melancholyYet another of America's greatest political minds, is gone forever. Even more tragic than that singular fact, is the lack of thought most people will give to his passing. This country has bid farewell to one of it's most remarkable public servants...and the vast majority, will never BEGIN to understand that SO much more than "just another politician" has been lost. I could rant on this very topic for an eternity, but I digress!! Below, you will find, an excerpt from the NY Times article. Enjoy!
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Theodore C. Sorensen, one of the last links to John F. Kennedy’s administration, a writer and counselor who did much to shape the president’s narrative, image and legacy, died Sunday in Manhattan. He was 82.
Mr. Sorensen once said he suspected that the headline on his obituary would read “Theodore Sorenson, Kennedy Speechwriter,” misspelling his name and misjudging his work, but he was much more. He was a political strategist and a trusted adviser on everything from election tactics to foreign policy.
“You need a mind like Sorensen’s around you that’s clicking and clicking all the time,” Kennedy’s archrival, Richard M. Nixon, said in 1962. He said Mr. Sorensen had “a rare gift”: the knack of finding phrases that penetrated the American psyche.
He was best known for working with Kennedy on passages of soaring rhetoric, including the 1961 inaugural address proclaiming that “the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans” and challenging citizens: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Mr. Sorensen drew on the Bible, the Gettysburg Address and the words of Thomas Jefferson and Winston Churchill as he helped hone and polish that speech.
NY Times Article