Preserving the gilded myth of Camelot

True Compass begins, as all stories about the Kennedys seem to, overcast by the shadow of death. In May 2008, Edward Kennedy was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. The doctors gave him a few months to live. Kennedy fought back, beating that grim prognosis by well over a year; “approaching adversity with a positive attitude at least gives you a chance for success. A defeatist’s attitude is just not in my DNA.”

Edward [‘Teddy’] Kennedy had an extraordinary story to tell; the youngest of nine siblings, four of whom died violently before he reached his mid-thirties. He witnessed, and in large part managed, his family’s transformation from wealthy parvenus to legendary political aristocrats, with an almost Messianic duty to serve. “To whom much is given, much is expected,” was the family dictum.

When Teddy was growing up, his father, Joe, gave him a choice between leading “a serious life” and a “non-serious life”. “I’ll still love you whichever choice you make,” the old rogue wrote. “But if you decide to have a non-serious life, I won't have much time for you.”

Was it this kind of pressure that propelled each of his sons to relentlessly pursue that ultimate goal, the presidency? In True Compass, his posthumously published autobiography, Teddy doesn’t tell us.

In fact, True Compass is strangely opaque about all the defining periods in Kennedy’s life. Teddy and his siblings seemed at once close, fiercely competitive and singularly incurious of each other. Teddy was unaware of even the life threatening illnesses which plagued JFK because, he writes, “it would never have occurred to us to discuss such private things with each other”.

There is not one reference to old Joe’s being dismissed from his post as ambassador to the UK because of his pro-Nazi, defeatist views. A similar censorship shrouds JFK’s notorious and often dangerous, extra marital relationships.

One can understand Kennedy’s desire to sanitise his family’s occasionally sordid past. Burnishing their legend has, after all, been an integral part of the family story. Surely, he could have been more forthright in confronting the scandals that dogged his own life! But no. His account of Chappaquiddick, which effectively put an end to any possibility of his becoming president, is more an exercise in self pity than of candour. He writes that he and Mary Jo Kopechne got so “emotional” discussing the assassination of Bobby Kennedy that he just had to drive her back to her hotel. Hmm. Kennedy writes, “To this day, I cannot tell you how I escaped that car.” Well, he did and she, famously, did not.

Of his reputation as a hell raiser, he grandly writes, “I am an enjoyer... I have enjoyed the company of women. I have enjoyed a stiff drink or two or three... At times, I’ve enjoyed these pleasures too much.” And down falls the curtain.

Kennedy is more candid about his sense of inadequacy when compared to his brothers: “As I think back about what they had accomplished, it sometimes has occurred to me that my entire life has been a constant state of catching up.”

But catch up he did. He became one of the most dedicated, productive senators in history, responsible for over 300 new US laws. He espoused a crusading liberalism during an era when the very word was anathema to the American polity. The laws he piloted and the causes he championed, from workers rights to homosexual equality, were often deeply unfashionable. But he stood up for them and stuck his political neck out for them. Certainly, his political achievements were far more substantial than those of both his brothers put together.

The final touches of True Compass were written when Kennedy knew he was dying. His account of what it is like to be under a sentence of death is genuinely moving and devoid of all self pity. At last, Kennedy could have afforded to be similarly candid and have given a truer, more reflective account of his life. And for all his many flaws, Edward Kennedy was a great senator and very nearly, a great man. But to the end, he tried to preserve the gilded myth of Camelot.

TRUE COMPASS

Edward M Kennedy
Little, Brown
532 pp; £20