US - Ted Kennedy: Collaborator or Soviet agent?

Good question.

There has been a flurry in the press lately concerning the alleged letters written by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and first carried to Leonid Brezhnev and later to Yuri Andropov.

The initial one, written in 1979, was an offer to work with the Soviets and against then President Jimmy Carter, who, in Mr. Kennedy’s estimation, was working a bit too hard in thwarting the USSR’s goals in their wild and woolly Afghanistan adventure.

The missive was also to be used to further the senior Massachusetts senator’s budding presidential aspirations and against those of Mr. Carter’s in 1980, by demonstrating another less unsettling and more liberally appealing way to handle the détente seeking Soviets. An opening the Soviets would then answer in kind.