Nation: The Anguish of Edward Kennedy

• Share

(2 of 2)

Some longtime Kennedy supporters even seemed to be in the process of withdrawing from the family legend they had served so long. Theodore Sorensen, who supervised the drafting of Kennedy's televised explanation of Chappaquiddick, said on a television talk show last week: "I don't think that that, [his conduct] being so recent in the minds of the public, and that being so clear an indication of his action under pressure, he should try for the presidency in 1972." Privately, some of Kennedy's friends are baffled, and doubting even their own defense of him. A few do not rule out the possibility that he will leave politics entirely.

At the end of the week, Kennedy seemed freshly determined to try to re-establish a normal senatorial routine. In one of his rare post-Chappaquiddick appearances, he and his son attended the "Northeast Special Olympics" for mentally retarded children in Boston. With the coming of the inquest into Mary Jo Kopechne's death, however, Teddy Kennedy's private anguish is bound to intensify. It, as much as anything that the inquest produces, must be counted as a major factor in Kennedy's future.