer and it all the sort of news coverage that when the ground that i think people were willing to look at ted kennedy differently. now, at e same time with the globe for cogitating over that information people at simon & schuster air also were interested in this, and were looking for a biography, and it

turned out there was no better resource for information. there with no better group of reporters, there were no people who knew ted kennedy and could follow the entire arc of his career better than the globe so we felt it was both part of our newspaper journalistic mission to try to make sense of this man's half century i power is the dominant figure in new england and the massachusetts, but also to provide a definitive biography about somebody whom there has not been a definitive biography. >> so, peter u.n. dear fellow riders here were you solicited to write the book is part of your duties as part of the globe? >> there was an approach made, there was also a lot of internal discussion about how we wanted to approach the kennedy story. timately we ended up doing a conventional kind of book proposal after we have already settled on how we.

in to do this series for the newspaper it developed really naturally likeny normal book project would. >> to be clear, this is a globe book. >> this is a globe book, absolutely and it draws on the work of the people next to me and also some of the memories of some of our retirees to covered the earliest of kennedy's races. >> and, you took on, you took on the role of editor. >> yeah, i was the story editor and sort of plot it out how we would approach the story and what would be considered part of each chapter and sort of what the story arc would be, and then worked with the editor of the glob to assign reporters to each section and we obviously know this stuff very well between us and were able to i think find the right people to cover each period in kennedy's career. >> so, you head editorial

meetings? >> yes, some of them have a brainstorming quality where people would talk about their own memories of senator kennedy. and, people would debate back-and-forth whether certain episodes in his life, certain aspects of his personal background, and this is a man who, for whom his family background and legacy was a very defining experience. but how those parts of his background impacted later decisions and things, so there was a lot of discussion along the way. >> now, you have various reporters. everybody has a different voice. how do you deal with all those different voices and writing styles, each one's idiosyncratic writing style when you get to the book? the first of all i think the writers were all very cognizant of the fact that they were writing a book that would have a larger narrative to its i don't

thing that anybody decided to go off half-cocked in a stylistic direction and that was much appreciated certainly by me. but then, through the talking out of the different sections with people and editing it afterwards we were able to add enough connective tissue and make sure that things that had been referenced in earlier chapters for referred to in later chapters and in some cases people sections and contributions were then divided so that it became more of a chronological narrative so some material by the family in the globe series had been the last part was put in the rt of the 1970's when it was actually happening. so, there was a little bit more structural editing as well. >> and you inserted, i take it there is certainly a narrative flow to this, but u.s. editor are in surfing and other people suggestions and starting material here and there. >> we believe that this book reads like it had one author,

that it is a full narrative and certainly have been very pleased with people responding to it that way but i alsoay that this was put together in a matter of six or seven months but having seven primary riders bualso drawing on the experiences of other people at the globe and as i mentioned before some of the retirees it is the equivalent of having ten to 15 topnotch writers working for six months, which is like having a major biographers spending eight or ten years with the subject, so we really do consider this. >> you couldn't help but notice in the middle of the globes series, i think it was february 22nd, the senator emged, if only to talk to the "new york times" to make the point which was the coach of one, that he is still alive. [laughter] >> i don't know if that was a response to our series or some gossip items that were saying he was not going to return tohe senate in we were very pleased

to see that he did return to the senate today. >> participated in president obama's health care reform and he looked great. >> we don't watch television where i work. we listen to it. behe sounded terrific. you didn't interview senator kennedy during the course of the project. why not? >> senator kennedy of most of you know, signed maybe two years ago to do his own memoirs, which he is presumably working on along their path but i think is a contractual obligation not to talk to any reporters about his life, so stevie, biographers he is not done any interviews. but, i was going to say david, given that restriction that he is not talking about his life for this contractual reason, our reporters have had frequent nearly constant contact with him er the years of the book does include new information directly

from him including susan milligan who has covered him for washington buru and some religious jing surprising things that he has told her in past interviews. >> did this senator make it possible for you to talk to some people? did he give people the okay to talk to you? did he give them cooperation other than himself talking to you? >> this book contains fresh interviews with his closest friends, his closest friends from childhood, his closest friends from harvard, his closest friends from law school, his cousins, the cousin that grew up with him and live with him as a child and included interviews with his nieces and nephews sell most of the people that we wanted to get we ended up getting which was really gratifying. >> interestingly enough the senator you should know, the senator whose own book, his autobiography, which is titled true compass, was scheduled to come out in november of 2010 has now been moved up to

october 27th of 2009. do you think that was because of the globe? >> i don't think so. it was due to his illness. >> he has moved it to 2009, but it is unfortunate because of course adam clymer had 21 years in the course of climbers biography. it might it helped but they make it the point, the publishing company made the point of saying this is the globe's account was not the authorized, i guess that means a balding of the senators-- >> the authorized account is obviously his own account and i think people will look forward to his memoirs. he is a fascinating figure who was then the dominant figure in politics for the last 50 years and part of the great history but obviously somebody's memoirs, particularly somebody like ted kennedy who was not only known to be very reflective but tewes own actions have been so much a part of these decisions, there's a tremendous

interest in hearing his perspective but on the other hand his perspecti is only a part of the story, so i think it was a liberating factor for us that this was not in any way intended to be his own story. >> of course, it is no surprise, no surprise that all to be expected that given the senators medical condition, that's all the media outlets in town have prepared obituaries in the event. i mean, that is what we do as a profession. in fact his otuary is probably been written number of times over the decades. that is what we do, we like to be prepared. any reason-- well, i should ask it this way. was there reason to publish now instead of waiting for the end of the last chapter?

>> well, as we saw today the last chapter may not be written for a while. i think that the interest in senator kennedy did start when people started looking at him with slightly different eyes, after the cancer diagnoses. it may have been building economic sense of reassessment that has been developing over the years. i think people live long been his foes, we talk of his with many republicans and i think people who saw him as an ideological figure came to admire him as somebody who was a very hard worker and a a crusader for what he believed then and sort of he aren' new respect in the last couple of decades, so i think this is an appropriate time and certainly the attention that we have gotten and the interest that people have gotten, the interest from the sources and talking about and suggest this is an ideal time to do a book. >> you can always revisit it with another edition in the

future, but isn't it a possibility that some people upon the senators that might feel less room obligated to hold what they know or what they might have held because of a trust? that typically happens with the ographies. >> i don't know about that. certainly ted kennedy is a major figure that people will continue to assess for decades and i would guess perhaps 100 years from now there'll be somebody scavenging through the archives, may be looking at the c-span report to try to find information about senator kennedy. he is the dominant figure in this seems like the right moment to be doing a story of the full arc of his life and there is no doubt that in the future, long after is that people will be continuing to assess and reassesses like. >> ten year set pass sense adam clymer's hefty and highly praised biographyalled ward m. kennedy, the biography.

what new grounds of the made in your book? >> you have mentioned one, that it has been ten@úeistvñ,ñ!jrtlñ have done? >> there are many, many, there are many things that those of us who knew about the kennedys can find. one is we were able to in a fairly rigorous way it looked at his legacy up to this point in certain key areas and i think when you look at it in terms of him being the dominant figure really of the last 30 or 40 years in areas like, in four

areas, health care, education, civil-rights and education and look what has happened just in the last ten years in those areas to shape that legacy a to preserve that legacy, you know it is quite eye-opening and if you talk to people today with the health care summit going on about ted kennedy's advocacy for health care they would say yes he has fought the good fight. too bad he is not got the national health insurance pla through but when you look at what he has done both to be there and this section for medicare and medicaid but preserve and expand medicare and medicaid over the years including recent years and things like cobra, things like hipaa which prevent people from experiencing job discrimination because of preexisting conditions and you look at the work gets done in quadrupling the funding of the nih began in the last ten years but back at the inception of the war on cancer. this is a legacy that has transformed the relationship between the government and

citizens even though people perceive it to be sort of an unfinished agenda item for him. >> being able to see the full arc of his career and the extent of this legacy think will be quite eye-opening. >> was there anything particularly surprising to you, peter? >> one thing that was surprising to me was how lonely his childhood was. maybe that is something we can talk with bella. wiesel the pictures of the kennedys whopping on the beach and imagined it to be a big family full of love and excitement. in fact, for ted kennedy it was a boarding school childhood, changing schools constantly, always exposed to new friends, always losing older friends and then when he was slightly older as a child, the kennedy tragedy started to occur and his brother, joe jr., died when he was 12, his sister kathleen died when he was 16 and his brother jack earlier thn that had a near-death experience when his pt boat sunk, so he was always

coming back to hyannisport to sort of tend to grieving parents into try to be cheerful presence as the rest of the family reconstituted around these experiences of grief. speak with that let's move to your fellow reporter, bella english. it was extraordinary, it was traordinary last may. to me what was personally revelatory was just the number of people that came out of the woodwork with stories about what ted kennedy had done, so you have bella english, columnist for the boston globe. you have three brothers, three different personalities and i da say that neither jack nor bobby ever made friends with firefighters. teddy head firefighters for friends. >> rights, teddy tech after his grandfather honey fitz who was the beloved meyrav boston when people say that teddy was a lot more like connie fits them he was of his father joke.

honey fitz he never met a stranger. he took teddy, who was then at milton academy, every sunday they would go out to the old north church or louisburg square and also to the ports were haney had all of these itali ours emigrant friends that he introduced teddy to, and joe c. near often said and so did jack and bobby, that teddy was the most natural campaigner and the best politician in the family. i think some of that had to do with his position in the family. he was last of nine children. he sort of had to fight for air time. he took on t role of the family mascot. he was fun. he was the pet of the family. they doted on him and spoiled him and loved him and he knew what his job was and he did it very well. >> i want you to share with us some of the letters that you uncovered. in those letters, those letters

are just remarkable, and i think these b-2 how the family, the parents shaped his personality. of course he is the runs in the litter and there is that aspect of him being the runs in the letterut the parents, those letterare extraordinary. >> the kennedy family never threw anything away apparently, much to my pleasure. ipent a lot of time last summer in the jfk library and i went through roose's journals and files and josina repost files and lots o friends and at i found was that the kennedy parents are really tough. as peter said, you have these images of these great football games at hyannisport and the sailing images and that was true. they gave their children all of the privileges of well, but they expected a lot of the return. that was to burnish the gedi brand. so, rose was obsess with

learning and obsess with religion. they both were upset with protection. they insisted on that. second place was not gd enough. no losers in the family, no whining, etc. i am going to redo and accept only because i can add to her justice. this is after teddy became a senator, said he is a grown man. rose would write to him to chide him about his grammar. i sh you would pay attention to this matter. u.s telemetric proposition, for whom the bell tolls, the man to whom i wrote. it the listen to jackpot speeches you will notice he uses the word correctly. as the cason latin the objective case in english. and later on when she was 85 years old and ted was a third term senator, she wrote him, i want to speak about drugs last friday night. please say if i were president, not if i was president. [laughter] there is more.

the reason is the old what used to be known in latin as a condition contrary to that. for instance at by rookie, etc. so you get the idea and these letters went on and on throughout all of the kids' lives. >> very hi standards,ut for him rather sadly low expectations. he was constantly disappointing experience, they told him. >> that is true. he wasn't a very good students and he importantly was sort of the pudgy kid in the family. the kennedys were also obsessed with wade so there many letters referring to teddy's wade. pretty brutal. i think he was a victim of low expectations. being the youngest of nine, he wasn't taken very seriously and then the huge irony is at age 36, he became the patriarch of the family, and the mantle of the liberal democratic voice

fell upon. he was not prepared for it. who would be? >> let's talk about teddy. west year, i had the opportunity to listen to the 1962 debate between ted kennedy and edward mccormack who was then attorney general of the state of massachusetts, the nephew of the house speaker. no slouch in his own right. the nephew of the house speaker in the democratic presidential primary. ted did just tned 30 years old, and this is a time capsule. it really ces out of a time capsule because the debate was not called a debate. it happened in south boston. was called a symposium on the responsibility of men and government. he would win said you heard that today. nobody could get away with that. but you also wince when you

hear, when you hear that debate in which young ted kennedy is just a broad-sided by a mccormack who stepped out of character and just lambasted him. neil swidey, that is the famous line. that is the famous line that haunted ted for a long time in that line was? >> if you were-- this candidacy would be a joke. that is the interesting thing. when you look at-- dui need to turn this on? >> we will recite the line again. deliver the line again. >> if your name-- was or where? [laughter] if your name for edward kennedy, edward moore, a this-- your candidacy would be a joke. >> and he was right. >> yeah, i think what is interesting bella mentioned when

he was 36, he was the patriarch of the family. the area i covered was the 1960's and 1962, he was considered a joke. he was unqualified for their race. it was interesting, eddie mccormack was talking about you are trading on your family name when of course edward mccormick was trading on his family name. and then the band against the republican, the sign of the ludge family didn't even bring it up at that point because he knew he was trading on his family name. everyone was, but six years, i mean when you go from 62 to 68, is an enormous stand in his life and the life of the country really, because in 1962 and i uncover this letter from ted complaining to his father again, these letters were priceless,

saying that eddie mccormack, this was before anyone officially announced, eddie mccormack was convinced that teddy was not going to run and he was convinced because he had been at a reception in washington embodied the attorney general had lavished him with praise. the teddy went to bobby and said why are you doing this? this is the guy going to run against. he said i will say some nice things about you too if you want. bobby injected not want teddy to run and their advisors deathly did not want them to run because they knew there were vulnerable because he was not ready. >> the arrogance of the family was they met with eddie mccormack to find out what is price would be to get out of the race. >> with tip o'neill as the intermediary. >> but d.l. i want to move on because to this part of it, because it is interesting, for mccormack got smashed. evern none in massachusetts was out raids at how he had taken on

the president's younger brother. mccormack got smashed and he realized life was unfair,ut the interesting thing about teddy was with an sure order the timey got elected all of a sudden these aquarius of the senate came to regard him for differently than they regarded his brothers. >> i think that goes to the family birth order. he was not the runt of the family, the youngest of nine. en he came to the senate, the senate even more than today, much more than today was an old man's club and they expected him to be a brat to kind of have the run of the plays, who came and then traded on the family lane-- name and he didn't. he knew how to be deferential. he also has an incredible social intelligence that i think his brothers didn't have in knowing how to size of situations in knowing how to read people, knowing how to be self-deprecating. the elders of the senate love that and ireally served his

purpose. he learned how to be a junior senator. >> he was more hard-working than his brothers, then his oldest brother had been in the senate or his next older brother would be in the senate when he got elected. >> absolutely. jack and especially bobby were not equipped for the senate. boy would not get elected to the senate as sort of a kind of weigh station for running for the presidency. he would look around i thank and turn to teddy in say are you guys serious, this is what you do here? uas dell this time? he became t executive the the family and they just didn't get how the senate worked. teddy understood how it worked and made it work for him. >> and so, you have five years, five years of indescribable terror, grief, of violence that we still all these we won't cover those five years, they're fairly well established.

the last 50 years, 1968, probably the most turn lengths or one of the most turbulent years in american history. then comes 1969. generous sell, reporter for the bsaque ton globe. your role here and the book is as crime reporter, because 1969, of course, is chappaquidick and the stain that won't go away. it's interesting to see the re readers' comments on line to the globe and some of those comments are, you know, are very, very hard. one of them i noted was blunt. where was he when mary jo was tang her last breath before drowning. tell us what you found out and what ground you uncovered? >> i think those comments are very striking, because what's remarkable is how strongly people still feel about chappaquidick and how much i think it's remained a real topic

of conversation. you know, there's literary dozens of books that have been written just about chappaquidick, so i just wanted to start out and go to the globe archive, it's a remarkable resource, hundreds of stories about the time, the place that he's events happened. >> you don't hold anything back in that. >> of course, one of the knocks against "the globe" which is interesting, an association with a liberal paper and a liberal senator which is the globe has been his present and protector for many years, you don't hold anything back. fact of the matter is, what were this to happen today or to any other candidate, he wouldn't be in the senate very much longer? >> i think that's probably very much true. so it really goes to the different time that it was then. but i was really surprised to

find how many people there still are to talk to who were there, the police chief who investigated, the ferry man who ran the chappaquidick ferry at the time, the selectmen who helped kennedy get off the island and while there were many people that didn't want to talk about chappaquidick, there are a lot of people you can still talk to. >> it's striking to think everybody at that party, by the time the investigation began, everybody wasoff the island. what struck you most when you were looking back over the record? >> i think what struck me is that you know, people talk a hot about the gaps in the story, and for good reason, because there are those gaps, but i wept to the transcript of the inquest that was held and it too is a remarkable resource, hundreds of pages, incredible detail about that weekend, about the week who were there, about the events that took place, and if you start with that, as raw

material, i would say we go back and really piece it back together. >> you end with, if i'm not miaken, you ends with the report, the inquest and the statements of the judge. >> right. and the judge did find that there was reason to believe that kennedy was reckless, and that he was in part responsible for the death of mary jo kopechne and he didn't believe kennedy's story, that they were headed for the ferry. >> i guess we should -- we can't leave the subject, because you did obviously i believe it was you, spoke to joan kennedy. did you do the i want views with joan kennedy. >> bella. >> bella. excuse me. bella and neil did the i want views with joan, and joan revealed details that she hasn't revealed before i believe.

sheid, yes. >> yes, i think the thing that was the toughest for joan was she was pregnant. she'd already had -- she had three kids already and she already had three miscarriages and she had been on bedrest, as had he she told us, with getting shots if her rear regularly to keep the pregnancy of patrick and patrick was 2 years old at the time and ted asked her to accompany him to mary jo kopechne's funeral in pennsylvania and joan described the bumpy airplane ride, the small plane and when she got back, she miscarried and to this day, she is, you know, that fills her with pain and i think she attributes that to that airplane ride. >> a her obligation to go with her husband to mary jo

kopechne's funeral. >> she said she was expected to be there. >> did it surprise you, jenna russell, the level, the depth of blame that goes on pane years later from those who look at the senator? i mean, you hear these stories? i was in alaska, i was visiting my old home in alaska last year, and the first thing out of somebody's mouth when we brought up the senator was, he let that girl die. stunning to me. but anyway, does it surprise you? >> i think it does surprise me. and part of it, i feel like comes out of the fact that there was such high hopes for kennedy before the accident happened, that he was going to take that mantle and he was going to be the guy who was going to get to the presidency and there's bitterness, beuse of that, but there's also, i think, bitte bitterness because of the sense that too much it's been seen as his tragedy, with really the

tragedy was the death of this very talented young woman. >> those hopes never die. they were hopes that he was going to get into the 1968 race, there were host hopes he was going to get into the 1972 race, he didn't. it was seen as too soon. there were hopes, sam ellis, that he was going to get into the 1976 race. he didn't do that as well. then i finally gets into the 1980 race and he doesn't seem to be able to articule, why are you running and he doesn't seem, that he's able to do anything right. >> that's exactly right. i have to say one thing about chappaquidick if i could, because it leads right into this. kennedy and his close advisers in the summer of 1979, when he what's deciding whether he was going to run or not, had made a catastrophic mistake and concluded that chappaquidick would not be a major issue. they won't have been more wrong. they viewed it as an obstacle,

that there were so many other huge issues to deal with in the country and the world that it wasn't going to be a problem. it plagued him throughout his 1980 cpaign, which was a disaster, and it plagued him too -- in 1984, a lot of people don't know that he was all set to run for president again, most people think that he lost in 1980 and he said ok, i'm going to become a candidate for the senate and that's not what happened. his staff prepared a detailed blueprint of how to run in 1984 hiring tim russert as press secretary, trying to get george wallace's endorsement. but along with that, kennedy also had to look at one reagan, very popular president. >> let me interrupt you. i want to go back to 1980, because that was -- that was his real run and nothing seemed to work for him until he lost. talk about that run. >> he was totally unprepared to run. it was clear to everybody from the beginning, from the famous

336 word raming answer to roger mudd where i begin my piece. i think he never wanted to run. i think from the people i talked to, his close advisers have known him for years, he knew he had to run at some point. he was getting this noise in his head for years and years, when are you going to do it and it was a parlor game if washington when he was going to do it, not if. he definitely had to run, he was the last kennedy. and i think as much as anything else, in 1980, he ran simply to get the noise out of his head. he was just tired of that and he was really unprepared, but you saw from of the very beginning and roger mudd speaks, but most unkennedy-like, he ran a very disorganized, messy campaign. he didn't have any of the stuff together, he hadn't fund raised properly. he didn't do any of the stuff that a kennedy does to run. and that went on and he got crucified in iowa, because he simply wasn't ready and he

thought chappaquidick wasn't going to be an issue there. it was, as it was in the illinois primary randy where. it came back to haunt him. >> you don't think that he wanted to run and that was the problem. >> i think he was ambivalent throughout his whole life. he knew he had to run at some point, but as david burke, one of his old advisers told me, he never called me up at 2:00 a.m. and said i really want to rupp and no one could recall a private conversation when he really expressed a passion to be president. >> is that why he was so terrific once it was out of his hands and then he started with the primaries, was he liberated at that point? >> well, there's a law of political physics that you're always better when you don't have a chance any more. michael dukakis was actually quite good in the last couple of weeks. and that kind of happens here. he said o i'm going to be myself, but he still got nailed a lot throughout, and he was

considered by carter's people and i think most people would say look at, a bad loser. normally, once you -- they first thought he was going to get out after illinois when he had a near zero chance of doing it. then he stayed in throughout the end of the campaign and then he wouldn't quit and he took his fight to the conventional on an idea that he would get a rules vote through thatould allow all of the delegates who have been pledged to other candidates to be free to vote for him. it was absolutely absurd from the beginning and it forced jimmy carter to spend a tremendous amount of time and pony on him that he could have devoted to ronald reagan. >> i think that also, we could say that in the second half of the complain, when he had proved, it wasn't just, you know, do you -- as you so eloquently put it, people are at their beds with they're lose, i think about that time, rald reagan had pretty much sewed up

the republican nomination. you had this chrismatic figure out there who was running on the total destruction of these programs in the 1960's that were associated with ted himself, but also with his brothers. and it probably played into that sens of family obligation, because even if he personally didn'tave the fire in his belly to be president, he felt like the kennedy legacy meant something and this is what he dedicated his life to. he became more of an ardent liberal. >> 1984, you had a sitting reagan president. in 1979, he was running against carter. >> he won new york, if i'm not mistaken, he won california. >> that was called a miracle by his staff in new york. he was down, almost 20 points the day of the primary. and the pollsters had gotten completely wrong. the only one who did get it ght was pat cadell who was working for carter and said we're going to get creamednd he won by almost 20 points.

>> fritz mondale was the heir apparentf 1984. >> but he knew if ted was going to run he dent have a cnce, so he was sitting on pins and needles, waiting for ted to make up his mind. and ted had reagan, a very popular president, he had chappaquidick that had ruined him in the 1980 campaign that he knew was going to come back through his experience and sabotage him throughout his campaign and his kid didn't want him to do it either and the lae reason given is usually his kids didn't want him to do but there had to be other reasons why peter didn't run. >> so the arc continues. he doesn't run, doesn't run -- he runs in 198 who, is beaten badly, doesn't run in 1984 and that's when i started covering the senator. it seems to me the lowest period in his career was what i saw

late 1980's, early 1990's in which he seemed to be very nervous in public, unsteady, of course he had a back problems and his problems with gramma were the stuff of legend. i mean, we used to sit in the back of the rooms when he was doing a press conference and putter to ourselves, a predicate, senator, a predicate. i mean, there were long, long, long winding, roving, sea faring sentences without any predicates in them, but worst of all, of course, is his public behavior and his open association wh womanizing, heavy drinking. when you have put this in the context where politics and personal behavior meet and that was in the anitaill hearing. >> right tanned had been preceded by the palm beach rape trial. if you look at -- if somebody asked me, in the arc of his life, i may be a little prejudice because of what i

report and wrote, what was the year that rely was the most de -- really was the most defining of ted kennedy, maybe not in a legislative sense, but if a personal sense, a transfo transformative sense on him, the media, the culture around him, i would have to say 1991 was an extraordinary year. it it had been preceded by several well publicized, well-reported stories about his binge drinking and woman identitiesing. he looked terrible. it was hard to turn on the tonight show or one of those shows and not catch a few ted kennedy jokes. the year effectively began easter weekend in palm beach. the next thing the public knows, ted kennedy's nephew has been accused of raping a girl at the family estate with ted there, with one of his sons there. ted sort of vanishes from palm

beach. there's a lot of suspicion over a kind of coverup around willie smith. it was the first time as jack farrell, one of our correspondents said, where the tabloid press, the "national enquirer," if you will, and the mainstream press, the "new york times" and the globe, really kind of converged in their coverage of a case. so youave that going on. then you move to that summer to the nomination of clarence thomas to the supreme court. now kennedy had, as sam brilliantly reports, had valorously fought against robert bork's nomination, defeated that, was perceived to be the key guy to take on an arch conservative nominee to the court. into the process, anita hill turns up. suddenly the whole country is

fixated on sexual harassment. ted kennedy retreats into the backgrounds, doesn't say much during the hearing, many suspect because of ted's own behavior. in the middle of that, he goes to anniversary party for some old friends from louisiana, edmund and doris reggie and meets or remeets their daughter vicki, one of their daughters, and very quietly, very much below the radar screen begins a relationship that really, i would argue, totally transformed the last 15 to 20 years of his life. so you have all this going on. and the year ends with a trial in palm beach. court tv had just come on the air. at first, kennedy's lawyers fought having camer in the courtroom. we all know about the court tv phenomena now.

they got in there. there's national, international tention on this trial. ted kennedy turns up, testifies, he's cool, calm, composed. his nephew is acquitted. anby the end of that year, actually, that trial until o.j. was the most watched trial in u.s. history. so if you just think abo what was going on outside the senate, outside his political life, what was happening in his personal life, what was happeni in the whole media environment around ted kennedy, it was an extraordinary 12 months, and he came out of it still headed to the 1994 senate reelection race where he faced mitt romney, which would be his most formidable he opponent, still as damaged goods, but ready to put up an incredible fight. >> which brings us to dawn o'coyne, who covered the romney

campaign. i remember seeing you out there. a critical campaign and susan milligan, who is the washington senate reporter, and has been the main reporter on senator kennedy in the last, susan, what? >> i don't know, peter. >> there were a number of years. >> six years. >> yeah. >> why don't we talk to the two of you now and i would like to close this part of the conversation with you. we need to say, that in addition to the scandal, in addition to the scandal and personal tragedy, there has been since the early 1960's, legislative accomplishments that have drawn the attentiol, the approval of the old sequoias in the senate, he has established a reputation. of course, the senate is a more tolerant institution of its members than the public is. so his public -- joe is -- his public reputation is probably as low as it can be in the beginning of the 1990's. but yourook is called the last

lion, and so the two of you it seems to me are documenting the roar mf the lion here largely toward the end of the book. talk about the campaign with mitt romney. >> yeah. well, the campaign with romney was very intense. ted faced by far the stiffest challenge of his life. the polls showed him actually down by a point at one point. at that point, labor rallied behind him in force. his consultants found a company that romney had arranged a takeover of and this company laid off all of its workers and it proved devastating. they put the workers on tv about how it felt to lose their jobs. and that was sort of a dagger blow to romney. he ended up losing 59-41, i believe. >> how did kennedy feel afterwards? >> lucky.

jubilant, revitalized. i would say. i mean, he had tasted mortal potical danger for the first time. >> it started out, he was in the hole, as sam was saying about 1980, largely, that campaign was pretty flaccid in 1994 to begin with, that organization. >> yeah. then the old guard rallied. l the people who had carried him throughout the early and middle stages of his career rushed to his side and also he found his voice in the famous faneuil hall debate, 1994, he just slam-dunked romney. his command of policy details, his nimble footedness and i know what you mean about the absence of predicates, b this time he was able to shape enough coherent sentences to make his point and romney left the stage flustered, defeated and never really recovered from that night. >> susan milligan, you know that the work of the senate, when it's legislative work, is

probably the least covered, it's the least sexy to cover, it's scandal, or politics, that draw a lot of attention. and we've talked a lot of scandals here. tell me, if you would, how you saw kennedy working, because it seems to me that his accomplishments in the ends are all those day-to-day details, the meetings, the encounters, the lobbying, the phone calls. >> well, first of all, i don't think you could find a sitting senator right now, democratr republican, who wouldn't tell you that kennedy easily the most effective member of the senate now hand one of the most effective if history a they say that irrespective of whether or not they agree with him politically. he's matured a lot as a legislator. it sounds like an odd thing for somebody to say who is 77 years old. when you look at when he wept up against nixon in the health care debate and nixon wanted a health care plan that looks remarkably

like what the democrats would love to get bass now, where it would be employer, you know, employer provided and so forth and backed up by government. kennedy just wanted a straightup health care plan and he lost and there was no health care plan. they have a second shot during the clinton administration, that didn't go anywhere. the for as you all saw today, this is his third chance and he's seizing it, buthat he learnedrom that is sometimes you have to at least get the structure in place. he told me several years ago that in retrospect, maybe they should have done the nixon health care plan and fixed the details later on and he's learned to do that since then. he learned to do things incrementally when he can't get exactly what he wants at once, and he'so good at pulling coalitions together, it's so bizarre to see this group of people a couple of years ago sitting in a room. people like dianne feinstein, barack obama, mel martine

conservative republican from florida, lindsay graham, conservative republican from south carolina who did not like the idea of immigrants come in and take jobs and he had them sit in a room and write a bill and he made everyone talk about how their families came to america and it was a poignant moment and it made people realize the bigger picture andy almost got it and it failed as everyone in this room knows. i was talking to him about it afterwards and i said i know you worked really hard on this. and he said you know, with any legislation that is civil rights legislation and he considered immigration to be that, he said it takes three congresses to do it. the first time they have to get used to the idea, the second time you just fight fight and then the third time it goes through and he was very philosophical about it. he's done that with so many bills, just come back year after year after year. ever since barack obama was elected president, he got the lily led better act signed which gives por opportunity fo people toue for back pay for pay

discrimination. he got -- he's gotten a genetic non-discrimination act signed into law. he's gotten very, very good at just picking his moments, working with republicans. he has a very close relationship with senator hatch o is mormon and doesn't drink and doesn't smoke and is one of the most conservative human beings i've ever met and they work really well together. they have kind of an odd relationship, but they work really well together. >> mr. skwrao: it really is striking >> it really is striking with l the partisanship and to look again at the readers' section, you see the villianization, the hostility, some hate, others strong disagreement, condemnation, that at the same time, perhaps this all has built up since the early 1990's i thk and was left over from chappaquidick, but especially built up, he' been more effective than ever in dealing with people in the senate. >> he's very well respected in the senate andy works very hard hand hard work is respected by

everybody in the senate, no matter who has. hillary clinton when she came in had not issues of person behavior, but certainly some of the same issues kennedy had of people wondering if she was trading on her name and so forth and she hunkered down and was respected for her work. brooks is kind of irraceble, cigar smoking texan and loved his cigars, so kennedy trooped over to his office and he brought a manilla envelope and he had good cigars in there but nobody could see them and he opened the manilla envelope so brooks could see it and shut it and sat down and talked and the more the dialogue went kennedy's way he would push the envelope towards brooks and when it didn't, he'll pull it back and brooks thought hilarious, but he's good at taking people out and people that you wouldn't expect.

he finds a way to find common ground with them on something. the other thing he does, he's a very -- it's funny, because people have an idea of him and he's this legend and figure in history, but with you know him personally, he's totally normal. he's one of the least pretend husband people i've ever met and paradoxically, that -- he has a handwritten note from his mother when john f. kennedy was born asking if he could be the godfather. he does because you can't escapes the history of his family but he does that with new members. he will bring them to his hideaway and sit them down and flatter them with the attention from the senator. >> i can't help think that goes back to the iight of the children, that gregarious s and

the fact that there is no sense of entitlement. >> light. i mean, clear he was born the silver spoon in his mouth, but joe especially was adamant that his kids not be spoiled, he gave the dollar 50 a week for all lines and when ted was at milton academy he wrote his father and said can i have my bicycle and jowrote back and said how many kids have their bikes and he said just a few and joe said no. you can't have something no one else has and the same when he wa at harvard he had a sort of, or on his car and joe found out about it and had a fit and said you can't draw attention to yourself like this. it's okay to get attention when you earn it on your own merits but not to just buy it. >> we are going to open this

conversation up now if anyone has a question come on down and ask one of the many candidates on the panel hear your question. come on down. as you are doing that -- [applause] the microphone is over here if he will come on down and ask a question and as we are waiting for someone i forget who wrote this story, but for me it was somewhere in the book you come story -- a powerful one moment and apparently it happened several times in the senator's life. -- help me out. he was walking on the mall and a car backfires. >> they were walking back from

the capitol to the office building and a car backfired and rollins looked around for the senator. he was on the ground. 'cause he heard something like that in and his family history was such and he wasn't going to fool around and he said to tom rollins, you never know. [laughter] >> if yothink about in 1968, the crazinessf 1968 and the not knowing how far -- how much worse it was going to get, ted kennedy, after seeing his brother assassinated within months is asked to be the nominee, to save the democratic party. mayor daly in chicago did not think the democrats could win and after losing both his brothers, and en being asked essentially to save the party.

i think that illustrates kind of always what's with him. >> i was struck and i'd forgotten how close the two events were, november 1963, and then the plane crash which was -- was it march '64? june, '64 so in a period of half a year, his brother's murdered and he was almost killed in a plane crash where two people were killed and jerry told me he had flatlined in the hospital. >> yeah, it was very, very close to the end for him. and the fact then -- by the way, also, while he was recuperating, he did kind of change -- became more serious. that was part of his maturation. he would have these clinics every week where people would come in because he was strapped in this bed for long --on