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01 November 2010

Rumours of his demise…

Ted Sorensen, Kennedy advisor, White House speechwriter, lawyer, author and Democratic activist is dead at the age of 82.

Rumours of his demise, as noted in a post at Regret the Error, circulated previously.  This time they proved true.

The New York Times obituary described Sorensen’s role for President John Kennedy this way:

He held the title of special counsel, but Washington reporters of the era labeled him the president’s “intellectual alter ago” and “a lobe of Kennedy’s mind.” Mr. Sorensen called these exaggerations, but they were rooted in some truth.

Kennedy had plenty of yes-men. He needed a no-man from time to time. The president trusted Mr. Sorensen to play that role in crises foreign and domestic, and he played it well, in the judgment of Robert F. Kennedy, his brother’s attorney general. “If it was difficult,” Robert Kennedy said, “Ted Sorensen was brought in.”

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