good evening. i'm rachel flor, executive director of, the john f kennedy library foundation. and on behalf of all of my library and foundation colleagues, i'm delighted to welcome all of you who are watching this evening's program online, as well as those of you who are here with us in person tonight to open. i humbly start with a land acknowledgment to recognize the indigenous tribes of the parts in massachusetts, peoples of the wampanoag tribal confederation territories who both past and present and throughout many generations have stewarded the land where the kennedy library is today well, a land acknowledgment is not enough. it's an important way to promote indigenous visibility, and it serves as a reminder that we are on stolen and settled indigenous land. i invite all of us to contemplate how to better support indigenous communities and to learn how to honor and take care the land that each of us inhabits. i would also like to acknowledge the generous support of our underwriters of the kennedy library forum series lead sponsors, bank of america, the lowell institute and at&t and our media sponsor, the boston. john farrell has wonderfully agreed to sign copies of ted kennedy, a life after tonight's program. our bookstore will be selling copies until 745. if you are interested. before we get started. we'll thank you all for silencing cell phones. we look forward to a robust question and answer this evening. you'll see instructions on screen for submitting your questions via email or comments on our youtube page during the program and when the q&a starts, we will invite those of you who are joining us in person tonight to proceed to the microphones, in the aisles, to your questions. we are so grateful to have timely opportunity to explore. senator kennedy's life and legacy with our distinguished guests. and i'm now honored to introduce tonight's speakers. i'm so delighted to extend a warm welcome back to the kennedy library to john a farrell, author of the new book ted kennedy a life, which was longlisted for the 2022 national book award for nonfiction. he has previous include richard nixon the life which won the pen. jacqueline belgrad world award for biography and the new york historical society. barbara and david, the lines neck. sorry about that book book prize for american history and was a finalist for the pulitzer prize in 2018. clarence darrow, attorney for the -- and tip o'neill for the. and tip o'neill the democratic century. he has also earned a george polk award, the gerald r prize and white house association honors for his coverage of the presidency during a prize winning career as a journalist, including distinguished service at the boston globe. and i'm also so glad to welcome our moderator for this david nasaw back to the library. he's the author of the patriarch the remarkable life and turbulent times of joseph kennedy, which was selected by the new york times as one of the ten best books of the year and a 2013 pulitzer prize finalist in biography. andrew carnegie, a new york times notable book of the year and recipient of the new york historical society's american history book prize and a 27 pulitzer prize finalist biography. and the chief. the life of william randolph hearst, which was awarded the bancroft prize for history and the j. anthony lucas book prize for nonfiction. he is the past president of the society of american historians. and until 2019, he served as as the arthur schlesinger jr of history at the suny graduate center, where he is now distinguish as professor emeritus. please me in welcoming our special guests. thank you. it is a delight to be back here. i spent many, many, many hours upstairs doing my research, as i'm sure you did as well. and it's great place to do research. i mean, wonderful archivists, librarians. i've been in many library days, and this is one of my favorite. i've got to find another kennedy to do a book about. let me begin briefly by saying that this is an extraordinary book. it is. you know, historians are not judges. they're not god. it's not our job to say thumbs up thumbs down to, say angel devil. if you're going to write a biography of someone, you choose someone who's complex. if you're going to read a biography you want to read about someone who is filled with contradictions with ups and with triumphs and tragedies. and john is chosen to write a biography about a conflicted human being who had his ups and he had his downs and the ups were to the sky and the downs. we don't have to. i'm not going to use an analogy here, but they were pretty. and and he's done it with honesty, with. fairness. you know, we we don't as historians get to the truth. we get as close we can. you know, we spent hours trying to out days, months, years, trying to figure out what we're doing and what is as close to the truth as we can get. you know, and you did it. my friends. so so i thank you. and i congratulate you. and i urge you all to go get the book. who let i'm not going to start with the boilerplate which you've been asked a dozen times and i've been asked a dozen times, why did you write the book? what's new? did you find stuff that you didn't expect? let's get the stories since i prepared for. well, sorry. well, if we if i run out of other questions, we'll go back to let's get to the, you know, to the heart of the matter. how did this this youngest son, who lived a life in which he was both spoiled, neglected at the same time. when you look the pictures, you see this roly poly kid with a big smile, almost a clownish smile in in family photos, always upfront. how did this kid, who then grew up to be a half a. harvard football player and get thrown out of harvard and have have to quote from your book on page 24, john urged their father to let ted be a playboy playboy. and two pages later on page 26, ted from the french riviera writes his father, quote, having buried of fun, send four more barrels. how did he become the lion of the senate? i mean, you know what happens? it is a story that i did not expect to find, even though i had covered the senator for the boston globe and had a friendly press. senator relationship with him. he was such a glad hander. he was such an amazing personality that you easily could be distracted from the great pain that he suffered in his life. and it wasn't just pain, but constant emotional pain throughout his public life. if you think about it. before he even got the united states senate, he had had one brother die in a plane crash and war and a sister die in a plane crash and another sister be taken away because of a failed lobotomy. and then he gets to the senate. he is in his own plane crash and in plane crashes. he breaks his back and he can't walk. has to learn to walk all over again. he lays on his back and the strapped companion a chicken on a spit and for six months he learns to walk. he comes back to the senate and along the way. he's got three children, all three of the children develop some form of cancer before early middle age. his wife develops a problem alcoholism and his marriages on the rocks. and then out of in shakespearian quality. two brothers are assassins and cut down now, any one of those events would have been a defining character for yours. my life. that would have been the the that moment of our lives. most them for ted kennedy are almost parenthetical when compared to the shock of the two assassinations. so he has this great personal pain, a great empathy that grows from it. and then i think at other thing that you have to realize is that despite their money, despite their great wealth, despite joseph kennedy's power, they still came from boston. and in boston, there was still in joseph and rose's childhood, this enmity between the protestant brahmins and the irish-american immigrants, and this smoot feeling for fighting for the little guy, fighting for the common man, fighting against the powers that be being discriminated against. because you were irish, because you were catholic, came down to even these kids, these you know, kids who went to the best orthodontist and the greatest. and during the height of the depression were eating roast beef on sundays at the great manhattan restaurants whose life would seem to be so away from those of of the common character. but but both john kennedy and robert kennedy commented upon it and. so did ted kennedy. that they were inoculated with this this this feeling about. the little guy, because of the irish-american discrimination, the known irish need applies stories that they got from their parents and also from honey fitz. their grandfather and left them at very politicians politicians from the from the upper class who felt for the little guy, charles daley, who some of the old hands around here may remember worked for all three of them. and and he called them well-fed underdogs with pretty good bite. and that's pretty much the best description as to why the kennedy brothers became that in one sentence that i found. yeah. why you. we're going to jump around here. you'll excuse me for not being criminal. why did run? did he want to run for the senate? was he sort of pushed it? i mean, the story always goes that joe made jack run for the. and that's not true. i mean, he encouraged him. he wanted. but it was jack who made the decision. what about ted? did did he want a career in politics? what? after ted graduated from harvard, his dad called him in and him around the country to visit the family business, establish payments. and he was told to that this was a this was a potential course for him, that this was before steve smith entered the family and taken over the business. and so he went out and he saw the oil and the oil wells in tulsa. and he went to chicago and he saw the mercantile mart. and then he came back and and he told his dad, no, i want to be with jack and bob doing what they're doing. and they were really idols to him. we see that a great couple of great pictures in this in this library of the three of them together, smiling, looking handsome, walking out of the surf. but there was a clear distinction between jack and bob, who worked together in politics, and ted, who was the chubby little brother who brothers and sisters called biscuits and muffins and who teased mercilessly as a as a small child. and he felt it. he felt this great adoration of his brothers, a feeling that he was not in their league, but he chose politics nonetheless, which tells you a little bit about him, which was that even though he did have this sort a feeling of insufficiency, he still wanted to the that kennedy competitive ness came through and he said, i want to play in the league with jack and bob as well. but was he content did he he must have known that as long as these two remain alive, he was always going to be the little brother. he was more than content. he was quite happy being ted teddy. he was quite happy being ted kennedy and just, you know, idolizing these folks jackie once said that before the the two other brothers died, that, oh, my god, ted, at the age of 30 is already achieved the greatest thing he could ever hope for. and that was to be a united states senator. so he was never trained for he was never prepared for what happened to him. he was supposed to be the jester and instead the crown falls on his shoulders. and he's got to deal with this and with the expectation of his family. and of course, by this time, you've got the beginning of the camelot myth, which he inherits and has to has to deal with this just amazing set of expectations all his life. and in some ways, it crushed him in the year before the chappaquiddick accident, there were everybody was saying he's heading for a crackup. he he can't stand stand the burden. but he persevered. i think that's the other great lesson of his life is persistence and perseverance. did as i said, i'm going to be chronological here. so you'll me keeps me on my toes. okay, let's talk just for a minute about harvard. i mean, what are it, a begin by telling us about the correspondent with his father at harvard? i mean his does his father get to letter of admission before ted does? yes. that's i open the book with an anecdote of that i found here in the library a letter from a at harvard writing to joseph kennedy saying, you know, glad to you that we've admitted ted. and the same thing happened at the university of virginia law school. either the letter was intercepted or it went to joe. and then he then referred it to ted. but it was it was it was not like, you know, ted took the sats and filled out the applications and asked mom, dad for a $50 check. so the entered into the sweepstakes, get into harvard. it was all done at that higher and and one of the letters that they sent joe said, you know what, while it's rare to happen every once in a while something happens to one of our students and either for character reasons or school tastic reasons, and we have to we have to deal with it. if there's anything, you know, tell us now and we'll like build some barriers around it and it sounded to me like they were looking at his academic record, which was less than distinguished because he'd had a very cold childhood and his parents had shipped him around to nine different schools and cluding boarding school at the age of seven. and so he was not the greatest scholar. and they seemed to be saying, you know, okay, joe, we're going to take ted. but that's all realized from the start. please tell us if there's something we need to know and then he got caught behind in it in his studies he wanted desperately to play football because he loved it, but also because it was an expectation and he got into a fix with a spring semester spanish exam and got somebody else to take the exam for him. and they got caught course. and he was asked leave harvard. and he went and did a two year stint in the army. it was tough duty. it was during the korean war and he was in charge of guarding nato headquarters in paris, where one of his greatest achievement was, was crowning miss shape of the. the story about the boarding school when he sent away seven, they brought it. they brought that back up. he was interested. laurence tribe wrote it, said in his oral that he would go down to hyannis port and that the party would begin rather casually. and then after a couple of drinks rose would get on teddy, ted, ted, you're too fat or know you were too sloppy or your syntax was lousy on that speech. and ted would say, oh, come on, mom, you know, you were terrible to me as a as a child. you you put me off in boarding school when i was seven years old. and it was a very lonely existence. and it was interrupted, if, you know, by the time he came along, as she famously said to time magazine, you know, you're a little tired about reading stories and going out and teaching the kid how to play the sled and he was he was basically ignored he was asked by a university of virginia professor about this. and and he gave the professor a short story had written somewhere in elementary. and it's a little story about a boy who wants to run away from school, and he packs all belongings in his little satchel. but as he's leaving school, the satchel opens up and all his belongings fall out and run down the hill and there's, strangely enough, there's a similar short story written by nixon about about a little boy who tries to run away and all his things fall out of his his suitcase. so there must be some there must be a psychologist or psychiatrist in the audience who would tell us what that what that particular means. but the story the boarding school is just so i mean, i was doing my my research. it just i mean, i shuddered. the kid is sent off from florida to bobby school. what's the name of the school? the portsmouth abbey. and bobby's. how much older? and. well, there was nobody in that school who was ted, right. so. so ted, it was like a junior high and. yeah, ted is seven and everybody else is 12, 13, and ted arrives with his turtle a pet turtle, that's his pet turtle. and the poor turtle dies and that that and the kids to torture ted. you know, ted has a little funeral for turtle and the kids dig it up and they start throwing it around the dorm because, you know, they're 15. they're 14. and ted is is being tortured. he gets it back and sadly. but and in another day in the schoolyard, he's getting beaten up. and bobby walks by and teddy looks at him and says, you know, family loyalty, bro. you know, where are and and bobby says, that's good lesson for you. you got to learn to stick up for yourself. there were some cold moments in his life. i mean, and and it didn't for all of time. oh, yeah. maria shriver was asked about this just. recently about her her upbringing with eunice shriver. and she said, well, i didn't get a lot of love and affection and hugs and kisses from my mother. but you can't give what you never got. hey, god. but joe was i mean, joe, people remarked about how joe kissed his his son. he was he was amazing, as you know, as i know from reading your book, the patriarch he was an amazingly individual and nowhere so than in his family his sons and daughters adored him and they would do almost anything, win his favor even more so he was in and out of the family. he would leave and go to the west coast for three years to be a hollywood tycoon and then come back. but or he would stay in england as the us ambassador. well, they stayed home, but he was always writing these letters to them and. they were writing back and you can that the bond was much warmer and deeper with the dad than was with mark. but you know, one of the more remarkable things is that rose jackson does the same thing at some point when he's a kid about his mother, he says, you know, you're not paying attention to us. you're always somewhere else. you went off on vacation. and what kind of a mother were you? and rose talks about that in her memoirs. i mean, that's how we learned this. and my friend she died recently. nancy melford, the biographer of edna saint vincent millay and before that of you're nodding your head who who did she about what did she read biography of zelda fitzgerald. zelda fitzgerald. right. she was going to do a rose biography. and the reason she wanted do it was that she saw of rose's funeral and ted, a grown man, was weeping and she thought if the senator who's been through all of this and has maintained his composure, weeps when his mother dies there's something going on there. i mean, ted not will not not to dump on rose yet but there was a very famous took place after jfk was was killed and theodore white came to interview jackie kennedy. it was the one time that she spoke to a reporter for life magazine, and it was the famous interview where the camelot myth was launched. and she told teddy white, you know, before he went to bed at night, jack liked to listen to the camelot score. and from the tales of king arthur. and but in that that was released. but in that interview, something was not released until several years. and that was jackie about rose. and said to theodore white, you know, she never loved jack she loved being wife of the ambassador and she loved being daughter of the mayor of boston. but she never loved jack. and then just to make sure that he knew it, she said it again. she never loved jack. and so this was a running sort of constant theme. and when you it clashes so much with the image of the kids, you know, playing touch football and sailing and and those big, beautiful kennedy smiles, always looking happy. and and there was a lot of joy. this was this was the thing that ted tried to capture and maintain all his life and and jackie herself said that that among the brothers and sisters, other families were flat. this was like soda pop. it was effervescence all the time. and they played and worked off each other. but we never knew the rose story, i think, until. you know, maybe, what, 20 years ago when nigel hamilton wrote, the book about jfk that daughters always when i wrote book the daughters so eunice gene was so protective of rose and they would not have been as you know they they protested too much and that ted could up this warm loving, compassionate i mean, talk about him as a father father. he was a warm and compassionate father who tried to do as much as he could, given the time restraints on it, which is what ted jr said. like his father. like his father. yeah. yeah. i mean, he he he, he would try to get the kids to sit at the, you know, henry kissinger would come for dinner and sit down to talk. and then ted would say, well, here's my my son, ted and my daughter kara. and they're going to sit in with us because he wanted them to see what his life was about, but also to get the benefit of the fact that the national security adviser, secretary of state, was sitting there at their dinner table. so he did try he was very especially to patrick, but had but he had expectations of his children, too. and one of the most poignant moments think when he was dying, was he and patrick went for a sail and patrick tells the and ted finally after all these years turns to patrick who has built his own career in politics and says, you know, patrick after i'm gone, if you don't want to stay politics, you don't have to. and sure enough, patrick leaves politics. so it was it's a it's a you know, be careful what you wish for when you look at a family like the kennedys and think, boy, life would be great if i was just one of them, what's the ted junior story when it is, father takes him skiing. and that was another that was another patrick story. it was it was a great story patrick told about that being a member of the next generation and they were skiing in western mass and patrick had tumble and you know, trying to be a kennedy. he was struggling to try to get up even though he had hurt leg and his father skied over and said no, no, stay down, stay down. and he said, i can do it, dad. no, no, stay down. and they got the ski patrol to come over and put him on a stretcher and. they took him down the mountain and sure enough, they get down to the mountain. and by this time, every television camera in western massachusetts is there. and patrick said, oh, i had done my job. and because now there was a the newspapers and the press reported the next day that the kennedys had been skiing in massachusetts, and then that ted tender, tender dad had taken care of. patrick fell the the let's let's talk a bit about the senate career the lion of the senate 47 years it's fourth longest senator in american history and but the thing about the senate career especially now is worked with nixon on cancer worked with reagan on arms control, worked with bob dole on voting rights, vote with orrin hatch on health care and aids, worked with howard on redistricting worked with everett dirksen on civil rights. i think, you know, john mccain and alan simpson on immigration and not just these guys who were thought of as moderates today, john mccain was anything but moderate. so with alan simpson. but but he also worked with people like sam brownback and the ability to reach the aisle is stunning in light of the situation today we're almost at these parliamentary parties refuse to break ranks and do anything together. yeah we would we would just funeral at the funeral. i was not i was in the hospital myself at one at the funeral funeral. orrin hatch was one of the speakers in orrin got up and he, you know, moved and he and he told these wonderful stories about how he and ted would on the floor of the call each other, all sorts of names. how could you know, the my friend, senator hatch be so obtuse and be so, you know, oblivious to the rights of this and this and hatch would get up and say the same kind of insult from the other side and then they'd go outside the senate chambers and on the way out, one would look at the other and say, how do i do today? and the other would look, ted, you just you did just fine. and hatch said the fact that this irish catholic, liberal. from boston and b, you know not a liberal not an irish catholic, not from boston that we be able to work together. he said. i thought at first that it was some sort of miracle. then i realized that this is who ted kennedy was and that but there was a thought that went into that. i mean, that brain of his was analyze. each one of these guys. what did hugh scott need back in pennsylvania right after watergate, as a moderate republican? why hugh scott, the republican leader, would come across the aisle. he would join with on a campaign finance bill because the republican party in the senate desperately needed this. and hugh scott in pennsylvania desperately needed this. so analyzing each one of these senators and what their needs were was a very important part in putting together this kind of and they by the way, that bill that and this is another lesson that bill was held the campaign finance bill was hailed on the front page of the new york times as the bill that would end the influence of big money interests in american politics. yeah, supreme court. got a call, got hold. supreme court got a hold of that. and today, we're in a position far worse than before. is there not a big mormon church in boston if i made that up so well in belmont? yeah. romney. yeah. the i the politics true. i mean, the that there were political alliances and this was done to benefit both sides. but i also the sense that ted genuinely. developed friendships across the that contributed to this that that he was. he he didn't look at republicans as the enemy always going to be over there he looked at potential alliances and potential connection and these were potential partnerships. a real friendships i mean alan simpson left the senate after working with on immigration with ted kennedy but doing that crossfire show or whatever was called where they yelled at each other for a minute every night on cnn. and he over as head of the institute of politics, he probably was over here a lot at the jfk library talking like like we are. this is a this was a true friendship. but, you know, don't look past the fact that when these guys walked into kennedy's they had better had their hand on their wallet because he would take them to the wall and the offices recreated over it at the institute and. he would say, hi, yeah, here's here's jack. and we were doing this and here's the coconut from 109. and here's the letter that my mom wrote me and and oh, look down there. there's, you know, there's bobby and i, you know, such and such and even these massive egotists in the us senate would be enthralled by this. and the idea that it was going to be the, you know, the kennedy hatch act or it was going to be the kassebaum kennedy act. and they would go along. he had the ability to that that sort of irish blarney to pull them in. yeah. he when came back after the accident and when he came back after. did he have to start all over again building a reputation building alliances. not so much after the after the accident, he he came right back and in they gave him the immigration act, the 1965 immigration act, which changed the complexion of america radically and completely. and was it has to be up there with the voting rights act and the civil rights act. well, he was the he held the hearings in the judiciary committee because. james eastland wanted nothing to do with it, but lbj wanted it. so they had to find somebody to run the hearings. and ted kennedy sat there with his broken back and then stood on the senate floor and was the floor leader for that bill and saved it at a key moment after chappaquiddick it was not a happy result. and it was something that was not really covered at the time the rejection from his colleagues. they all said happy things and nice things about him to the press. but robert byrd began circulating among the members in the democratic caucus and ambushed him and away the whip's job. and then 30 or 40 years later, walter mondale, one of his one of ted kennedy's closest ally, liberal allies, was asked about this. and he said, yeah you know, none of us could tolerate what had happened at chappaquiddick. chappaquiddick i guess. what when did it end? it wasn't just that, you know, bob byrd ran, this stealth campaign to do it. it was a it was an amazing personal rejection from the senate that hardly ever happens. so he had a lot of work in the years after chappaquiddick and to make his way back then, he runs for president in 1979, in part because, these same senators are coming to and saying, jimmy carter is so weak, i'm to lose my seat. and that one of the things that propels him into that race, which ended, as we know, quite badly. you say on page 374, edward kennedy ran for president the worst way. well, this is amazing, because one of the things, again, i didn't realize until i got into the work was the the element of self-sabotage in ted kennedy's life. the closer he got to the presidency, the worse he performed. and as he moved away the presidency, the better he performed. he always thought he was, could not measure up to two. jack and bob even while they were alive, much less after became the martyrs and frozen forever in time as the charismatic young kennedy brothers. and because he felt he could not measure up, many of his friends believe whenever the possibility arose that he could be president, he was the one who. so whose destroyed the idea. and it happened here in massachusetts. he was thinking about running for president and he calls up or they call up roger mudd, the cbs newsman, and he comes up here and. he asks ted, ballpark question, if you ask me some tough ones, but but he asks the ballpark, including the ballpark question, the softball question of why do you want. yeah. and ted goes, oh, and ted kennedy could be if you ever were with him, could be very inarticulate. he was a great speech maker with a speech in front of him. but in he was not prepared. and the one thing that ted kennedy always did was prepare, prepare, prepare, because he was so insecure. he didn't prepare for roger mudd. and warren rudman, anthony lewis, ellen, all turned that television off and said he doesn't want it. and he's trying to to stop it before. it gets started now. others will tell you that, you know, psychological pattern. but i really believe that there was a part of him which just said to himself over and over again, i'm not as good as jack. yeah. and i can no way meet the burden. now that these guys are frozen in time martyrs. but he thought he was better than carter. he thought he was better than carter. and he probably would have been a decent president. he knew to assemble coalitions. he how to work the hill. he he had for many years the greatest staff on capitol hill. it was his hidden weapon. it was almost his hidden barony up on the that represented liberalism. everything went around it. republicans and democrat, moderate democrats. but there was, you know, if you needed something and you were a liberal, you went to kennedy staff and kennedy brought it to the boss, and they decided that, well, somebody's got to do it, and i guess it's going to be your discussion. the carter kennedy i mean, these appear to be two nice smiling guys. state yes, he did. and they did that too strong a word. no, i would say loathe would be a good word. and. yeah, and you look them and and you say you start to read it and you see that the inevitable train wreck happening and you say to yourself now stop it. you know, you're the president of the united states. you don't need to be this petty and you're you're you're a good man. you you're you're a god fearing guy who builds you houses for habitat for humanity on weekends. and you look at ted kennedy and you say, you're one of the smartest guys in the senate. you know what's going to happen. you know you're going to give this election to ronald reagan. you know what's going on. but the train wreck happened. this is actually it's an analogy from pat caddell, who was a pollster, both of them who spent he said he spent the four years of the carter presidency trying stop this inevitable train wreck happening and failing because he knew and he told them all along that this going to be the only result was going to be president. ronald reagan did the only ones who i mean, was the major reason his family and colleague who his family gave to him from running. let me. oh, please. there's a great anecdote about jimmy carter and his pettiness. so at the end of the convention, carter has won. ted is delayed in traffic. so he gets to the stage late, he walks up on stage, he over and he shakes jimmy carter's hand and he walks over and he waves to the he comes back again. he shakes jimmy carter's hand five times. he shakes jimmy hand, but he doesn't take jimmy carter's hand and raise it in the classic prizefighters victory gesture and the press jumps on this the next day. myra mcpherson for the washington post is the first one, and then it begins, as press stories do, to to snowball. and it grows in jimmy carter's mind that that ted kennedy refused to shake his hand. and to this day, because it happened just four or five years ago, somebody asked him about that. he said it was reprehensible behavior. he was drunk and he refused to shake my hand and to say it's all over the videotape there's five handshakes, but there's just there's not the fighters clench i guy, sorry to interrupt you. no, no, no. i going to ask, were there members the family worried that he would be the third kennedy assassinated? they were. and he was too. he was too. oh, absolutely there are several instances where he let his guard down in those years, robert was killed and. the threats were real. i mean, the secret service and the fbi file is this thick of crazy folks who, you know, were found the bushes outside his house or. what's the name of the fellow that shot reagan? i want to say john hinckley. hinckley chapman was hinckley. hinckley tailed ted kennedy around washington for two or three days before, including the senate office building, with a gun in his pocket before he went and shot reagan. but it's almost as if there were moments when he had a death wish. i was in rome for the papal inauguration and the second was visit. the second would there were popes in a month. that's right and ted and jimmy breslin know ted and. chris dodd. you know where this story is going. oh, we'll tell the end of it. it was ted chris dodd. there's a party somewhere. well, ted rented a scooter and i mean, rome is not the place to ride a scooter unless you've lived there all your life and and he was drunk a good deal at the time. and you know, you looked at this man and you thought, you know, he's he doesn't want live or he's gambling he's he's gambling he's saying if i stay alive after getting drunk and riding a scooter through the streets of, rome, then i deserve to be alive. someone's saying let him live. well, patrick said that that ted believed that with each successive escapade that he emerged from with his political career intact, that he was more and more invulnerable and there was a president of abc news, david burke early in his career was ted administrative assistant and he was analyzed that he's and he said it was this way work work work work work. if i'm working nobody can criticize me doing the right thing and so press the staff study prepare, work and then when it's time to play, play, play play, play, play with the same vigor and and because i can use it as excuse that i'm tired from all the work i did and together this sort of cycle takes you away from reflection about the loss of a mother's love or the of two brothers or. yeah, what about the drinking was that? or well, there's that. there's a lot of alcoholism in, in the family. and alcoholism can be a genetic thing and if you read doris kearns goodwin's, the fitzgeralds and the kennedy, it's striking many of the of his ancestors were succumb alcoholism so you know who knows but also there was it was also self-medication he was from the time of that plane crash he was in pain in the 1980 campaign. the service guys felt so bad for him that that was standing, giving a speech that they would surreptitiously take a chair and slip it behind him. so he had something to lean on while he gave the speech. and he he came to the we invited to the graduate center, a cuny graduate center. at one point for a panel on we were doing something on social welfare and the head of security, the cuny graduate center on fifth avenue and 34th street, catty corner, the empire state building, and the head of security, the graduate center, contacted people over and over and over again and said we'll let you in the back entrance. how many people are you bringing. and they said no, you know, he's coming by himself. you know, one person is coming and he'll come in the front door and leave by the front door, which frightened the head of security? no. when he asked only one thing, he said when he got there. he would need to down, right. yeah. and he arrived through the front door and we found an office him to lie down for 10 minutes, 15 minutes. and then he came out on stage and the preparation was remarkable. he gave a speech and then he answered questions from. experts in social welfare from all over new york and he answered every one. he knew the names the numbers of every bill where it was going, whether it would succeed. it was a remarkable performance of theirs. he also the long game which is that if he had a reversal on one of those bills, he that all right i got 23 votes this time i can get 36 votes next year and four years from now when the senate flips and we have a little bit of luck and there's a democratic president i can get enough votes to get cloture and and defeat the filibuster. he was always, always thinking far ahead as well. was there a moment when he left? well, when he remarried remarried, where his changed, where the drinking changed, or you don't buy that? well, i think reformation, you know, i think he got his his drinking under control. he didn't stop drinking. yeah, but i it was more than i mean, somebody was talking about mitt romney, you know, it was it was more than just vicki, although i think vicki was was really so important in making the last years of his life happy. but in 1994, he very well could have lost. he had he was coming off the palm beach scandal. good friends like charlie pierce and mike barnicle were roasting and the pope, the for the first time wrote an editorial which said we've always winked at his private behavior, misbehavior because. it didn't affect the the political but in the clarence thomas anita hill clash that that summer after palm beach he might as well have put a paper bag his head because he was totally a wall. and we needed him and i have had the the the authors of the two major books about the clarence thomas anita hill clashed tell me that if the ted kennedy that opposed robert bork a few years earlier had shown that summer, then clarence thomas not be on the united states supreme court, that's an example of how the personal overlaps into the political and and changes our lives. but anyway, the 1994 campaign through a series of mishaps, including palm beach, by the time he got to september running for reelection, he was in the polls. mitt romney was was ahead of him. and it was quite possible that that he could lose. but but the people of massachusetts of had this feeling that they needed to a two by four and give them a good thwack on the head rather than really defeat him because every time he began to lapse in the polls the support came back because. they wanted to learn a lesson, but they didn't necessarily want him to lose the election. and he ran a very cutthroat campaign against romney with a very effective series of negative ads and. and he pulled it out, but not by a lot, right? no, it was a it was it was fairly respectable. yeah. many years later when when he helped mitt romney push health care for all through the massachusetts hits legislature. romney had invited magnanimously invited teddy to the bill signing and it was at the same place where they had debated and romney which i thought was one of the great political quips i've ever heard, walked up to the microphone and said, you know, i feel like the titanic revisiting the iceberg. i visited when, i was doing my patriarch book on his father. ted was just extra. i mean, i would ask a question to someone in his staff and that evening he'd call me and seven or 8:00 and just talk about his father and those wonderful days he was remembering. what for him was that lost paradise with his brothers watching movies, doing this, doing that. so i went to talk to him and it was. i guess it was on a friday and he said come at 6:00, you know, we'll have dinner. and then i got a call from vickie at 530 ted's held up and then 630 ted held up and at seven ted's older and then finally i she said come at eight and i went at eight and ted walked in absolutely eggs frosted and he introduced to his driver and had a vodka one vodka and sat down and was fuming at really because harry reid harry reid because what ted and this was just extraordinary he wants legislation passed that would give every municipality that receive money and i don't know how exactly how it worked that it would permit fire to vote for whether. they wanted to join the union or not. and reid promised we'll do this and then we backed off and ted firemen from all over the country and said come to washington and he spent his friday all day escorting firemen their full regalia all over the senate to introduce them. and that's why this was a friday that's he was so late you know returning and he was fuming because couldn't understand why a democrat you know was not in support of. he was. he was a champion lost causes as well that was a really poignant. yeah for that and i believe that was the friday he went home exactly what i was going to tell the rest of them was stricken by the brain tumor. yeah, yeah, yeah. he was picked up the next day. yeah. and he, he telling me we have to get, we have to get up early, we're going to chappaquiddick. and he, he went and was stricken and taken into the i guess he went right to the emergency room. yeah. and about week later i think the announcement had been made that. he's going to be okay. and i had lunch with jean again because were helping me with my book and i said to jean and happy, you know, and she said, no. she said no. she said, we're going to have to cut this lunch short because the family is going to make the. that it's terminal. they can't operate that everything that's been set up to this point is you know is is not. well he showed amazing courage. did he and he had he sat on obama was. running against hillary. ted had endorsed and in doing so sent a signal to the liberal wing of the party, but also to all the party professional that this guy was dependable. this white guy was good, reliable. yeah. you can go with him. and it was a great validation for barack obama's. and did he appear? he he appeared and endorsed he appeared. it was an endorsement. they rolled it out the typical kennedy rollout he did it maybe on saturday and then caroline had an op ed in the sunday new york times and on monday they appeared you know with and and then he went out and he campaign that that same spring and then he suffers the the brain tumor but he's determined he's going to speak at the democratic invention in denver and he's already come to death once because there was a pulmonary embolism that that a nurse fortune really got. but they put on an airplane and they take him out to denver. and along the way, all of a sudden, he's gripped by these awful pains and the staff and the family is going, oh, my god, this is awful. well, it turns out that he had a kidney stone probably from chemotherapy medicine. so they take him to a hospital in denver and he said later he said, i saw every ologist that there was and they diagnosed what it was. and they put him on this amazing morphine drip. and it because he's insisting he's going to go talk at the convention and he goes over to the convention and he's meeting with bob shrum, who has written this intricately tailored speech. there was is aphasia the correct word that he a problem with some words because of the brain tumor and and and shrum had to tailor the speech around those words and consonants that ted could use and others that he had trouble with were taken out. it's a 15 minute speech and they say ted says, i can't make it. you know, they all say you can't make it for 15 minutes. we got to cut this to 7 minutes. so he goes out on the stage of the democratic national convention sick with a brain tumor with a speech that he's never seen. and remember, code is prepare, prepare, prepare, know preparation whatsoever. and he got it out and he gives this minute speech and he he ends with a little reprise of the little twist of on the dream endures. and the goes on and. six months later when obama is inaugurated, we see what might have happened at moment because at the inauguration he has a seizure and falls down and it's all covered by that by the press but characteristic of ted the next day his call to joe biden's kids who happened to be there when he had seizure, wanted to reassure them that he was okay and he didn't want them to feel bad because. he had had the stroke and from he didn't want them scared. he was he was fine is what happens sometimes. and there's million stories in the oral histories and people i talked to about ted kennedy calling in the middle of the night, they're on their way to their parents funeral. somebody's been sick somebody's pet dog has died somebody didn't get a promotion that they wanted. and the phone rings and said, this is this is ted. you know, i just want you to know, you can you know, you can get through this. and they say that they're so odd that he who has endured so much is calling them to cheer up that it makes a huge difference in their lives. well, he knew that and that was a gift that he would over and over and over again. hmm. wow. i have like six more hours of questions. i am going to we're going to open it up now. there are mics on either side just if you have a question, let us it. but questions, please not comment for. hi. thank you. this is a question it going back to the rose issue, but i just want to introduce it a little elliptically to show you where i'm coming from. my grandmother, my father's mother also had nine kids and was also very religious. i never knew her. she died long before i was born, but i much older cousins because my father was one of the youngest and of them not too long ago. and i assume and he's a lovely guy said i never saw my grandmother show any affection to anybody and it hit me also somebody else i know that there are women with eight or nine or ten kids who don't really like. and is that really what we're saying about roles. one of the things that doris kearns goodwin writes is that and she interviewed roseanne for the was that her final conclusion was that there was a part of rose that was accused ousted from having nine children from being pregnant for nine pregnancies and. there was a part of her to that being brought up in a strict irish catholic faith was not as enthusiastic about sex as joe was. joe had this is speculation, but maybe you can tell me whether i'm right or wrong joe had the feeling that, you know, if this is good, if this is good enough of the roosevelts and the rockefeller then why can't a kennedy do it to, you know, i'm rich and powerful, too. i don't have to be bound by these these silly conventions and and rose dealt with it as her children always famously said by going to paris, traveling and spending money on frocks and jewelry. so there was there was a lot going on there, rather than, you know, i don't mean to beat up on rose. ted did cry at her funeral. i mean, she was she was a mom. she gave she gave them something along the way which was very important. and that was the the teachings of matthew and that we're in this for the least of us and to that to much is given much is expected. so we shouldn't be dumping too much on rosie. okay. the parents were so in the same place at the time that i talked exactly where he was. can seethed, because. joe was flying north. rose flying south. they met at a famous hotel in west virginia, greenbrier. the greenbrier. they were there for a couple of nights. this is going in the paperback edition. okay. then they went their separate directions and said to ted, i said, you know, this is where it began. this is where you get. and because they were so seldom together, you know, you could it like that. a strange urge to. is it working now. yeah we have a question from an online attendee. i wonder what would have happened if ted had spent the bulk of his career with 24 hour news channels? would have been able to cultivate those relationships. he detested. the gingrich era. a lot of people would blame newt gingrich, who made the famous statement that the problem with republicans that we haven't been nasty enough. and then took over the house of representatives and and displayed a breed nastiness that spread from the house to the senate and was encouraged by the advent of rush limbaugh and by nixon's old production manager, roger ailes, over fox news and transforming the political climate. and that, of course, leads to today's knee jerk trigger finger trigger happy happy social media atmosphere. you're behavior that that in many ways has that political leaders. well first of all they have to they have to raise so much money that they're on the phone all the time with donors. but the thing they want is to be able to go home and find that fox news or rush limbaugh, before he died, had whipped up the base against them and that is like against the the ted kennedy rules of rules of politics. he would have found, i think, some way to deal with it. he was a smart guy. he would have had smart guys around. but when it started and those acolytes started going over from the house, the senate, and changed the senate from great historic, the world's greatest deliberative body to the snake pit that it is today. he didn't like it at all. and and he lost a big one. he put together an amazing coalition for immigration reform with lindsey graham and barack obama and lindsey stood up there and said, we have a deal. and i'm telling you, if this deal doesn't, it's going to happen again. and it was a deal would have kept the borders and yet given amnesty to the people who were still here. let the dreamers stay. it was a great a great package. and he had ted, a disagreement with harry reid who refused to keep the senate in there was a recess coming up. the republican senators went back and. limbaugh and the others whipped up the base. and the republicans came back and said we got to we got to back out of it. and the democrats not you know, not to blame it on the republicans. democrats said, fine we want the issue anyway. we'd rather take this and win the hispanic vote. and but he came that to a comprehensive solution to the immigration bill. and that was at a time when gingrich acolytes lindsey graham were beginning to appear in the senate and he managed to get them to come along. i always kind of felt that ted kennedy's faith was a little bit like his being from boston, the whole family from boston or their faith was kind of used, their political gains, but actually, when his daughter suffering from cancer, he to the mission hill church and prayed, was faith important to him and it a genuine part of his life the greatest remark that i've heard about faith and the carnival, if you look at them, you say, okay so you know how could they have been devout catholics where sex out of marriages of mortal sin and still jack kennedy was said to have done knelt at his and said his prayers at night. and the british ambassador who was a close friend of his at the time when he was president, went to jack and said, you know, there's an inconsistency here. and and jack said, well, you know, yeah, we break the rules, but it's important not to lose the basis of our faith because in times of crisis, in times of trouble, it's a great thing to fall back on. and if you it entirely, then you don't have. that is a very, very it was a very transactional of you know they would be they would be what's called now cafeteria catholics people who who picked and chose from the dogma. but but there was never any doubt that those that of luke to whom much is given much is expected. the beatitudes that sermons the mount from matthew were true guiding parts of ted kennedy's life. now he had a period after bobby was killed where says that he was devastated and he despaired and later in his life he came back to religion and it was important to him, possibly because vicki came from a religious catholic family, from and they. read rediscovered his faith. and it was a comfort to him at the end, they learned a lot from their father, too. how to get away with breaking the rules. i do my research. i went to austin, texas, where think i'm the only person who did research in the lbj library and the gloria swanson papers which are in the harry ransom very close and long gloria swanson had had her ex-husband she had married again writer of biography and was asked to tape her reminisced and she never got into the book but there's her letters handwritten. letters and she said, you know joe is joe had it all figured out. he said he, do whatever he wanted to do. and then on sunday he'd go to confession and he said it was like for the rest of us, like washing our he'd go to confession, having washed his hands. he'd come right back and visit me again and she said, i'm the fool. i put up with it. mr. farrell, you've written. four biographies, one about clarence darrow, a man that you obviously never met. weren't alive when he was alive. you've also written one about richard nixon, a man whom i presume you never but have memories of a as a person growing up. you've also written about tip o'neill a man. i presume that you did know personally and professionally, and also now most recently your book about ted kennedy, a man. i also presume with your work with the globe new personally and professionally and i was wondering what challenges there or how is it different when? you're writing about someone that you knew personally versus when you're writing about someone you've never met and alive. when that person was alive and writing about someone that you didn't know and never met. but you were alive when they were alive. if there is any difference. no. first off, it's much easier to do a book when everybody's dead dead. and i'm going to make a confession. and i've got some editors from former editors here in the audience tonight and and my sister, who might challenge this. but i am basically very shy person and hardest thing for me as a newspaper reporter was to ask prying questions. it got to the point at one point in my career where i a hard time actually picking up the phone and making making phone calls. i had to do it in person because it was the only way i could, like, absolve myself, myself. so to really difficult questions for me is it was a professional hurdle that i that i had to get over and asking, you know talking to patrick about is dad to vicki about her her husband. those are those are really tough things. it's much easier to go do clarence darrow and we told newspapers about his stirring speeches in the courtroom. there's a there was a big problem with the three irishmen, nixon was irish. we forget that he was, but he was irish. there's a there was with the two irish catholics. there was this reticence of lack of self-reflection and no self analysis for the public whatsoever, even if you did if you did manage to do it in private you never talked about it in public. nixon was always saying, oh, not, don't, don't put me on the couch. and then immediately going realms of self analysis and psychological as well. so he was a very easy one to capture a personality. ted was ted was very hard and and ron powers did great job as the ghost on the memoirs. and vicki did a great job prodding him to to go further and further and here's a story as well. when i heard that he was going to do memoirs, this is before he got sick, i sent him a note. i was i was out and about. i left the globe and i said, if need a ghost, i would be honored volunteering for the job. and i had written the book on on tip o'neill. i knew boston. i thought was a good candidate and said and i said, but, you know, just so we know from the start i'm really going to push hard because it's not going to be a good book unless you unless you talk about stuff that that that people want to know and wrote back a nice note saying well we've decided to go in another direction but ron ron and managed to get out of him arduously. i understand some measure of self reflection which really makes that memoir special and actually me a basis for my analysis of his personality his in his feelings of inadequacy and you know this doesn't come jack's brain from zuse this is from from reading a lot of the oral histories and for reading especially his memoirs and his oral histories thank you. sure. we have a question from. a virtual guest from dublin. is it known what ted's favorite part about his trip to ireland was. he made many trips to ireland? i know he was there right before the good friday agreement and that was a great matter of pride and a great matter of effort for many many years on his behalf. the the problem with northern and of course sister the ambassador who thought was going to be a a nobody and turned out to be the hidden hidden gem in story. there was another time that he went to ireland in 19 seven, so i believe it was 70 or 71, and he gave the edmund burke lecture at trinity college. and it's an amazing speech because it speaks out and we talk about that now and gingrich reaching across the aisle in 1970. he makes this speech and he says, you know, we've just gone through the sixties, but a life of slow and relentless progress and reform is superior to the flame of a movement that burns. and that was a that was a great as far as what his political tactics and strategy were. but the most poignant visit to ireland that i know of was on his way home after jfk was assassinated the following spring. ted had two duties. one was he was chosen to be because he was the happy go lucky guy. he didn't have any feelings. he was the lightweight he was chosen to be the one who met with earl warren and go through details of the assassination of jfk, something that patrick told me never left ted was was akin to post-trauma stress disorder because all his life, constant references in the media about the murder, a brother and the other thing he did that spring was, he had to go overseas to raise money for this place. and he he went to a lot of places on his he stopped in ireland and on a sunny day in limerick, 100,000 people came out and they welcomed him. many. and he gave a speech and when jfk had visited ireland and left he said, i'll be back in the springtime, and ted ended, his speech by saying, i'm brother was here. he said he'll be back in the springtime. well, there will be no more springtime and he won't be coming back. very point, poignant moment. i'm getting choked up just talking about it now. but there was a true feeling of love for ireland and. it most clearly manifested in the northern ireland issue. before he passed away that august, if i remember correctly, the captain of uss constitutional allowed him to go to the helm which i think would be a great honor because his he was just about gone as it was was. what i'd like to know is that he was going through all of these trials and tribulations was, this bringing humor and they him onto the floor, a vote. this man had to have some of the most amazing courage and integrity to be able to go through what he did and i don't trust you. i've studied a little bit about it. where did this come from after all this horror his entire family went through, yeah. it was the horror that that led to that because he he this compelling need to honor jack and bob's memories. and later on the other family members that that he lost. he was he was torn apart when jfk died and he had to go and supervise the moving of the remains and the funeral. but it was this i it was this this absolutely compelling need. i mean, any one of us might have said, forget it. i'm the last male in the family. i've got two assassins hanging out the bushes and telling me. you know, the capital. i'm going to go to the mediterranean and sail. you know, i'm going to get behind the wheel of a big sailing boat and go up the coast of of california like i did when i was a kid. but he didn't he stayed with it because he just he he could do no other thing. and i think that when he got sick, that same dry took over on an an overall spiritual level, but also because he saw that obama was in and he had gotten obama to give him this promise, that he would do health care and and he worked at health care and he enlisted is he got all all the different interests in a room together. they hammered out a bill they could all live with. and when obama was sworn in, they gave it to obama and and obama felt this obligation so that at the after the bill was passed, after ted had died. obama went to a party and then he went back up to the quarters of the white house. and he said, i thought of two things. i thought of my mom who had died of breast cancer and thought of ted kennedy. thank you for. what? what made senator staff so excellent and what does that kind of share for inspiring excellent public service a next generation of service today. jfk and the new frontier just an astonishing effect. and on a whole generation and every bright young kid who was interested in politics wanted to go to washington if had a liberal bent or party background and go to work for the kennedys, the kennedy white house, the new frontier, and when ted then took over the mantle. and bobby had been killed, they all wanted to work, ted. and so he had like, you know, summa cum laude, a harvard law guy is going to be taking $20,000 a year jobs as as committee. and he had dave burke who he got the kennedy white house to be his chief of staff, who then later go on to be the president of abc. i mean, these were really top notch people. he had some people that stayed with him all of all their lives and all his life, guys like carey parker, who was a brilliant strategist and speechwriter, reader of the senate floor, if if kennedy had an alter ego in the senate, it was it was. and but it was also a place where you you joined in a fraternity, this great web of contacts still exists. aoc is probably the the latest one to talk about her days. the mailroom in the kennedy office and and they're all they if they had a flaw it was arrogance because they were cocky young smart people. and ted had a way every once in a while to bring him down to earth. and he say, you know, i wish i could have a speech as good as my brother has. or he'd say to it to an aide, you know, i don't need these mistakes. i'm quite good enough, as you've seen making them myself. and then harvard graduate would be in tears and dave burke have put his arm around him and walk them around the, you know three or four times around the senate office and come down and then but the next day, teddy would be smiling. boss. hey, you doing? you know. and maybe he'd say i'm sorry, but, you know, if you had to go home for a funeral of your uncle, there would be a phone call at. the at the funeral home, and it'd be ted asking to talk to your aunt. and it was that kind of dedication it was it was a two way relationship. it we have another question that you get the senators without cooperate your biography of her husband. yes and no. vicki was extraordinarily gracious in talking to me. but not helpful meeting my requests for. for example, ted kennedy's diary. it's sitting here somewhere in what they call courtesy storage for his entire life. he would talk into a tape recorder after meeting a president or after a senate debate, and it would be sent to somebody to transfer, tried and i knew it was there because when i was doing my ted kennedy i with my tip o'neill book, i interviewed ted about all kennedy o'neill stories. and it was explained to me that somebody had been sent here to look through the files, find the diary entries, and send a briefing book down ted. because ted, he was very conscious about history and he wanted to be accurate and he wanted to tell it the right way, according to him, so he would have this briefing book. well, what would happen is occasion instead of packing it up safely and sending it back to to the vaults here, somebody would slip it into a folder, especially if it was material for a speech, and then they would the diary entries into a a speechwriters folder and i found that by plucking luck, by going through the different files in the national archives and some here you could find segments of the diary from vietnam the confirmation with alito and judge roberts about confirmation to the supreme court and several other things. the bangladesh, which we're celebrating this week. so it was skullduggery that was taught to me by some of the people in this room who would be embarrassed if i was to their name, steve curtin. but it out well, but vicki did not choose to share that perhaps because there's not a unanimous feeling in the family about what to do them yet i'm furious at the united states congress for the piddling amount of money that they give the archivists here and so the process is so slow on processing ted kennedy's senate papers. so know in about 20 or 30 years, which is usually the gap between great biographies of somebody, somebody is going to actually write a biography that's close to definitive but as helpful as vicki. she did not supply stuff to me and eventually somebody will get it and write hell of a book and maybe they'll maybe they'll publish as ted kennedy's diary and it'll sell a million copies. right. last question. sure. you've mentioned, patrick, several times, and it strikes me that in the same way which ted perhaps felt freed, not pursuing the presidency further to be able to focus his efforts in making a difference in the senate that he in many ways granted patrick that same in encouraging him or pointing out he didn't have to stay in elected office and and sure enough he likewise has become arguably even more of a national leader on mental health and addiction issues. and given that there's so much greater appreciation for those in the wake of the pandemic. curious as to your take having connected with him on opportunity for him to build on that and continue that legacy of his father's and his in in advancing those concerns? well, the two of them, the two of their lives has sort of followed it a track with. you know, patrick had great political success as a representative, despite the fact that he came a famous father a famous family and a dynamic father, just as ted did. but in both cases, there instances of substance abuse problems and personal crises with with coming in later generation. there was there were drug issues which he candidly explains. but there was also working hard during the day to be to make his dad proud of him like ted did. and then there's there's a crisis. and in patrick's case, leaves public office. ted stayed public office. but he he finds a new life with a family away from the turmoil that had existed before and seems to be doing well and and he picks up, you know, an option was always open to ted because it was done by gene and eunice, which was, you know, you don't have to make that. you don't have to run for office to make great improvements and to make gentle the life of the world is as ted and bobby used to say you do it by inventing the special mimics and patrick seems be doing that right now with mental health as you said in i want to thank jack for an extraordinary interview and and even better but so go by the book and i want to thank the audience you've been great college professor. i always look to see many people head for the hills and that door. and how many people sort of nod off and you did neither. so congratulate. thank you and thank you also to our audience, our virtual audience, wherever they thanks again and good morning. my name is jonathan white and i'm the vice chair of the lincoln forum. it is a pleasure to introduce to you d leonard.