AFTANDILIAN: REMEMBERING SENATOR TED KENNEDY
By Gregory Aftandilian

9/12/aftandilian-remembering-senator-ted-kennedy/
September 12, 2009

Much has been written and said about the life of Senator Ted Kennedy
since his death a short time ago. For me, his passing left me sad and
reflective, for few people have touched me as profoundly as he did. I
was fortunate to have worked for him in 1999 as a foreign policy
fellow, an experience that was not only rewarding on a professional
level but left a lasting impression as an example of how a person who
wields so much influence and power can also render so much kindness
and compassion.

Growing up in Massachusetts and being interested in history and
politics naturally led me to take an interest in Ted Kennedy and his
policies. So when an opportunity came knocking while I was a State
Department analyst (I was selected as a Brookings Congressional fellow
in late 1998 to spend the following year working on Capitol Hill),
I gravitated to the Kennedy office. Luckily, I was chosen by Kennedy’s
senior staff to work as a fellow on foreign policy issues even before
my colleagues in the fellowship program were able to obtain positions
in other Congressional offices. I felt very fortunate in having landed
such a plum assignment.

My first encounter with the Senator was, naturally enough, at an
Irish cultural event at the Kennedy Center along the Potomac River in
Washington. As a staffer, I was to hover around him as guests greeted
him and to jot down notes if someone asked him to do a favor. Walking
with him into the famous center and seeing the large bust of his slain
brother made the evening especially moving. Perhaps because it was
also an ethnic event, I chatted with him about the Armenian community
in Massachusetts as I walked him to his car. I knew that a few years
earlier he had hosted a wonderful reception for Catholicos Karekin
I at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston where the two leaders got
along famously, and I told him the sad news that the Catholicos was
suffering from cancer. Upon hearing this, Kennedy stopped in his tracks
and told me to draft a get-well note from him to the Catholicos first
thing in the morning. Later that year, when the Catholicos succumbed
to cancer, Kennedy asked me to draft a statement on his behalf for
the Congressional Record in tribute to the life of Karekin I.

These early encounters impressed upon me not only the Senator’s
compassion but also his close ties to the Armenian community. That
April, he spoke at the Armenian Genocide commemorative event on
Capitol Hill and I was proud to have drafted his speech, which was
later placed in the Congressional Record, and to have accompanied
him to the event. However, on the ride over from the Senate to the
House side, where the event was taking place, I saw that Kennedy,
much to my chagrin, was not going over my draft, but seemed to be
thinking about something else. Only later did I realize that he
was collecting his thoughts before arriving at the event. There, he
spoke from his heart and delivered a hard-hitting and moving speech,
much better than I could have ever composed. That same month, Kennedy
also received in his office the then-president of Armenia, Robert
Kocharian, another memorable event. Kennedy opened the conversation
with Kocharian by saying how his family and the Armenian people have
had a long and enduring friendship, going back many decades. Later that
year, I discovered that President John F. Kennedy, while a freshman at
Harvard in the 1930’s, had tutored a poor Armenian American teenager
in Cambridge, helped him graduate from high school, and kept in touch
with him until his own tragic death in 1963. When I wrote an article
about this story, based on an interview I conducted with the widow of
the person who was tutored, Senator Kennedy was so moved by it that he
directed me to send it to his sisters and his niece, Caroline Kennedy,
and to the archives of the John F. Kennedy Library.

His commitment to the Armenian people extended to the political
battle over Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act, which restricted
U.S. aid to Azerbaijan because of its blockade of Armenia. In 1999,
Kennedy went down to the Senate floor and took part in the debate
to preserve Section 907 when opponents of Armenia were seeking its
removal. It was typical of him to tell me that fellow supporters of
Armenia, like himself, would prevail in the fight when the outcome
of that vote initially looked uncertain. His participation in that
debate helped keep Section 907 unchanged over the next two years.

Outside of working on Armenian issues for the Senator, I worked closely
with his foreign policy advisor on various topics and together we
briefed Kennedy for his meetings with a number of world leaders,
including Egyptian President Mubarak, Jordan’s King Abdullah, Irish
Prime Minister Ahern, and Georgian President Shevardnadze. Kennedy
always went out of his way to introduce me to these leaders, even
though aides usually operate in the background. It was this personal
touch of his that I always found so thoughtful and caring. When my
son was born that year, Kennedy sent him a "warm Irish welcome" note
that our family has treasured, as we have an inscribed print of one
of his Cape Cod paintings.

As my fellowship was sadly coming to an end in late 1999, I heard of
an opening on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
and applied for it. Kennedy was legendary for being helpful to his
staffers in their career pursuits and he did the same for me. If it
were not for his personal intervention, I would have not gotten the
job, as competition for such positions was extremely stiff. Seven
years later, Kennedy and his staff were again instrumental in helping
me obtain an international security affairs fellowship at Harvard.

Even after I left his office, Kennedy would always treat me with the
same warmth and kindness as he did when I worked for him. When I would
run into him in the corridors of the Senate, he would pat me on the
back and ask me how I was doing. He took a genuine interest in all
of his former staffers and would invite them to his annual Christmas
parties where, after performing a hilarious skit in costume with his
wife Vickie and making fun of himself, he would then move around the
room to greet everyone personally.

Ted Kennedy never forgot his Irish ethnic roots and even though he
grew up in wealth and privilege, he understood, probably based on his
family’s background, that life was unfair at times, discrimination
was a scourge that had to be defeated, and that public service meant
championing the rights of all people. He worked assiduously and
successfully for immigration reform early in his career, overturning
laws that discriminated against people from outside of northern
and western Europe. Thousands of ethnic families today, including
Armenian American ones, owe their existence and opportunity in America
to Kennedy’s immigration reform efforts. He similarly championed
healthcare reform, believing that no American family should be denied
health coverage for a loved one in need of care. And he championed
human rights around the world, believing that basic freedoms of free
speech and assembly should not be denied.

It was this compassion, both at the personal level and in the national
and international arenas, that endeared him to so many people,
including me. I was fortunate to have known him, even for a relatively
short period of time, and will always be grateful for his friendship
and the lessons he taught me.