and other people's ideas. he knew how to reach across the aisle. thirdly, he knew how to get the deal done. if we can impart to young people today as they study the u.s. senate, those three items to bring with you in whatever your task, we will have succeeded in his dream of explaining the u.s. senate, teaching young people the importance of understanding how a democracy works, and about how you get it done, which was what the senator did all the time. he was blessed.

he had a partner who had the same zeal about the important issues of justice and health care, justice and education and all the labor issues. you could go through -- people talk about senator kennedy as the health center. the labor guy stands up and says he was the education -- the labor center. he was a senator who was an extraordinary performer. he had a partner who understood how important that work was. his most important adviser, his best friend, his partner, our friend, vicky reggie kennedy. [applause] >> thank you so much for those wonderful, warm words.

thank you and roseanne for your friendship. teddy was so delighted with the leadership you were going to be giving to the institute. it is such a pleasure to be here at the kennedy library. tech loved this place, and he would have agreed this is the perfect place to discuss his memoir, especially given the role the library has played over the decades in fostering debate on critical issues and informing the american people about what ted love to call our march of progress. i am delighted that the library is coasting tonight's forum with the edward m. kennedy institute for the united states senate, which will be built just a stone's throw from here. i thank ken feinberg, the chair of the kennedy library foundation, also of the chair of the emk institute. if you will indulge me just a

moment, i would like to say a special word of thanks to tom putnam, the director of the jfk library. also to everyone here at the library and library foundation who were so helpful to me and to all our family last august. on very short notice, they did the impossible, helping us to prepare the way for the people of the commonwealth to come here to pay their respects to ted. fet thousand people came through the library last august -- 50,000 people came through the library, and it would not have been possible without their tireless efforts. thank you so much. [applause] i would also like to say a brief word about the edward m. kennedy institute for the united states senate. ted love to the senate. he called it one of our

forefathers most brilliant democratic conventions. about seven years ago, ted and i started talking about the idea of a living institution to educate and inform generations of americans about the critical role of the senate in our democracy. he had a clear vision of a place where young people could visit and see firsthand the role the senate place in our system of government, and were americans can come and participate in the debates of the day. he wanted to build a place to train our next generation of leaders. in his last 15 months, ted had three long term goals. launching the institute, finishing a " true compass," and passing national health reform.

with the institute on its way to breaking ground next spring, " true compass" on the best-seller lists, he accomplished two of these goals and we are closer than ever before of passing a health reform since the creation of medicare. [applause] he would be thrilled at this progress and focus on getting it done. but we are here tonight to talk about "true compass," his memoirs. he did not have the chance to see it in final book form, but he knew every word. we had read the entire book aloud to each other. for as long as i knew him, and you that teddy wanted to tell his own story for history -- i

knew that teddy white to tell his own story for history. for 50 years, he kept contemporaneously it's a critical meetings with presidents, historic debates in the senate, conversations with world leaders, and many personal impressions of events in his life. he was an eyewitness, an active participant in the greatest moments of our collective history over the last half century, and he preserved his memories for the ages. about five years ago, ted started an oral history project with the university of virginia, and these notes really started to come alive during this oral history project. i think it was through the process of mining his memories during those hours and hours of interviews that had started to reflect on his life in a

different, deeper, and more open way. it was during that time that his concept of what his memoirs would be really shifted to something much more personal. and so, a " true compass" was born. ted was well into the project when he became ill, but he was determined to continue. so many others had written their version of test store, and he wanted to tell it as only he could -- had written their own version ownted's story. it is a candid and personal look of his life as he lived it. as he said many times, he wanted to get it right for history. i hope you will agree after reading it that he did. i want to thank mike barnicle

for moderating our discussion tonight and the others participating in it. they have been participants in and students of this country's historic march to progress, and i am looking forward to their thoughts. thank you very much. [applause] an a

>> i'd hike to begin even though it might be meanr'g that i might not be able to go to communion in rhode island. >> we won't tell. about senator kennedy's faith. for those of you that have not

read the !ook or who are not privy to certain aspects of the man's life he was a man of deep faith and there's a quote. give me - there it is. p tone meant is a process that never ends. ej, let's start with you. ted keep di. catholic. what evidence did you see of e deep faith? >> first of all you saw him in church that shát say something in principal but before i begin i have to report my favorite line in the book when ted kennedy courted vicki kennedy

and they were having dinner an early phase an" he was where i had about a pole that shows his approval rate together 82 percent and vicki kennedy said that's fortunate because i never go out with a guy who's approval ratqr'g is below 47 percent. i talked about you saw him in church and that's part of the real deal. you saw it. i think there was a connection to the church and to his faith that came very much down from his mother and i think it was in it a mately coyekted to his faith. also in his constant engagement in religious issues and in the dialogue among religious people. there's a great story in the book where one day he gets a mailing from liberty college, jerry falwell's university, making him a member of liberty college. it includes a line "join us to

fight ultraliberal like ted kennedy." jerry falwell's guy called him and they made light of it. he said he should come down here and visit with us. he said i not only want to do that, i want to go down and talk. they had him come down, and he gave a talk about how his religious faith led him to the conclusions that he did, and he said it may elect to some people like it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a kennedy to go to liberty university. by the end of it, even the people at the university realized there was an organic link between his catholic faith and how to approach to public life.

there was a sunday in 1994, and we went to the same church for a while. there is a wonderful priest there who is very close to them. we were at a mass where there were tons of kids. there he was with vicki, and my mom was visiting us. it was before the election. after mask she goes up and greet him and says she is voting for him again. he turns to the kennedy -- she turns to the kennedys and said to be good to each other. >> in the course of his campaign and his almost daily

visits back to this state, the element of compassion and forgiveness, the element of the belief and redemption -- can you speak to that? >> i think it had more to do with his catholic faith then i realized during his lifetime. the first hint i had was a letter he wrote to the pope at the very end, which essentially explained his career within the context of his catholic faith. >> i thought that was so moving and two o of the things to figure out a politician and real time is what his marriage is like and what i religious views are like and on really dpaus views usually political figures pretend to be more religious than they are. i know it's a shock but occasionally it happens.

harry truman said if you hear a politician praying too loud go home and lock your smoke house. but if you read the book you get the sense that the catholicism was not only basic tok him but much more connected with a lot of decisions he made in his political career. >> dorris, i think very few people realize on the periphery ted kennedy's deep de voebs to his family. parents, brothers and sisters and it's a devotion that's seems to have begun quite early in life and part of it resolved around his grandfather and i'd like to read this paragraph from the book about terry and on fits. my memories of this good grand old man restored hope when things restored darkest in my

life. constant in my life during the years of boarding school. his request to me has been more fortune -- or precious than any fortune. lovelock, and believe in it, and he did. >> he is to go down to the breaker hotel in palm beach. they said he would sit in the big couch is there, waiting for anybody from massachusetts to come in, so he could talk to them. those songs that teddy used to sing all the time, that all came from honey fitz. the memoir really is a family story, underneath it all. no one else was able to write the kennedy family story, because bobby died, jack died, and joe jr. died. nobody could write it from inside the way that teddy kennedy did. the story is the story of a family that has captivated our interest, our sadness, our

happiness for almost a century. to be able to bring that story out in the last years of his life, he was more open than he could have been before. it is unusual because of its openness. those characters are thinking about the future and balancing things. lbj wanted to say something mean about bobby kennedy. he said in the next sentence i will say something good about jackie kennedy, as though he could balance things out. lbj said he was so concerned about saving face, that he would lose his ask some day. -- lose his ass sunday. what you see here, there is a

great story about when he decided to run away from home. jack kennedy was like a second father to him. he said, why don't i just read at the movies? by the end of the movie, maybe we will just go home. then he talks about how much he loves jack and bobby. what jackson bobby -- what jack's death meant to bobby, and more importantly, what they made him want to do. he loved looking at the capitol in the distance and the scratches on the desk doors. believing that he could cross party lines, that there could be friendships forged, that somehow he could make a difference in the social progress of the country. it is an extraordinary legacy.

jack kennedy created a committee where they would have statues for all the best centers. they picked the best orator, daniel webster, the best committee chairman, the best constituent service person, the best person who was able to bring things across party lines. you look at ted kennedy and he is every single one of those things. in a sense, his legacy is larger than any one thing. any of us who were here during the time when he was here laying in state saw those people coming one after another, telling what he had done for them. what a great orator, committee chairman, all those things are in line. all that comes out in the book, his love of the senate, his love

of family. he said the key made me understand me, which is what love is all about. -- he said vickie made me understand meet. >> the other thing about the book is, we have all read many memoirs, and if we were in a different line of work, we probably would not read a lot of them. a lot of these books are interesting if you are interested in the time or the career or the issues. the ones that are really great are universal. you do not have to be a political junkie to get something out of the book. you will read this book from beginning to end even if you are not interested in politics. there are so many things there thaearly on. when ted kennedy was talking about writing this book, he said one model he had is

katherine graham's book, personal history. because she was a candid. brown the time that book came out, i was in chicago and our ran into a woman who was about 22 years old. she came up to me and said he lived in washington, don't you? she said, do you know katherine graham? she looked at me as if she was seeing -- that book was able to speak to someone of a total different experience who was not a billionaire who would inherit a newspaper. the book does a couple of things that really stand out, how did you motivate children. i asked how his father was able

to motivate his kids to do so much in life. he told me a little bit about that, which is captured in the book. his father came to him at a crucial moment and said ted, you can do what you want with your adult life, that decision is open to you, but you should know that if you do not use your life to do something serious, i will not have a lot of time for you, because there are other siblings of yours who will. he writes about what enormous influence that had on him. that is the kind of lesson you can get from reading this book. many people probably think this book is all about politics. it is more about ted kennedy the human being that it is about politics. all of us as witnesses to his life and our own lives are sometimes staggered by help one would cope with the sense of loss and the reality of loss

that ted kennedy and his family endured across the years. there was a moment in denver colorado just prior to his speech to the democratic national convention when he was troubled with gallstones. he was fighting what he was fighting. he manned up, as they would say today, saying to the people around him, i can handle this. he handled almost everything is extraordinarily well. there is a passage in the book that i would like you to reflect on as i repeated. has to do with dealing with loss. it has to do with the events of the summer of 1968 and with teddy's love of the ocean and his love of sailing, and the fact that when he would be out in the ocean, especially at night, he would look for the north star.

that is the truly magical time of sailing, as the north star appears. the norstar which has been the guiding star for all seamen three-time. the north star guide you through the evening. its light is the most definite thing you can see on the surface of the dark water. you have the north star and the sound as well as the shipping water. sometimes the fall will come in and you must go by the compass for a period, but you are all milk -- you are always waiting to see the north star again because it is the guide to the home port. the voice becomes all-inclusive. you are enveloped in the totality of it. your part of the beginning, part of the end, part of the ship, and part of the sea. i gaze at the knights die off and on those voyages and thought of bobby. -- i gazed at the night sky of and on those voyages and thought

of bobby. >> you had the sense of foreboding he had about the campaign from the beginning. some folks are old enough to remember that bobby kennedy did not want to get into that race. he thought it would be seen as part of a personal fight with lbj, not about the vietnam war. he describes the process of bobby kennedy thinking about getting into that race. as 1967 goes on, more and more of the kennedy insiders and friends want him to run. in the end, he is one of the only holdouts who, until the very last moment, he does not really want him to run. in the book, he talks about how politically it would make more sense for him to run in 1972. if there lbj would win again or

he would lose and the party would turn to him. there is this sense of foreboding, that he sensed that some tragedy could happen. you feel that since the tragedy at many moments in the book, but never mo point lead -- never work more poignantly than when he is discussing the loss. >> he said everyone is broken by a life, but afterward, many are strong in the broken places. there are many times when teddy and the family are broken by life, but they are strong in those broken places. he describes his responsibility to tell joe kennedy sr. that jack has been assassinated. there is such a realist to it, because he says he was lying there, and even though the father had had a stroke, he understood what was going on. his father's eyes were closed.

he decided to wait a few more minutes. then he is the one who had to tell him. when bobby died, he is the one who had to tell bobbies children that bobby had died. to think about that men still retaining that optimism. just before he was diagnosed with the cancer, my husband and i were in a car, and for some reason ", wild irish rose" came on the radio. we called him up and there was that booming voice just singing those ridiculous songs he would sing. it just shows you that loss is connected to life. if you have a sense of nature, of the season is being reviewed over time, if you have a religious faith of renewal, you just keep: and you drive. that is the main message of this

book. it goes beyond politics. is human response to love and loss. >> richard nixon once said in 1972 after he won a landslide reelection, i had to go out campaigning and shaking hands with these people when i really felt like kicking them. ted kennedy was the exact opposite. it also affected. >> he was absolutely happy to be a maverick on issue after issue but at the same time he had these great relationships. and that's spirit of the founding father's who always hoped that members of the senate

and all-americans would duke it out during the day, but at the end ju$e day have a glass of and say we're all-americans and that doesn't get personal. >> interesting. that whole notion of ted keep dithe guy i worked with. i don't think there's a republican in the senate. didn't work on something at some point. >> extraordinarily owed use people. >> and he - you know you asked the quqáurjjy what is it about this guy who could be - who was such a strong and principal liberal. how could he do that and i think that's actually one of the paradoxes of politics. precisely because he knew where he wanted to go and he new where the country should move. any someone with that clarity can enter into compromises.

in the end i want to get here and if i can only get here this time, i can get there and if i can get help from warren hatch one jt his great partners on a lot of thing. particularly children's healthcare i'll go with them and so it was, you're right the unprincipals or completely flexible but because he had a set of principals. >> he couldn't do it all at once. >> also this connected who that we said earlier. why did he become more liberal as time went on? that was not necessarily true ofj fk. ted kennedy became more so than any u f his brothers and his identifying with people that were left out, locked out almost in the way of franklin roosevelt. franklin roosevelt's polio gave

him a different degree. >> i have always felt that his embassy was natural, because like so many -- his empathy was natural. he knew what it was like to be damaged. he had tremendous identification of sympathy and a desire to improve the lives of those who had been damaged. do you agree with that? >> absolutely. he tells interesting stories about lbj and the fact that lbj had offered -- or bobby had offered to go and negotiate the vietnamese situation for lbj. had he done that, teddy says he would have then been so caught up in the peacemaking process that he would not have run for the primaries. he would not have been killed, possibly. on the other hand, he gives lbj much more credit than one would

have imagined he would have for the extraordinary domestic achievements. he said it closest to fdr is lbj. lbj always like teddy. he understood him. the one thing that is fun, even though he has nice things to say about lbj and even reagan, and clinton had magnetism, carter does not expecescape. he says that carter baffled me. in 1976, he claimed that he won without any help from me or any democrat. he seems to have this special anumus toward me. the trouble of was, he liked to claim he was a great listener,

but he only gave the appearance of listening. he served no liquor when anyone was around. he would hold seminars in which he would show of how much he knew. the one thing that really got to him, carter refused to support archibald cox because he had supported might udall in the primaries. teddy did not hold grudges in that way. >> if carter had named archie cox to that judgeship, would he have reconsidered running for president? one of the things he is candid about our his laws. there is one moment where he says there are so many stories about me, unfortunately, some of them were true. some of them were

embellishments, and some were so amazing i cannot believe anyone thought i could do that. it creates an unusual kind of humility in a public figure. when you talk about empathy for the suffering, which he had, there is also a sense of human frailty. having a sense of human frailty is a very useful thing in confronting the world, and being honest about it in yourself can make you a far more understanding and decent person. he was not someone who was flawed and then judge everyone else by some other standard. i was struck about his own tendecandor.

>> let's talk about that in terms of biography, a political autobiography. 99% of people the right political autobiographies about himself are lies. this book is amazingly self revelatory. you would be surprised at the level of truth that he sees and saw when he looked in the mirror. i think it will be amazed in reading the book that there are many moments in the book where you can hear his voice. here might be one of them, to your point. i am and enjoy your. i have enjoyed being a center. i have enjoyed my children and my close friends. i have enjoyed books, music, and well-prepared food, especially with a helping of cream sauce on top. i have enjoyed a stiff drink or to and relished the smooth taste of a good one.

at times i have enjoyed these pleasures too much. >> early on, and we all look at the kennedy family from the outside in, what an extraordinary thing in must have been to be a kennedy. as the youngest member that family, he said he was a constant state of catching up, and he was not as talented or handsome or intelligent as his brother, who were older than he. being sent to 10 different boarding schools when you are young and overweight, you have to make friends over and over again, how hard that is for you. so it also heard him. when they gave up browns' bill so that only had -- he was sent off at eight or nine years old to boarding school.

right from the start, he is so difficult -- so honest about how difficult that was, you pull for him. because he is honest and you see the pain he is feeling from the time he is a little kid, he then becomes this overwhelmingly friendly person in order to make his way in each one of these boarding schools. you pull for him from the beginning to end. >> it works wonderfully on that level. the other level is political history. this is a guy who knew the people around winston churchill, and he knew barack obama. that is a pretty large slice of american history. if you had to find one figure to cover the whole gamut, ted kennedy is just about the only one. in reading this, it is not only the story of a life that is expiring and tells us that to liberalize, but it is a history of that period.

>> teddy's youth was lonely. that and baggage from this school to that school. i remember him once telling me he was very excited that on his 18th birthday he received a set of luggage from his parents, with his initials embossed upon the luggage, emk. the luggage was placed on the second floor of the house in hyannis port. they came back after dinner and yet this had taken the luggage, because those are her initials. -- eunice had taken the luggage because those are her initials. [laughter] he is on an army base in europe, trying to fit in. his mother makes him go out for

this very fancy dinner, which he does, and comes back. near the gate, his mother comes running out of the limousine yelling teddy, dear, you have left your dancing shoes behind. after that, he says everyone referred to him as "teddy, dear ." >> history is replete with stories of both kennedy's, specifically the ambassador, joseph kennedy, and you would read stories about him and say oh, jesus. ted had a norris and lasting love for his parents. here is a story about teddy and his mother, rose kennedy. he was in virginia and had lost

the iowa caucuses. he came on the phone to tell his mother, and she said that is all right, i am sure you work hard and it will get better. then she said, teddy, do you know that nice blue sweater i gave a christmas time? he said it was a turtle neck with a small pocket on the front that had been made in france. >> have you wanted? >> i am not sure i have worn it. is there something special about it? i just got the bill for it and it is $220. if you have not worn it, send it back, because i have another one here that has not been warned. -- has not been worn. >> everybody has put rose kennedy on a pedestal, but what he does here, his dad was the

one that he truly loved as well. i am sure everybody told him he had to talk about his father and what he did during world war ii. he says he was too young to comprehend his father's attitudes. in some region of my mind, he remains internally and solely my dad. he shows that the father was the one who kissed him when he came home from school and made all his home games in football at harvard. you can imagine what it was like for him, knowing that he was the caboose in this family, as he often said. he had to become the engine of the family went bobby died.

he had to become the father for that whole generation of kennedy children. he had to be at their weddings, and be with his own children when they suffered illnesses and difficulties. he wrote this book to put his father in a different light, since most people do not see him that way. >> how many here are the youngest child in the family they were born into? more than a few. a lot of youngest children that i know, about the fact that they had to work really hard to be noticed and taken seriously, and even to be accepted into the family that already existed. one of the most interesting

things in the book is when he talked about around 1961, he thought seriously about moving way beyond massachusetts, maybe to the southwest, and starting to work out there and may be running for office on his own. his father was not too wild for that. you can read this on this level, that this is someone who was ambivalent about the legacy. >> there are two sentences that underscore about the youngest and the debt. he describes his dad and talks about the politics, but says in some region of my mind, joseph p. kennedy remains to be internally and solely my dad, just as i remained the ninth and youngest child of all the kennedys.

he is also quite candid that his dad was a stern taskmaster. he said you can have an interesting life or not. you can. riding if you are downstairs -- can come riding debut or downstairs in 5 mins. he meant what he said. >> if we were just told that there was a father who was that intents and demanded so much from the >> you would think out of nine children, at least one would rebel and it wouldn't be a happy story and because he combined it with that love and commitment, unconditional, that's why it succeeded. >> that's huge part of the book.

his love for his family. his come meet joy in recollecting all sorts of things about his brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces. he was filled stories and it was misty guy together me in the sense that a man hike this had never once seated to bitterness or resentment over events take ten course in his lifetime. he loved telling the stories and they're all here in this book. one of the best, at least to my mind is not in the book but it gets to the joy of his family again -- that in october 1963, president kennedy's last appearance in the state of massachusettsu he came to attend the fund- raiser at the old commonwealth

armory. he was arriving as president of the united states, and the three statewide officeholders, as well as many other local minions and politicians who were indicted, to meet and greet the president. they had two choices, they could either meet the president at the airport, shake hands and have their picture taken with him, or medium at the armory -- meet him at the armory, which was a black-tie event, and shake hands with him there. they could not do both. three statewide democratic officeholders were the lieutenant governor, the attorney general, and a young secretary of state by the name of kevin white. air force one comes in to logan airport. kevin white, and frank chose to greet the airport -- to greet

the president at the airport. just as the plane is landing, the lieutenant governor shows up in black tie. [laughter] . . >> and says red that was eddi mack laugh lip's nickname. ed, your taking the job kind of seriously aren't you? >> we have to mention for those

that don't know it. they went on to the dinner and j teddy and teddy said he was tired of running on the family name so he was going to change his name from teddy kennedy to teddy roosevelt. >> the one funny thing about the name, because he was porn on february 22nd. jack wanted to call him george washington kennedy. >> right. amazing coincidence. >> let's before before we close out. we have questions for testimony audience, let's bring it right up to, today. today. e.j. dionne, you first met barack obama in 1997, the only member of the legislature not indicted out there. [laughter] do you think -- >> and what's wrong with that? >> do you think that any part of senator kennedy's

endorsement of barack obama for president was rooted in the possibility that he heard his brother's voice in barack obama? >> that's really interesting question. you mentioned -- i always say i'm from massachusetts. we have mad our problems in this sphere. i always like to say thak god for louisiana. >> for both of us. >> for the sake of us all. >> consist kids and young adults who worked for bobby kennedy's campaign ended up supporting barack obama, and who heard a little bit of a sense of j.f.k. in the sort of somewhat -- the cerebral and cool part of him. and some of the r.f.k. in the

more sort of -- in the more passionate part of him. and different people who were out of the kennedy tradition, some saw him more as jesk, some saw him more as r.f.k. and i think that's possible. but you gave me an opening to do one thing i wanted to do before we close. by chance, i was looking up something in arthur schlesinger's great journals. they're fantastic. there's a lot of great gossip in them. there are a lot of very shrewd political observations. and i happened upon this passage in 1963. so it was taken the first year after he got elected. it's not about ted kennedy. and this does go to your question, i promise. >> it's ok if it doesn't. >> and he was -- schlessinger was in the white house in april, 1963. and he was talking about the problem that old new dealers and new frontier people just seem to come from a different

tradition. the new dealers, he said -- of the new dealers, he said, the heart was worn much more on the sleeve then. the new frontier has a deep mistrust of what it regards as the pat liberal sentiment talts and chi chase of the 1930's. i sympathize with both sides and can see clearly why each is baffled by the other, all the more baffled because of the substantial agreement on policy. though the new dealers are still more audacious, less impressed by business wisdom and more willing to damn the torpedoes. though it signifies a deeper difference in commitment, a change, in a way, from evangelists who want to do something because it is just and right to technocrats, who want to do something because it is rational and necessary. the new frontier lacks the evangelical impulse. and then he closes, "i wish i could figure out the terms in

which the idealism and imagination of the new deal could be infused into the anti-sentimental, anti-rhetorical, understated mood of the new frontier." and it occurred to me when i read that, that in some ways ted kennedy's life was working out those two streams of liberal thought. he was very much out of the new frontier, but he also represented in so many ways that more audacious part of the new deal. and i have a hunch he might have seen that very tension and effort to work things out in obama. >> you know what's intriguing, the fact that you take your glasses off for reading, when i put my glasses on for reading. [laughter] >> i refuse to get bifolkals is what that says -- bifolk california is what that says. >> we have a couple of questions. the first question is what do you think or what did mrs. kennedy think would be senator kennedy's position on president

obama's announcement of a troop surge in afghanistan. >> we're in bad territory here. it's like when abraham lincoln's daughter announced if her grandfather were alive she'd be sure he'd be a taft republican. hard to say. >> doris, do you want to take a stab at that? >> no. [laughter] >> e.j.? >> what about where fools fear to tread? >> there's no way you'll be wrong. >> i think there are three crick camps on this. there are the hawks, which he wouldn't have been, because they wanted to commit to troops. and then there's a group where -- i ran into several different democrats whose reaction was, god, i hope he's right, who were very uneasy about this choice, but think he may have had no better choice.

i think kennedy might be suspended somewhere between the dove and the god, i hope he's right camp. >> i don't think so >> you think he would have disagreed with it? >> i think he would have asked the president of the united states, do you really think afghanistan is going to look any different three or five years from now than it does right now. [applause] >> we have one last question that i don't think any of us can answer, and it is this. and it's to vicky kennedy. senator kennedy's dogs, splash and sunny. it was touching the relationship. we miss them of the how are they doing? -- we miss them, how are they doing? [inaudible]

[laughter] [applause] >> and thank you to the panel, because it is now -- [applause] >> it is now my distinct pleasure to introduce the pride of brockton, massachusetts, and the scourge of corporate america, america's favorite pay czar, ken feinberg. [applause] >> thank you all. thank you all very much. just before we conclude, i want to thank all of you for being here. i want to thank my friend who's

here this evening representing the senate, kennedy senate institute. i also want to acknowledge the absence, but his shadow is all over this place, the man i replaced, junior senator paul kirk, whose shoes, as the new chairman of the foundation board, i could never fill. i'll just do the best that i can. i also want to express what an honor it is for me to serve as the chairman of the foundation and to have as my first public appearance being here today at this forum discussing my former boss, my friend, my mentor, senator kennedy. it is an extreme honor for me as chairman to spend my first official visit to the library as chairman at a public event honoring this great, great man.

i also want to remind all of you -- as if you needed any reminding -- that this forum today is very, very memorable. i don't know when we'll be able to get this group of panelists back together on the same stage. it may be that you will tell your family and your grandchildren that you were here, that you were here this evening to hear from this extraordinary quartet that's been up here this evening. [applause] >> just two final points. first, inevitably in the decades ahead, years from now, there will be books written -- histories written about senator

kennedy. it won't be political science, it won't be current events, it will be real history, as people will look back decades from now about his extraordinary impact. and i guarantee you that when those books are written 10, 20, 30 more years from now, there will be a huge chapter not yet written about the impact on senator kennedy's personal and public life. the critical impact of vicky kennedy. and >> i think we ought to all acknowledge that. [applause] >> finally, i hope, that you'll take advantage at the conclusion of this forum, to go downstairs,

buy a book, see vicki, buy - let me tell you about buying this "táhe library supply of this bo is virtually in exhaustible. so don't worry. thank you all for coming! ♪ >> a look ahead today here on c-span. next the days headlines and your the fcc director and the judiciary hearing on the backlog for dna evidence collected for uninvolved rape cases. coming up an about 45 minutes. clark kent irving of the department of homeland security during the bush