Kennedy Tapes: Clinton Health Care Plan Was “Catastrophic Mistake” 

DAVE READ PHOTO
Senator Edward Kennedy at the dedication of the statue of his brother John F. Kennedy in front of the JFK Hyannis Museum in May 2007.

BOSTON (AP) — A major history project focusing on the legacy of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy is going public.

On Wednesday, the University of Virginia’s Miller Center and the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate released the Edward M. Kennedy Oral History Project.

The project features 19 interviews with the longtime Democratic senator from Massachusetts about his Senate career, which spanned almost five decades and 10 presidential administrations.

The goal was to create an archive of spoken recollections and reflections on Kennedy’s public life. He died in Hyannis Port in 2009.

In the newly released recordings, Kennedy expresses his displeasure at the way a failed 2007 immigration bill was handled and the secretive way President Bill Clinton moved on his failed universal care proposal.

Nineteen interviews with the Massachusetts Democrat recorded as part of an oral history project were released Tuesday to The New York Times by the Miller Center at the University of Virginia and Boston’s Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the Senate.

Kennedy called the Clinton health care legislation a “catastrophic mistake.” Even though Kennedy supported health care reform, he said the Clinton administration worked in secret and didn’t keep him informed.

He also said the Senate didn’t work hard enough on immigration, putting much of the blame on Majority Leader Harry Reid.

The project also includes nearly 250 interviews with family, friends, colleagues, foreign leaders, journalists, and staffers.

Former colleagues, staffers, and historians will gather in the Kennedy Caucus Room at the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington on Wednesday to honor Kennedy’s commitment to civil rights.