Newswise — The Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia joins the rest of the nation in mourning the loss of one of this country’s most accomplished statesmen, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.
The Miller Center officially launched the Edward M. Kennedy Oral History Project through its Presidential Oral History Program in 2004. Kennedy envisioned this oral history project as a firsthand opportunity to explore how legislation is made by illuminating the issues, times, and people involved in the major public policy matters of the past 45 years.
“Aside from being a great statesman, Sen. Kennedy was a good friend of the Miller Center,” said Gerald L. Baliles, director of the Miller Center and former governor of Virginia.
“Edward Kennedy stands tall in the nation’s history as a senator of presidential stature and accomplishments – a man who became America’s unofficial president in the eyes of many around the world,” said James Sterling Young, U.Va. professor and director of the Kennedy Oral History Project. “He devoted his life – and his extraordinary political talents – to making more gentle the human condition.”
The Edward M. Kennedy Oral History Project is in its fifth year of an estimated six-year duration that is on schedule to be ready for public release at the end of 2010, and will be archived at the repository of Kennedy’s papers and the Miller Center’s Scripps Library. To date, Miller Center scholars have interviewed over 175 persons in 240 interview sessions for the Kennedy project. As is the policy of the Miller Center’s Presidential Oral History Program, Kennedy interview transcripts will not available until the project’s release date.
The interviews cover a broad range of politically and biographically important topics, including Kennedy's pre-Senate years and learning of politics, his relationship to his brothers and their career choices, his rise to the Senate leadership, his political style, his Senate and presidential campaigns, his public causes and how he sought to advance them, and his legacy.
The end product will be a collection of transcripts and audio recordings of oral history interviews that includes two primary elements: Kennedy's own recollections and reflections, consisting of an extended series of recorded interviews with him; and the recollections and observations of individuals whose acquaintances or relationships with Senator Kennedy have figured most prominently in his life and career.
Per Miller Center policy, Kennedy interview transcripts are not yet available, but scholars at the center are available to discuss Kennedy’s legacy and the Edward M. Kennedy Oral History Project. Other Miller Center resources concerning Kennedy, including audio clips from the secret White House tapes of Presidents John F. Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, are also available at www.millercenter.org/newsroom/news/emk.
About the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs
The Miller Center of Public Affairs is a leading nonpartisan public policy institution aimed at bringing together engaged citizens, scholars, members of the media, and government officials to focus on issues of national importance to the governance of the United States, with a special interest in the American presidency.
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