Book Review – 'Last Lion: The Fall And Rise Of Ted Kennedy'
13 March 2009
By – The Team at the Boston Globe
Edited by – Peter Canellos
Published by – Simon and Schuster $28.00
Usually books written by a group are not a success because they suffer from the same problems as a press release written by a committee, with all the inevitable clashes in style and compromises in content. It is a credit to the editing skills of Peter Canellos that The Last Lion – The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy does not fall into this trap and the team at the Boston Globe has produced a highly readable and well researched life of the controversial last Kennedy Brother.
It is fair to assume that if any group of journalists are qualified to write this biography then they are, as the Boston Globe is the local paper for the Kennedy Clan and has followed the successes and tragedies of the family since long before Ted Kennedy was born in 1932.
The book essentially splits up his life into three parts – his rise and the struggles of being the ninth and last child of a prodigiously successful family, the trials and tribulations of the 1970s and 1980s when his marriage was deteriorating and serious questions were raised about the way in which his personal life impinged on his effectiveness as a US Senator and his redemption which led to him becoming the Lion of the Senate following his second, highly successful and happy marriage to Vicki Reggie in 1992.
The key to Ted Kennedy is that he grew up with both a rich kid's sense of superiority and a youngest child's sense of inferiority. He realised early that his role in the family was that of court jester – and he was a natural. Whilst President Kennedy was considered aloof and Bobby Kennedy driven, Ted was the one who loved jokes and was more outgoing and friendly. As his sister Eunice once said, 'he has always been the one most interested in people'.
I remember visiting him in Hyannis and being given a tour by him of the Kennedy Compound, including the Ambassadors house and his beloved boat, the Mya. Throughout the visit he had me in stitches as he relayed one anecdote after another about his life there. This affinity to relate to people is his underlying strength and explains why he is such an effective political campaigner and is so popular with both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate.
Following his unsuccessful 1980 Presidential Election campaign, he seemed a new man, liberated from his past and the expectations that he carried with him. He clearly decided to put his own presidential ambitions behind him and concentrate on becoming probably the most effective US Senator in its history. In over 46 years in the Senate, he has authored over 2,500 Bills, of which at least 300 have become law. In whole areas of policy – on civil rights, immigration, healthcare and education – he has dominated the Senate. His legislation has provided healthcare to tens of millions of people, funded cures for diseases that struck tens of millions of people more around the world. His Immigration Act of 1965 ended the national-origins test and, against the odds, he has continued to expand government's role in extending civil rights to the disabled, providing healthcare to children and helping fund student education.
To many people in Britain, unfamiliar with the life of Ted Kennedy except for the fact that he is a member of the Kennedy Clan, his views on Northern Ireland and Chappaquiddick, this book will be an education. It provides a wider and more balanced view of his achievements and goals, his failings and successes and why indeed he lives up to the title and is indeed the Lion of the Senate.
