Judiciary committee chairman

The matriarch of one of America's most political families — certainly the most famous political family in Massachusetts — is Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy.

"We've had great ecstatic moments, and we've had these tragedies, but the ecstasies or the triumphs are greater than the tragedy," Rose Kennedy said on the Merv Griffin Show in 1969, describing how she had weathered the losses of three sons, John and Bobby Kennedy to assassination and Joe Kennedy, the oldest son, to World War II.

The new book "Rose Kennedy: The Life And Times Of A Political Matriarch," out July 15, uses newly released documents and letters from the John F.

Kennedy Presidential Library to tell the story of the Kennedy matriarch.

The book's author, Barbara Perry, joined Morning Edition to discuss how researching the book changed her view of Rose Kennedy.

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Barbara Perry: Spending five years with her, going through her massive amounts of per