True Compass: A Memoir

468 Pages·2009·5.52 MB·English

by  Edward M. Kennedy

Copyright
Copyright (c) 2009 by Edward M. Kennedy All rights reserved. Except as
permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may
be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored
in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the
publisher.
Twelve
Hachette Book Group
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First eBook Edition: October 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-56421-2
For Vicki, my true compass on this voyage.
"My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep... for both are infinite."
--William Shakespeare
I lay on the bowsprit, facing astern, with the water foaming into spume
under me, the masts with every sail white in the moonlight, towering high
above me.
I became drunk with the beauty and singing rhythm of it, and for a moment
I lost myself--actually lost my life.
I was set free!
I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray, became beauty
and rhythm, became moonlight and the ship and the high dim-starred sky!
I belonged, without past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy,
within something greater than my own life, or the life of Man, to Life itself!
To God, if you want to put it that way.
--Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey into Night
Contents
Copyright
Prologue: The Torch
PART ONE: Family
Chapter 1: Safe Harbor
Chapter 2: No Crying in This House
Chapter 3: Wartime London
Chapter 4: Boarding School Boy
Chapter 5: The Harvard Screwup
PART TWO: Brotherhood
Chapter 6: Kennedy for President
Chapter 7: Becoming a Politician
Chapter 8: The New Frontier
Chapter 9: Drinks with the Senator
Chapter 10: 1963
Chapter 11: Falling to Earth
Chapter 12: Thunder
Chapter 13: Bobby
PART THREE: On My Own
Chapter 14: The Shock of Silence
Chapter 15: The Hospital
Chapter 16: Nixonian Radicals
Chapter 17: Backlash in Boston
Chapter 18: Sailing Against the Wind
Chapter 19: The Reagan Years
Chapter 20: The Family Business
PART FOUR: Renewal
Chapter 21: The Woman Who Changed My Life
Chapter 22: Campaigning for Political Survival
Chapter 23: The Clinton Years
Chapter 24: The Living Rose
Chapter 25: Senator
Chapter 26: Perseverance
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
About Twelve
PROLOGUE
The Torch
2008
It was on the sunny spring day of Tuesday, May 20, 2008, that I emerged from a
medicated drowsiness in a Boston hospital bed and looked up into the face of a
doctor who explained to me in a somber way that I was about to die, and that I
had best begin getting my affairs in order and preparing my friends and family
for the end.
As I lay in that hospital bed, my friends and neighbors on Cape Cod were just
then getting their boats ready for the summer cruises and races. I intended to be
among them, as usual. The Boston Red Sox were a good bet to defend their
world championship. There was a presidential primary campaign in progress.
My Senate colleagues were pushing forward on our legislative agenda. I had
work to do.
No. As much as I respect the medical profession, my demise did not fit into
my plans.
I was hardly "in denial" that I faced a grave and shocking threat to my life.
The first symptoms of what would prove to be a malignant brain tumor had
struck me three days earlier. They'd descended on me as I padded toward the
kitchen of the Hyannis Port house that has been the center of my life and
happiness for most of my seventy-six years. I was intent on nothing more than
taking Sunny and Splash, my much-loved Portuguese water dogs, for their
morning walk. My wife, Vicki, and I had just been chatting and having our
morning coffee in the sunroom.
Life seemed especially good at that moment. The sixteen years of my
marriage to Vicki had been good ones. Her acute understanding and love of me
had made her my indispensable partner in my life. We shared countless joyful
hours aboard my antique wooden schooner Mya, including nights of sailing
along the coast, guided by the stars. Vicki had given me such a sense of stability
and tranquillity that I had almost begun to think of life in those terms--stable and
tranquil. But never boring. Certainly not with this funny, passionate, fiercely
loyal, and loving woman.
Vicki and I had enjoyed an especially exhilarating winter and early spring. On