Ted, Bobby and JFK are reunited once more

Published on Sunday 30 August 2009 22:42

SENATOR Edward Kennedy has been laid to rest alongside his slain brothers on hallowed ground at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

The grave of the statesman described by President Barack Obama as "the lion of the United States Senate" is on a gently sloping hillside, flanked by a pair of maple trees.

His brother Robert, killed in 1968 while running for president, lies 100 feet away. It is another 100 feet to the eternal flame that has burned since 1963 for John F Kennedy, who was US president when he was assassinated. Edward, the youngest of the Kennedy brothers, died last Tuesday aged 77, more than a year after he was diagnosed with a brain tumour.

Crowds lined the streets of two cities on a day that marked the end of an American political era – outside Kennedy's funeral in rainy Boston, where he was eulogised by President Barack Obama, and later in the day in late-summer Washington.

With flags over the Capitol flying at half-mast, his hearse stopped outside the Senate where he served for 47 years. His widow, Vicki, embraced former staff members in the crowd.

Later, at a graveside enveloped in deepening darkness, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick offered sympathies to Kennedy relatives and "an extended family that must probably include most of America". The archbishop emeritus of Washington read from a letter Senator Kennedy wrote to Pope Benedict XVI, which was hand-delivered earlier this year by Obama.

"I know that I have been an imperfect human being but with the help of my faith I have tried to right my path," the dying senator wrote. He asked the pontiff "with deep humility to ask that you pray for me as my own health declines".

Rain beat down steadily as Kennedy's coffin was flown to the military cemetery which lies just across the Potomac River from Washington.

Hours earlier, Mr Obama delivered the eulogy in Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Boston, packed with mourners – including former presidents George W Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.

"He was given a gift of time that his brothers were not. And he used that time to touch as many lives and right as many wrongs as the years would allow," Mr Obama said.