Senator Ted Kennedy's Funeral Procession
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN CENTER: And what was his reaction?</s>MANN: The senator winked at me and said watch this, Bob. He walked out the door, took three long strides and Ted was about 6'3", broad shoulders. This guy was maybe 5'8". He got right in his face and said, hey, how are you? How are you? And then he left. The fellow never came back.</s>WHITFIELD: How interesting.</s>MANN: So he turned what could have been --</s>WHITFIELD: A frightening moment --</s>MANN: And he had the courage to do that and there would --</s>WHITFIELD: I love the way you also have described that working for him really meant it was a contact sport.</s>MANN: It was a contact sport.</s>WHITFIELD: That he put 150 percent into it and the expectation was everyone who worked with him and alongside him would have to do the same thing.</s>MANN: He would make great demands. He would shout and scream during the day. He would praise you but he would also very candidly let you know what he wanted. He was accustomed to the best work, at 6:00 or 7:00 or 8:00 he'd buzz me and say come in, let's have a drink. Let's talk about the day. What are we going to do tomorrow? He'd be chewing on potato chips or something else.</s>WHITFIELD: His humor was very disarming. Senator Orrin Hatch talked about that last night, how he went into it thinking, you know what I'm going to go after that guy, Senator Ted Kennedy, but in the end it turns out they were just best of friends.</s>MANN: When I left him and went to work for the Large Business Association, they said how could you work for that damn liberal Ted Kennedy, and then I brought him to a fund-raiser that they put on. By the time it was over they said Bob, how do I write a check to Senator Kennedy? He had worked them over one at a time, made them laugh, and he was just a marvelous in that respect. There is another aspect here, too, as we talk about his passing and we saw it with the remarks today by Ted Kennedy Jr., and by Patrick Kennedy. I had not seen Ted Kennedy Jr. in a few years. He's matured. Looks a lot like a young Ted Kennedy and sounds like him. Patrick comes to Texas often. He has many friends in Texas and he usually comes to Austin. I'm going to get him into Texas State I hope next time and Patrick is a little quieter. He was the invisible kid when he was young. He couldn't go to some places because of his asthma.</s>WHITFIELD: Did you see something different in them today?</s>MANN: The torch is passing. The torch is passing. And Joe Kennedy Jr. is a marvelous person with leadership capability. The Kennedy women are stout as they have always been.</s>WHITFIELD: So this third generation, they are all quite accomplished in their own right. It may not necessarily be a huge political stage like what we saw in Senator Ted Kennedy or even in Bobby Kennedy or even in Jack Kennedy. However, they're all making a mark in different ways, and public service is still at the forefront, being a humanitarian, philanthropic, et cetera, but do you see this third generation --</s>MANN: Here is what else you see. Even when you're talking to them about a football game or some other issues, almost always in the conversation will come what is the right thing to do? What should we do? What should we have done here in Texas? There's a core that never really leaves their aura of conversation, and I look for it now when I talk to them because we can tell stories, we can toot it up, we can be very serious, but with Patrick Kennedy in particular when I've been with him and with Joe --</s>WHITFIELD: How do you see them effectively passing on that lesson to their kids as you saw Rose and Joe Kennedy pass on to Jack, Bobby, Joe, and Edward Kennedy and they have done it to their kids.</s>MANN: They have done everything as a family. I was surprised when I first went to work for Senator Kennedy and we would do a schedule meetings, before we'd do anything, before we do foreign affairs, military affairs, how long has it been since I had lunch with John Jr.? Get Patrick in here. Get Teddy Jr. in here. I need to take them to the Cape this weekend. Always do the family scheduling first. Most of us would get busy and think we're important but family suffers, but they always came first. I think from that he grew enormous strengths.</s>WHITFIELD: Those were immediate family members. Before I let you go I'm wondering, it seems as though he took in President Obama as yet -- as another family member, almost like a brother the way in which he helped campaign, perhaps even helped put President Obama over the top. What would be your view based on your exposure to him as a former press secretary, how often or do you even suppose Senator Kennedy picked up the phone and called President Obama while in office saying, you know what, here is my advice or this is what --</s>MANN: I suspect it was a daily occurrence. Senator Kennedy loves to be a mentor. He would have been a wonderful professor. He was my mentor. I think anyone who worked with him learned from him and he would go out of his way at the end of the day to touch bases and to provide counseling services and personal things, professional things. He was very much aware of your level of political sophistication and then he would demand more.</s>WHITFIELD: Bob Mann thanks so much. Nice meeting you and thanks for helping us to see another side of Senator Ted Kennedy as the former press secretary. Thanks so much. America's most famous family said farewell to its patriarch today. 1,500 invited guests packed a historic Boston church at a more than two-hour funeral for Senator Ted Kennedy. You watched it live on CNN. Joining the Kennedy family were foreign dignitaries as well, political leaders, actors, and athletes. The mourners included fellow members of the Senate where Kennedy served almost half a century, hard to believe. President Obama delivered the eulogy.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE U.S: Today we say good-bye to the youngest child of Rose and Joseph Kennedy. The world will long remember their son Edward as the heir to a weighty legacy, a champion for those who had none, the soul of the Democratic Party, and the lion of the United States Senate. A man who graces nearly 1,000 laws and who penned more than 300 laws himself.</s>WHITFIELD: As we mentioned, the senator's motorcade will take one final trip to the U.S. Capitol after leaving Boston making its way to an air force base there. The casket of Senator Ted Kennedy will be making its way to Andrews Air Force base in Maryland just outside the nation's capital, and then it will be taking through the streets of the nation's capital for a final public good-bye. CNN's Kate Bolduan is actually on Capitol Hill where the hearse will actually take a moment there correct and many of his staffers will get an opportunity to pay tribute.</s>KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Exactly Fredricka. This is part of the final farewell for Senator Kennedy. The casket when Senator Kennedy lands at Andrews Air Force Base along with the Kennedy family, they will be motorcadding here to the capitol, right here behind me. They will be stopping right here, an opportunity for Senator Kennedy and the family to say good-bye and stop by this institution, this place that he served in for nearly half a century. We're told this will be a brief stop. Possibly, probably 15 minutes, but what you're going to see shortly, these are going to be -- these steps are going to be filled with staffers, Kennedy staffers current and former as well as congressional staffers, people who worked in the capitol all filling those stairs. It's an opportunity for these people to pay respects, to say their own good-bye to Senator Kennedy. The program we heard is very short. A prayer led by the house chaplain, Father Daniel Coughlin, a song, we are told "America the Beautiful," and then an opportunity for the Kennedy family members to greet and thank all of these people who really are an extension of the Kennedy family. They're really the people behind the legislator, behind the man, the lion of the senate as he is called. After this brief stop they will be making, they will be continuing on Fredricka as you mentioned onto -- over to Arlington National Cemetery where Senator Kennedy will finally be laid to rest.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Kate Bolduan thanks so much. As we heard from former press secretary Bob Mann here of Senator Kennedy saying once you're in the family, you're always part of the family. So Kate underscoring there a large number of people who are going to be there at the steps of the capitol to pay their final last respects. So let's take a closer look now at the motorcade route for the Senator's final journey to Arlington National Cemetery. There we find our Tom Foreman to break it down for us. Tom.</s>TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Fred. Kate was talking to us from here. This is the eastern front of the U.S. Capitol; if you have been here to visit normally you approach from the other side where the mall is. This is what many people consider the backside. It's actually the front side. This is where he will meet with all his people and this is where they will sing "America the Beautiful" lead by students. And it won't be a long stop. But then they'll move on. I want to show you the route they're actually going to follow. These little dots show the way they will be traveling. They will move away from the capitol and right over here to Constitution Avenue, and then they'll start moving right down through the heart of D.C. really. As they travel this way the mall is over here. This is the Smithsonian; the national archives will be over here. They will pass Washington Monument. The White House is over here. They're actually headed right toward the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Before they get here, they'll turn here, go past the Lincoln Memorial, over the Potomac River which is a favorite with many of the voters and sailors here and then out here to Arlington National Cemetery, the majestic entrance area, and up towards this area, which is actually the part where the Kennedy's rest right now. John Kennedy's grave is over in this area, a place that Ted Kennedy visited many, many times. His brother Bobby's grave is not that far away, also visited many times by the Kennedy family, and including the senator and this is where Ted Kennedy, Edward Moore Kennedy, will be laid to rest. The three brothers united at last in this hallowed ground in America. More than 300,000 people buried here from all the wars we have ever known in this country now joined by these leaders.</s>WHITFIELD: It really is a symbolic journey is it not through Washington going by all the landmarks that Senator Ted Kennedy can be associated with in so many different ways. You talk about the mall, of course the Capitol building, and even going over the Potomac. We know how much he loved water and that was so much a part of his life before making a final stop at Arlington National Cemetery.</s>FOREMAN: I think this really in many ways, Fred, is going to be the Washington equivalent of the trip yesterday in Boston where he went past all those Boston landmarks that he meant so much to and meant so much to him. In Boston he was known on the streets and he knew the streets well. Very much the same here in Washington, D.C. An awful lot of reporters and just regular citizens can tell you stories about walking near the capitol and seeing Senator Kennedy out walking his dogs or just taking a stroll. This was his town as much as Boston was, and it will be a final trip through a hometown of sorts before he reaches his resting place.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Tom Foreman thanks so much. Appreciate that. Let's talk a little more about Arlington National Cemetery. It's been public for a good part of the morning today. Some people have been streaming there to get kind of a firsthand look of the final resting place or the area of the final resting place for Senator Ted Kennedy. Soon it will be closed off. It will be private for that private ceremony involving family only for the burial of Senator Ted Kennedy. Our Jessica Yellin is there.</s>JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fredricka, the motorcade carrying Senator Kennedy will arrive here at 5:30 this evening. Senator Kennedy will be laid to rest on a site near the burial sites of his brothers John and Bobby. The superintendent of Arlington Cemetery tells us the senator visited here frequently in the years after his brothers' deaths.</s>YELLIN: Fredricka, here is a sense of what you can expect this afternoon. Senator Kennedy's coffin arrives at Andrews Air Force Base. First they'll go to the U.S. Capitol where the Kennedy staff both current and former staff and members of the public will be gathered to pay their respects. There will be a prayer there, and then the motorcade heads down Constitution Avenue. The very same route both John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy took on their trip to their final resting place here at Arlington Cemetery. Senator Kennedy will have a military funeral, he did he serve in the army. A chaplain will lead the way to the grave site. The former archbishop of Washington will lead the private service there. There will be a gun salute and taps. After a burial a small wooden cross 2 1/2 feet will be placed at the grave site which is expected to be open tomorrow morning 8:00 tomorrow morning so members of the public can come and pay their respects. Fredricka.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Jessica Yellin thanks so much, at Arlington National Cemetery. We invite you to stay with us throughout the day as the nation says farewell to Senator Ted Kennedy. Our live coverage of Senator Kennedy's funeral procession to Arlington National Cemetery resumes at 4:00 Eastern time with the burial service at Arlington set to begin at 5:00 Eastern. And then tonight CNN will air HBO documentary "Teddy: In his own words." His remarkable life told by Senator Ted Kennedy himself. Watch that tonight at@ 8:00 Eastern right here on CNN.