of democratic massachusetts senator ted kennedy. to his political ascendency and tenuring congress. this event hosted by the boston public library last and hour and a half. >> good evening everyone. i am david boeri of wbur's radio boston. is a pleasure to be here to talk about "last lion" and if you get me, if you look toward my right, you will see a field as big as the democratic presidential primaries in new hampshire. every four years. [laughter] this is a remarkable arqeutte of history that we are going to try to cover tonight. and, interestingly enough it is a remarkable arc of the history of the "boston globe." i think of, at the beginning some of the hall-of-famers, marty noland, the late david night and bob healy, curtis whipkey, tom lafont among others all leading to the reporters and columnists before you here. so, with that big and art and that much history to cover we are going to have to start moving quickly. the third section tonight will be questions and answers from the floor so feel free to come down. there is a microphone right here and if you have questions you can keep up. we have c-span with us tonight as well and they are recording as you will notice, so let's begin. >> congratulations. >> thank you. >> this is, this is really an extraordinary kind of project, highly unusual to have a team of reporters. it is almost booker fee by committee and committee chairman. how did this project, about? >> this project came about, i think after senator kennedy announced his brain cancer, people began to get him with a slightly different eyes. he is a very polarizing figure. he is somebody about whom people tended to have very fix abuse. there were a lot of people who love ted kennedy from the '60s and there were a lot of people who decided that he was either too liberal for them or morally compromised the year and just ted sort of the caricature in their mind of ted kennedy. when they realized that he was suffering from brain cancer and in all the news coverage that went around that i think people were willing to look at ted kennedy differently. now, at the same time we of the globe where cogitating of that information people let simon & schuster also were interested in this and we are looking for a biography and it turned out there was no better resourced for information, no better group of reporters, people who knew ted kennedy and could follow the entire arc of his career so we felt like it was both part of our newspapers a journalistic mission to try to make sense of this man's half century in power is the dominant figure in new england and in massachusetts, but also to provide a definitive biography about someone whom there has not been a definitive biography. >> so, peter when you when your fellow writers here, were you solicited to write the book or were you assigned to read the book is part of your duties as employees of the club? >> no, no, no. there was an approach made and there was also the internal discussion about how we wanted to approach the canedy story. ultimately we ended up doing a very conventional type of book proposal after we had settled on how we were going to do this series for the newspaper so it developed naturally like any normal book project would. >> so, to be clear this is a global book. >> this is a global but absolutely and it draws on the people next to me and also on some of the memories of some of our retirees who covered the earliest of kennedy's race is. >> and, you took on, you took on the role of editor. >> yeah, i was the story editor and sort of plot it out how we would approach the story and what would be considered part of each chapter and sort of what this story arc would be and then worked with the editor of the globe to assign reporters to each section and we obviously know this stuff very well between us and we were able to i thank find the right people to cover each period in kennedy's career. >> so, you had stories, editorial meetings? >> some of them had a brainstorm and quality where people would talk about their own memories of senator kennedy. and, you know people would debate back-and-forth whether certain episodes in his life, certain aspects of his personal background, you know this is a man for whom his family background and legacy was a very defining experience. but, how those parts of his background impacted later decisions and things of there was a lot of discussion along the way. >> now, you have these various reporters. everybody has a different voice. how do we deal with all the different voices and writing styles? >> each one's idiosyncratic riding style? >> first of all i think the writers were all very cognizant of the fact that they were writing a book that would have a larger narrative to it so i don't think that anybody decided to you know go off half cocked and in stylistic direction. that was how much appreciated certainly by me, but then both through the talking out of the different sections with people and editing it afterwards we were able to add enough sort of connective tissue and make sure things that been referenced in earlier chapters and in some cases people sections and contributions were then divided and so it became more of a chronological narrative so some material by his family that had been in the last part was put in part of the 1970's when it was actually happening so there was a little bit more structural editing as well. >> subcommand you would, i take it there is certainly a narrative flow to this, but that u.s. editor are inserting other people suggestions and inserting material here and there. >> we believe that this book reads like it had one author, but it is a full narrative then certainly pleased that people's responses, the people responded to it that way but i also say that this was put together in a matter of six or seven months but having seven primary riders drawing on the experiences of other people at the globe and as i mentioned before some of the retirees is the equivalent of having ten to 15 topnotch writers working for six months, which is like having a major but prefers spending eight or ten years with this subject so we really do consider this a-- >> you couldn't help but notice in the middle of the globe series i think it was february 22nd, the senator emerged if only to talk to "the new york times" to make the point which was a coach who won, that he is still alive. [laughter] >> i don't know if that was their response to our series or some gossip saying he was not going to return to the senate and we are very pleased to see that he did return to the senate today. he participated in president obama's health care for the men looked great. >> he sounded terrific. we don't watch television where we work. we listen to it. he sounded terrific. you did not interview senator kennedy during the course of the project. why not? >> senator kennedy as most people know has signed a number it will go come at least a year ago, maybe two years ago to do his own memoirs which he is presumably working on on the longer path but i think is a contractual obligation not to talk to any reporters about his life so tv, biographers whatever he is not done any interviews. but i was going to say david, given that restriction that is not talking about his life for this contractual reason, our reporters have had frequent nearly constant contact with him over the years of the book does include new information directly from him, including susan milligan who has covered him for washington bureau and some really interesting surprising things that he has told her in past reduce. >> did this senator make it possible for you to talk to some people? did he get people the okay to talk to you? did he get the cooperation? >> this book contains fresh interviews with his closest friends, his closest friends from childhood, his closest friends from harvard, his closest friends from law school, his cousins, mary jo guard and his crew up with them in lived with him through a period as a child come included interviews with his nieces and nephews of most of the people who we wanted to get wheat ended up getting which was really gratifying. >> interesting ottley and of the senate, the senator whose own book, his autobiography which is titled true compass was scheduled to come out in november of 2010 has now been moved up to the october 27th of 2009. [laughter] do you think that was because of the club? >> i don't think so. i think it was because of his illness. >> he has moved it up to 2009, but it is unfortunate because of course adam clymer had about 21-- in the course of his biography. it might have helped, but they make it the point, the publishing company made the point of saying this is the globe's count was not the authorized account. i guess that means involving-- >> the authorized account is obviously his own account and i think people will look forward to his memoirs. he is a fascinating figure. he has been a dominant figure in politics for the last 50 years and has been part of the great history but obviously these memoirs, particularly someone who is not known to be reflected but whose own actions have been so much a part of these decisions, there's a tremendous interest in hearing his perspective but on the other hand as perspective is only a part of the story, so i think that it was a liberating factor for us that this was not in any way intended to be his own story. >> of course, it is no surprise, no surprise that all to expect, given the senators medical condition, that all the media outlets in town have prepared obituaries in the event. i mean, that is what we do as a profession. when fact is obituary has been written a number of times over the decades. that is what we do to be prepared. any reason, well, i should ask it this way. i should put it this way, there was a reason to publish now instead of waiting until the end of the last chapter? >> well, i mean as we saw today the last chapter may not be written for a while. i think that the interest in senator kennedy did start when people started looking at him with a slightly different eyes, after the cancer diagnosis. there may have been building on even a sense of reassessment that has been developing over the years. i think that people with long been his foes, we talk of this friendship with many republicans and i think people who saw him as an ideological figure came to admire him as somebody who was a very hard worker and a crusader for what he believed in and sort of he earned newt respect to the last couple of decades. so, i think this is an appropriate time and certainly the attention we have gotten and the interests, the interest from the sources and talking about him suggest that this is an ideal time to do a book. >> you could always revisit it with another edition in the future, but isn't it a possibility that some people come upon the senators death might feel less obligated to hold what they know for what they might it held because of the trust? that typically happens with biographies. >> i don't know about that. certainly ted kennedy is a major figure that people will continue to assess for decades and i would guess perhaps 100 years from now there will be somebody scavenging through the archives, may be looking at the c-span report to try to find information about center kennedy. he is the dominant figure in this seemed like quite the right moment to be doing a story of the full arc of his like and there is no doubt that in the future, long after his death people will be continuing to assess and reassess his life. >> ten years have passed since adam clymer's fd and highly praised by korphe cold edward m. kennedy the by egger free. >> you have mentioned one, that it has been ten years. that biax f.e. focus the lot on sort of a particular period in his senate career. i think that senator kennedy's life telling it in a narrative way the way that we do, again capturing the complete the art of how his early experiences shaped his later fuse, that this is a story that has not been told and it has not been told this way. >> can you give me a couple of highlights that you have done? >> there are many, many things that those of us who knew a lot about the kennedys can find. one is we were able to in a fairly rigorous way look at his legacy up to this point in certain key areas and i think that when you look at it in terms of him being the dominant figure really of the last 30 or 40 years in areas like, really for areas, health care, education, civil-rights and education and look what does happen including what has happened just in the last ten years in those areas to preserve that legacy. you know it is quite eye opening. if you talk to people today with the health care summit going on about ted kennedy's advocacy for health care they would say yes he is fought the good fight. when you look at what he has done, both to be there in the inception for medicare and medicaid but then preserve and expand medicare and medicaid over the years including in recent years, and things like cobra, things like hipaa which prevent people from experiencing job discrimination because of preexisting conditions. when you look at the work he is that in quadrupling the funding at the nih in the last in years but back in the inception and the war on cancer. this is a legacy that is transform the relationship between the government in citizens even though people perceive it to be sort of an unfinished agenda item for him, so being able to see the full arc of his career and extent of his legacy will be quite eye opening. >> was there anything particularly surprising to you, peter? >> one thing that was surprising to me was how lonely his childhood was. something that we talked about what bella who covered that but we all saw the pictures of the kennedys romping on the beach and imagined it to be a big family full of love and excitement. in fact, for ted kennedy it was a boarding school childhood, changing schools constantly, always exposed to new friends, always losing older friends and then when he was slightly older as a child, the kennedy tragedy started to occur and his brother, joe jr., died when he was 12 and his sister kathleen died when he was 16 and his brother jack earlier and that had a near-death experience. so, it was always coming back to hyannisport to sort of tend to grieving parents in to try to be cheerful presence as the rest of the family had to reconstitute a ground these experiences. >> with that, let's move to fellow reporter bella english. it was extraordinary, it was extraordinary last may. to me what was personally revelatory was just the number of people that came out of the woodwork with stories about what ted kennedy had done, so you have bella english from the boston globe. you have three brothers, three different personalities and i dare say that neither jack nor bobby ever made friends with firefighters. teddy had firefighters for friends. >> teddy tech after his grandmother honey fitz it was the mayor of boston. people say that teddy was a lot more like honey fitz then he was like his father, joe. honey fitz, he loved everybody, he loved his hometown. he took teddy, he was than that milton academy, every sunday they would go out to the church or lewisburg square and also go down to the courts where honey had all of these the italian ire simmon and friends that he introduced teddy to in josey near often said and so did jack and bobby that teddy was the most natural campaigner and the best politician in the family and i think some of that had to do with his position in the family. he was the last of nine children. get to fight for air time. he took on the role of the sort of family mascot. he was fun. he was the pet of the family. they doted on him and spoiled him and loved him and he knew what his job was and he did it very well. >> i want you to share with us some of the letters come to your credit, that you uncovered. those letters are just remarkable and i think they speak to how the family, that parents shaped his personality. of course he is the runs in the litter and there is that aspect of him being there runs in the letter but those parents, the letters are extraordinary. >> the kennedy family never threw anything away apparently come much to my pleasure why spend a lot of time in the jfk library, and went through rose's journals and files and joe sr.'s files and lots of friends. and what i found was that the kennedy parents are really tough. as peter said you have these images of these great football games at hyannisport andy sailing images and that was true. they gave their children all of the privileges of wealth but they expected a lot in return. that was the burnish of the kennedy brand. so it grows-- rose is obsessed with learning, upset with learning. they were both upset with protection. second place was not good enough. no losers in the family, no wyden, etc. i'm just going to read you an excerpt from a couple of rows's letters only because i cannot do prejustice. so, this is after teddy became a senator. he is a grown man. rose would write to him to chide him about his grammar. i which would pay attention to this matter. u.s home after a preposition, for whom the bell tolls. if you listen to jack's beaches you will notice the always use this word correctly. u.s the objective case in english and later on when she was 85 years old and ted was a third term senator, she wrote him i watched you speak about drugs last friday night. please say if i were president, not if i was president. [laughter] there is more. the reason is the old what used to be known in latin as condition contrary to that. for instance if i were he, said ressa you get the idea in these letters went on and on throughout all of the kids' lives. >> very, very high standards but for him rather sadly low expectations. he was constantly disappointing his parents. >> that is true. he was not a very good student. and, he unfortunately was the pudgy kid in the family. the kennedys or all obsessed with weight so there are many letters referring to teddy's way them being the fat kid in the family, a pretty brutal but i think he was the victim of low expectations. being the youngest of nine, he wasn't taken very seriously and then sort of the huge irony is on page 36 he became the patriarch of the family and the one film took the mantle of liberal democratic voice fell upon. he was not prepared for it. who would be? >> let's talk about ted in his '30's. last year i had the opportunity to listen to the 1962 debate between ted kennedy and edward mccormack who was then attorney general of the state of massachusetts, the nephew of the house speaker. no slouch in his own right. the nephew of the house speaker and the democratic presidential primary, ted it just turned 30 years old, and this is a time capsule. it really comes out in a time capsule because the debate was not called the debate. it happened in south boston. it was called the symposium on the responsibility of men in government. you would wins if you heard that today. and nobody could get away with that. a you would also wince when you would hear that debate in which young ted kennedy is just broad-sided by eddie mccormack who stepped out of character and just lambasted him. neil swidey that is the famous line. that is the famous line that haunted ted for a long time and that line was-- >> if you were it that were-- it would be a joke. >> adi mccormack was right. >> that is the interesting thing. when you look at-- sorry. do i need to turn this on? >> we will recite the line again. deliver the line again neil swidey. >> if your name, is it was or were? [laughter] remember rose. >> if your name were edward kennedy, edward moore, this, your candidacy would be a joke. >> and, he was right. >> i think what is interesting, bella mentioned when he was 36, he was the patriarch of the family. the area i covered was the 1