Sen. Kennedy remembers slain brothers
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President Kennedy is shown at the dedication of Greers Ferry Dam near Heber Springs, Arkansas in 1963.
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CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta talks with Dr. Robert Grossman, one of the physicans who worked to save Kennedy's life in 1963.
The book 'Remembering Jack' offers photographer Jacques Lowe's intimate portraits of Kennedy and his family.
CNN's Jeff Greenfield on U.S. optimism in the days before the assassination.
Dan Rather, who covered John F. Kennedy's trip to Dallas for CBS, describes what he saw and heard.
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- It's been 40 years since Ted Kennedy's brother, President Kennedy, was killed by an assassin's bullet, but the Massachusetts senator still thinks of him "every day."
Sen. Kennedy made the assertion on the eve of President Kennedy's assassination in rare public comments during which he discussed the assassination of both his brothers.
Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was shot five years after the president's assassination, as he was running for the Democratic presidential nomination.
"I think about my brothers every day," Ted Kennedy told CNN.
The senator said he believes President Kennedy's most lasting achievement was inspiring young Americans to get involved in their communities.
"He was constantly surrounded by young people with new ideas, and he saw what a difference that they could make," Kennedy said. "His appeal to young people to make a difference in terms of their community -- whether it was elective office or others -- was really, I think, probably the most enduring and lasting part of his legacy."
President Bush issued a written statement Friday to commemorate the anniversary of Kennedy's assassination. In the statement, Bush called Kennedy a man with a "gift for awakening the idealism and sense of duty in others."
"We remember a leader who called our nation to high purpose and saw America through grave dangers with calm, discernment and personal courage," Bush said. "We recall, with much affection and respect, the charming and dignified manner that became familiar to us all in the years of President Kennedy's service."
Kennedy's time in the White House was short, but it was also momentous. It included such events as the Cuban missile crisis, the building of the Berlin Wall and the struggles of the civil rights movement.
"He enjoyed the challenge," his brother said. "He got a lot out of it, and he worked hard at it, and I think he made a big difference."
Kennedy said his brother "understood the people are made up of the nobler qualities.
"It was limitless, what people can do in terms of their own lives and their families' lives," Kennedy said. "He understood that, and I think that represented his best spirit. And that has a resonance and an echo still out there today. It certainly does for me."
Kennedy said this time of year is always "of special importance and consequence" to the family.
Saturday is the anniversary of the president's assassination, and Thursday would have been Robert Kennedy's 78th birthday.
"I'm confident, obviously, had they lived they would have had a very, very profound impact for this country and also across the world," Kennedy said. "Their example obviously was [and] is a very guiding and powerful light in my life."
The senator also reflected on President Kennedy's health problems, which were not disclosed to the public while he was in the White House but have since become common knowledge.
Some weekends, his brother would "come home on a Friday afternoon and go into his room and read and write, and he'd go to bed early, exhausted. He might come out on Saturday morning for an hour, go back in and nap in the afternoon because his back was bothering him.
"So that would be one weekend. Another weekend, he'd come down and we'd go out and play golf and do those kinds of things."
The late president's chronic pain, stemming from an injured back, "wore on him, as pain does on any individual," the senator said.
"But I think he had an inner constitution of steel. And I think he was enormously determined when he made up his mind, and he was determined to deal with the physical ailments."
In his more than 40 years in the Senate, the senator has sat in the desk where the late president also sat when he represented Massachusetts, before winning election as president in 1960.
Sen. Ted Kennedy
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Ted Kennedy served in the Senate side-by-side with Robert Kennedy, who represented New York in the Senate for four years before his death in 1968.
Reflecting on whether his career in the Senate is a fulfillment of his brothers' unfinished legacy, the senator said, "I think we had a common view about the human condition and about the injustice in our society and the inequity and the unfairness in our society.
"I think we had some sense about the kind of country we would like to see and see in the future," he said. "I think we're all very entirely different people, but there were common kinds of interests and common concerns."
CNN White House correspondents Dana Bash and Jonathan Karl contributed to this report.
