EDWARD M. KENNEDY: A Biography.

• Author: Nolan, Martin F.
• Position: Review

A new biography highlights Ted Kennedy's strengths

EDWARD M. KENNEDY: A Biography By Adam Clymer William Morrow & Co., $27.50

IN 1957, HIS FELLOW SENATORS ASKED JOHN F. Kennedy to chair a committee honoring five of their predecessors whose oval portraits would adorn the President's Room off the Senate floor. After consulting historians and politicians, the author of Profiles in Courage chose Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Robert M. LaFollette Sr., Robert A. Taft Sr., and Daniel Webster.

Few would then have predicted that JFK's youngest brother would someday be a candidate for similar enshrinement. Make room for Teddy? At the time, Edward Moore Kennedy's only public record was on the blotter of the Virginia State Police, who issued speeding tickets to the University of Virginia Law School student. His reputation as a Rabelaisian roustabout lingered until 1992, when he remarried at 60. Yet the man who transformed Chappaquiddick and Palm Beach into campgrounds of dysfunction, if not debauchery, "deserves recognition not just as the leading senator of his time, but as one of the greats in its history," writes Adam Clymer.

The Senate is an intimate, forgiving institution where a colleague's flaws are visible daily and where most members know that being chaste and sober is no guarantee of being honorable or effective. When Republicans controlled Congress and while his own party was drifting rightward, Kennedy never compromised on core issues, like civil rights, while working incrementally for other changes. Millions of Americans are healthier physically and even financially because of Kennedy's efforts on health care and the minimum wage. "A son of privilege, he has always identified with the poor and the oppressed," Clymer writes.

Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography is a story of the peculiar triumph of starting at the top and overcoming low expectations. The 30-year-old politician elected to the Senate in 1962 was the ninth of nine children. Less cerebral than Jack or Bobby, Teddy relied more on a charm that masked a ferocious tenacity. Often tongue-tied in interviews, Kennedy had a ready answer in 1994 during his seventh successful campaign for the Senate. Asked to list his greatest strength, he said "Perseverance."

In the Senate's all-time roster of seniority, Kennedy now ranks seventh, still behind those sequoias, Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia. In 1969, after Kennedy was elected majority whip, Majority Leader...