Mourners Line Up To Visit Kennedy's Grave

More than a hundred people stood quietly in line at Arlington Nation Cemetery on Sunday, waiting to see the grave of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

"I disagree with his politics 100 percent," said Joe Donza, visiting from New York, "but I respected him for his committment to his country and his public service, his dedication to public service."

Kennedy, who died Tuesday at age 77, more than a year after he was diagnosed with brain cancer, was buried here Saturday night. At a graveside enveloped in deepening darkness, Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, archbishop emeritus of Washington, offered sympathies to Kennedy relatives and "an extended family that must probably include most of America."

Kennedy's freshly excavated gravesite was on a gently sloping Virginia hillside, flanked by a pair of maple trees. His brother Robert, killed in 1968 while running for president, lies 100 feet away. It is another 100 feet to the eternal flame that has burned since 1963 for John F. Kennedy, president when he was assassinated.

Saturday's events marked the end of four days of public and private mourning meant to emphasize Kennedy's 47 years in the Senate from Massachusetts, his standing as the foremost liberal Democrat of the late 20th century yet a legislator who courted compromise with Republicans, a family man and last heir to a dynasty that began in the years after World War II.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.