Kennedy to be buried at Arlington Cemetery

OAK BLUFFS, Massachusetts (Reuters) - Senator Edward Kennedy will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery on Saturday near his two brothers who were assassinated in the prime of their political careers.

Kennedy died late on Tuesday in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, at age 77 after battling brain cancer for more than a year. He will be buried at 5 p.m. (2100 GMT) on Saturday near his brothers, President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert Kennedy, in a private service at the cemetery outside Washington.

Only two U.S. presidents are buried at the site in Virginia: Kennedy and William Howard Taft who died in 1930.

Senator Edward Kennedy was eligible for burial at the cemetery because he both served in the U.S. military and was an elected official.

On Thursday, a motorcade from the Kennedy family compound in Hyannis Port will take the senator's body to his brother's presidential library in Boston.

The senator will lie in repose on Friday at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library that he had helped to develop over years into a forum for debating issues.

It will be open to the public from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. followed by a private "Celebration of Life Memorial Service" from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

A Roman Catholic, Kennedy's funeral Mass is planned for Saturday at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica in Boston where he prayed daily while his daughter, Kara, was struggling with lung cancer.

President Barack Obama, who is on vacation at Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, was expected to attend.

(Reporting by Ross Colvin and Patricia Zengerle in Oak Bluffs, and Andrew Gray in Washington, Writing by Tabassum Zakaria; Editing by Sandra Maler, Cynthia Osterman and Jackie Frank)