Teddy Kennedy Autobiography

Senator Edward M. Kennedy has agreed to a multimillion dollar deal with Hachette Book Group USA to pen his memoirs, giving the veteran Massachusetts lawmaker a forum for his own perspective on a life and career that has been examined by others in countless books and articles, negotiators of the deal confirmed yesterday.

Neither Kennedy's office nor the publishing house would reveal the size of the package, but a publishing figure familiar with the deal said Kennedy's payment was one of the largest in history, eclipsing the $8 million given to New York Senator Hillary Clinton. Former President Clinton and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair each got a reported $10 million for their memoirs.

"I've been fortunate in my life to grow up in an extraordinary family and to have a front row seat at many key events in our nation's history," the 75-year-old Kennedy said in a statement. "I hope my reflections can contribute to a deeper understanding of many events in the history of this great country and to a more in-depth picture of an American family."


"My sense is he's going to write his life as he lived it," Barnett said in an interview last night. "You will hear the [accounts] of these momentous events in the voice of the man who lived them."

The book is scheduled to be released in 2010, the 50th anniversary of the election of the senator's brother, President John F. Kennedy, and will cover the Kennedy administration, the assassinations of his brothers, the civil rights movement, and later events.


No one involved in the negotiation could say if Kennedy would address the events at Chappaquiddick, where Kennedy's car went over a bridge in 1969, killing his passenger and campaign worker, Mary Jo Kopechne.