Travels with Teddy

What makes journalism so fascinating and biography so interesting is the struggle to answer that single question: "What's he like?"

--John F. Kennedy

Don't get your hopes up. I don't know what Ted Kennedy is like and neither do you. It is as fundamental to him as his belief in liberal principles that you and I are not going to find out. Ted Kennedy, the hidden man, may be running for President; but he doesn't want to be your best friend.

In 1976, Jimmy Carter loved us all, looked thousands of people in the eye and sent vibrations of Christian charity through his hand when he shook yours. His style is to win votes one by one, a true hearts-and-minds campaign based on letting the voter judge the man up close. He is notoriously ineffective speaking to large crowds.

Ted Kennedy likes the big numbers; he seems most comfortable in groups of about 2000, for they afford him some of the anonymity he has never had. He is nervous around strangers, so he keeps them at a distance. During campaign stops in 19 cities, I saw him kiss not one single person--infant, grandmother or anything in between. And those Kennedy can't keep at a physical distance--such as reporters--he keeps at a psychological remove. Indeed, when in public, he seems to live at one remove from even himself. When I had occasion to meet his eyes during his campaign, I sometimes had the feeling he had curved vision, that he was actually casting his eyesight around me at something behind; his gaze was almost never direct except in a flat, shallow, polite way. His speech, too, is circumlocutionary. He seems shell-shocked from a lifetime of stardom. You cannot avoid the feeling that after the tragedies and bathos of his life, the real Ted Kennedy has retreated into a special private room inside himself. All you get are impressions, sketches, glints.

•

Boston, November 7, 1979: Faneuil Hall has been transformed into a movie set. The Kennedy claque fills the front 60 seats, while several hundred members of the media rise in tiers around them like movie extras. Klieg lights and strobes streak the 18-foot painting of Daniel Webster debating Robert Hayne in 1830. A cheer goes up, but not for Ted Kennedy; it is Jackie Onassis who walks onstage like a figure out of a wax museum. Another cheer. Still not Ted but his mother, Rose, who at 89 tends to get standing ovations for merely showing up and smiling. Then a prolonged ovation: The star has arrived on the set.

Everybody stands to get a better look, and I spy some space (forget about a seat; it's space that's at a premium) on a window ledge just above the press bleachers. I squeeze myself into my perch and discover I am directly behind Hays Gorey of Time and Roger Mudd of CBS. It is only three days after Mudd's devastating interview with Kennedy, yet he seems strangely subdued today.

Kennedy moves across the stage with the gingerly gait of a man treading on new ice. The brace he wears for his old back injury causes him to pitch slightly forward. He self-consciously places his light, thin-soled shoes one after the other, as though something might give way beneath him. He seems to glide across the floor. Following her husband is Joan Kennedy, who looks appalling. Her overrouged make-up is noticeable from 50 feet away; if she were a brunette with her hair in a bun, she would look like a Japanese kabuki dancer. Teddy, Jr., 18, is a husky, handsome, lightly acned copy of his father who moves with remarkable agility and grace for a boy who lost most of one leg to cancer. Only giggly Kara, 20, and wide-eyed, freckled Patrick, 12, give this pitifully broken family a look of normalcy. I can't help wondering why Kennedy is doing this.

And yet he has no choice. It is the historical imperative that he be President, or at least run. His father, were he still alive, would expect no less. And not to understand that Ted Kennedy is his father's son is not to understand Ted Kennedy or anybody else in that family. Being a Kennedy is a whole business unto itself, a way of life, a corporation, a fully layered society with its own rules and expectations and order of things. Ted Kennedy has to run for President.

After all, what else could he do? Except for one year as a Massachusetts assistant district attorney, the only job he has ever held is that of U. S. Senator. By all indications, of course, he could stay in that job for the rest of his days. But he has been doing that for 17 years now and more is expected of him. If he should someday no longer be a U. S. Senator, he would be effectively out of a job, as we in the normal world know it. In the Kennedy context, of course, that doesn't mean a thing. Just managing the business of being a Kennedy is full-time work by any standard. The family employs some of its members--notably, brother-in-law Stephen Smith, who is also this year's campaign manager--on a handsome lifetime basis just to count the coins and write the checks. Being a Kennedy, then, comes complete with its own fall-back positions.

But it also comes complete with the legacy of Joe Kennedy's ambitions for his sons.

Everybody sits down and Kennedy begins his speech, saying he wants to be "in the thick of the action" and elaborating on the "need for leadership." With lines echoing those of his brothers John and Robert, it is a set piece designed to rekindle the Camelot spirit, but it sounds like a classroom recitation. He reads it almost without pauses, rarely looking up and never smiling. There is something bloodless about the whole exercise. Even the on-cue explosions of applause from the family seem almost rehearsed. The closest thing to spontaneity is the reaction of the crowd of about 700 people gathered in Quincy Market outdoors. They get the speech over loud-speakers a split second late, so their reactions are slightly out of sync with those indoors. Inside Faneuil Hall, I feel more like I'm on a controlled movie set than at a political rally. The ultimate media creature, Ted Kennedy, has begun his campaign.

•

Before the end of its first day, the Kennedy juggernaut as seen from the back of the plane, where the traveling press lives, is a tunnel with no light at the end. A full year before general election day, a Presidential campaign is going full throttle, with two chartered Boeing 727s, 115 reporters, a double order of Secret Service men--and almost no access to the candidate. In politics, big is worse.

On board the lead plane, Ted and Joan are standing before take-off near the curtain dividing first class from coach. Joan looks better up close but still seems as jittery--and endearing--as a nervous rabbit. Kennedy and I eye each other for a moment, then shake hands. He is uncommonly handsome and bigger than I expected. His jaw line must set some kind of record for width, and his face is a remarkably true copy of his mother's. Yet for all his good looks, Kennedy appears older than his 47 years. His ruddy skin looks loose and, up close, given to pallor; it hangs a bit around his collar. He apparently shares the family tendency to rapid skin aging from sailing and skiing. Last summer, a small skin cancer, thought to be due primarily to sun exposure, was removed from his chest. The Secret Service obviously did not know that when it code-named him Sunburn.

I return to my seat feeling that there is a quality of fragility about the man, the last thing I expected in a person of such hearty, bluff good looks.

Joan leaves the plane before take-off. She managed her cameo appearance onstage and even acquitted herself well in answering a question before the cameras. But she apparently is not yet ready for the campaign trail. Jean Smith, Kennedy's sister, comes along instead as a surrogate wife. (On other days, we get other sisters and other kids.)

Prior to this first day's trip to Chicago, we're off to Manchester, New Hampshire, and Portland, Maine. This is shakedown time for the boys and girls who, in varying combinations, will be living with one another for many of the coming 12 months. Friendships are struck, cliques are formed, insults exchanged, the rhythms of dealing with the monster of a modern media campaign established. It is a bit like the first day of camp.

•

We drop down in New Hampshire and Maine like an invading army. We are surrounded by all manner of security. The Secret Service people are the ones with wires in their ears and little flesh-colored microphones inside their coat sleeves. They have blow-dried razor cuts and dress alike in sleek three-piece suits. Their gray Samsonite briefcases contain Israeli-made Uzi submachine guns. One latch on the briefcases always seems to be open. They all appear to have gone to darting-eye school.

Kennedy hacks his way through his first speech. No matter how good the sound system, Kennedy has only one speaking style: very loud. He also gives us his first dose of what will become famously fractured prose, referring to New Hampshire's United States Senator John Durkin as a "United Senator." A bit later, there is a "walking tour," an event staged for the TV cameras to show the candidate actually pressing the flesh. In fact, it is a walking farce. The security blanket and media mob are so overwhelming that Kennedy can barely reach the ropes restraining the crowds. After a few attempts to shake hands, he gives up and simply walks on.

We board the plane for the two-hour flight to Chicago. Embarking has become a ritual. Secret Service men everywhere. Front and rear doors of the plane are open. Kennedy and staff through the front door into first class. Press through the back door, scrambling for seats. TV crews dive for seats nearest the rear, positioning themselves for the quickest possible exit when we land. God forbid Kennedy should stumble down the ramp without a camera ready to tape it. Not that the TV correspondents themselves go for the back seats; they send a producer ahead, who immediately reserves rows of seats by slapping ABC, CBS or NBC stickers on the headrests. Brutal.

Print reporters, who like to talk politics, sit closer to the first-class section, in case the candidate decides to go slumming to the back of the plane. It also keeps us near the beer source. Sure enough, once airborne, Kennedy walks to the back of the plane and is immediately surrounded by brandished microphones and cameras.

To escape the pandemonium, I amble into first class and spot Mayor Jane Byrne of Chicago sitting alone. She endorsed Kennedy a few weeks before and has decided to lead his grand entrance into Chicago. I ask her why she abandoned Carter in favor of Kennedy. When I mention that I am a reporter from Playboy, her response is sharp and candid: "I think Jimmy Carter is beginning to believe what he said in his Playboy Interview. The last time he came to Chicago, he kept kissing people all day long. When he kissed me, he said, 'Now you see why I sent Rosalynn home early.' He's just so corny!"

•

Chicago, November 8: We get off to a brutal early-morning start that is to become typical of the campaign. We're headed for the Copernicus Senior Citizens Center near the Maryla Polonaise Restaurant and Slowik's parking lot. This is Kennedy's ritual ethnic stop. In Chicago, that means Polish. The place is packed at eight a.m. for coffee, doughnuts and Kennedy. The pitch, of course, is health care. As he starts his speech, he makes his first stumble, asking everyone over 80 to "please stand." Many of them can barely stand, and giggle nervously.

Already there is a disembodied quality of unreality to the campaign that resembles life in a series of time capsules. Outside, on the sidewalk, columnist Murray Kempton keeps us amused with a running commentary. He is curmudgeon laureate to the nation. "Last night," he laughs, "I inadvertently wrote 'Mary Jo Copernicus Senior Citizens Center' on my schedule--I swear I did."

Kennedy emerges after the speech to his first hecklers of the campaign: six members of the Communist Workers Party holding banners and chanting. All the press except the TV pool, which is supposed to record his every step (in case of you-know-what), has boarded the buses when, out of nowhere, an egg sails through the air and hits Kennedy on the shoulder. It breaks on the ground and there is a moment of uncertainty followed by gallows humor: Reporters unsure of how many eggs have been thrown debate the Second-Egg Theory.

•

Norman, Oklahoma, November 8: The entire airport fire department--three trucks and a car--flanks the runway as we land. Our convoy to the University of Oklahoma campus is more elaborate than a homecoming parade. Everywhere we go, freeways are blocked off and entire city blocks are cordoned for Kennedy and his entourage. We are wrapped in a security blanket that also gives our rolling snake-oil show the aura of great celebrity: police cars front and rear, spiffy motorcycles with flashing blue lights racing up and down our flanks to head off normal mortals who would nip at our loins (though they really want only to get home before rush hour), stake-outs on every bridge and overpass. On one day, a helicopter monitors our daylong motorcade trail across the rolling Iowa winterscape from about 1000 feet up and one mile off our port quarter. You eventually get the feeling of true invincibility. Old-timers in the press corps say they have never seen anything like this so early in a campaign. It's as if Kennedy were already President. (Some, including people close to Carter, have been slipping up and referring to the Senator as "President Kennedy.")

Kennedy is obviously in his element on college campuses. In fact, he seems most comfortable around very young or very old people. As the introductions are made before this Oklahoma college crowd, he asks sister Jean Smith to step forward for a bow. As the applause builds, he shouts, "That'll be enough for Jean now!" which has the ring of the old patriarch Joe Kennedy presiding over a boisterous dinner table with his numerous offspring. His speech this afternoon is better than any the day before, but he is running through it too fast. He is not reading it, which gives him more flow, better diction and some power. But he still runs right past his applause lines. Kennedy does not understand the art of the judicious pause, yet there is some fire in his voice today. In a play on John Kennedy's beloved "Ask what you can do for your country" line, he says, "The real challenge for young people is to give something back to America for all it has given you." They love it.

•

Nashville, Tennessee, November 8: This is the Imperial Candidacy as it was meant to be. It is already dark when we reach Music City, which is what makes it so spectacular. The Nashville police department is a bikers' heaven: Rather than heavy Harleys or those broad-beamed Kawasaki 1000 Police Specials, these men of the boot have laid in a fleet of screaming fast Suzuki 750Es. On a narrower line than the usual police bikes, they are outrageously quick. Decked out with brand-new white Wind-jammer SS fairings, four-way blinkers and flashing blues front and rear, nine brace of these bikes lead us up the freeways of the Cumberland Plateau and down into the bowl of Nashville. It is a sight to behold. I am reminded of the way the French president travels or the way they take visiting African dictators on state visits into the Elysées Palace in Paris, behind a phalanx of white-gloved motorcycle cops on gleaming BMWs.

At the hotel, the press is guided to the wrong place--it's someone's diamond-and-ermine reception. The only release for weary reporters is to send up a chorus of crazed oinks, moos and baas.

Kennedy's entourage includes everything a prince who would be king might need: a personal photographer; an aide perpetually at his ear, whispering names, figures and directions; a press secretary to explain what the candidate meant to say; a special nurse with trauma training; a physician who is an expert on national health insurance but who also carries around a special black bag for emergencies. ("Our preparations are no different from those for the President when he travels," says Dr. Stuart Shapiro in an attempt to convince me his presence on the campaign trail is nothing to write about.)

The only thing missing is a food taster.

At the predominantly black Meharry Medical College, Kennedy wows the crowd of administrators, students and townspeople. Speaking forcefully, he does not notice his left coat sleeve has ripped at the shoulder seam. His left ring finger, unadorned since his wife moved away from their home two years ago, bears a Band-Aid. His voice is hoarse.

"Lord, child, get that man a drink of water!" This is the command of a robust black woman who hears Kennedy's rasp. She is pure South, pure soul, pure black. A good omen, perhaps, in the black South, which voted 92 percent for Carter in 1976.

•

Nashville, November 9: At a breakfast meeting of community leaders, Kennedy lays on a few bloopers that leave people wondering about him. Introduced by Dr. Walter Leonard, the dignified black president of Fisk University, Kennedy begins by thanking "Dr. Leonard Fisk." Then he announces, "I come here to ask your hope." Finally, referring to our hardy ancestors, he intones, "We rolled up our sleeves, our fathers and our mothers." He means our folks rolled up their sleeves.

Next stop, the Country Music Hall of Fame. Kennedy's brow furrows when he has to adopt his feigned-interest pose, especially when guided through aluminum-can factories, corn-feed operations, cattle yards, truck depots--or country-music museums. Does Kennedy like country music? his press secretary Tom Southwick is asked. "Oh, he listens to about four hours' a day." Such as what? Southwick grins and glances up at the nearest name. "Mainly Tammy Wynette. But only at home."

His speech at Vanderbilt University is another success, where he coyly remarks that he attended Harvard, "the Vanderbilt of the North." The kids are let down when, taking questions, he refuses to be pinned down on marijuana, the issue these essentially well-heeled upper-class kids from the South seem to care most strongly about.

•

South Miami, November 9: Ninety-one degrees. The retirees like Kennedy. They don't like Carter. A helicopter with pontoons patrols the royal palms. A black kid across the street is selling Kennedy in '80 T-shirts.

"Sold many?"

"Yeah. No. About two."

"You working for the campaign?"

"Naw. I'm working for Marty Goldstein."

•

At the airport in Miami, waiting to board our plane, we have a little time to kill around two small tables. Kennedy comes over for a chat with us, but the TV people pounce into action with their long mikes and minicameras. Since the electronic boys are taking it all down, the print people are forced to whip out their notebooks and cassette recorders. A couple of times, Kennedy tries to break the mood and become informal. "Cahn't we just go over heah and have a Coke?" he asks twice. It's not to be.

On the phone to Washington, one reporter responds to a friend:

"So how do you think he's doing?"

"Teddy? Oh, terrible. Can't seem to say his own name right. Awful."

"Awful?"

"I mean terrific. What I mean is, he's doing terrible to me, to us, the press. With the people, he's doing great."

•

Kennedy often refers to himself in the plural. He speaks of "our candidacy" and says, "We've spoken out on many occasions... ." All campaigning politicians do that to some extent, but with Kennedy, it goes further, occurs more often. Constantly surrounded as he is by an elaborate support system, with knowledgeable aides rarely more than a few feet away, it is easy to see how he would come to think of himself in the collective. All his life has been a group effort. Kennedy is a man whose ear gets whispered into a lot. His Presidency would no doubt be very collegial.

•

Charleston, South Carolina, November 9: "We want Ted! We want Ted!" It is not a cluster of supporters but Kennedy himself who starts the chant at a Young Democrats rally in Charleston. It is an awkward attempt at humor but doesn't dampen the crowd's enthusiasm. His speech is about criminal justice and he inverts a couple of sentences and blows the punch line.

Our dinner on the homeward flight is United Airlines' idea of a roast-beef sandwich: soggy on the outside and frozen in the middle. TV technicians in the back leave United a message by using their beloved gaffer's tape to secure a dozen sandwiches to the bulkheads, ceilings and windows. It is not for nothing that when a separate plane is laid on for the technical types (a.k.a. the Visigoths), it is called the Zoo Plane.

•

Davenport, Iowa, November 12: Rose Kennedy stands up to make a rare political speech. Kennedy is a changed man. As his mother simply asks the crowd to "help my ninth child," he sits forward on the edge of his chair and his tongue seems to click up and down inside his open mouth. He is so happy he cannot sit still and swivels around to see other people's reactions. He is a boy whose mother has come to the recital.

Outside the auditorium of St. Ambrose College in Davenport, I ask some young students whether or not Chappaquiddick is an issue with them. "Don't be a critic ... of Chappaquiddick," replies one coed. "We're not voting for him because of the past. We're voting for him because of what he is today."

Don't be a critic of Chappaquiddick. Madison Avenue couldn't have done better. To the Pepsi-and-Quaaludes generation, Chappaquiddick is ancient history. Chalk up Catholic youth for Kennedy.

•

Newton, Iowa, November 13: At a United Auto Workers rally, Kennedy pulls yet another boner, referring to Iowa's "fam farmlies" (farm families) without noticing it. His difficulties with ending sentences or even speaking coherently off the cuff seem to become more pronounced.

During a visit to a nearby farm, Kennedy's new surrogate, his sister Eunice Shriver, catches a chicken and Ted accepts a huge black homemade sausage. At the cowpen, he moos at a beast ankle-deep in mud; the cow moos back. But in the interests of accuracy, I should state that the cow was rehearsed by reporters who mooed loudly, singly and in unison, before the candidate arrived.

•

As in any movie, there are costume changes to match the sets. One frostbitten Iowa morning begins with a visit to a corn farm. Kennedy hits the trail decked out in a tan corduroy jacket and unscuffed work boots. The visit ends with the ritual trip to the farmer's wife's kitchen for homemade cookies. The press is kept waiting outside. Finally, Kennedy emerges, like Clark Kent, resplendent in his basic superman outfit: pinstriped blue suit that bulges slightly at the chest, soft blue shirt and matching silk tie, black dress shoes. He is wearing his tiny gold Cartier watch. It is as though a continuity girl were along with a trunkload of costumes.

•

Kennedy is consistently inconsistent. At a noontime assembly at liberal-arts Grinnell College, he gives a thundering speech that has them cheering to the gym rafters. But in the Q. and A., he waffles and rambles and several students later accuse him of being vague. Some days Kennedy blows the speech but stirs them up with humorous and exciting responses during the question period. Sometimes he chops wood and other times he spins silk. You never know what to expect.

•

After a few, uh, days, uh, a day the first week, on the, ah, road campaign trail with Ted, uh, the candi--Ted uh Kennedy, I uh ... find my--I start talking, I notice myself, uh, speaking, that is, just like, uh, him.

•

I am standing beside the only pay phone at the enormous Alcoa Aluminum plant in Riverdale, Iowa, patiently awaiting my turn. The phone is presently in the possession of a short, fast-talking brunette woman with a New York accent and about $2000 worth of communications gear hanging around her neck, including a walkie-talkie that lets her speak from one airplane to another and a little belt-model radio scanner with a series of blinking lights that lets her hear through an earplug what the Secret Service agents are saying to one another. She is from television; i.e., Mars.

"Yeah! This is Sally from NBC! Yeah! How are you? Yeah! OK. What we need to know is, should we charter out of Duluth or out of Cedar Rapids? You know, last time, we arrived late. We gotta send film for the Nightly."

It is unclear whether the airplane this lady is in the process of renting will carry human beings or only video tape. Decisions, decisions.

Somehow, she gets her plane chartered and relinquishes the phone. I have to borrow a dime from her to get an operator.

Television, commercial television, is an amazing thing to behold, and very frightening. The network news that you see from time to time is Star Wars. In fact, if it ever comes to war, I hope the networks fight it. Communications is the secret of great strategy and the networks have got it. God knows, the Army hasn't. Or the Navy or the Marines. Look at the Mayaguez incident, for Christ's sake, where Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger with the greatest military communications network in the world managed to get 18 of our boys killed by having them attack a deserted island and then go down in their own helicopter crash after the Mayaguez crew had all been released. Or the Son Tay raid on a prison in North Vietnam, another disaster. Our people tried an early version of Entebbe, only to find no Americans at home but some empty barracks instead. All reportedly because a certain wave-band-frequency radio was missing from the communications plane circling overhead and the proper intelligence could not be radioed to the squad on the invading party on the ground. By snafu ("situation normal, all fucked up"), the radio had wound up in some other part of Vietnam.

In the event of war, wish yourself NBC or an Israeli rescue squad commanded by MOSSAD.

•

En route to Washington, midnight, November 14: This is the tiredest everyone has been. A killer schedule. Baggage call was at six a.m. and we've traveled around Minnesota all day.

Kennedy, in an expansive mood, walks back to our section of the plane. Over the intercom, a reporter plays a tape of Kennedy's "fam farmlies" garble in Iowa. Everyone, including Kennedy, laughs. Someone cracks a raunchy line about the large black sausage he was given.

"That Playboy you're talking to, Rick?" Kennedy jokes as he sits on the arm of my seat. "He's writing all this stuff down about you guys, you know that? Boy, has that guy got a story!" Kennedy is playing on the persistent plane-board rumor that I am doing a piece on the press rather than on the campaign.

A TV correspondent begins to quiz Kennedy good-naturedly about his knowledge of farm lore. He answers most of the questions but is stumped by one.

"What's a worm screw?" he asks, breaking everyone up.

"Different strokes for different folks," shouts The New York Times.

"Did you get that, Playboy?" Kennedy rejoins.

No surprise that Kennedy should delight in the idea of an article more about the media than about himself. He has not been faring well in the press, especially in long interviews. One of his aides told me Kennedy has a rule "not to give personal interviews to publications his mother can't read, and his mother can't read Playboy." Rose Kennedy was born in 1890.

•

Washington, November 27: In Congress, Kennedy seems very much at home. He moves through the halls of the Senate with a click to his step, presides over a committee hearing with the firmness of an impatient schoolmaster, lights up a large Montecristo without reservation before the TV lights. Striding across the echoing marble floors of the Capitol, he and his phalanx of SS men sometimes fall into an unintentional lock step that sounds from around the corner like Hollywood sound effects for an executioner's squad bearing down on death row. The ubiquitous tourists squeal, "It's him, it's Ted Kennedy," as he passes; he signs autographs without breaking stride or looking up.

•

Phoenix, Arizona, November 29: Following tonight's speech to a dinner of 1700 people, at which Congressman Mo Udall's wry wit nearly steals the show, Kennedy shows his true colors. Little boot-shaped plastic whistles have been passed out as party favors. During dinner, some members of the press corps have contrived to play Hail to the Chief on the whistles. As Kennedy leaves the hall surrounded by the usual mob of Secret Service men, TV cameramen and let-me-just-touch-him-once well-wishers, a chorus of five whistlers strikes up the tune. Kennedy's ears prick, his eyes light up and his head swivels to find the source of the devilment. Laughing boisterously, he moves with his entire entourage to the ropes setting off the "press pen" and says, "You guys ... I'm speechless!" It seems to me that deep down, Ted Kennedy is just a rowdy Irishman who would rather be having fun than running for President. I wonder if he sometimes wonders how he got into the rich man--public servant--national idol bullshit.

•

Los Angeles, November 30: In the city where Robert Kennedy was killed, security is heavily increased. For the first time, even the press undergoes body frisks as we pass through the back corridors to the banquet hall at the recently opened Bonaventure Hotel. Suddenly, I sense the reasons. Kennedy, too, will pass through these corridors adjacent to the kitchen, hallways lined with food carts and men in black bow ties speaking mostly Spanish. "Jeez," says writer Dick Schaap, after we pass through, "I wonder if Kennedy got the same creepy feeling there that I did."

At Los Angeles airport, another body search, handbag checks, photographers unscrewing lenses. Dogs on the tarmac as we move toward the ramp. On the airport rooftop, not just the usual guys with binoculars but other men stooped in the take-cover position behind air-conditioning units and assorted abutments. I don't want to know what they are pointing at us.

•

San Francisco, December 2: For several weeks, Kennedy has abided by Carter's request of all candidates to refrain from commenting on the hostages being held in Iran. The situation has been helping Carter in the polls, and it must have been frustrating to Kennedy. Tonight, with nothing on the candidate's schedule, the national press heavies have escaped the boredom of the campaign to dine on San Francisco's seafood delicacies. This is also the night Kennedy decides to give a spur-of-the-moment interview to a local TV reporter. And he comments, for the first time, on Iran.

Late at night, in a motel room, Kennedy is prodded several times by the reporter to say something about the shah. He finally asserts--without any national reporters present!--that the shah's was "one of the most violent regimes in the history of mankind."

When the news breaks early this morning, Kennedy and the press do not know what hit them. Phones begin ringing at 4:30 a.m. (it is 7:30 in Washington), with frantic editors wanting to know if he really said it.

When he finally comes down to meet with us, Kennedy attempts to "clarify" his remarks of the night before. He is clearly irritated and tries to make a distinction between being against the shah and supporting efforts to free the hostages honorably. But the damage is done. Everybody files stories, and some wonder if it is the beginning of the end of Ted Kennedy's Presidential campaign.

•

Washington, December 3: It is two a.m. when we land at Dulles Airport. Kennedy speeds off to his home in nearby McLean, Virginia, and an exhausted, punch-drunk press corps starts a football game around United's baggage-claim area, using the rubber conveyor belt as a pass receiver's pattern. Still, it is not as spirited as it might be. Although Kennedy has tried repeatedly aboard the plane home to defend his stand on Iran, everyone knows that the candidate we've been traveling with all these weeks has managed to blow off one of his political big toes in a single shot.

•

Washington, December 4: Little rest. We're up this morning to cover Kennedy's speech to a troublesome constituency: activist women. The subject of Kennedy's extracurricular sex life has become a hot topic again in the capital, with the publication of articles showing that women resent Kennedy's attitudes and behavior, despite his strong commitment to their causes.

Four hundred women from 120 organizations have gathered at the Shoreham Hotel. Today, sister-in-law Ethel is the wifely surrogate. And Kennedy surprises us again. He is in fine voice, both the rhythm and the words finding the right feel of the room and its audience. Inevitably, he garbles his text at least once, quoting from Martin Luther King, Jr., in his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" (in Ted's words, "Injustice anywhere is injustice anywhere"), but he manages to get "farm families" right twice. ("By George, he got it!" whispers one reporter with a Henry Higgins lilt.)

•

Twenty blocks away from the Shoreham, and one hour later, the battle is about to be officially joined. The mood at the White House is downright festive. Carter's aides know that Kennedy has laid a big one on Iran, and on this very day that Carter will announce his re-election bid, that the hostage crisis has lifted the President's ratings in the polls to within two points of Kennedy's. Scores of jubilant White House staffers are crowded with the press into every available cranny of the stately East Room, which is lighted on this sunny fall day by three enormous crystal chandeliers.

Jimmy Carter strides to the podium with members of his family: Rosalynn, his real wife (though perhaps a surrogate President); Miss Lillian, the homespun wiseacre whose overstatements are forgiven by the nation; his children. With Billy Carter safely out of view, it strikes me that this family, in comparison with Kennedy's a month earlier, is robust and healthy.

When the applause dies down, Carter steps up and whispers--whispers--into the microphone: "Thank you very much." I can barely hear him as he begins. "I speak to you at a somber time... ." After nearly a month of Kennedy's booming tones, it is almost startling to hear the fragile cadences in Carter's speaking voice. The speech itself, though low-key because of the hostages in Iran, is nonetheless so managerial and small of vision that I am brought back to Kennedy's ringing call for strong leadership.

After the speech, Carter walks by the section in which I am standing and shakes my hand. I had forgotten how small a man he is, how delicate his hands are. He is a serious man, and a serene one. If Ted Kennedy can only work the large crowds, Jimmy Carter makes a virtue of being so personal that he lacks the ability to reach out and touch us as a nation. One man is outsized, the other smaller than life. One a rowdy, the other a reader. One hyperbolic, the other understated. Yet each has ridden the roller coaster of public opinion, from deep lows to exultant highs.

When I left the Kennedy campaign, there was evidence that it was unraveling. And yet even on this jubilant day for the Carter people, election-campaign chief Robert Strauss is talking to reporters on the White House steps. "No," he is saying, "I don't underestimate President Kennedy--uh, uh, Senator Kennedy, but... ."