The Senator: My Ten Years with Ted Kennedy [Paperback]

Richard E. Burke (Author), William Hoffer (Contributor), Marilyn Hoffer (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 31, 2003

In 1971 Richard Burke, a freshman at Georgetown University, volunteered his services to the offices of his political idol, Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. Through ability, hard work, and dedication, Burke rose in the next four years to become one of the Senator's closest staff members. In 1977 he was made Kennedy's personal assistant; after his appointment in 1978 as administrative assistant - the youngest in the Senate - he came to know Edward M. Kennedy perhaps more intimately than anyone outside the closed circle of the Senator's family. He was often the last to see the Senator at night and the first to see him in the morning. This book is the account of what Richard Burke witnessed and experienced during his decade at the Senator's right hand. It is neither a full biography nor an examination of Kennedy's long career in government. Rather, it is the history of a young man who shared the Senator's professional and personal lives during a time marked by exhilarating public achievements and tragic secret misconduct. His story is not only the chronicle of a shattered idol, but of Richard Burke's own fall from grace, and eventual recovery. Burke does not shrink from confronting his own faults, and he agrees with the Senator: It is time for him to confront his.

Product Details

• Paperback: 356 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (December 31, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312304668
• ISBN-13: 978-0312304669
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,726,824 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #38 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( W ) > Williams, Ted

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars interesting, October 26, 2002

By 

Kimberley Wilson (VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Senator: My Ten Years with Ted Kennedy (Paperback)

When this book was published it was hot stuff. A decade later it seems rather tame. Why did Burke write it? He seems to have no rancor against Kennedy and admits that everything Teddy did, he tried to outdo so the question is never really answered. The portraits of Joan Kennedy and Rose Kennedy are gentle, almost tender ones. The best part of the book is when Burke gets out of Kennedy's bedroom and starts talking about the political goings on behind the scenes. The chapters on the failed 1980 campaign and Kennedy's relations with the Carters are fascinating.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A highly personal look into the life of Ted Kennedy., December 17, 2001

By 

Mike B. (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Senator: My Ten Years With Ted Kennedy (Hardcover)

Richard Burke provides highly personal look into the life of Ted Kennedy during the years he spent as a staffer for him. He describes what it was like to work for Ted Kennedy in their professional and personal relationship. He also talks about the personal side of Kennedy's 1980 primary race against then President Jimmy Carter.

Kennedy was a hero to Burke and although he sees Kennedy for what he really is and at times, at his worse, he still doesn't try discredit the man or put him down for what he's done. Burke sometimes tells about how he tried to save Kennedy from himself in his overindulging in drugs, sex, and drinking.

Sometimes you might wonder if its all true though, but Burke admits that during his years with Kennedy, he was no angel either making it more plausible. Its not really a dirty little kiss and tell book. Its more of a personal look at Ted Kennedy by someone that was close to him and knew him well.

In the end, as Burke says, Kennedy for all his flaws cannot do a lot of harm as the respected Senator that he is now, so long as he doesn't become President, but his chance has already passed.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars dirty laundry, August 10, 2006

By 

Ian T. Brown (Gladstone, OR United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Senator: My Ten Years with Ted Kennedy (Paperback)

The author worked closely with Ted Kennedy through most of the '70s and the very early '80s as a member of his Senate staff and personal go-to guy, and had very personal access to both the Senator and his family. The book is mainly about the Senator's vices and his family's troubles during that period (which the author was deeply involved in).

I was hoping for more politics and policy. The author vaguely alludes to legislative accomplishments, but doesn't really discuss any. From reading the book, I would gather that the time between saving democracy during the Watergate crisis and the 1980 presidential election was one big party, with some family drama thrown in. The section on the 1980 presidential election was good.

It's clear that Kennedy made bad choices in that period, which was, literally for me, a lifetime ago; some were personal, some were political. What struck me was how many of the unattractive features described by the author reminded me of our current president: the sense of entitlement, a lack of accountability, intense competitiveness, demands for loyalty, and a strange snobbishness (Kennedy thought the Carters were unsophisticated but, according to the author, also thought that the hostage crisis couldn't be helped by President Carter's efforts to understand the situation by *gasp* reading books about Iran). On the plus side, both men have a strong devotion to family.

I didn't really like the book; I finished it only because I'd started it, and I didn't have much else handy at the time. If you are interested in Kennedy dirt, though, this book has it in spades. It's not for everyone, but maybe it's for you.