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CNN Live Event/Special
Teddy: In His Own Words
Aired August 29, 2009 - 20:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAMPBELL BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Right now, we're all going to get a unique look at Senator Edward Kennedy. The HBO documentary, "Teddy: In His Own Words," has some remarkable moments you've never seen before. It is put together with home movies and photographs, as well as TV news video and still photographs from Kennedy's long career.
The senator's commentary comes from both public and both private recordings. You're going to hear that now.
And here now, the HBO documentary, "Teddy: In His Own Words."
(TEDDY: IN HIS OWN WORDS, COURTESY HBO)
UNIDENTIFIED SUPPORTERS: Teddy! Teddy! Teddy!
KENNEDY: Thank you.
thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED SUPPORTERS: Teddy! Teddy! Teddy!
KENNEDY: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED SUPPORTERS: Teddy! Teddy! Teddy! Teddy!
KENNEDY: It is so wonderful to be here.
(APPLAUSE)
KENNEDY: For me, this is a season of hope. As I look ahead, I am strengthened by family and friendship. So many of you have been with me in the happiest days and the hardest days.
(APPLAUSE)
KENNEDY: For you and for me, the work begins anew, the hope rises again and the dream lives on.
Thank you.
Thank you.
My fondest of memories were growing up on Cape Cod. From my earliest beginnings, our house has been a scrapbook for our family. All of the really major times of joy and triumph and some of sadness and disappointment have been a part of these pictures. I've grown up in a large family as the ninth member of that family. The relationship between brothers and sisters was extremely close. All during the '30s and '40s, my father was one that sort of challenged all of the members of the family. He could spot if you were not really measuring up and not giving your all.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: American's new ambassador to Britain, Joseph B. Kennedy, upon his arrival in Clement (ph).
KENNEDY: When my father's ambassadorship was announced, it was just an extraordinary, exciting experience, even for a very young member of the family, almost six years old.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Excited?
Why Edward's speechless.
KENNEDY: One of the most outstanding memories was the trip over to London. I can remember having a very warm sense of the feeling that the people in Great Britain had for the members of the family.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Master Teddy Kennedy cut the tape, which gave to the non-grown up public its own small section of the animal kingdom.
KENNEDY: I remember going to the opening of the London Zoo. It was really a wonderful, wonderful zoo.
I remember school. It was one of the first times I had the fisticuffs with someone in my class. He was sort of a bully. And I remember coming home and asking my father whether -- that I was the ambassador's son and could I really fight back. And he said, go to it. And so the next day we went right at it.
We had no thought at that time of the potential dangers of war.
I had been sent home when the bombing really intensified in London. My father was a wonderful letter writer. He wrote me a letter about the bombing and about how it was destroying people's lives and how he hoped that when I grew up that, you know, you could work to try and avoid conflict and war.
My brother Joe sort of took me under his wing. He was 17 years older than I was. He's still the earliest memory of sort of an older figure. He had been a great hero of mine. He was the one that taught me to swim. He was the one that taught me to sail on Cape Cod. He loved the sea. And he always seemed to be available to spend time with. He volunteered for the war, December 8th.
In this house, I heard that my brother Joe was lost. It was on a summer day, mid August, and I remember, even though I was very young at that time. The priest came in and talked to my parents and then they came down and visited with us -- a devastating blow to both of my parents. My sister, Kathleen, had volunteered for the Red Cross a year earlier, because of her real outrage of the war. Kathleen was lost just after the war. Just a day doesn't go by where I'm not thoughtful about them and don't miss them. I mean, I do, in a very, very real way. People have a lot of challenges, a lot of heartache during the course of their lives, and still try and reach out and help other people. And that's sort of a central kind of a theme in the course (ph) of our development. I remember the days of high school. I always wanted to run for office. I would say probably in college I really became most interested in politics.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no stopping (INAUDIBLE) the touchdown (INAUDIBLE) Ted Kennedy, brother of Massachusetts Senator John Kennedy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of us played sports. In our family, all of the boys and girls were all treated very equally. There was a strong, sort of pecking order. I mean, people understood that. Plus being the youngest member of the family made the press more conscious of that. (INAUDIBLE) me being the youngest anyway, they said that I didn't wait in line.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROSE KENNEDY: I thought Ted might grow up and be a priest or even a bishop, but he met a beautiful blond one night, and so that was the end of my ambition in that direction.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Joan and I were married on the 29th of November.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was 4 years old, and I think Ted was 8. And we lived two blocks apart and we never met until I was in college.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To my lawful wife...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To my lawful wife...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was obviously one of the great happy moments. It seemed that everything was coming up roses. I sort of entered the political process helping my brother in the '60s.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator John Kennedy of Massachusetts, Democrat, throws his hat in the presidential ring.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My brother, Bob, managed the presidential campaign, and I had responsibility for the western states.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the people. I loved that part of the country.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've been traveling around with Jack. We're hopeful and confident that the people here in Oregon are going to give Jack an overwhelming and enthusiastic endorsement here on next Friday, also next November. Thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were taking on really some of the most powerful figures in the Democratic Party. Lyndon Johnson was the strongest.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: First to be placed in nomination is Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, now Minnesota's Governor Orville Freeman places a nomination.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The senator from the state of Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 43-year-old Massachusetts' senator.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pennsylvania...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was so interesting, by the time we got to Wyoming, Wyoming only had 15 votes and we had 10.5 votes out of the 15 votes. And my brother Bob asked me to speak to the chairman. And the chairman said you must be crazy. Are you saying to me that you think it will be (INAUDIBLE) four votes? That will make really the difference in your brother getting the nomination. And I said yes and he said if it comes to those four, you've got them. I'll take them right away from Lyndon Johnson. You've got them. It came down to that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Chairman, Wyoming vote (INAUDIBLE) majority for Senator Kennedy.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really, just to say extraordinary is not adequate, obviously, to describe the emotion. It was just (INAUDIBLE). After my brother got the nomination, it was that kind of reaching out to people of all beliefs that was very much a part of his campaign. We had all been a part of the journey of the campaign, spent a lot of time in it. So we had a sense that we were going to win, but at least at that time, we probably didn't know how difficult it was going to be.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were all down there for the election night. There was -- the foyer in the early part of the evening and then some of the other results came in...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It stayed very close...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We began to wonder what exactly what the outcome was going to be.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Quarter to 2:00 in the morning...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On the basis of the...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Until we know...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a very, very close campaign. The kind of bond and trust that was built during that period of time was incredibly important.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At 7:19 a.m. Eastern Time NBC victory desk has just given California to Kennedy and that gives him the election...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the morning it was very definite that he had won the presidency. The morning after the election, you know, it's one of those moments that seems like just yesterday, everyone just sat down where it was natural to them, and I think the one thing, they were just having the picture taken, was just to make sure that my brother, Jack, the president-elect was going to be in the middle.
I really didn't think about running for the United States Senate, certainly during the course of the election, but after the election, I returned to Massachusetts as assistant district attorney, and my brother Bob, who I thought would probably run up there, had been nominated for attorney general. And so I began to think about it. I realized what a challenge it would be, what an honor it would be, and my brother, the president said, well, Teddy, why don't you get around the state. I've got a good enough antenna up there, and I'll start hearing how you're doing, and he began to get at least a sense or a feeling that perhaps I was up to the -- up to it. My brothers really thought that politics was an honorable profession.
ROBERT F. KENNEDY: Well my father's always stressed the fact that he did very well in this country, and that we, his children, coming along have an obligation to meet to the United States, and he always stressed the fact that we should take part in government and go into politics.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My father felt that Teddy had worked all this time during the campaign, and sacrificed himself for his older brother, and we had our positions, and so that he should have the right to run, and I was pleased that he was running, and I think the president was pleased.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My father always said that home holds no fear. So as we got older and involved in political life, he always felt that we ought to do what was right, and we could always come home and be assured of the kind of support that we'd always received when we grew up. He always said you do the best that you can and after that, the devil with it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our guest today is Edward M. Kennedy, the president's youngest brother who is expected soon to announce his candidacy for the Democratic nomination as United States senator from Massachusetts.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I came down from Boston to be on "Meet the Press" and I went over to the White House and went in the Oval Office, my brother said Teddy, are you ready? And I said well I think so and he said well why don't you sit in the chair over there and he said let me ask you a few questions. Because he always knew the tough questions because he had been asked all of those and I had planned to go out and have some dinner with some friends. He said you better start going right back and prepare some more.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why didn't you do as your brother John did and run for congressional seat rather than for a top seat...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're an assistant district attorney now, why not district attorney?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of this sounds very much as though you're about to announce...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your brother is the president of the United States. You have another brother who is the attorney general. You have a brother-in-law who is head of the Peace Corps and you have a brother-in-law, Steve Smith (ph), until recent was with the State Department I believe. I wonder if you can tell us how you feel about the presence of a family such as yours, occupying that number of key positions in American life?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Clarman (ph), if you're talking about too many Kennedys, you should have talked to my mother and father at the time when they were getting started.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm announcing today my candidacy for the Senate of the United States. I make this decision with full knowledge of the obstacles I will face, the charges that will be made and the heavy responsibilities of the office.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nice to see you. How are you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Kennedy, what is your ultimate goal in public life? Do you hope or intend someday, perhaps to run for president?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Having seen the problems of my brother, I just wonder whether seeking that job is really worth it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, your brother, Ted, recently on television said that after seeing the cares of office, I knew that he wasn't sure he'd ever be interested in being the president. I wonder if you could tell us whether if you had it to do over again you would work for the presidency and whether you could recommend the job to others.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, the answer is first is yes and the second is, no, I don't recommend it to others, at least for a while.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From the auditorium of South Boston High School, candidates for the Democratic nomination as United States senator from Massachusetts -- in the primary election Edward M. Kennedy and Edward J. McCormack Jr.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If his name was Edward Moore, with his qualifications, with your qualifications, Teddy, if it was Edward Moore, your candidacy would be a joke, but nobody's laughing. Nobody's laughing. And nobody is laughing because his name is not Edward Moore. It's Edward Moore Kennedy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was full court press by Eddie McCormack. It was really quite baptism of fire.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are not running on qualification, you are running on a slogan. You can do more for Massachusetts. This is the most insulting slogan I have seen in Massachusetts' politics, because this slogan means vote for this man because he has influence. He has connections. He has relations.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We should not have any talk about personalities or families. I feel that we should be talking about the people's destiny in Massachusetts.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got a little bit of time left over. Mr. Kennedy has been very restrained in his comment on this last question. Would you like to add a word or two, Mr. Kennedy?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've agreed by the standards which this should be conducted. I'm satisfied.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am delighted to be here in the north end of Boston, where my grandfather was born, and he said that he received such a wonderful reception that it seemed like the cobblestones of the north end rose up to welcome him home.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the battle of family names in Massachusetts' primary election, 35-year-old George Cabot Lodge (ph) and Mrs. Lodge (ph) arrive at the polls. He wins Republican nomination to the Senate seat once held by his father and grandfather. A more hotly contended race is that of Edward M. Kennedy, the president's 30-year-old brother.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President and Mrs. Kennedy arrive from their brief holiday in Newport, Rhode Island to add their votes for the younger Kennedy who was an easy winner. This primary commands national interest as a test of the magic of the Kennedy name. A magic that will be tested again come November.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I will introduce myself, I am Teddy Kennedy's brother, and I'm glad to be here tonight.
(APPLAUSE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Scene three, take one, coffee with Kennedys at Hyannis Port.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is someone supposed to come in here? Good morning -- so glad to see you all again. And welcome to Hyannis Port. We thought today that instead of talking about the issues of the campaign, we would talk a little bit about the house here and its surroundings and the way that Teddy was brought up. Oh here's (INAUDIBLE). How are you dear?
Are you going to (INAUDIBLE) to read to grandma this morning? That's wonderful. And Eddie, how are you with your red cheeks? Have you got trouble, dear? Oh, look. Look at that -- the big bunny. And he's got little blue trousers on just like Eddie wears some days, right? Are you going to patty cake hard as you can patty cake?
I do want to tell the women in this audience today that I hope they are going to vote for Ted. And I hope the women will get out and vote because the only time that a member of our family lost the fight against the Lodges (ph) was when my father ran against Mr. Lodge (ph) in 1916 (ph). Of course my father was Teddy's grandfather, and Henry Cabot Lodge (ph) was the great grandfather, I believe of George Lodge (ph), Teddy's competitor.
(MUSIC AND SINGING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ted Kennedy as he is nicknamed has won the seat that was once held by his brother, President John F. Kennedy.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was greatly honored to win and honor to follow in a tradition. I never take it for granted.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm grateful to the people of Massachusetts for the great trust which they have bestowed upon me. I pledge that I shall dedicate all of my strength and will serving you in the United States Senate.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This afternoon I was over at the White House to talk about some of the ideas for the State of the Union, and all I heard from him was, are you still using that greasy kid stuff on your hair?
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A Boston office has been opened for the newest and youngest member of the Kennedy family to be sent to Washington.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator Kennedy, where on the scale between extremely conservative and ultraliberal would you place yourself?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well I certainly consider myself a liberal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you arrived in the Senate, how were you received?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very well -- the members of the Senate were extremely kind and hospitable to me, extremely helpful. And I've only made one speech. That's been a major speech and that was on the question of civil rights. I have seen what discrimination at home does to us. This is not a political issue. It is a moral issue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was very conscious that that whole move to strike down the barriers of race was perhaps the most difficult crisis that the country has come to grips with. And the president wanted to make the progress in civil rights, recognized the moment in terms of American history, so was a very emotional time with the lunch counter sit-ins, the dogs biting at students from George Wallace and the school house door, with calling out the National Guard in southern states.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And it was a time when there really had to be strong presidential leadership.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Kennedy was the one that called it the greatest moral issue that we face, the first president to do so, and I think that that really goes back to the time of my mother's sort of teaching and the lessons that she was able to give to us in terms of the discrimination against the Irish in Boston, which made a very powerful impression on her. She was there when there was such an issue at the time of my grandfather's time. And this I think made a very powerful impact on both of my brothers and the great challenges that we faced on the discrimination and civil rights.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, it now seems unlikely that you'll get a civil rights bill in this session of Congress. Does that disturb you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well I think that the longer they're delayed, I think that -- I think it's -- yes, I think it is unfortunate, and I'm hopeful that the House will certainly act on that in the next month, maybe sooner.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE, WHITE HOUSE RADIO TRANSMISSION: "This is Situation Room. Relay to wayside. We have report in Dallas that the President is dead. That he died about 35 minutes ago. Do you have that? Over."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE, WHITE HOUSE RADIO TRANSMISSION: "The President is dead. Is that correct?"
UNIDENTIFIED MALE, WHITE HOUSE RADIO TRANSMISSION: "That is correct. That is correct."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: I'm Campbell Brown. The HBO documentary "Teddy in His Own Words" continues in just a minute. First, though, a quick download of this hour's headlines.
Forecasters say tropical storm Danny could reach the Carolina coast this weekend as a hurricane. The storm may also move up the East Coast like Hurricane Bill did last weekend.
South Carolina governor Mark Sanford is rejecting the latest call for his resignation which came today from the state's lieutenant governor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. MARK SANFORD (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: I'm not going to be railroaded out of this office by political opponents or folks that were never fans of mine in the first place, or put a different way, a lot of what's going on now is pure politics, plain and simple.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Good news for car dealers, the government says nearly 700,000 new cars were sold as a result of the Cash for Clunkers program. The Toyota Corolla was the most popular new vehicle purchased.
Senator Edward Kennedy will be buried Saturday evening at Arlington National Cemetery near the graves of his murdered brothers, President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert Kennedy. I'm Campbell Brown. We'll return to the HBO documentary in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The scene in Washington this morning, thousands and thousands of people streaming through the capital rotunda to pay their last respects to President Kennedy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Three members of the family, Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy in the center, and the two Kennedy brothers, who serve the United States, Ted Kennedy, senator, United States, senator from Massachusetts, on her left, and on her right the attorney general, Robert Kennedy.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I'm sure that people watching would like to hear from you how Mrs. Jackie Kennedy and the two small children are getting along?
SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Well, they have their good days and their difficult days.
The -- John, the young boy, is extremely vigorous and interested in everything, and Caroline gets along quite well.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: They have an understanding of what happened here?
KENNEDY: Well, I imagine as much as children can have.
If life and death had a meaning, it is that we should not hate but love one another. No memorial or ration or eulogy would more eloquently honor President Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the Civil Rights Bill for which he fought so long. It is in this spirit that I hope Senate would pass this bill.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: We interrupt to bring you this bulletin. A plane carrying Senator Edward M. Kennedy to the Massachusetts Democratic convention reportedly crashed tonight. Kennedy was reportedly seriously injured. There were two other occupants on the plane and they are trapped in the wreckage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't know at this point whether Senator Birch Bayh was with him or not. The two senators stayed in Washington to vote on the Civil Rights Bill late this afternoon.
KENNEDY: I felt tremendous impact of the crash. I was conscious of sliding along the ground very briefly. And then there was complete silence. And Senator Bayh called my name a few times and I could hear him but I really couldn't respond.
SEN. BIRCH BAYH (D), INDIANA: And I went back and kneeled in, yelled at him again, and this time he sort of mumbled and I got ahold of him.
KENNEDY: And he pulled me out of the plane and my legs just fell on to the ground.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Doctors said today he's not paralyzed and he's probably going to make a complete recovery. Two other men, the plane's pilot and Kennedy's aide and close friend, Edward Moss, died after the crash.
KENNEDY: I always remember the loss of my great friend Ed Moss and I always remember Birch Bayh really saved my life, dragged out of that plane, risked going back to the plane, because it could have caught on fire.
Mr. President?
LYNDON B. JOHNSON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My friend, I'm sure glad to hear your voice.
KENNEDY: Well, thank you so much.
JOHNSON: well, you got a bad break. But it'll -- my mother used to tell me that things like that develop character and make you stronger when you get older.
KENNEDY: Well, I don't know about that. (LAUGHTER)
We'll be looking forward to getting back down there.
JOHNSON: Thank you. Give Joan a hug for me.
KENNEDY: I certainly will, Mr. President.
My brother, Bob, had a great sense of compassion and a great sense of empathy. He was strongly committed to making the country a better country, and the world a better world.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You'll make a speech if you don't look out.
KENNEDY: Any of you from New York?
(LAUGHTER)
ROBERT KENNEDY, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Over the past few weeks, many leading members of the Democratic and Liberal Party here in the state of New York have talked to me about being a candidate fort United States Senate. So if nominated by the Democratic state convention, I shall resign from the Cabinet to campaign for election. I should devote all of my effort and all whatever talents that I possess to the state of New York, this, I pledge.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: During this election year of 1964, Senator Kennedy cannot visit us in our factories, in our shopping centers or in our homes, but here from his hospital room, Senator Kennedy speaks to you now.
KENNEDY: Well, I'm coming along now. The doctors estimate that I'll be out of the hospital around Christmastime. I'm planning on Thanksgiving. I hadn't mention that to them yet, but I plan to in the next few days.
I pledge to you my every effort to the citizens of Massachusetts and the people of the Commonwealth in the United States Senate in the years ahead.
ROSE KENNEDY, MOTHER OF SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: It's a great pleasure to introduce my seventh child, Robert Francis Kennedy.
R. KENNEDY: I want to thank my mother for the kind introduction.
KENNEDY: My mother was really what we call Honey Fitz's daughter. Honey Fitz is the great mayor of the city of Boston. And he was very close with my mother. And she had this sense of communication with people that was just extraordinary and she was a terrific politician.
R. KENNEDY: Major struggle between my younger brother and me during this campaign was where she was going to spend her time, whether she's going to be here or in that other state to the north.
KENNEDY: So I need your help and your support. I need your help and I need your support.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Vote for Edward M. Kennedy for United States senator.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's put Robert Kennedy to work in New York.
R. KENNEDY: I think that we can make a difference.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: CBS News coverage of election night continues. In the big Senate race in New York, Senator Kennedy, Robbie, Senator Kennedy, Senator Kennedy-elect, won by 54 percent of the vote in New York.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In Massachusetts, it was another sweep for the Kennedys, Senator Edward M. Kennedy ran up a victory of landslide proportions to join his brother Robert on the floor of the Senate.
KENNEDY: I remember very well the wonderful pictures of my father when he was recuperating from a difficult heart condition, and I was recuperating from a plane crash. We had a wonderful opportunity to spend probably six weeks together every day, both of us recuperating back, sort of touching and a wonderful time.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
R. KENNEDY: Here's a senator of Massachusetts.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really?
R. KENNEDY: Teddy.
KENNEDY: How are you?
It was a lot of jostling, as I looked up to my brother Bob, and then suddenly he was coming into a place where I had a little more seniority.
(LAUGHTER)
I'd been around, although not very long, but I'd been around at least a few years, so it was kind of a role reversal. It was probably the happiest time in terms of the service in the Senate.
Captain, captain, where is your civilian affairs officer? Is he there?
I went there in 1965 as a chairman of the Refugee Committee. After spending seven or eight days there, what struck me at that time, was just the appalling, appalling destruction of life. In the civilian population, the creation of massive refugees, and the loss of refugee and civilian life at that time.
I come back deeply disturbed from Vietnam. My brother Bob and I were very much involved in the political debate and discussion, working with our colleagues, to bring an end to the war.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator, are you and your brother, Robert, busy building a Kennedy wing of the Democratic Party?
KENNEDY: Not at all.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you establishing, both of you, sort of an independent position of the president?
KENNEDY: Well, let me say particularly in response to the Vietnam issue, this is a -- I feel a much too important question and issue for any kind of partisanship.
We are spending $2 billion a month to defend the freedom of 14 million people in South Vietnam. Why shouldn't we make the same kind of effort for the 20 million people of the Negro race right here in America?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's repeated speculation that your brother Robert will seek the Democratic presidential nomination.
R. KENNEDY: I don't think it's unpatriotic to find fault at the policies that we pursue in that part of the world.
KENNEDY: I wanted him to be president. I thought it was enormously important that he be president. I wasn't convinced at that time that it was a wise decision to run. My concerns were that the opposition to the war was going to get personalized and that something that he cared most about which was the ending of the war as well, as attention to the problems of the cities. We're going to be submerged.
And after he made that judgment and decision, of course, I went into the campaign with all of my heart and soul.
R. KENNEDY: I am announcing today my candidacy for the presidency of the United States.
We can rethink. I think we are a compassionate nation.
The real constructive loss in this world comes not from tanks and not from bombs but the imaginative ideas of warm sympathies and the generous spirit of a people.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No one can believe what has happened. It's been just a little over an hour since Dr. Martin Luther King died from an assassin's bullet.
R. KENNEDY: Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort.
E. KENNEDY: In this decade, we have lived through periods of more hate, violence, than perhaps any other time in the history of our country. What has become of our land? What disease has affected us as a people? How many good men must we give?
GRAPHICS: Two months later. June 5, 1968.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator Robert F. Kennedy has been shot and wounded at his headquarters shortly after making a victory statement in the California primary.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator Kennedy died at 1:44 a.m. today. He was 42 years old.
E. KENNEDY: From his parents and from his older brothers and sister, Joe and Kathleen and Jack, he received an inspiration which he passed on to all of us. My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.
Those of us who loved him and have taken him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others, will someday come to pass for all the world.
This has not been the first tragedy that has affected my parents or the members of our family. And we pray that it is the last. And each of us will have to decide, in a private way, in our own hearts, and our own consciousness, what we will do in the course of this summer and in future summers.
And I know we'll choose wisely.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
E. KENNEDY: For the last 10 weeks, I have not been active in public life. I have concerned myself with my family. I have spent much time by the sea, clearing my mind and my spirit of the events of last June.
Some of you have suggested that for safety sake, and for my family's sake, I retire from public life. But there is no safety in hiding, not for me, nor for any of us here today.
Like my three brothers before me, I pick up a fallen standard, sustained by their memory of our priceless years together. I shall try to carry forward that special commitment to justice, to excellence, to courage, that distinguished their lives.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is no safety in hiding, he said, for himself or anyone else. The party activists have not had the heart to talk politics to him that they say among themselves he would be a formidable if not unbeatable candidate.
E. KENNEDY: I was flattered by the interest, but it was a time of grieving, myself, and the family, and I just didn't think it was right to try to put the family through another campaign. And I don't believe I was set myself, in terms of -- given the loss of my brother, to have done it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mrs. Ethel Kennedy today gave birth to her 11th child, a girl, six months after the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy. Mrs. Kennedy, who was 40 years old, now has four daughters and seven sons. Both mother and infant are reported in excellent condition.
Senator Edward Kennedy stayed with Mrs. Kennedy in the delivery and recovery rooms.
E. KENNEDY: We want to say how happy we are today and I told Ethel that I think Joan and I are going to take this baby home. We think Ethel has enough of them as so many were...
(LAUGHTER)
NIXON: I say to you, we will restore the strength of America.
Sock it to 'em. Sock it to 'em.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Richard Milhous Nixon will be the next president of the United States.
KENNEDY: We have a new president. He has shown that he's an extremely hard and industrious worker. This morning, he indicated that he wasn't going to use the Oval Room.
My mother read that in the paper and she called me up, and she said, Teddy, I see where the president isn't going to use the Oval Room. She said, I think someone ought to use it.
(LAUGHTER)
KENNEDY: We're looking into that.
(LAUGHTER)
KENNEDY: In 1969, we had a Republican president. And it seemed important that we begin to have a loyal opposition. And to the extent that I could be a part of the leadership in the Senate, it seemed to be both an important opportunity, as well as responsibility and one that I couldn't let go by.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A new Congress opened for business today in Washington. And opening day produced an important victory for Kennedy of Massachusetts. Democratic colleagues chose Edward Kennedy as assistant majority leader in the Senate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This opening day of the 91st Congress will most likely be the day remembered as the day Senator Edward Kennedy moved out of the long shadow of his two brothers and began to stake out his own future.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator Edward M. Kennedy drove a car off a narrow bridge on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Kennedy survived. A young woman with him was drowned.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mary Jo Kopechne, a former secretary to the late Robert Kennedy. Ms. Kopechne drowned.
KENNEDY: I made immediate and repeated effort to save Mary Jo by diving into the strong and murky current, but exceeded only in increasing my state of utter exhaustion and alarm.
I was overcome by a jumble of emotions, grief, fear, doubt, exhaustion, panic, confusion and shock. My conduct and conversations during the next several hours make no sense to me at all.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: According to police, eight hours elapsed from the time of accident until he showed up at the police station to report it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A spokesman for the senator said he might attend the funeral for Ms. Kopechne tomorrow at Plymouth, Pennsylvania.
A hearing of the charge against Senator Kennedy has been scheduled for next Monday.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Today, police moved to prosecute the senator on the charge of leaving the scene of an accident.
KENNEDY: This morning, I entered a plea of guilty to the charge of leaving the scene of an accident. I regard as indefensible the fact that I did not report the accident to the police immediately.
These events, the publicity, innuendo, and whispers which have surrounded them and my admission of guilt this morning raises the question, in my mind, of whether my standing among the people of my state has been so impaired that I should resign my seat in the United States Senate.
I have been impacted by a number of tragedies in my life, the loss of life of people, members of my family. Those were circumstances which I really didn't have control. I could feel the sense of regret and the sense of sadness and the sense of loss. But this was a circumstance in which I did have a responsibility. In that sense, it was quite different from other life's experience.
WALTER CRONKITE, CBS NEWS: Senator Kennedy returned to the Senate for the first time since his automobile accident. And seldom has a return to work been marked by such public attention.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kennedy said last night he had decided not to resign from the Senate.
KENNEDY: I made the decision to continue in public life after the tragedy of Chappaquiddick. I'm a very different person than prior to that tragedy.
The way that I'm a different person, I think, is probably reflected in my own view about sort of life and people and faith in God. But I'm a different person.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Senator, there's obviously a great price one has to pay that these days for political life, that some have to pay. Your brother John thought the price worth paying. So, obviously, did your brother Bobby. And so do you, it seems.
But when you talk to your own two sons and to your nephews, do you encourage them to go into politics, as your father did you? Is the price worth the pain?
KENNEDY: Well, these -- this -- this generation is going to have to make up their own minds about what they're going to do. These 20 odd nieces of nephews of mine, their talents should be devoted towards, not their own personal kinds of satisfactions, but towards helping and assisting others.
That's really what Robert Kennedy would have wanted of his children and President Kennedy would have wanted of his. And that can take a variety of different expression. It doesn't take -- necessary that they run for any office. But it -- it's that they devote themselves to the public good. And I think they will do well.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, it is worth the pain?
KENNEDY: Well, I suppose it is.
On an occasion such as this, it's a pleasure to introduce my four strongest supporters, my wife, Joan, and Patrick Joseph Kennedy, Edward Moore Kennedy, and Kara Anne Kennedy.
And so with that basis of strength and support, I'm announcing my candidacy for reelection for the Senate of the United States from Massachusetts.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The next president, not this one, but the next one coming up...
KENNEDY: I think if there's been something that our family has learned over the period of time is that we don't make long-term plans, or that's been the experience that we have had.
At a time when there are high government officials that are playing to the fears and frustrations of the people within our society, I want to be a voice of reconciliation, a voice that appeals to the best within people, within our country. And I return to the United States Senate for that purpose.
(APPLAUSE)
NIXON: I would like to get Teddy taped. That's why I want a lot more use of wiretapping.
JOHN EHRLICHMAN, WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: Supposing there's something that we can really hang Teddy or the Kennedy clan, and we're going to want to run with it.
NIXON: Maybe we can get a real scandal on them.
H.R. HALDEMAN, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: Just looking for scandal or impropriety.
NIXON: Now you're talking.
You hear about Wallace? It's quite serious.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Governor George Wallace of Alabama was shot and wounded today while campaigning in Laurel, Maryland. His press secretary says he is in critical condition.
NIXON: He's got one bullet in the stomach and near the spine. And they think he will to live. He may be paralyzed. He may not be, but be that as it may.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have identified the fellow who had this gun and was the assailant apparently as Arthur Herman Bremer.
NIXON: Can we pin this on one of theirs?
HALDEMAN: Sure.
NIXON: Look, can we play the game a little smart for a change?
Just say he was a supporter of Kennedy. Now, just put that out. Just say you have it on unmistakable evidence.
HALDEMAN: There ought to be a record.
NIXON: Screw the record and put it out.
KENNEDY: It was clear that this was an atmosphere and a climate and where the White House was politically taking no prisoners. They were infiltrating the movement.
EHRLICHMAN: Kennedy has written asking for Secret Service protection.
NIXON: You understand what the problem is. If the son of bitch gets shot, they will say we didn't furnish it. So, you just buy the insurance. And after the election, he doesn't get a goddamned thing, and if he gets shot, it's too damn bad. I would do it on the basis though that we pick the Secret Service men. Do you have anybody in the Secret Service that you can get to -- do you have anybody that you can rely on?
EHRLICHMAN: Yes, we got several.
NIXON: Plant one, plant two guys on him. This could be very useful.
DICK CAVETT, TALK SHOW HOST: Senator Kennedy, there's a thing today that I would love to get your reaction to. It's just preposterous. They talk about it as the James Bond plot that took place in Washington the night where they found these people sneaking in to Democratic headquarters with eavesdropping devices.
And one of them was a CIA man. I swear, when I heard this over the radio, I thought it was a prank of some kind on the local radio station. What diabolical information and secret could there be in there that they would have to go to all that risk and effort to get?
KENNEDY: In the Democratic National Committee?
CAVETT: Yes. Yes.
KENNEDY: Well, I'm not so sure, but it does -- I don't think any of us really know exactly what they were up to.
But this is an enormously desperate kind of an attempt by the -- this fellow who is the head of security for the committee to reelect the president. And I don't...
(LAUGHTER)
KENNEDY: I don't know, really, what...
(APPLAUSE)
KENNEDY: I don't know really what -- I can't figure it out.
(LAUGHTER)
KENNEDY: Can you?
CRONKITE: Good evening. The complicated, confusing, alarming story of political espionage and eavesdropping that has come to be known as Watergate today came under the scrutiny of a committee of the United States Senate, its purpose, to get to the bottom of what threatens to become the worst scandal in the nation's political history.
JOHN DEAN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: I do know that there was extensive surveillance on Senator Kennedy, which I have testified to.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was this for political purposes?
DEAN: Yes, sir, it was.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who else?
DEAN: Senator Kennedy was the principal one, where I would say the greatest amount of surveillance was conducted on Senator Kennedy, and, subsequently, politically embarrassing information was sought.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was the FBI aware that this surveillance was for political purposes?
DEAN: The FBI didn't perform this. This was performed directly by the White House.
NIXON: I welcome this kind of examination, because people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator Edward Kennedy, his oldest son, Teddy Jr., 12 years old, had the lowest portion of his right leg amputated because of bone cancer.
KENNEDY: I had a son who had lost his leg to cancer. That was really one of the rawer occasions that have been very close to my -- deep to my heart and soul.
ROSE KENNEDY, MOTHER OF TED KENNEDY: Teddy was so overwrought with the news. Imagine if you found your son, he had to have his leg amputated. During the last 10 years, Teddy has had more tragedies than anyone I think in the world starting with the loss of his brother in 1963, up to '73. Teddy, my son, has had three tremendous, tremendous crosses.
KENNEDY: Of course, in the past few months, I have had the unfortunate situation of having my son affected by cancer as well. And, of course, what I want to see is the kind of very superior attention that he's received made available to all the other 12-year- olds.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KENNEDY: And I feel that I speak out on the issues, call them as I see them. I'm recognized as being a figure that people feel strongly about. But that's the kind of senator I want to be.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today's march came three days before 18,000 public school children in Boston will board buses to begin the first stage of the school desegregation.
CHILDREN: East Boston says no. East Boston says no.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Never before had a Kennedy been met with such a reception in Boston. He was booed.
(BOOING)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The crowd surged towards this once-favored son. As he walked towards the federal building, tomatoes and newspapers started flying, and the nonviolence stopped.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator, how do you explain that crowd's reaction to you?
KENNEDY: I think their first concerns are really not with the issue of busting, but what's going to be at the other end of the bus.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, but why did they react to you so violently?
KENNEDY: Because, first of all, they have very deep concerns about the whole question of the desegregation plan here in the city of Boston. And I think that they have -- they're expressing their frustrations and their concerns.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was the senator's first public appearance in Boston since he was roughly treated by an anti-school busting crowd two weeks ago. But Kennedy said that played no part in the decision, that it was for personal reasons he had come to this decision.
KENNEDY: It has become quite apparent to me that I would be unable to make a full commitment to a campaign for the presidency. I simply cannot do that to my wife, my children and other members of my family. Therefore, in 1976, I will not be a candidate for president or vice president of the United States.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jimmy Carter will be the next president of the United States.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Senator Kennedy's office. Can you hold a moment, please?
KENNEDY: Maybe we can get Henry Royce (ph) and the -- you know, two or three Republicans to put this in. I think it would be a great...
Inflation is a clear and present danger for this nation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody has until 10:00.
KENNEDY: Well, we can't get everybody.
Come on down here. Come on down.
(CROSSTALK)
KENNEDY: Well, Brad, that's all right.
Millions of our fellow citizens are out of work.
We will come to order. We have the agenda before us, the first issue.
Did you gather any impression about whether they were going to move at all on the immigration issue?
And it is wrong that women and minorities are denied their equal rights. Cities are struggling against decay.
We're going to pursue this matter until the job gets done.
The president, at that time, was not really challenging the country. And when he was talking about the malaise of the American people, that isn't the Democratic Party that I know.
We have able to try and pass this health-care-for-all-Americans legislation.
I had a very fundamental difference with President Carter on the health care issue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The next panelist, the distinguished senator from the state of Massachusetts, Edward Kennedy.
(APPLAUSE)
KENNEDY: Thank you very much.
Sometimes, a party must sail against the wind. It is time for the Democratic Party to take up the cause of health. There probably has not been a family in this country that has been touched by sickness, illness and disease like my own family.
I had a father that was touched by stroke and sick for seven years. We were able to get the very best in terms of health care, because we were able to afford it. It would have bankrupted any average family in this nation.
I have been able to receive it for myself and for my family. Just like all of us are on the tip of the iceberg, way up high in the health care services, we have got the very best, all of us at the tip of the iceberg. But I want every delegate at this convention to understand that, as long as I'm a vote and as long as I have a voice in the United States Senate, it's going to be for that Democratic platform plank that provides decent quality of health care, north and south, east and west, for all Americans, as a matter of right, and not a privilege.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His publicity has been almost fawning and his standing in public opinion polls high, with President Carter's standing dismal and going down. With inflation going up, Kennedy for president became possible.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's take personal considerations. Have you promised your mother that you won't run for the presidency while she's still alive?
KENNEDY: I didn't promise her that I wouldn't run while she was alive. But my mother has indicated that she would support any decision that I would make in the future.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would your wife's well-being, in terms of her efforts to deal with her problems, be a factor in making you not run?
KENNEDY: Joan has courageously stated -- has had a battle with alcoholism, and I admire her and respect her for the forthrightness in which she faced this issue and for the efforts that she's making.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's some people who ask whether or not you're enjoying this roll that you have, that in the sense that you're playing cat and mouse with the president. Are you doing that?
KENNEDY: Not really. I have stated my areas of difference with the president, and I will continue to do that. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The growing political friction between President Carter and Senator Kennedy became a bit more lively today. Two congressmen, William Brodhead and Thomas Downey, have reported that during a dinner conversation with the president earlier this week, they twice were startled when they heard the president say -- quote -- "If Kennedy runs, I will whip his ass."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would like to ask you very directly if I may in response to the president's declaration that he will whip your ass, do you think he will?
KENNEDY: No.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KENNEDY: Today, a formally announce that I'm a candidate for president of the United States.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
KENNEDY: I could not have lived with myself if I had stayed on the sidelines and been silent. I could not have lived with myself.
KENNEDY: Nice to see you. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How are you?
(CROSSTALK)
KENNEDY: Very good. How are you?
Good morning. How are you? Nice to see you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You are as handsome as your brothers.
KENNEDY: Yes, it's nice to see you. Thanks a lot. Help us out now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I will. I will.
KENNEDY: Give us a little hand. We need a little...
Enough of high unemployment and enough of Jimmy Carter.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
KENNEDY: I don't think I come as a candidate with all the answers, but I come, as I think, probably over a lifetime that's been tested by a variety of different both challenges, tragedies, and also some successes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And some failures, right? KENNEDY: And some failures.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On the day after the Southern primaries, Kennedy was much more upset by a newspaper article than any defeat, a front-page Chappaquiddick story in "The New York Times" that came up with almost nothing new on his actions there.
Kennedy was the angriest reports have seen him in this campaign.
KENNEDY: There has been no family the time that I have been in the public life that has been investigated, whose personal lives have been investigated as much as my life, the life of my wife, my children. I'm not interested in the personal lives of other candidates for the presidency.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yesterday's polls show him trailing President Carter for the first time. Kennedy attributed his decline to Carter's high visibility during the Iranian crisis.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Since this Iranian situation has come up, President Carter's ratings went up in the polls. Now we still have inflation, talk of depression, high energy cost, that people are still hostages. So what has he done?
KENNEDY: Well, I'm sure I'll think of something on that, but --
I want to thank you very much for coming out here this afternoon. Thanks an awful lot.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go, Teddy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NARRATOR: Kennedy for president. (Speaking a foreign language).
Let's fight back.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With the presidential nomination under way, Kennedy's side says it still does not have the votes to win. Kennedy's decision to withdraw from the race for president when it came, came quickly.
KENNEDY: For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end. I congratulate President Carter on his victory here. For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die.
I ran for president and lost. I wanted to be president. That was not in the cards. And that's certainly not a pleasant experience.
For the members of my family, the 1980 campaign was a difficult experience. I am involved in a divorce, it's a painful experience, both for Joan and myself, and for the members of my family. I'm going to be active in terms of party affairs, active in terms of the discussions and the debate. By disposition, nature and desire, I'm an activist.
I will not rest or retreat until our nation at long last hold this troop to be self-evident, that not only all men, but all people are created equal.
You don't have to be president to make a difference. All you have to do is care and be involved.
If the government cannot control nuclear arms, then people will change the government.
Ronald Reagan must love poor people because he's creating so many more of them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE, CAROLINE KENNEDY'S WEDDING, JULY 19, 1986: The bride arrived with her uncle, Senator Edward Kennedy. He particularly looked pleased and proud at the opportunity to give away his niece.
KENNEDY: It was touching in so many different ways. Her gown had little shamrocks on it. It was something that, I think, you know, her father would have been very, very touched by, and would have been very proud of her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to read you something that Jackie Kennedy wrote in a thank you note after you gave Caroline away. "On you, the carefree youngest brother, fell a burden a hero would beg to be spared. Everyone is going to make it because you were always there with your love. Jackie".
KENNEDY, "60 MINUTES II" INTERVIEW: That's about as nice as you can get.
KENNEDY, TOUR OF POLAND, MAY 1987: That's one of my pretty sisters, Eunice. And here's another pretty sister, Pat.
We grew up in a family in which public service was thought to be a noble profession, in which individuals should be very much involved, in what Oliver Wendell Holmes called the actions and fashions of our times and it hasn't just been the brothers that were involved.
My sister, Eunice, on starting the Special Olympic program has provided a program that has brought enormous joy to the mentally retarded and look to their families. And my sister, Jean, with the rights (ph) of the handicap has done likewise. And my sister, Pat, has been equally active. Well, that's been a family tradition.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. All right.
KENNEDY: We got it, gang. OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you. Thanks a lot.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
KENNEDY: I'm one voice and I'm one vote. But people are entitled to know what I'm going to do and why I'm going to do it. That's what this whole process is about.
KENNEDY, ROBERT BORK HEARINGS, SEPTEMBER 1987: In Robert Bork's America, there is no room at the inn for blacks and no place in the constitution for women. And in our America, there should be no seat on the Supreme Court for Robert Bork. And I urge the committee and the Senate to reject the nomination of Mr. Bork.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So the vote, 58-42 against Robert Bork. His nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court has been defeated.
GEORGE H. W. BUSH, 41ST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want to sign a civil rights bill. I will not sign a quota bill.
KENNEDY, CIVIL RIGHTS BILL DEBATE, JULY 18, 1990: Quota schmotas (ph). Quotas are not the issue. Job discrimination is the issue.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Senator Edward Kennedy said eloquently quota schmotas (ph). And he predicts the veto would be overridden.
KENNEDY: It's time to end the double standard that denies equal opportunity to women and minorities. No ifs, ands or butts, and no watered down compromises either.
KENNEDY, NOVEMBER 14, 1990: President Bush is preparing to take this country unilaterally into war in the Persian Gulf without the approval of Congress and without the support of the American people.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police in Palm Beach, Florida say today, late today, the nephew of Senator Edward Kennedy is a suspect in an alleged rape.
Police say the senator who was also staying at the compound over Easter failed to respond to initial inquiries about what happened the night of the alleged rape.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Edward Kennedy came to court today and talked to an emotional conversation Good Friday conversation with his sister, Jean, about the death of her husband, defendant William Smith's father. Then unable to sleep, Kennedy said he invited his son, Patrick, and William to go out.
KENNEDY: We went to a bar. I wish I had gone for a long walk on the beach instead, but we did go to a bar.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In the halls of Congress, he is somewhat damaged. Kennedy also brushed off a suggestion from fellow Senator Orrin Hatch that he quit drinking.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With so much controversy about his own private life and facing a tough re-election fight, the senator appeared at the John F. Kennedy School of Harvard today and admitted some personal faults.
KENNEDY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, OCTOBER 25, 1991: I'm painfully aware that the criticism directed at me in recent months, involves far more than honest disagreement with my position positions, or the usual criticisms from the far right. It also involves the disappointment of friends and many others, who rely on me to fight the good fight.
To them, I say, I recognize my own shortcomings, the faults and the conduct of my private life. I realize that I alone am responsible for them. And I am the one who must confront them.
KENNEDY, WEST PALM BEACH COURTHOUSE, DECEMBER 11, 1991: Well, I'm gratified by the verdict of the jury in Palm Beach. I always believed that when all the facts were in, that Will would be found innocent. And I suppose if there's anything good that has come out of this long experience, it's the renewed closeness of our family and our friends.
I'm basically a hopeful and optimistic person, and I believe deeply in hope. I believe in love, the power of love.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You've changed. What happened?
KENNEDY, NBC NEWS INTERVIEW, SEPTEMBER 8, 1992: Vicki entered my life. I never thought I was going to get married. I don't think I was ever really prepared to think in those terms again. And Vicki really awakened these feelings, emotions, that I think had been really banked in my life and that I didn't really think probably existed there anymore. So it's been a very extraordinary reawakening and wonderful, wonderful time in my life -- our lives.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're on the campaign trail full time now?
KENNEDY, OCTOBER 13, 1994: Absolutely, all the time. Vicki is as well. Not here today. She's busy in other places. She's been a great asset.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Teddy for Massachusetts.
ALL: Teddy, Teddy, Teddy, Teddy, Teddy, Teddy.
KENNEDY: It's a very uplifting time for me.
Nice to see you. Thanks very much. Good to see you.
How are you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you think so? Did you think so?
KENNEDY: It feels good to get a good response, and we're going to win it.
I said when I first ran for the Senate, that what the Senate needed was a young person with new ideas. Now I say there's nothing like age and experience.
I don't think I'm too old to be your United States senator, do you?
I need your help, I need your vote. I need that help.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.
KENNEDY: I may not be the youngest. Eventually I'll be the thinnest, but I'm going to be fightingest (ph) candidate. And I won't let you down. I won't let you down. I won't let you down Massachusetts. Thank you.
KENNEDY, ROSE KENNEDY FUNERAL, JANUARY 24, 1995: Mother knew this day was coming, but she did not dread it. She accepted and even welcomed it. Not as a leaving, but as a returning. She has gone to God and she is home.
And at this moment, she is happily presiding at a heavily table with both of her Joes, with Jack and Kathleen, Bobby and David. She will be there, ready to welcome the rest of us home someday. Of this, I have no doubt.
Whatever any of us has done, whatever contribution we have made, begins and ends with Rose and Joseph Kennedy. For all of us, dad was the spark. Mother was the light of our lives. He was our greatest fan. She was our greatest teacher.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: While Senator Edward Kennedy is the lone remaining political patriarch of his time carrying the liberal Democratic mantle for Massachusetts for 35 years, there is a whole second generation of Kennedys who have followed in the footsteps of John, Bobby and Teddy.
JOHN F. KENNEDY JR., JOHN F. KENNEDY'S SON: I owe a special debt to the man, his nephews and nieces call Teddy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm so proud to introduce my father, the senior --
CAROLINE KENNEDY, JOHN F. KENNEDY'S DAUGHTER: In our family, he's never missed a first communion, a graduation or a chance to walk one of his nieces down the aisle.
SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY (D), MASSACHUSETTS (voice-over): There were nine of us, 30 in the next generation, and 100 in the next generation.
I'm immensely proud of the way that all of them have accepted the challenges of life. And I think making important useful contributions. I think their fathers would be very proud of them as I am. I love them all.
KENNEDY (on camera): Now are you glad to see old Kennedy? Are you glad to see me?
I never looked at it really in terms of the questions of legacy. I think I've always wanted to try and be a better person.
I have worked hard for schools that teach and health care.
I've always perceived my role as to try to get some things done.
It's time for Americans to lift their voices now, in pride for our immigrant past and in pride for our immigrant future.
You hear that? We are excluded from having an opportunity to debate this because of the power of the insurance industry.
The new deal, the new frontier, and the great society, are not the end of American social history.
Make that argument on the floor of the United States Senate.
Our day will come again. And we must keep the faith until it dawns.
We'll be back to fight and fight and fight again.
We ought to hear at least what the reality is that the American people ought to understand, that the parents of those serviceman ought to understand what their children are going to be faced with.
Whether the odds are in my favor or against me. I will continue to stand up for the people who sent me to the Senate in the first place.
Our troops deserve better, Mr. Secretary. I think the American people deserve better. They deserve competency and they deserve the facts. In baseball, it's three strikes, you're out. What is it for the secretary of defense?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well that is quite a statement.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KENNEDY, BARACK OBAMA ENDORSEMENT, JANUARY 28, 2008: Thank you, thank you. Thank you.
I'm proud to stand with him here today and offer my help, offer my voice, offer my energy, my commitment to make Barack Obama the next president of the United States.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I stand here today with a great deal of humility. I know what your support means. I know the cherished place the Kennedy family holds in the hearts of the American people. And that is as it should be. Because the Kennedy family, more than any other, has always stood for what's best about the Democratic Party, and what is best about America.
In the year I was born -- hold on a second -- in the year I was born, President Kennedy let out word that the torch had been passed to a new generation of Americans. He was right, it had. It was passed to his youngest brother. From the battles of the 1960s, to the battles of today, he has carried that torch, lighting the way for all who share his American ideas. It's a torch he's carried as the "lion of the Senate." To have this man stand beside me today, is more than just politics for me. It is personal.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the first pictures released since his diagnosis, Senator Ted Kennedy is joined by his wife, Vicki, at Massachusetts General Hospital as the family comes together to discuss his treatment.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just a few minutes ago, Massachusetts General Hospital issued a statement saying that after a series of tests, doctors have discovered a brain tumor, a cancerous brain tumor.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kennedy's colleagues struggled to absorb the news about their friend, the third longest-serving senator in American history.
SEN. ROBERT BYRD (D), WEST VIRGINIA: Ted, my dear friend, I love you.
SEN. CHRIS DODD (D), CONNECTICUT: He's a strong guy. And has great heart. And we're confident he's going to be back here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kennedy's wife said the senator is making her crazy by insisting he's going to take part in a sailing race off Cape Cod this weekend. In the end, Kennedy would steer his boat to a second place finish in his class.
KENNEDY: Couldn't be a more beautiful day. We had wonderful friends, family and this great tradition out here, we always enjoy it. I think we ended up in the front part of the fleet.
We won.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let them disprove it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Overnight, a message from Kennedy's wife, Vicki, to friends, said in part, "I want you to know that Teddy is in fighting form and ready to take this on.
KENNEDY, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION, AUGUST 25, 2008: Thank you very much. Thank you.
Nothing, nothing is going to keep my away from this special gathering tonight. I have come here tonight to stand with you to elect Barack Obama president of the United States. The torch will be passed again, to a new generation of Americans. And I pledge to you that I will be there next January on the floor of the United States Senate when we begin the great change for a better country.
So with Barack Obama, and for you, and for me, the work begins anew. The hope rises again, and the dream lives on.
AUDIENCE: Teddy, Teddy, Teddy.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
