In memory of Senator Edward M. Kennedy ’54, LL.D. ’08, Harvard Magazine offers a glimpse of the man in action, debating then Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger ’38, J.D. ’41, in Washington, D.C., in 1986 as one of several special events marking the fifteenth anniversary of the Harvard Kennedy School. (According to Harvard president Derek Bok, who moderated the debate, both speakers were “shy, inarticulate, somewhat ill-at-ease, and not too well informed” when they entered Harvard, but “When they got their diplomas, they were supremely self-possessed and equipped with formidable forensic skills.”) Michael J. Abramowitz ’85 filed the report.
Read Harvard Magazine’s coverage of the honorary-degree ceremony for Senator Kennedy in December 2008
Read President Faust’s statement on Senator Kennedy’s death