Theodore Chaikin " Ted " Sorensen (May 8, 1928 - October 31, 2010) is an American president's lawyer, author and advisor. He is the author of a speech to President John F. Kennedy, as well as one of his closest advisers. President Kennedy once called him an "intellectual blood bank."
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Sorensen was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, son of Christian A. Sorensen (1890 - 1959), who served as the attorney general of Nebraska (1929-33), and Annis (Chaikin) Sorensen. His father was a Danish-American and his mother of Russian Jewish descent. His younger brother, Philip C. Sorensen, later became lieutenant governor of Nebraska. He graduated from Lincoln High School during 1945. He earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and attended law school there, graduating first in his class.
During January 1953, 24-year-old Sorensen became assistant to new parliamentary speaker Senator John F. Kennedy. He wrote many articles and Kennedy's speeches. In his autobiography 2008: Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History Sorensen says he wrote "the first draft of most chapters" of John F. Kennedy's 1957 Profile in Courage and "helped choose the words of many sentences. "
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Kennedy Administration
Sorensen was President Kennedy's advisor, advisor, and the keynote speaker, the role he remembered best. He helped set up an inaugural address where Kennedy said famously, "Do not ask what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." Although Sorensen plays an important part in the composition of the inaugural speech, the famous "speech and phrase change that everyone is remembering is," Sorensen has declared (against what most authors, journalists and other media sources say), "Kennedy wrote. " In his memoir of 2008, "Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History," Sorenson claimed, "Actually I can not remember where the line came from." This quote is derived from Cicero's works.
During the early months of government, Sorensen's responsibilities were related to the domestic agenda. After the Bay of Pigs disaster, Kennedy asked Sorensen to participate with foreign policy discussions as well. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Sorensen served as a member of the ExComm and was named by Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara as one of the "inner circle" members who advised the president; others were Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, General Maxwell D. Taylor (chairman of the Joint Chiefs), former ambassador to USSR Llewellyn Thompson, and McNamara himself. Sorensen played an important role in compiling Kennedy's correspondence with Nikita Khrushchev and working at Kennedy's first address for the nation on the crisis on October 22.
Sorensen was devastated by the Kennedy assassination, which he described as "the most traumatic experience of my life... I never thought of a future without him." He then quoted a poem that he said concluded how he felt: "How can you leave us, how can you die? We are sheep without shepherds when the snow closes the sky." He submitted a letter of resignation to President Johnson the day after the assassination but was persuaded to stay through the transition. Sorensen composed Johnson's first speech for the Congress as well as the 1964 State of the Union. He officially resigned February 29, 1964, and was the first member of the Kennedy Administration to do so.
Before his resignation, Sorensen declared his intention to write a biography of Kennedy, calling it "a book that President Kennedy intended to write with my help after his second term." He was not the only Kennedy assistant who published the writing; historian and special assistant Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. wrote his Pulitzer Prize winning memoir A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy at the White House during the same time period. Sorensen's biography, Kennedy , was published in 1965 and became an international bestseller.
Politics after Kennedy
Sorensen then joins US law firm from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & amp; Garrison LLP, where he is an advisor, while still involved in politics. He was involved with the Democratic Party campaign and became a key adviser to Robert F. Kennedy during Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1968. Over the next four decades Sorensen has a career as an international lawyer, advising governments around the world, as well as major international corporations.
During 1970 Sorensen was a Democratic nominee for Democratic nomination for US senator from New York. He was challenged in the primary elections by Richard Ottinger, Paul O'Dwyer, and Max McCarthy, and surveyed all three.
During 1977, Jimmy Carter was nominated Sorensen as Director of Central Intelligence (CIA), but his nomination was withdrawn before the Senate election. Sorensen's help by explaining Chappaquiddick incident Ted Kennedy was named as a Senate opposition factor to his candidacy as director of the CIA. Sorensen in his autobiography attributes the disappearance of the Senate's approval to his candidacy for the CIA's directorship of his youth-conscience status, his two failed marriages, and his writing as a written statement in defense of the release of the Pentagon Papers.
Sorensen is the national vice chairman for Gary Hart for the 1984 presidential election and made several appearances on his behalf.
In addition to his successful career as a lawyer, Sorensen is also often a spokesperson for liberal ideals and ideas, writing editorial opinions and delivering speeches on domestic and international subjects. For several years during the 1960s, he was an editor of the Saturday Review .
He is affiliated with a number of institutions, including the Council on Foreign Relations, The Century Foundation, Princeton University, and the John F. Kennedy School of Politics at Harvard. Sorensen is a member of the board of the International Center for Transitional Justice and a member of the advisory board of the Partnership for Secure America, a non-profit organization dedicated to creating bipartisan consensus for American national security and foreign policy. He is also chairman of the advisory council to the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life at Brandeis University. Sorensen also attended the meeting of Judson Welliver Society, a bipartisan social club made up of former presidential speech writers.
During 2007, Democrat's nomination acceptance speech model written by Sorensen was published on the Washington Monthly. The magazine had asked him to write the speech he most wanted for a Democratic candidate in 2008 to be given at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, regardless of the identity of the candidate.
On March 9, 2007, he spoke at an event with Senator Barack Obama at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City and officially supported him for the 2008 presidential election. Very active in his campaign, Sorensen spoke earlier and often about the similarities between Senatorial presidential campaigns Barack Obama and Senator John F. Kennedy. He also provided some assistance with President Obama's Inaugural Speech in 2009.
Sorensen served on the National Security Network advisory board.
In his book Let Let The Word Go Forth, Sorensen chose from over 110 speeches and writings that point to the importance of historical insight in Kennedy's thoughts and actions.
Personal life
She married three times. His first marriage, in 1949, was Camilla Palmer. The couple has three sons: Eric, Steven, and Phillip. They then divorced. During 1964, he married Sara Elbery. The marriage also ended in a divorce. During 1969, Sorensen married Gillian Martin of the United Nations Foundation. They had a daughter, Juliet Sorensen, and remained married until Sorensen died.
On February 25, 2010, he received the National Humanities Medal for 2009 in a ceremony in the East Room of the White House. He was awarded the medal for "Advancing our understanding of modern American politics.As a speech writer and advisor to President Kennedy, he helps to compose messages and policies, and then gives us a window to the people and events that make history."
Death
On October 31, 2010, Sorensen died at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City due to complications after a stroke he had suffered in the previous week.
Publications
- Kennedy . Harper & amp; Line. 1965. ISBNÃ, 9781568520353.
- The Kennedy Legacy . London: Weidenfeld & amp; Nicolson. 1970. ISBNÃ, 978-0-297-00026-6.
- Watchmen in the Night: Accountability of the President after Watergate . Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press. 1976. ISBNÃ, 978-0-262-69055-3. (with James MacGregor Burns)
- Different Presidency Type: A Proposal to Solve the Political Impasse (issue 1). New York: Harper & amp; Line. 1984. ISBNÃ, 978-0-06-039032-7.
- 'Let the Four Words Go': Speech, Statement, and Writing from John F. Kennedy, 1947-1963 (Reprint ed.). New York: Laurel. 1991. ISBNÃ, 978-0-440-50406-1. (Introduction by Sorensen.)
- Why I'm a Democrat (1st ed.). New York: Henry Holt. 1996. ISBNÃ, 978-0-8050-4414-0.
- Counselor: Life at the Edge of History . New York, NY: HarperPerennial. 2009. ISBN: 978-0-06-079872-7.
Media depictions
Sorensen has been described as a character in the following movies and miniseries:
- The 1974 TV Movie The Missiles of October , by Clifford David
- Mini-series HBO 1998 From Earth to the Moon , by Jack Gilpin
- Thirteen Days 2000 film by Tim Kelleher; though, in an interview after the release of the film, Robert McNamara stated that Kenneth O'Donnell's main role (played by Kevin Costner) was modeled after Sorensen: "It's not Kenny O'Donnell who pulls us all together - it's Ted Sorensen."
- Movie 2016 LBJ , by Brent Bailey
- Movie 2018 Chappaquiddick , by Taylor Nichols
See also
- "Ich bin ein Berliner"
- The American University speech
References
Further reading
- ABC News online, 2008-02-08. Pass by Torch: Touch Kennedy on Obama's Words
- Clarke, Thurston. 2005. Ask No: The inauguration of John F. Kennedy and the American-Changed Speech . Macmillan, 304 pp. (Originally published 2004 by Henry Holt and Co., 272 pp.)
- Marcus, Jacob Rader. 1981. American Jewish Women, 1654-1980. KTAV Publishing House. 231 pp
- The New York Times , 1983-04-21. NEW YORK DAY BY DAY; Gary Hart Opens Campaign HQ The New York Times, Book Review, May 18, 2008, Ted Sorensen's Advisor .
- Sorensen, Ted (as Theodore C.) New Vision. Washington Monthly , July/August 2007.
- Sorensen, Ted. 2008-07-23. Time Heir: Is Barack Obama The Next JFK? New Republic
- Sorenson, Ted (as Theodore). 2007-07-25. Barack Obama: New JFK. Guardian (London, England)
- Sorensen, Ted. Ted Sorensen in Barack Obama on YouTube.
- Wall Street Journal , May 9, 2008, p W3, a review of Counselor Ted Sorensen.
External links
- John F. Kennedy Library and Museum: Inventory of private documents
- PBS interview with Sorensen, August 29, 1996
- As an author for someone else for Kennedy
- Webcast speech at Nuclear Non-Proliferation Nuclear Conference 2005 (RealPlayer)
- Lincoln High School Alumni Profile
- Sorensen Acceptance Address Prepared for Presidential Democrat Candidate 2008
- Sorensen speaks at the MIT Symposium
- Interview in February 2009 by Thorsten Overgaard with Ted Sorensen in Stockholm about Obama and Kennedy
- Appearance in C-SPAN
- Book Notes interviews with Sorenson about Why I Am a Democrat , July 14, 1996.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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