By BosNewsLife News Center
WASHINGTON, USA (BosNewsLife)– United States Senator Edward Kennedy, a Liberal influential figure in the Democratic Party who took the helm of one of America’s mostknown political families after two older brothers were assassinated, has died,his family said Wednesday, August 26. He was 77.
In a first reaction seen by Worthy News Former first lady Nancy Reagan said she was”terribly saddened” to hear of death of Senator Kennedy.
Kennedy’s family said he died late Tuesday, August 25, night at his home in the small Massachusettstown of Hyannis Port.
The Democratic senator, who was seen as one the most influential political figures in Washington in the last four decades, had been suffering from an incurable form ofbrain cancer for just over a year.
His family described him as “the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our eyes.”Kennedy had been missing in the U.S. Senate for much of this year due to his illness, forcinghim to work on his lifelong signature issue, a national health care system, from his Hyannis Port home.
SENATOR COLLAPSE
In January, the senator collapsed at a luncheon in the U.S. Capitol rotundafollowing the inauguration of President Barack Obama, who he endorsed during the2008 presidential campaign.
Kennedy had represented Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate since 1962,when he was elected to the seat previously held by his older brother,President John F. Kennedy.During his Senate career, he was a strong champion of civil rights, educationand immigration, in addition to health care.
He was seen as a strong, vocal critic of both the Vietnam War andthe U.S.-led invasion in Iraq in 2003, and clearly showed his dissaproval during a State of the Union address of then President George W. Bush.
His personal life was marred by tragedies, including the 1969 car accidenton Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts that claimed the life of a female passenger, along with alcoholism and reported extramarital affairs.
His first marriage, to Joan Bennett Kennedy, ended in divorce in 1982 after 24 years of marriage.He married his second wife, Victoria Reggie, who survives him, along with his three children from his first marriage and several nieces and nephews.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY PLANNED
Kennedy’s autobiography is scheduled to be published in 2010. Much of the source material for the project will reportedly come from an oral history project he has been participating in with the University of Virginiasince 2004.
President Obama recently awarded the ailing Kennedy the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
