5 Ways Ted Kennedy Defined Foreign Policy

In the late 1960s, Kennedy gradually came to oppose the war his brother John had begun, though he never became as vocal an opponent as his brother Bobby. In one of his first leadership positions, chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Refugees and Escapees, Kennedy lobbied the Lyndon B. Johnson administration to take more care with civilian casualties and refugees, making a trip to Vietnam in 1965.

In 1968, he returned to the country, this time sending staffers ahead to identify problems and cut through military spin. Kennedy was shocked by the endemic corruption of the South Vietnamese government and what he saw as a disregard for civilian life by U.S. forces. He returned a vocal Vietnam opponent, bringing his concerns directly to the White House. In 1973, he sponsored a successful resolution against further spending on the war.

The Vietnam experience heavily influenced his thinking on military intervention. He would later refer to Northern Ireland as "Britain’s Vietnam" and Iraq as "George Bush’s Vietnam."