E-mail a friendTed Sorensen
airdate June 4, 2008
As special counsel, speechwriter and trusted confidante, Ted Sorensen advised President Kennedy through some of the most dramatic moments in American history, including the Cuban missile crisis. He also played an important role in Robert Kennedy's '68 presidential campaign. Since '66, Sorensen has practiced international law, advising governments, organizations and multinational organizations. A widely published author, he's written a biography of JFK and an autobiography, Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History.
JFK speechwriter and advisor gives his prediction for Sen. Barack Obama in the general election. (:49)
Full Interview (12:29)
Ted Sorensen
Tavis: Ted Sorensen served as special counsel and adviser to President John Kennedy and later helped Robert Kennedy with both his Senate run in '64 and presidential bid four years later.
He is also a legendary speech writer in his own right, and for that matter bestselling author. His latest book is called "Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History." We are honored to have him join us tonight from New York City. Mr. Sorensen, what an honor to have you on the program.
Ted Sorensen: Thanks, Tavis, my pleasure.
Tavis: Glad to have you here. Let me start by asking, since you have done this more than once - that is to say, write books - how does this rate, how does it stack up, what were the challenges that you uniquely had to face to write a book that is so personal and in some ways, so tragic?
Sorensen: When I wrote my first big book about John Kennedy, his widow was still grieving, his brother was still in politics, his successor was still in the White House. There were a number of restraints. This time, I could write freely about my years, all my 11 years with John Kennedy as well as the follow-up of the years with Robert Kennedy and my life.
Tavis: We talk about the Kennedy clan as if they are all one person. Indeed, there are any number of members of this clan. And when I say one person, I mean to suggest that Jack is as different from Bobby as Bobby is from Ted. You make that clear in the book. Can you give me, in short form, the primary differences between Jack and Bobby?
Sorensen: Jack was more intellectual, Bobby was more passionate. That short enough?
Tavis: (Laughs) Like a seasoned speech writer. One more intellectual, one more passionate. Would either of them, without any sort of rancor, accept that description from you?
Sorensen: Well, Bobby would say, "I was too intellectual," and Jack would say, "Wait a minute, compassion? What about the Peace Corps?"
Tavis: Yeah. So they might have a little back-and-forth about that, huh?
Sorensen: Yes, and don't forget brother Ted, whom I'm praying for today.
Tavis: What did you think when you heard about the health challenge that he is now facing?
Sorensen: I was at his bedside when he had a plane crash back in the sixties. I was at his bedside when he had an automobile crash - even after that - and he has come back each time. He's a battler, and I'm hoping he wins this battle and continues to be the great leader of the Senate that he has been for so long.
Tavis: The difference in writing or helping to craft words for Jack versus Bobby's style was what?
Sorensen: I didn't really write speeches for Bobby except on rare occasions. The most dramatic was the night of Dr. King's death. Bobby called me from his plane and said he would call me back in an hour, would I please have something ready? He had a great team of speech writers, but in an hour I wrote up something. I was very emotional, because both Bobby and I reacted to Dr. King's death with the thought of Jack Kennedy's death in our minds.
And I wrote a piece about the stupidity and folly of violence in America, and interestingly enough a movie last year about Bobby, or RFK, I forget the title of the movie now, but it closes with the voiceover of Bobby giving that speech about violence.
Tavis: We are going to, as a matter of fact, talk to Paul Schrade here in just a few minutes, and at the conclusion of that conversation we're going to play a clip, in fact, from that speech that night in Cleveland, the night after Dr. King is assassination, the one you helped craft. We're going to play a clip of that here in just a moment.
Since you mentioned that speech and Bobby being torn apart, of course, by the assassination of Dr. King, it is fair to say, and you were there so you know this, that Bobby Kennedy had to work his way toward being regarded in the civil rights community. He didn't - for all that we do to remember Bobby as this great hero, and he was in so many ways, if we're honest about this, he had a journey to take to become the kind of compassionate person he was around those issues and Black people in America, yes?
Sorensen: That's very true. All three Kennedy brothers grew in office, and Bobby grew as Jack did in their recognition of the way Black citizens had been treated unfairly for so long. And as he became more and more involved in the civil rights movement and the defiance by George C. Wallace and certain other Southern governors, Bobby felt more strongly about it each year.
Tavis: Beyond the fact that he was more exposed to it and that helped him understand it and appreciate it and embrace it better, beyond just being exposed to it, was there something else particularly about Bobby that helped him to get that than just being exposed? Because you can be exposed to it and never get it. Love isn't necessarily contagious.
Sorensen: Very well said. You ought to be a speech writer.
Tavis: No, no, no, I can't do that as well as you can.
Sorensen: But I had a background in the civil rights movement myself, and I had some influence on Jack, and Jack of course had a lot of influence on Bobby.
Tavis: How much influence did Jack have on Bobby?
Sorensen: Bobby would have done anything for his brother. They loved each other, they worked closely together, and there's no doubt in my mind that the day - I write about it in the book. The day after Jack's assassination, Bobby came into my White House office. He just stood there for a moment. He was wearing dark glasses to cover up his puffy, red-filled eyes. And we just looked at each other, knowing that we had both taken a terrible blow.
Tavis: How much closer and why, in fact, did they become closer, Bobby and Teddy, in the aftermath of Jack's death?
Sorensen: Now you're asking a tough question on family psychology. Teddy was almost a different generation. He was enough younger that although his two older brothers were very proud of him filling Jack's Senate seat for Massachusetts, and the fact is Teddy has been a better member of the U.S. Senate than either Jack or Bobby was.
But of course Jack's death increased the unity of the family, and Teddy was involved with Bobby's campaign in 1968, along with Steve Smith, their brother-in-law, and with me.
Tavis: Has Teddy been a better senator, to your earlier point, merely because he's had more time, or am I not drilling down deep enough on this?
Sorensen: More time has a lot to do with it, but the fact is that he has proven to be a good legislator; he's proven to be very good about reaching across the aisle and working with the Republicans to get more done.
Tavis: This book is a dense book and it's a wonderful read, but I'm glad I have you in person tonight to ask you on a personal level how it is that you navigate personally these kinds of anniversaries, like the 40th anniversary of Bobby's assassination?
Sorensen: It gets easier as the decades go by, but I'll never forget those two terrible days, November 22, 1963; June 5 and 6, 1968, when I couldn't believe it was happening all over again. I just couldn't believe it.
Tavis: And in the middle of those two, as we referenced earlier, of course, April 4, the assassination of Dr. King.
Sorensen: Yes.
Tavis: Having seen all of that and been as close to all of that as you were, how have you navigated a life where you've remained hopeful about America and about the body politic, quite frankly?
Sorensen: Number one, my parents raised me to care about this country and about trying to make it a better country and a better world, and I learned from Jack Kennedy that almost anything is possible if good people will get behind it. I just made up my mind after Jack's death that I wasn't going to permit some lunatic who was a lucky sharpshooter to deter me from my life's goals and the implementation of Jack Kennedy's goals.
Tavis: And those life goals for you have meant what? Because it's obviously more than just writing speeches, which is not unimportant when you're doing it for a president, but what have those life goals been for you?
Sorensen: "The New York Times," a few weeks back, asked me if Kennedy's speech writer doesn't sum up my life as a headline for my obituary when that time comes, what would I like in its place? And I thought for a moment and I said, "'Servant of peace and justice' would be okay."
Tavis: Not bad, not bad. You should be a speech writer.
Sorensen: (Laughter) I still write for myself.
Tavis: (Laughs) In the book, you offer some tips - speaking of writing speeches, you offer some tips for how to be a good speech writer. What was it in your background, though, that you think best prepared you to do the kind of wonderful writing that you did for a president, and for that matter, another potential president named Bobby?
Sorensen: Well, if you've got time, there were three things that prepared me, that helped it along. One was both my parents were articulate intellectuals; my father a great lawyer, orator, politician; my mother, an editor. Then I was one of five children. If you didn't know how to speak out, you didn't get any food at the table. (Laughter)
And the third was that I was on the debate team, both in high school and in college, entered some oratory contest, so I knew a little bit about it before I went to Washington.
Tavis: Now, see, something, Ted Sorensen, seems wrong about this. To your second and third point, you grew up in a family of five kids; I've got nine brothers and sisters. And your third point I can also relate to, and yet nobody's asked me to write speeches for them.
Sorensen: (Laughs) Just let that be known and you'll be snapped up soon.
Tavis: (Laughs) We'll see. I said it on TV. I'll see if I get any calls between now and tomorrow by Mr. Obama; we'll see.
Sorensen: Well, first of all, let me tell you, as you know I've been for Obama since the very beginning. He's got a terrific team of speech writers, and one of my first statements to him after I heard him speak was "You don't need a speech writer," because he is naturally eloquent.
Tavis: What do you think his chances are?
Sorensen: I think of course he's going to be nominated; we now know that. And I think like Jack Kennedy, he faces an uphill fight but he will win narrowly. Jack Kennedy's election was the closest in the popular vote in history up to that point. But Obama, like Kennedy, transcends racial and religious and regional lines of division.
Tavis: Barack Obama, one of the persons who endorses, writes a blurb, in fact, on the back of the new book, "Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History," written by the one and only Ted Sorensen. Mr. Sorensen, an honor to have you on the program. Thanks for the text and thanks for coming on.
Sorensen: Thank you.
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