Ted Sorensen

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For the Australian politician, see Ted Sorensen (politician).
Theodore "Ted" Sorensen
Born May 8, 1928 (1928-05-08) (aged 81)
Lincoln, Nebraska
Occupation Special Counsel & Adviser, Speechwriter, Lawyer
Political party Democrat
Religious beliefs Unitarian Universalist
Spouse(s) Gillian Sorensen
Children Three sons; one daughter

Theodore Chaikin "Ted" Sorensen (born May 8, 1928) is of counsel (retired Senior Partner) at the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP and writer, best known as President John F. Kennedy’s special counsel and adviser, legendary speechwriter, and alter ego. President Kennedy once called him his “intellectual blood bank.”[1]

Contents

[edit] Early life

Sorensen was born in Nebraska, the son of Christian A. Sorensen, a Danish American and the future attorney general of Nebraska,[2][3] and Annis Chaikin, who was of Russian Jewish descent.[4] He graduated from Lincoln High School in 1945. He earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln and attended law school at the same university, graduating first in his class.[1]

[edit] Coauthorship of Profiles in Courage (1956)

At the age of 27, Sorensen had an important role in researching and drafting Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize–winning book Profiles in Courage, prompting some controversy over the book's authorship. In May 2008, Sorensen in his autobiography, Counselor largely confirmed allegations that he had done much, if not most, of the writing. Sorensen wrote that he "did a first draft of most chapters" and "helped choose the words of many of its sentences". Sorensen claimed that in May 1957, Kennedy "unexpectedly and generously offered, and I happily accepted, a sum" for his work on the book.[5]

In December 1957, syndicated columnist Drew Pearson, interviewed on TV by Mike Wallace, said, “Jack Kennedy is . . . the only man in history that I know who won a Pulitzer prize on a book which was ghostwritten for him.”[6] Kennedy demanded a retraction. After Kennedy provided handwritten notes and Sorensen signed an affidavit attesting to Kennedy's authorship, Pearson acceded.[7] However, years later historian Herbert Parmet, after analyzing the text of Profiles in Courage for his book The Struggles of John F. Kennedy, argued that although it was probably Kennedy who guided the direction and message of the award-winning book and oversaw its production, it was clearly Sorensen who wrote the end product.[citation needed]

See also Profiles in Courage, section: Authorship controversy.

[edit] Kennedy administration

White House photo of Sorensen during the Kennedy administration.

Sorensen was President Kennedy's Special Counsel & Adviser, and primary speechwriter, the role for which he is best remembered today. His help with the new president's inaugural address exhorted listeners to "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." This call to service is the phrase still most closely associated with the Kennedy administration. Although Sorensen played an important part in the composition of the Inaugural Address, "the speech and its famous turn of phrase that everyone remembers was," Sorensen firmly states (counter to what the majority of authors, journalists and other media sources have claimed), "written by Kennedy himself."

Sorensen served as Special Counsel & Adviser to the president, with responsibility for the domestic agenda; however, after the Bay of Pigs debacle, President Kennedy asked Sorensen to take part in foreign policy discussions as well. As a result, he played a critical role in resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis, helping to draft Kennedy's correspondence with Nikita Khrushchev.

After Kennedy was assassinated, he helped the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, for several months, as LBJ recalled in his White House memoirs. Sorensen wrote LBJ's first speech to Congress, as well as his first State of the Union address.

Sorensen left the White House to write Kennedy, a biography published in 1965. Providing an insight into the Kennedy White House, it became an international bestseller, and was translated into several languages.

[edit] Politics after Kennedy

Sorensen later joined the prominent U.S. law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, while still staying involved in politics. He played an important role in a number of campaigns, including the Robert F. Kennedy presidential campaign in 1968. Over the past four decades, Sorensen has led a prominent career as an international lawyer, advising governments around the world, as well as major international corporations.

In 1970, Sorensen ran as the party leaders' designee for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senator from New York, but was challenged in the primary election by Richard Ottinger, Paul O'Dwyer and Max McCarthy, and came in third. In 1977, Jimmy Carter nominated him as Director of Central Intelligence, but the nomination was withdrawn before a Senate vote. Sorensen’s help in explaining Ted Kennedy’s Chappaquiddick incident was cited as one factor in Senate opposition to his nomination as CIA Director. [8]

Sorensen was the national co-chairman for Gary Hart for the presidential election of 1984 and made several appearances on his behalf.[9]

In addition to his successful career as a lawyer, Sorensen has also been a frequent spokesman for liberal ideals and ideas, writing op-eds and delivering speeches on both domestic and international subjects. For several years in the 1960s, he was an editor at the Saturday Review.

He has been affiliated with a number of institutions, including the Council on Foreign Relations, The Century Foundation, Princeton University, and the Institute of Politics at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Sorensen is a board member of the International Center for Transitional Justice and an Advisory Board member of the Partnership for a Secure America, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to recreating the bipartisan center in American national security and foreign policy. He is also chair of the advisory board to the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life at Brandeis University. Sorensen has also attended meetings of the Judson Welliver Society, a bipartisan social club composed of former presidential speechwriters.

In 2007, a model Democratic presidential nomination acceptance speech written by Sorensen was published in the Washington Monthly. The magazine had solicited him to write the speech that he would most want the 2008 Democratic nominee to give at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, without regard to the identity of the nominee.[10]

On March 9, 2007 he spoke at an event with then-Senator Obama at New York City's Grand Hyatt Hotel and officially endorsed Barack Obama for the presidential election in 2008.[11][12][13] Very active in his campaign, Sorensen spoke (early-on and) frequently about the similarities between both Senator Barack Obama's and Senator John F. Kennedy's presidential campaigns. He also provided some assistance with President Obama's 2009 Inaugural Address.[14]

Sorensen serves on the Advisory Board of the National Security Network.

[edit] Personal

He is married to Gillian Sorensen of the United Nations Foundation. He has three sons: Eric, Stephen, and Philip and a daughter, Juliet Sorensen.

In the 1998 miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, Sorensen was played by Jack Gilpin; in the 2000 film Thirteen Days, although he was played by Tim Kelleher, it is widely believed that the lead role played by Kevin Costner was modeled after Sorensen himself.

[edit] Books by Ted Sorensen

  • Decision-making in the White House (1963)
  • Kennedy (1965)
  • The Kennedy Legacy (1969)
  • Watchmen in the Night: Presidential Accountability After Watergate (1975)
  • A Different Kind of Presidency: A Proposal for Breaking the Political Deadlock (1984)
  • Let the Word Go Forth: The Speeches, Statements and Writings of John F. Kennedy, 1947-1963 (1988)
  • Why I Am a Democrat (1996)
  • Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History (2008)

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b ABC News online, 8 Feb 2008
  2. ^ http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-et-rutten6-2008may06,1,1747761.story
  3. ^ NYT Sunday Book Review
  4. ^ Marcus 1981:173
  5. ^ Wall Street Journal, 9 May 2008.
  6. ^ Walls, Jeannette (March 2000). Dish: The Inside Story on the World of Gossip. New York: Avon Books, Inc., an Imprint of Harper Collins Publishers. p. 34. ISBN 0-380-97821-0. 
  7. ^ Clarke 2005:26.
  8. ^ New York Times, Jan. 16, 1977, Page 1.
  9. ^ New York Times, 21 April 1983
  10. ^ Sorensen 2007, The New Vision
  11. ^ Guardian, 25 July 2007
  12. ^ Sorenson, video posted on YouTube.
  13. ^ The New Republic, 23 July 2007
  14. ^ 'MSNBC commentary by Keith Olbermann

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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