and schemed ruthlessly for a place in history; Bobby was the wounded poet, ambivalent about his quest but obligated to pursue it; and then there was Teddy, who began as the chubby-cheeked family pet, and for many years seemed unable to grow up, lost in the long shadows of his mythologized dead brethren. 

   "As the ninth member of a large Irish family, I always had to rely on humor in order to be able to survive," Edward Moore Kennedy said last week, less than 48 hours before he would suffer a foreboding seizure. Survive he did, for 76 years so far, much of it in public service - and so, unlike his brothers, he could take responsibility for a whole life, and add a chapter to his family legacy that none of them were allowed: maturity and redemption.

   Kyle Nicholoff and I went to Kennedy's office in Russell Senate Office Building at the U.S. Capitol with a Wyoming PBS camera to tape a short interview about his relationship with Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming. Humor was Simpson’s weapon, too, and so "we just sort of cooked right from the beginning," said Kennedy. Not just telling jokes - early on, each took on oar on a legislative boat that no one wanted to row, the reform of the nation's leaky immigration law. "We had very, very different philosophies, but what I found very quickly was that Al Simpson was interested in getting things done for Wyoming, and interested in getting things done for the country." 

   In that remark you find several things that typify what Kennedy had become: his unselfish personal loyalty, his devotion to the legislative process, and his willingness to hang up the ideological spurs in the interest of "getting things done." Even those who found the outcomes disagreeable concede that Kennedy's skill at navigating ideological gridlock is the only reason any progress has been made in the past decade on issues ranging from Medicare prescription drug reform to education reform: Think of "No Child Left Behind" - the George W. Bush Administration's controversial reform of education - which was twice saved from congressional oblivion by the Massachusetts senator Republicans scorned as "the most liberal" politician in Washington. (Of course, liberals called him that, too, in much sweeter tones.) 

   Neither of the brothers who preceded Ted Kennedy in the Senate showed his knack, or interest, in the sausage-making process of creating laws. But when Kennedy talked last week about the immigration bills that he worked on with Simpson, dating back more than 20 years, his relish was evident. "(Simpson) wanted a provision that if a person came on in here and created some ten jobs, or invested a million dollars, they’d be able to get green cards to come on in and get on the road to citizenship. I differed with that, because I said we should not be permitting individuals to buy their way into the United States - it should all be done on the basis of merit. "The next year, after the bill failed, we were working out the compromise, and he said, 'Hey, Ted, I need that provision.' I said, 'The one I'm against?', and he said, 'I'm supporting some of the things you want, I need that provision.'

   "So I supported the provision, and up gets (Sen.) Paul Sarbanes, and he says, 'Now, Kennedy –'" and the Senator was chuckling as he mimicked Sarbanes Maryland speech - "'last year you said it would only be on merit.' And I said, 'I'm going to let Al Simpson handle the response.'

   "You know, it was just a small item, but at the time we differed we had a vigorous debate and discussion – and (the following year) in terms of the totality of trying to make important changes in immigration at that time, it was more important to get the bill done."

   Ted Kennedy took brother John's Senate seat in 1962, a callow 30-year-old whose primary opponent suggested - correctly - he would not have been on any ballot if his name had simply been Edward Moore. (He won, and in that first year shared the floor with another Simpson senator - Milward, Alan's father.) The assassinations of two brothers made him the patriarch of a huge and troubled clan – and while he was, by all accounts, stalwart in his role as surrogate father to his brothers' broods, he seemed less able to caretake himself. In 1969, he drove a car off a bridge at Chappaquidick and a young female campaign worker drowned. The travails of the next generation visibly weighed on him – including his own son's bout with childhood cancer – and he was hobbled for most of his life by back injuries suffered in a plane crash. Despite his charisma and stirring speechifying, his run for the Democratic Presidential nomination against Jimmy Carter, in 1980, was hugely unsuccessful.



Perhaps, though, it was that race that changed him. He risked and endured the humiliation of the public's apparent decision that he could not satisfy the yearning for that lost Kennedy Camelot. But it seemed to put his ghosts to rest, and when he returned to the Senate, he came with his sleeves rolled up, ready to do the dance of legislation. He could be forceful, even thundering, in debate, but never be vengeful or cruel toward even his worst opponents. He had eloquence and the vocal power of a Shakespearean actor, but he'd also barter in the cloakroom with Republicans for the votes he needed to pass bills promoting gender wage equality, or mental health funding. And when the liberal-conservative sparring was done - an act he and Simpson caricatured in their radio "Face-Off" series – he'd extend a civil hand. He was at home, and with the dead Kennedys no longer hovering, this was his family.

His press people warned us that our interview last week would be a strictly enforced 15 minutes, and after we'd waited almost an hour for the busy senator, they told us we'd be lucky to get five, because a late vote was coming up on the floor, and he'd have to rush away. He arrived at last, gave us a friendly greeting, and sat in a worn, familiar wingback chair – a surprisingly short man, but much healthier looking than newspaper photos suggest. Behind him came his unleashed dogs, Sunny and Splash, the latter a Portuguese water spaniel that would now and then put a wet nose on an interviewer's hand. The buzzer for the floor votes rang, but Kennedy waved them off and gave us his time and attention – or, rather, gave it for his colleague Al Simpson. And when the 15 minutes were up, and his poor press secretary was wringing her hands and waving at me to shut up, he said, "One other point –"

And he talked about how he and his friend Simpson loved the arts, and worked together to improve the cultural opportunities in Washington, D.C. "By the nature of our positions," he said wryly, "you could get wonderful responses. That was a great fun time. It's not a thing that [legislators] are often interested in. Al had an enormously genuine interest, all the people in Wyoming understand his family's love of the arts ... This again was a kind of unifying factor."

He sat amidst paintings of boats under sail, some with his own signature. The most beautiful canvas in the room was by another artist, a large, sepia- toned painting of a solo sailor with a good wind behind heading away from us toward the open sea. Though the voyager faced away, there was no mistaking President John Kennedy. That kind of image reassured me, having grown up in the era when the Kennedy family was such a national obsession it seemed their privacy and very souls were being stolen by their idolators. This painting suggested that while they had sacrificed so much of their lives to the mythology of their iconic roles, they found renewal the way you and I do, away from the cameras and the crowds, taken by the wind into the naked canvas of nature.

News reports say that after leaving the hospital last weekend with a grim diagnosis of malignant glioma in the left parietal lobe of his brain, Kennedy was headed to his boat and the ocean.

Sail close to the wind.





** The Wyoming PBS interview with Ted Kennedy will be incorporated in a three-part documentary about Wyoming Senator Al Simpson, scheduled for broadcast next fall.