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Noonan on Reagan and Kennedy: 'Grace Met Grace'

How two political families forged a friendship across the aisle

By Jane Yager, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 28, 2009 6:53 AM CDT

(Newser) – Peggy Noonan recounts the unlikely friendship of the Kennedys and the Reagans and the time "grace met grace"—when President Reagan ventured to Ted's house in 1985 to make a speech honoring JFK and raise money for his new library. "A friendship that had already begun deepened," writes Noonan in the Wall Street Journal.

Noonan reprints the speech, which she wrote and in which Reagan praises JFK as a great man who captured "the imagination and the spirit of the time." Reagan also admits he'd voted for the "other fellow. But you know, it's true: When the battle's over and the ground is cooled, well, it's then that you see the opposing general's valor." The next day, Ted sent him a gracious handwritten note, calling his presence a "magnificent tribute" to his brother. "I only wish Jack could have been there, too."

[Images (1)]

[Quotes (2)]

In this June 24, 1985, file photo, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., talks with President Ronald Reagan as they look over an American Eagle that graced President John F. Kennedy's desk. (AP Photo/Charles Tasnadi, File)

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We were close and it didn't make any difference to Ronnie or to Ted that one was a Republican and one a Democrat. I'll miss him very much, I'm sure we'll all miss him. - Nancy Reagan on Ted Kennedy

History is not only made by people, it is people. And so history is, as young John Kennedy demonstrated, as heroic as you want it to be, as heroic as you are. - Ronald Reagan

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Noonan on Reagan and Kennedy: 'Grace Met Grace'