A memoir of triumph and tragedy

Reviewed by Sean Wilentz

Shortly after his inauguration, President John F. Kennedy made what was, in retrospect, one of his most poignant observations: Whether he served for one term or two, he remarked, he would leave office "at what might be called the awkward age, too old to begin a new career and too young to write my memoirs." The closest his brother Robert came to writing an autobiography was his insider's account of the Cuban missile crisis,

Thirteen Days

, which was published a year after his killing. Senator Edward M. Kennedy barely survived long enough to complete an account of his own life and times, as well as of the Kennedy family saga. And now, those memoirs, too, appear posthumously.

True Compass inevitably evokes the sudden deaths and dashed hopes that have afflicted the Kennedy clan during the more-than half-century it has stood at the forefront of national politics. The book's opening sentence tells of the sunny spring day in 2008 when the author "looked up into the face of a doctor who explained to me in a somber way that I was about to die." The 500 succeeding pages trace a recurring pattern of toil and accomplishment suddenly crushed and, usually, destroyed. The book concludes with an appeal to perseverance and stamina - to doing your best and keeping a true compass. Even in the hackneyed, sentimental age of Oprah, it is genuinely moving.

Yet the book also covers the less sympathetic setbacks that dogged Ted Kennedy's life and career. In 1951, as a college undergraduate, Kennedy foolishly had a friend take a Spanish exam in his place, and Harvard officials suspended them both for one year. Kennedy's formidable father, Joseph Sr., exploded and made it perfectly clear that, although there were people who could create messes and not get caught, Teddy wasn't one of them. "Boy, was he ever right," the memoir remarks - dryly, ruefully, and a bit too breezily.

Later chapters add little to the existing record about Kennedy's subsequent messes and miscalculations, including the Chappaquiddick disaster in 1969, his ill-fated challenge to President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic nomination in 1980, and his unfortunate connection to the seamy Palm Beach incident in 1991 involving his nephew, William Kennedy Smith. But the book does relate Kennedy's sincere efforts at self-correction and improvement after his defeats and self-inflicted calamities - his tireless work on Senate committees, his mastery of the art of framing national debates, his cultivation of key allies among even conservative Republicans, such as Sen. Orrin Hatch, in order to win legislative victories against the odds. With those efforts, Kennedy turned into one of the Senate's smartest strategists as well as the chief standard-bearer for post-1960s mainstream liberalism inside the Democratic Party.

Kennedy wrote True Compass over the last four years with the assistance of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Ron Powers; their collaboration succeeds best in capturing Kennedy's voice and temperament. John Kennedy has been described as a realist who was disguised as an idealist, and his brother Robert as an idealist who was disguised as a realist. Ted was very different from either of them, a man whose political aspirations sprang less from abstract ideals or an aptitude for pragmatic maneuvering than from down-to-earth human connections - including the gifts for friendship, compassion, and fun that sometimes got him into trouble.

A great deal of the book consists of anecdotes about a cavalcade of memorable figures, foes as well as friends, whom Kennedy encountered during his long career. They of course include world leaders such as Leonid Brezhnev, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton, as well as virtually every Capitol Hill notable of Kennedy's time. But they also include many others: colorful, old-school Boston Irish pols and hangers-on with nicknames like "Leather Lungs" and "Juicy"; a bowlegged Montana cowboy named Shorty who, after a fashion, taught Kennedy the fine art of bronco busting at a campaign stop during the 1960 presidential race; and the now largely forgotten but strangely consequential, "crusty, fast-talking" Watergate-era lobbyist Dita Beard.

Reading these stories is almost as enjoyable as it must have been to hear them when Kennedy kicked back after hours - not without his moments of grating obliviousness, but generally with the kind of curiosity and appreciation of human folly that comes with hard-earned wisdom. The book's lasting historical value, though, lies in its brief but trenchant insider descriptions of political battles during the long period of conservative domination that commenced with the election of Ronald Reagan.

Among the highlights are Kennedy's deft handling of the right-wing Rev. Jerry Falwell, his successful leadership of the effort to defeat Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork to serve on the United States Supreme Court, and his behind-the-scenes machinations that helped thwart the Republicans' partisan drive to remove Bill Clinton from office.

It adds up to an affecting story of political triumph and tragedy. Edward Kennedy's lot was to spend the better part of his political life as a liberal Democrat who was compelled, as he liked to say, to tack against the wind - against ascendant conservative Republicans, mostly, but also, often enough, against other Democrats. Sometimes his party's difficulties stemmed from his own misjudgments and failures. The best of Kennedy's labors, though, led him repeatedly to recover, surpass expectations, and finally sustain liberal ideals through liberalism's long and difficult seasons of public disapproval.

Suddenly, last year, the fates seemed to turn the political tide in Kennedy's favor. But then, cruelly, the fates cut him down, just when the reform causes he championed could have put his peculiar political experience and skill to maximum use. His memoirs, which have become his final political statement, are a testament to his resolve and persistence. But they also bring a jolt of recognition of all that has vanished with him.