tonight on "nightline," remembering ted kennedy. the tragedy and triumphs of an extraordinary life and a side of ted kennedy that you haven't seen before. living in camelot, the inside story of the kennedys and the home that saw so much joy and so much pain. the kennedys unite, as the family gathers to say good-bye.

is this the end of the dynasty? a special edition of "nightline" starts now. captions paid for by abc, inc. good evening, everyone. i'm terry moran. today, the world reacted to the passing of senator ted kennedy. the white house lowered the flag to half-staff as president obama called kennedy the greatest senator of our time. the funeral is planned for this saturday in boston and then later at arlington national cemetery, the last son of camelot will be laid to rest next to his brothers. that will be his sanctuary in death. and yet again tonight, our eyes turned to the kennedy family sanctuary. their compound in hyannisport, massachusetts, where they have unite and rejoiced in good times

and searched for solace after great tragedy. they gather there now for teddy. david wright reports. >> today outside the kennedy compound the flags were at half-staff, again. the satellite trucks on marchant avenue parked close and peering in as they gather to mourn another loss. the scene that we find ourselves in now is a place we have been before. >> it is. webee taven t we have been there throughmahen tragedies. as well as all those happy pi. es eethlie 'reytorar ske ouey seem torr fromn our own family album. a collective memory. ted kennedy himself used to describe the big house as a pbk.oo inside no priceless works of art, but hundreds upon hundreds of photographs of america's political dynasty. >> there was that that we first saw them, the family running around the yard and throwing the footballs and the women and the

men, and those sailboats. those constant pictures of various family members on the sailboats. >> they always suggested vigor. >> certainly vigor was certainly a big part of the kennedy mystique. >> and hyannisport was always the back drop. >> hoing a large family and an active family, i think it's been very much involved with the out of doors, with all of those implications. >> hyannisport was camelot's beach house. the kennedy castle on nantucket sound, a home at produced not just one but three sons who aspired to the highest office in the land. joe kennedy bought the big dutch colonial with the wraparound porch in 1929. three years before his youngest was born. >> this is hyannis on beautiful cape cod. >> for many americans, hyannisport is synonymous with elitism, a sort of place -- a

sort of place where people use summer as a verb. >> the kennedy children grew to maturity. >> but as irish catholics, they would have been unwelcome in new port so the kennedys created their own aristocracy here. >> the older ones were at school and he held teddyon his knee. >> this is rose kennedy from a 1962 film promoting her son's first campaign for the u.s. senate. >> every other time when the women have had the boat, the kennedies have won, so i hope you will not disappoint us at this time. >> it wasn't a runoff. but family tradition the kennedy compound used to be open to the public every year on rose kennedy's birthday. >> i was very surprised it was not like a glitzy, it was not like walking into a rich person's house. the rugs were worn, the furniture was worn, the e cushis were lumpy. then they took us into another ro where rose was siing and

flanked rather poignnantly by eunice and ted. on the wall, lots of photographs of herer sons and none of her daughters. >> the compmpound includ several adjacent houses owned byther members of the kennedy clan. >> this is my brother'shouse. >> in 2004, senator kennedy gave george stephanopoulos a tour. >> it's in that house where he heard that he was elected president. caroline woke him up and said, you're p president of e united states. >> this where the family gathered in the months of triumphs. this is ere they have come togeer during generations for tragic times too. the compound has seen more than its share of that. beginning with that terrible day in dallas. president kennedy's kid brother was still a freshman in the senate when he had to break the news to his father in hyannisport. >> to be the person that had to go tell him that his golden son who was president of the united states had been killed was --

had to be one of the hardest things that anybody ever had to do. >> on to chicago and let's win -- >> all the more tragic to have that scene repeated with bobby a few years later. joe kennedy, confined to a wheelchair after a stroke, died in hyannisport a year after that. the library at the big house is where ted kennedy gave his mea culpa for chappaquiddick. >> the car overturned and then immediately filled with water. i remember thinking as the cold water rushed in around my head i was going to drown. >> he pled guilty to leaving the scene of an accident. mary jo kopechne's death likely cost him any hope of winning the presidency. the compound has seen happy memories too. weddings where caroline -- like caroline kennedy's. and john jr. was on his way to another family wedding at

hyannisport when his plane plunged into the sound. plenty of others have sought to elbow their way in. arnold schwarzenegger married onva tshriver in hyannis.okn to antiescaident clinton took to vacationing on nearby martha cease vineyard and he sailed with president kennedy through some of the roughest waters of his presidency. >> ted kennedy was very generous to bill clinton at this time because it was a rough time and he knew what that felt like. he was very kind to the out -- in pictures with bill clinton -- >> right after monica lewinsky. >> giving some moral support. >> it is no surprise that when he got sick, senator kennedy came here to recuperate and even with a brain tumor, he loved to be out on his 50-foot sloop the

maya. even in the final few months, he never missed an opportunity to sail. >> couldn't be a more beautiful day. had a wonderful chance with the family and a great tradition out here. we always enjoy it. >> ultimately it was where he came to die. he'd sit on his porch, he would paint. he read and wrote here. you know, and his children were here.

>> as sad as it is that he's passed away, it's important to remember tedenne is the only one of the brothers who got to live out his days and die in the place that he loved. i'm david wright for "nightline" in washington. thanks to

ted kennedy's life was epic. epic and tragic. marked and scarred by traumas and self-ilicted wounds that most us cannot imagine. the violence and loss he endured might have crushed him. turned him bitter or led him to withdraw from the world that had so hurt him. but it didn't. there was a side to ted kennedy that few people saw and that reveals how he truly dealt with all that sorrow and pain. anyone can live a charmed life. that's easy. and for a time a long time ago, it seemed the kennedys had it all. money, power, glamour. but in the end, it's what we make of the hardship and tragedy that come into our lives that truly defines us. and the kennedys had so much of that, so much that even ted kennedy as he once admitted in trying to explain hiconduct

after chappaquiddick even he eder- >> whether some awful curse did actuallyed hang over all the kennedys. >> but he never dwelled on all the tragedy he endured. the death of first one, then another, then another brother. and a sister. his own responsibility for the death of a young woman. his son's cancer and all the rest. ted kennedy did something else. >> i literally would not be standing here were it not for teddy kennedy. not figuratively. it's not hyper bow did, literally. he was there, he stood with me. when my wife and daughter were killed in an accident. he was on the phone with me literally every day, in the hospital. >> vice president joe biden served with ted kennedy in the senate for 36 years, but it was his first year when biden's young wife and baby daughter were killed if a carcrash and

young son injured that he felt like quitting. >> he was there at every high point anevery low point in my life. >> ted kennedy took his tragedies and transformed them into empathy, empathy for those in pain or in trouble or in sorrow. >> misfortune strikes the kennedy family once again. >> in 1964, when he was almost killed in a small plane crash, bir bayh of indiana whohoululled him m omom t wreage.e. >> t t s sayayinis wheno gogoin t t touough, , the toh get gog and ted kennedy was made out of tough material. he didn't let it get him down. he was determined to be a better person for it. >> a man who has worked closely with senator kennedy and knows his record well. >> here is senator birch bayh of indiana. >> we have become close personal

friends and i had a chance to learn firsthand of his great compassion and concern for the problems facing you the people of his state. >> he was one of those who followed the biblical admonition do unto others as you'd have others do unto you. i don't think it was an act. i think it was genuine. >> senator orrin hatch from utah was one of kennedy's closest colleagues. >> i remember one time i was unjustly accused and he would call on a regular basis to say, don't worry about it, everybody knows you're honest, everybody knows you didn't do anything wrong. he was the only senator who did, by the way. i never forgot it. >> but it wasn't just senators who felt that way. his extended family of course. at 36, he became the father figure for 13 of his dead brothers' children and plus his hers.hree kids around there were >> this was by far my darkest hour. >> our abc news colleague, jon

karl, was driving in california in 2002 with -- and were in a terrible crash, but hospitalized and shaken. >> the very first call i got from somebody was not part of my immediate family. it was a call from ted kennedy. i don't think i had smiled yet since the accident. and the minute that i heard that voice and -- regardless of what he was saying, i remember smiling. and it actually kind of hurt to smile, but i smiled and laughed. it was just an injection of energy, of encouragement, of adrenaline. i mean, it really had an impact. didn't matter what he was saying. >> and jon like so many others knew kennedy's compassion came from a special place. >> at a moment like that you know you're talking to somebody who has been through his own tragedies far worse than certainly what i was going

through, i knew i was talking to somebody who knows what this is like. >> the best portion of a good man's life a poet once wrote are his little nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love. >> it was only through senator kennedy's commitment to doing the right thingthat i'm even here. >> jessica katz was born in moscow. she was a sick child and her grandmother in boston did not believe she would survive in the soviet union, so she turned to ted kennedy. >> senator kennedy made a personal mission to lena brezhnev to get you out. >> definitely he saved my life in doing so. >> it's an amazing story. her father was called to a meeting at midnight in moscow. >> he showed up at the meeting and ted kennedy is there and he said to my father, i've taken care of it and i've spoken to brezhnev and when we landed at logan airport, senator kennedy

was there to meet us. >> today, jessica katz works in new york city finding homes for the homeless. what does it mean to you that he did that? >> i think it gives me a certain d inanthmeg o ne tveedlith up to. that he did all this for me and i better pay it forward and make sure that i can go and do good things for other people as well. >> maybe in the end after all the speeches and fierce political battles are forgotten, that's the meaning of this remarkable life. forged in such terrible tragliieed ted kennedy's little-known acts of compassion will be paying forward in this world for a long, long time. ied that is the best portion of when we come back, we'll turn to

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the kennedy the kennedy legacy, power, mystique, the siren call to public service. the burden of that legacy is not always carried easily and some might wonder is senator kennedy's passing closing the final chapter on camelot? but for the younger generation of kennedys the pull to serve and succeed is still strong as claire shipman now reports. >> they're the closest thing we have in this country to political royalty. baby boomers grew up watching them play football.

sail off hyannisport and walk down the aisle swathed in glamour. while jack, jackie, bobby and then ted, caroline, maria became the household names -- >> as i look ahead, i am strengthened by family and friendship. thank you. >> there's a new generation of kennedys determined to make a mark, to carry on a legacy his &

just among the women. meet kerry's twin cousins joe and matt kennedy. joe also recently served in the peace corps. >> the real legacy from our family is public service can take on a variety of different

forms, and my generation i think is getting older and coming of age. that it's something that we're very -- we're picking up and running with. >> we're so proud of what everybody in our family has accomplished. and it's a -- you know, it an incredible family to be a part of. >> it was caroline kennedy's kid, caroline arranged her first meeting with obama, after go shoot involved in the obama campaign in harvard. which kennedy might be the next to run for publics of to follow of -- i think we both take it as kind of an honor because it's -- it's a testament tthe legacy that our family has. >> we have never lost our belief that we are all called to a better country, and a newer world.

>> for years it's been a tradition. for this generation of kennedys, to go sailing with their uncle teddy on the cape. and whilee'll he bsoly missed his legacy will live on in one more beloved family pastime, passed from his generation to this one. h >> our thanks to claire shipman for that report. and we'll be right back with a special edition of tonight's "closing argument."