Kennedy, Edward M(oore), also called Ted Kennedy 1932-
US politician

Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, the youngest son of Joseph Kennedy and brother of John F Kennedy and Robert F Kennedy, he was educated at Harvard and Virginia University Law School and admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1959. He was elected as a Democratic senator to fill John F Kennedy's old Massachusetts seat in 1962. In 1969 he became the youngest-ever majority Whip in the US senate, but his involvement the same year in a car accident on Chappaquidick Island in which a young campaign worker, Mary Jo Kopechne, was drowned dogged his subsequent political career, and was still a major liability during his unsuccessful campaign to win the Democratic presidential nomination in 1980. Despite the apparent disorder of his personal life, he has been one of the most influential members of the Senate for more than three decades, focusing on issues such as health care and serving as an advocate for the working class and middle class.

Bibliography: William H Honan, Ted Kennedy: Portrait of a Survivor (1972)