Bob Shrum Recalls Ted Kennedy's Greatest Speech

Senator Edward Kennedy

Susan Walsh / AP

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Last summer, as I flew toward Denver for the Democratic Convention on a small jet with Ted Kennedy, his family and a few friends, I thought of another convention 28 years before. It was the one Kennedy addressed in New York City after losing the Democratic nomination for President to Jimmy Carter. The speech Kennedy hoped to deliver in Denver would echo the earlier one, although a slight change in the closing words would make for a profound shift in mood. The robust Kennedy of 1980, announcing "The dream shall never die," was a young lion in winter, defiant in his beliefs even in defeat. The ailing Kennedy of 2008, stricken with incurable cancer but sailing every afternoon, told me that he was determined to conclude with an affirmation of hope. So the convention and the country would not hear the word die from him. Instead, in that distinctive and commanding voice, he would proclaim, "The dream lives on."

Ironically, we were thinking of the future in 1980 too, despite the hard reality of our loss. Carter's fortunes had risen in the spring as people rallied behind him when 52 Americans were taken hostage in Iran. He would be doomed by the same crisis when it lasted into the fall, but in the meantime, he invoked it to cancel his one scheduled debate with Kennedy and decline all future ones. Kennedy had surged several times in the long contest. It surprised even us when he trounced Carter in New York. Expecting Kennedy to be defeated, I had originally drafted a statement for him to deliver on the night of that primary that was not just a concession but also a withdrawal from the race. Though the speech wasn't given, its language would be woven into the convention speech two months later. (See a pictorial tribute to Ted Kennedy.)

A speech at the convention would be the only chance in the entire campaign for Kennedy to communicate with Americans in an unmediated way. It was also the last, best chance to make the case for a change in national policies and direction. Kennedy and Carter had deep and principled differences on issues like national health insurance. Kennedy was convinced that unless the party stood for its defining values — and unless Carter at least gave a sense that the next four years could be different — Democrats would be doomed in the fall. We negotiated hard for a speaking slot; Carter's forces were fearful of letting Kennedy anywhere near the podium before a rules vote on Monday sealed the President's renomination. But to deny Kennedy after that would have shattered the convention and the party irrevocably. (See TIME's complete Ted Kennedy coverage.)

What we were conceded was 15 minutes during the debate on the party platform on Tuesday night. At the event, Kennedy took 45, and the applause rolled on for an hour more. He spoke "not to argue as a candidate but to affirm a cause"; as his voice rang out his vision of change, I watched the delegates, ours and then Carter's, on their feet and on their chairs, swept up in waves of cheering. I had a unique vantage point, sitting on the steps just below the podium, a spot where Kennedy could glance down and see me at any time. He had a superstitious belief — half playful, half serious — that the teleprompter would break, as it had for the hapless governor who placed JFK's name in nomination at the 1960 convention. If it happened that night, the plan was that Kennedy would look toward me, and I would utter a number to tell him what page of the typed text to turn to.

He delivered a master class that night in taking on Ronald Reagan — not with heavy-handed scaremongering but rather with a light touch that was all the more devastating for its sense of incredulity. "The same Republicans who are talking about preserving the environment have nominated a man who last year made the preposterous statement, and I quote, 'Eighty percent of our air pollution comes from plants and trees.' And that nominee is no friend of the environment." The convention rejoiced as Kennedy arraigned Reagan for a string of similar absurdities; we had discovered in Reagan's past radio shows a previously ignored gold mine of stunning quotes. Kennedy ended the indictment with one of the most far-fetched: "Fascism was really the basis of the New Deal." Then he drove the point home. "And that nominee, whose name is Ronald Reagan, has no right to quote Franklin Delano Roosevelt" — which Reagan did all the time.

See TIME's photo-essay "A Kennedy Family Album."

Read "The TIME 100: Schwarzenegger On Kennedy."