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Ted Sorensen: Scribe of a
Lost and Valiant Incandescence: The Age of
Kennedy By Eve Berliner |
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Ted Sorensen,
presidential speechwriter, special counsel and close advisor, with John F.
Kennedy in days of glory. |
In the end, they became
friends, the unbearable bond of the tragedy drew them together. There was great respect and admiration. |
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By Eve Berliner Now the trumpet
summons us again – not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a
call to battle, though embattled we are – but a call to bear the burden of a long
twilight struggle, year in and year out, rejoicing in hope, patient in
tribulation, a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war
itself... My fellow citizens
of the world: Ask not what America will
do for you, but what together we can do
for the freedom of man. John F.
Kennedy Inaugural Address January 20,
1961 *
* * The jugular thrust of
history that tore the promise from our hearts, the noble dream shattered. We were all so young, so
full of the joy, so moved and inflamed by the vision, inspired by the poetry
of the calling. Ted Sorensen,
presidential speechwriter/knight of the plume of the Kennedy Age, the
language that moved a nation with its power.
The bond went deep. They
were as two brothers, John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Theodore Chaikin Sorensen,
set apart by nature and ancestry, wealth and social distinction, and yet, a
meeting of the minds; the one, startling and wildly charismatic, brilliant;
the other, the younger man, a Nebraska boy, more understated, deeply moral, a
vast discerning intellect, both sharing a love of history, the wisdom of the
Scriptures, a fierce idealism. It was a beautiful
collaboration of souls. Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and
the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's
blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which
man has ever embarked. John F.
Kennedy Rice University Address
'We Choose to Go to the Moon" September
12, 1962 Through the convulsions
and the exhilarations, the tense nuclear brinkmanship of the Cuban missile
crisis, [Sorensen, a judicious force in the critical secret communications
with Khrushchev], the Berlin standoff – to the racial eruptions that seared
the American consciousness, the birth of the Peace Corps and the moon shot,
Sorensen's voice, his counsel, his cautious wisdom, his power of the pen,
crucial. They were warriors for
human justice. We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at home, but are we to say to the world, and much more importantly, to each other that this is the land of the free except for the Negroes; that we have no second-class citizens except Negroes; that we have no class or caste system, no ghettoes, no master race with respect to Negroes…We face, therefore a moral crisis as a country and as a people. John F. Kennedy, Radio and Television
Report to the American People on Civil Rights June 11,
1963 They
were warriors for peace. According to the
ancient Chinese proverb, "A journey of a thousand miles must begin with
a single step." My fellow Americans,
let us take that first step. Let us,
if we can, step back from the shadows of war and seek out the way of
peace. And if that journey is a
thousand miles, or even more, let history record that we, in this land, at
this time, took the first step. John F. Kennedy, Nuclear Test Ban
Treaty Address to the American People July 26,
1963 What kind of peace
do we seek? Not a Pax Americana
enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security
of the slave. I am talking about
genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living… I speak of peace
because of the new face of war…It makes no sense in an age when a single
nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all
the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly
poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by the wind and water
and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet
unborn… The United States,
as the world knows, will never start a war.
We do not want a war. We do not
now expect a war. This generation of
Americans has already had enough – more than enough – of war and hate and
oppression. John F.
Kennedy Commencement Address American
University, June 10, 1963 Confident and
unafraid, we labor on—not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a
strategy of peace. John F.
Kennedy Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Address American
University, June 10, 1963 * * * "Ted Sorensen was a
very important figure," Robert Kennedy was to acknowledge in his oral
history for the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, "Whenever it became a difficult matter, whether it was
domestic or… foreign policy, if it was difficult, Ted Sorensen was brought
in." The relationship with
Bobby had not been easy. There had
been an undercurrent, a subterranean, almost sibling element – suspicion,
resentment, a certain jealousy, on both sides
– the two vying unconsciously
for the President's confidence, that one day exploded in a field during a
touch football game with JFK, when Bobby shoved Ted rather brutally and
brought him down hard to the muddy ground. An enmity that slowly
eased amid deepening respect, dissolved in the grief of JFK's death and the
spiritual and empathic changes it wrought in Bobby. They became brothers in
grief. * * * He enters the National
Arts Club tentatively, amidst the crowd, an isolation about him in the near
blindness of his eyes, at age 80, amazingly youthful, having just walked the
city, alone, to his destination at Gramercy Park. "True, I don't see
much but I have more vision than the current President of the United
States," Ted declares to his enthralled Silurian audience. He has written a
monumental memoir of his life, delving, brilliant, honest, soul -baring,
deeply beautiful and gripping, a personal and
brave reminiscence of his years with John Kennedy in the White House,
his beginnings, the 40 years of distinguished international law work that
followed, memorable encounters with renowned world leaders such as Castro,
Sadat and Mandela. As for the political
scene today, Ted Sorensen is, of course, an ardent supporter and occasional
advisor to Barack Obama. "I am a foot
soldier in the Obama Brigade." At audience probing, he
envisions victory for Obama "in a narrow race" reminiscent of John F. Kennedy's tense historic 1960 win. He allows himself a
moment of reverie: "A second Kennedy term would have been the Golden Age
of American politics and government," he smiles gently. He will not talk about
the assassination. "It was the worst
day of my life." * * * The deep conscience was borne
of both his mother and father. His mother, a lioness, a
pacifist, a great nurturer, a Suffragette and a writer, his father, a love of
the art of politics, Attorney General of the State of Nebraska, a
powerful debater, fought against the
death penalty and racial injustice. The two greatest blows
of Theodore Sorensen's life, his
mother's descent into insanity during his boyhood and the death of John F.
Kennedy. The pain diminishes but
never dies. At home, the treasured
photograph of the President and his special counsel, Ted Sorensen, as they
depart the West Wing in the golden March 1963 sunlight. The inscription is
written by Jackie: "To Ted, who walked with the President so much of the
way and who helped him climb to greatness." And another cherished
note from Jackie accompanying a collection of JFK's personal doodles, drawn
by him during the Cuban missile crisis: "For Ted – who saved them then, and
gave them to me in Hyannis Port on my birthday last year. I want you to have them now, with my love
always, for all you were to him." It is to be
acknowledged to the reader that all the wonderful reminiscences recounted in
this article have been drawn from the pages of Mr. Sorensen's masterful new
work, "Counselor: A Life At the Edge of History," a tome which took
Sorensen six years to complete, published by Harper, an imprint of
HarperCollins Publishers. – Eve Berliner |
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