Joe and Rose Kennedy had quite a brood of children. Most of them were outstanding individuals in their fields who acted in a manner that they saw as leading toward the betterment of America.

In particular, they had sons who gave great service to this nation -- Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., John F. Kennedy, And Robert F. Kennedy.

And one who engaged in treason against the United States of America.

Picking his way through the Soviet archives that Boris Yeltsin had just thrown open, in 1991 Tim Sebastian, a reporter for the London Times, came across an arresting memorandum. Composed in 1983 by Victor Chebrikov, the top man at the KGB, the memorandum was addressed to Yuri Andropov, the top man in the entire USSR. The subject: Sen. Edward Kennedy.

"On 9-10 May of this year," the May 14 memorandum explained, "Sen. Edward Kennedy's close friend and trusted confidant [John] Tunney was in Moscow." (Tunney was Kennedy's law school roommate and a former Democratic senator from California.) "The senator charged Tunney to convey the following message, through confidential contacts, to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Y. Andropov."

Now what was the message that he asked his traitorous friend and former colleague to communicate to the leadership of America's Communist foes? That he, Senator Edward M. Kennedy -- a member of one of America's wealthiest families, former Democrat presidential candidate and sitting Democrat US Senator -- was willing to help deliver the 1984 American presidential election to Moscow's preferred candidate.

First he offered to visit Moscow. "The main purpose of the meeting, according to the senator, would be to arm Soviet officials with explanations regarding problems of nuclear disarmament so they may be better prepared and more convincing during appearances in the USA." Kennedy would help the Soviets deal with Reagan by telling them how to brush up their propaganda.

Then he offered to make it possible for Andropov to sit down for a few interviews on American television. "A direct appeal ... to the American people will, without a doubt, attract a great deal of attention and interest in the country. ... If the proposal is recognized as worthy, then Kennedy and his friends will bring about suitable steps to have representatives of the largest television companies in the USA contact Y.V. Andropov for an invitation to Moscow for the interviews. ... The senator underlined the importance that this initiative should be seen as coming from the American side."

Kennedy would make certain the networks gave Andropov air time--and that they rigged the arrangement to look like honest journalism.

Kennedy's motives? "Like other rational people," the memorandum explained, "[Kennedy] is very troubled by the current state of Soviet-American relations." But that high-minded concern represented only one of Kennedy's motives.

"Tunney remarked that the senator wants to run for president in 1988," the memorandum continued. "Kennedy does not discount that during the 1984 campaign, the Democratic Party may officially turn to him to lead the fight against the Republicans and elect their candidate president."

Got that -- Kennedy was willing to betray his country to the leaders of a foreign country which was dedicated to destroying America by providing assistance in sculpting their message and access to American media. And he was doing it for his own political aggrandizement and advancement. The last and least of the Kennedy brothers was willing to sell out America to the Soviets in order to become President. -- an office that he believed was his birthright as a member of the Democrat's royal family.

This information has been public for nearly two decades. In life, Kennedy said not one word to deny the treason documented by the Soviet archives. Kennedy's friends in the media -- who he planned to use as (willing?) accomplices in his treasonous scheme -- have time and again refused to disseminate this information to the American people as a whole. Indeed, they have depicted the man who sought to sell-out America as a patriot, and the very model of a statesman.

In ancient Rome, such treasonous conduct was properly rewarded with execution, and the traitor's body was thrown into the Tiber with the rest of the city's garbage. And yet somehow, in America today, the body of such a betrayer has been laid to rest among the honored heroes of our nation -- at Arlington National Cemetery. It is a desecration of that sacred ground and an insult to the memories of all those heroes buried there.

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