CATCHING THE WIND

A vigorous, highly readable life of Edward Kennedy (1932-2009), taking him from birth through the Watergate era.

Ted Kennedy was the last of nine children born to Joseph and Rose Kennedy. “Few families were as class-conscious,” writes Gabler, whose previous books have centered on popular culture, “and for all the animus Joe felt toward his Protestant social superiors, he assiduously emulated them and forced his children into the mold.” After Joe Jr.’s death in World War II, it fell on John F. Kennedy to become president—all part of Joe Sr.’s plan, mapping out the lives of his children when they were still in diapers. “Joe Kennedy,” writes the author, “had already decided that Bobby was going to be Jack’s attorney general…because he felt that Jack needed the protection of having a family member close by.” And Ted? Much as the Kennedys stuck together, nothing tremendous was expected of the baby of the family, though he was still expected to enter politics. Gabler carefully charts the course of his 1962 run for Senate, just barely at the constitutionally required age of 30, a race marred by bitter opposition by the Boston elite and by the resurrection of a long-buried cheating scandal when Ted was at Harvard. He overcame both to win 55% of the vote and immediately set to work to prove that those who dismissed him as having bought his way into office were wrong. As Gabler tabulates, Ted Kennedy “sponsored 2,552 pieces of legislation, just under seven hundred of which became law.” During a career marked by the assassinations of his older brothers, the Chappaquiddick incident (which, Gabler notes, was less politically damaging than one might expect), and turmoil over such issues as affirmative action and school integration, Kennedy achieved remarkable things. The author ends with nearly 35 years of Kennedy’s political career to come, leaving plenty of material for the second volume.

A book full of triumph and tragedy and an exemplary study in electoral politics.