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Robert F. Kennedy
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:
Robert Francis Kennedy |
Related Videos:
Robert F. Kennedy |
Oxford Dictionary of Political Biography:
Robert Francis Kennedy |
(b. Brookline, Massachusetts, 20 Nov. 1925; d. 6 June 1968) US; Attorney-General 1961 – 4, US Senator 1965 – 8 Kennedy served in the navy 1944 – 5. He then took a BA at Harvard University and an LLB at the University of Virginia. In 1952 he acted as campaign manager for his elder brother John F. Kennedy's successful race for the US Senate. In 1953 he became Assistant Counsel for the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which was chaired by Senator Joseph McCarthy, but he joined the walkout of Democratic members of the subcommittee in protest against McCarthy's methods. In 1955 – 7 he became Chief Counsel to the Subcommittee on Investigations when Senator John McClellan became chairman. In 1957 – 9 he became Chief Counsel to McClellan's Senate Rackets Committee, which won him national prominence in his aggressive pursuit of Teamsters' Union president Jimmy Hoffa.
In 1960 he acted as campaign manager for John F. Kennedy's successful campaign for President. He was appointed Attorney-General in President Kennedy's administration and took a strong stand in the enforcement of civil rights measures in the South. He was President Kennedy's closest adviser on all matters including, for example, foreign policy issues such as the Cuban missile crisis. After Kennedy's assassination, he continued to serve in President Johnson's Cabinet as Attorney-General and was disappointed that Johnson did not choose him as vice-presidential candidate in 1964. Instead he ran for election as Senator from New York in 1964. He supported President Johnson on domestic issues, especially the War on Poverty and civil rights, but he disliked Johnson personally and above all clashed with him over the war in Vietnam. By 1968 he was one of the most significant dissenters with regard to American policy on Vietnam, while on domestic policy he became increasing liberal and acquired an unusually close empathy with minorities and the dispossessed. He hesitated to challenge Johnson for the Democratic nomination for President in 1968. When Johnson's weakness was illustrated, however, by the strong support for Senator Eugene McCarthy in the New Hampshire primary in March, he declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination. His victory in a string of primaries gave him a strong chance of winning the Democratic nomination over Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, who was the front runner following Johnson's withdrawal from the race. After his victory in the final primary in California, however, he was shot and killed by Sihran Sihran, a Palestinian who was angered by Kennedy's support for Israel, though it was not an issue on which he had taken a prominent stand.
Gale Encyclopedia of Biography:
Robert Francis Kennedy |
Robert Francis Kennedy (1925-1968), a U.S. senator and the attorney general in the administration of his brother John F. Kennedy, was assassinated during his 1968 race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Robert Kennedy was born on November 20, 1925, in Brookline, Mass. He graduated from Milton Academy before entering Harvard. His college career was interrupted during World War II; just after his oldest brother, Joseph, was killed in combat, Robert joined the Navy and was commissioned a lieutenant. In 1946 he returned to Harvard and took his bachelor of arts degree in 1948. He earned his law degree from the University of Virginia Law School and was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1951. A year earlier he had married Ethel Shakel, by whom he had 11 children, one born posthumously.
In 1951 Kennedy joined the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. He resigned the following year to run John F. Kennedy's successful campaign for U.S. senator. In 1953 Robert was appointed one of 15 assistant counsels to the Senate subcommittee on investigations under Senator Joe McCarthy. But later that year, when Democratic members of this subcommittee walked out in protest against McCarthy's harassing methods of investigation, Kennedy resigned.
Kennedy rejoined the Senate's permanent subcommittee on investigations as chief counsel for the Democratic minority in 1954. The following year, when the Democrats reorganized this committee under Senator George McClellan, Kennedy became chief counsel and staff director. That year the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce elected him one of "ten outstanding young men." In 1955, at his own expense, Kennedy joined Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas on a tour of several Soviet republics.
Kennedy became chief counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field organized under McClellan in 1957, and he directed a staff of 65. His major accomplishment was the investigation of corruption in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The hearings became nationally prominent, particularly Kennedy's prosecution of the union's president, James Hoffa, which to some union leaders seemed more like persecution. Kennedy was responsible for several additional investigations of labor and management abuses.
In 1960 Kennedy managed his brother's successful presidential campaign, and when John as incoming president appointed Robert U.S. attorney general, nationwide cries of nepotism arose. Robert's role in his brother's Cabinet was unique. He was virtually the President's other self. Shoulder to shoulder, the brothers stood together - through the Cuban missile crisis, the civil rights cases, and the growing war in Vietnam.
Soon after President Kennedy's assassination in 1963, Robert resigned from Lyndon Johnson's administration to run successfully for New York State senator in 1964. Naive liberals wondered why he chose to run in New York - thus knocking out a good liberal senator, Kenneth Keating - when he might have opposed Harry Byrd in his resident state of Virginia; but Kennedy was thinking of the presidency by now, and Virginia was no power base. As senator, Kennedy achieved a splendid record.
Kennedy leaped into the presidential sweepstakes in 1968, abruptly following Eugene McCarthy's solitary effort to dramatize the issue of the war in Vietnam. Kennedy's entrance into the Democratic primaries bitterly divided liberal Democrats. By this time Kennedy, who had come to sympathize with the African Americans' drive for "black power," was the joy of radical activists. He could reach and unite young people, revolutionaries, alienated African Americans, and blue-collar Roman Catholics. Meanwhile, the white South hated him; big business distrusted him; and middle-class, reform Democrats were generally suspicious of him.
On the night of June 4, 1968, following a hard-fought, narrow victory in the California primaries, Kennedy was killed by an assassin's bullet. Robert had been no carbon copy of John. In some ways he was more intense, more committed than John had been, yet he shared John's ironic sense of himself and his conviction that one man could make a difference.
Further Reading
There is no definitive study of Kennedy. Good general treatments are William V. Shannon, The Heir Apparent (1967), and Jack Newfield, Robert Kennedy (1969). See also Nick Thimmesch, Robert Kennedy at 40 (1965), and William J. Vanden Heuvel and Milton Gwirtzman, On His Own (1970). Victor Lasky, Robert F. Kennedy: The Myth and the Man (1968), is a hostile account. Valuable insights on him are in books about his brother: Theodore Sorenson's Kennedy (1965) and The Kennedy Legacy (1969); Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days (1965); and Donald S. Harrington, As We Remember Him (1965). Dealing with political campaigns are Gerald Gardner, Robert Kennedy in New York (1965); David Halberstam, The Unfinished Odyssey of Robert Kennedy (1969), an account of his campaign for the presidential nomination; and Jules Witcover, 85 Days: The Last Campaign of Robert Kennedy (1969).
Houghton Mifflin Companion to US History:
Kennedy, Robert F. |
(1925-1968), attorney general of the United States and senator from New York. Kennedy grew up in the spirited, closely knit, and highly competitive family of Joseph P. Kennedy. Educated at Harvard College and the University of Virginia Law School, he made his political debut in 1952 as manager of his older brother John's successful campaign for the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts.
In 1953 he went to work for the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Senator Joseph McCarthy, already notorious for reckless accusations of disloyalty. Belatedly disturbed by McCarthy's tactics, Kennedy resigned after six months. The next year, as Democratic counsel for the committee, he wrote the minority report condemning McCarthy's investigation of the army. His later work as chief counsel for the Senate Rackets Committee in 1957-1959 increased his reputation as an able and relentless prosecutor.
In 1960 he ran his brother's successful campaign for the presidency. His subsequent appointment as attorney general provoked criticism, but in time he won respect for his cogent, humane, and nonpartisan administration of the Department of Justice.
Challenged by the rising demand of black Americans for their constitutional rights, the Kennedys intervened to protect black students at the Universities of Mississippi and Alabama, though activists criticized the department's reluctance to assume local police power in protecting civil rights workers. Robert Kennedy saw voting as the key to racial justice and proposed the most far-reaching civil rights statute since Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, passed after President Kennedy's assassination.
Robert Kennedy's relationship to the president gave him a watching brief in foreign affairs. For a time he promoted an ill-conceived campaign of cia covert action against Fidel Castro's Cuba, but during the missile crisis of 1962 he led the opposition to a surprise military attack on Cuba and played a key role in bringing about a peaceful resolution.
Devastated by his brother's death, he remained for some months in Lyndon Johnson's cabinet. But his relations with the new president were prickly, and he soon resigned to run for the Senate from New York. As senator, Kennedy applauded Johnson's Great Society but increasingly disagreed with the administration over foreign policy, especially in Vietnam.
The sixties were a turbulent decade, and Robert Kennedy responded to that turbulence with unusual directness and sensitivity. He had evolved from the rigid prosecutor of a decade earlier into a popular leader who combined political realism with social idealism and passion with humor. He identified increasingly with the dispossessed and powerless of America--the poor, the young, racial minorities. In 1968, after much hesitation, he struck out for the Democratic presidential nomination. A whirlwind campaign culminated in victory in the California primary. Later that night he was assassinated.
Robert Kennedy's brusque challenge to the complacencies of American society brought hope to many Americans, fear to others. His insistence that anyone who "stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice" can make a difference to the world struck a moral nerve, especially among the young, and kept him alive in folk memory long after his death.
Bibliography:
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Robert Kennedy and His Times (1978).
Author:
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
See also Kennedy, John F.
Answer of the Day:
Robert F. Kennedy |
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| Robert Flaherty |
From our Archives: Today's Highlights, June 6, 2006
Columbia Encyclopedia:
Robert Francis Kennedy |
Kennedy, Robert Francis, 1925-68, American politician, U.S. Attorney General (1961-64), b. Brookline, Mass., younger brother of President John F. Kennedy and son of Joseph P. Kennedy.
A graduate of Harvard (1948) and the Univ. of Virginia law school (1951), Bobby Kennedy managed his brother John's successful campaign for the U.S. Senate in 1952. From 1953 to 1956 he was counsel to the Senate subcommittee chaired by Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy. He then became (1957) chief counsel to the subcommittee investigating labor rackets and there gained a reputation for toughness by exposing corruption in the Teamsters Union. In 1960 he was manager of his brother's presidential campaign. His inclusion in President Kennedy's cabinet gave rise to charges of nepotism, but he proved a vigorous attorney general, especially in prosecuting civil rights cases. He was also his brother's closest adviser.
After John Kennedy's assassination, Robert Kennedy continued for a time in President Lyndon Johnson's cabinet, but in 1964 he resigned to run for election as Senator from New York. Despite criticism that he was a "carpetbagger," he succeeded. In the Senate he was a vigorous advocate of social reform and became identified particularly as a spokesman for the rights of minorities. Although Kennedy had supported his brother's intensification of American aid to the South Vietnamese government, he became increasingly critical of Johnson's escalation of the Vietnam War and by 1968 was advocating that the Viet Cong be included in a South Vietnamese coalition government.
Urged to run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968, Kennedy appeared reluctant until Sen. Eugene McCarthy's showing in the New Hampshire Democratic primary convinced him that a challenge to Johnson could be successful. Kennedy announced his candidacy on Mar. 16, 1968. Although Johnson withdrew (Mar. 31) from the race, the administration's standard passed to Vice President Hubert Humphrey, while Senator McCarthy retained the support of many opponents of the Vietnam War, who accused Kennedy of opportunism.
Kennedy conducted an energetic campaign and won a series of primary victories, culminating in California on June 4. At the end of that day he gave a victory speech in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, and while leaving was shot. He died a day later (June 6, 1968). The gunman, Sirhan B. Sirhan, was captured at the scene and later convicted of murder. Like his brother John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. He wrote The Enemy Within (1960), Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis (1969), and To Seek a Newer World (1969).
Bibliography
See P. Kimball, Bobby Kennedy and the New Politics (1968); D. Halberstam, The Unfinished Odyssey of Robert Kennedy (1968); D. Ross, ed., Robert Kennedy: Apostle of Change (1968); J. Newfield, Robert Kennedy: A Memoir (1969); J. Witcover, Eighty-Five Days (1969); V. Navasky, Kennedy Justice (1971); M. K. Beran, The Last Patrician (1998); R. Steel, In Love with Night: The American Romance with Robert Kennedy (1999); E. Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life (2000). See also E. O. Guthman and J. Shulman, Robert Kennedy: In His Own Words (1988).
Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: History:
Kennedy, Robert |
A younger brother of President John F. Kennedy, who served as attorney general during his brother's presidency and was his brother's closest adviser. Robert Kennedy, also known as Bobby, was a champion of the civil rights movement and a foe of organized crime. He was elected to the Senate after John Kennedy's assassination. In 1968, while running for the presidential nomination of the Democratic party, he was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian, evidently because of Kennedy's position favoring Israel. (See Arab-Israeli conflict.)
West's Encyclopedia of American Law:
Kennedy, Robert Francis |
For more than twenty-five years in public service, Robert Francis Kennedy was at the center of the most important political and legal developments of his time. The younger brother, by five years, of President John F. Kennedy, in whose cabinet he served, Bobby Kennedy held a number of roles in government: assistant counsel (1953-55) and chief counsel (1955-57) to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chief counsel of the Senate Rackets Committee (1957-59), U.S. attorney general (1960-63), and finally U.S. senator from New York (1965-68). His major endeavors included probing union corruption in the 1950s and implementing White House policy on the civil rights movement in the early 1960s. He was assassinated in 1968, like his brother before him, while campaigning for the presidency.
Born into one of the United States' most powerful political dynasties, on November 20, 1925, in Brookline, Massachusetts, Kennedy was the third son of Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. Great things were expected of the Kennedy sons, and the means were provided: $1-million trust funds, entrance to the Ivy League, and later, leverage to see that they held government positions. Kennedy's father, a business magnate and former U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, doted on the shy, bookish, and devoutly Catholic young man. His father thought Kennedy was most like himself: tough.
Kennedy was educated at Harvard College, interrupting his studies to serve in World War II as a Navy lieutenant, following the death of his eldest brother, Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Jr., in the war. He served aboard the destroyer Joseph P. Kennedy until being discharged in 1946, then returned to Harvard, where he played football and earned his bachelor of arts degree in 1948. He next traveled briefly to Palestine as a war correspondent. Marriage to Ethel Skakel followed in 1950, and a law degree from the University of Virginia in 1951. Kennedy and his wife had eleven children over the next eighteen years.
Kennedy's rapid ascent in national politics began immediately upon his admission to the Massachusetts bar in 1951. He first joined the Criminal Division of the U.S. Justice Department as a prosecutor. The next year, he managed his brother John's senatorial campaign, and in early 1953, he was appointed an assistant counsel to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which became the bully pulpit for the anti-Communist witch-hunts of its chairman, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. Kennedy worked under McCarthy's foremost ally, Chief Counsel Roy Cohn, and investigated international shipping to Communist China, before resigning over disgust with McCarthy in mid-1953. Historians view his role in the Red scare created by the proceedings to have been very limited, although some have argued that Kennedy was initially blind to Senator McCarthy's agenda. Kennedy rejoined the subcommittee in 1954, and became its chief counsel and staff director in 1955.
Under the new leadership of Senator John McClellan, the subcommittee turned its attention to labor racketeering. Kennedy focused on corruption in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Heading a staff of sixty-five investigators, he squared off against the union's presidents, David Beck and James R. Hoffa, in dramatic public hearings at which he often was accompanied by his brother John. Kennedy and the subcommittee believed the union had connections to organized crime; the union viewed Kennedy as a show-off who was persecuting it for his own political benefit. The union leaders frequently took the Fifth Amendment, refusing to answer questions under Kennedy's relentless grilling. Beck resigned and was later convicted; Kennedy became a national figure. The hearings began a long-running feud between Kennedy and Hoffa that would continue into the 1960s. Kennedy later devoted considerable resources of the Justice Department to prosecuting Hoffa, ultimately convicted in 1964 for jury tampering, fraud, and conspiracy in the handling of a Teamster benefit fund.
In 1960, Kennedy managed his brother John's presidential campaign. His reward was the position of attorney general, an appointment that brought widespread criticism of the president-elect for nepotism. But Kennedy's brother stood behind his decision, and thus began a relationship unique in presidential history: throughout foreign policy crises in Cuba and Vietnam, domestic unrest over civil rights, and especially the day-to-day functioning of the White House, Kennedy served as his brother's closest adviser. The two also shared a common problem in the person of Director J. Edgar Hoover, of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), who secretly kept tabs on them while intensifying the FBI's domestic spying during the Kennedy administration.
The greatest crisis facing Attorney General Kennedy was the civil rights movement. The slow pace of change had frustrated civil rights leaders and mounting violence—from beatings to murder—brought pleas to the White House for intercession to protect demonstrators. During the Freedom Rides of 1961, for example, when busloads of black activists sought to integrate bus stations in the South, the movement's leaders appealed for help. Kennedy dispatched Justice Department representatives to Alabama; asked for assurances of protection from Governor John Patterson, of that state; and brought suit to win a court order on behalf of the riders. The administration was reluctant to do more because of concerns about limitations on federal power. Then, in May 1961, after more terrible assaults on the activists in Montgomery, Alabama, the attorney general dispatched five hundred federal marshals to Alabama. Yet the protection rendered did not stop local authorities from arresting, jailing, and beating activists.
The reluctance of the White House to intercede more forcefully had a political rationale as well: the new Kennedy administration had won election by a small margin that included southern support. As critics have noted, concerns about federal authority did not stop the attorney general from later authorizing Director Hoover to place wiretaps on the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., whom the pro-civil rights White House treated as an ally. Hoover's concerns about King's alleged Communist ties affected the Kennedys. As Kennedy later told an interviewer, "We never wanted to get very close to him just because of these contacts and connections that he had, which we felt were damaging to the civil rights movement." Nor did Kennedy balk at approving the appointment of William Harold Cox, an outspoken racist, as a district judge in Mississippi, for reasons of political expediency, although he later regretted having done so. In time, Kennedy and the president took bolder steps—in 1962, sending five thousand federal marshals to quell rioting in Mississippi, after James H. Meredith became the first black man to enter the state's university, and later, securing King's release from jail in Birmingham, Alabama.
The assassination of his brother John in 1963 changed the course of Kennedy's life. Besides grieving the loss of his brother, he found he worked uncomfortably under President Lyndon B. Johnson, and he soon left the Justice Department. In 1964, he won election in New York to the U.S. Senate, where he served as a liberal voice until announcing his own bid for the presidency in 1968.
Emphasizing a commitment to the concerns of young people, black citizens, and the nation's poor, the Kennedy campaign inspired radicals, the working class, and the dispossessed. Kennedy's opposition to the war in Vietnam was passionate. On a television broadcast, he said,
Do we have a right here in the United States to say that we're going to kill tens of thousands, make millions of people, as we have … refugees, kill women and children? … I very seriously question that right…. We love our country for what it can be and for the justice it stands for.
Kennedy's candidacy sharply divided the Democratic party between him and his opponent for the nomination, Eugene McCarthy. Kennedy had won primaries in Indiana, Nebraska, and finally California, when he was shot at a campaign function on June 4, 1968, by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian immigrant who said his motive was the candidate's support for Israel. The second murder of a Kennedy, following hard on the April 1968 assassination of King, was an immeasurable shock to the nation. It seemed to many to sound the death knell of an era.
Kennedy's contribution to U.S. law is complex. In the 1950s, he helped expose corruption in the nation's unions, but critics have subsequently treated his very personal pursuit of Hoffa as an exercise not only in justice but in vendetta. When he headed the Justice Department in the early 1960s, his advocacy of civil rights had practical limitations imposed by political necessities and legitimate concerns about the balance of state and federal authority; groundbreaking civil rights legislation would, of course, follow in the years after his tenure. It was as a candidate for president that he may have been his most memorable, an ardent and inspirational voice. Through his opposition to the Vietnam War and his support for the disadvantaged, he offered the promise of a new idealism in politics.
Quotes By:
Robert F. Kennedy |
Quotes:
"Ultimately, America's answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired."
"There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not."
"What is objectionable, what is dangerous, about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents."
"Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly."
"The free way of life proposes ends, but it does not prescribe means."
"Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total; of all those acts will be written the history of this generation."
See more famous quotes by
Robert F. Kennedy
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
Robert F. Kennedy |
"RFK" redirects here. For other uses, see RFK (disambiguation).
For other people named Robert Kennedy, see Robert Kennedy (disambiguation).
| Robert F. Kennedy | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Senator Kennedy appearing before the Platform Committee, 1964 | |
| United States Senator from New York |
|
| In office January 3, 1965 – June 6, 1968 |
|
| Preceded by | Kenneth Keating |
| Succeeded by | Charles Goodell |
| 64th United States Attorney General | |
| In office January 20, 1961 – September 3, 1964 |
|
| President | John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Johnson |
| Preceded by | William P. Rogers |
| Succeeded by | Nicholas Katzenbach |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Robert Francis Kennedy November 20, 1925 Brookline, Massachusetts |
| Died | June 6, 1968 (aged 42) Los Angeles, California |
| Resting place | Arlington National Cemetery Arlington, Virginia 38°52′52″N 77°04′17″W / 38.88118°N 77.07150°W |
| Nationality | American |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | Ethel Skakel |
| Relations | Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. (father) Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy (mother) Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. (brother) John F. Kennedy (brother) Ted Kennedy (brother) |
| Children | Kathleen H. (b. 1951) Joseph P. II (b. 1952) Robert F., Jr. (b. 1954) David A. (1955–84) M. Courtney (b. 1956) Michael L. (1958–97) M. Kerry (b. 1959) Christopher G. (b. 1963) M. Maxwell T. (b. 1965) Douglas H. (b. 1967) Rory E.K. (b. 1968) |
| Alma mater | Harvard College (A.B.) University of Virginia School of Law (LL.B.) |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Service/branch | United States Navy Reserve |
| Years of service | 1944–1946 |
| Rank |  Seaman Apprentice |
| Unit | USS Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. |
| Battles/wars | World War II |
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy (November 20, 1925 – June 6, 1968), also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F. Kennedy and acted as one of his advisors during his presidency. From 1961 to 1964, he was the U.S. Attorney General.
Following his brother John's assassination on November 22, 1963, Kennedy continued to serve as Attorney General under President Lyndon B. Johnson for nine months. In September 1964, Kennedy resigned to seek the U.S. Senate seat from New York, which he won in November. Within a few years, he publicly split with Johnson over the Vietnam War.
In March 1968, Kennedy began a campaign for the presidency and was a front-running candidate of the Democratic Party. In the California presidential primary on June 4, Kennedy defeated Eugene McCarthy, a U.S. Senator from Minnesota. Following a brief victory speech delivered just past midnight on June 5 at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan. Mortally wounded, he survived for nearly 26 hours, dying early in the morning of June 6.
Early life, education, and military service
Kennedy was born on November 20, 1925, in Brookline, Massachusetts, the seventh child of Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose E. Fitzgerald.
In September 1927, the Kennedy family moved to Riverdale, New York, a neighborhood in the Bronx, then two years later, moved 5 miles (8.0 km) northeast to Bronxville, New York. Kennedy spent summers with his family at their home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, and Christmas and Easter holidays with his family at their winter home in Palm Beach, Florida, purchased in 1933. He attended public elementary school in Riverdale from kindergarten through second grade; then Bronxville School, the public school in Bronxville, from third through fifth grade, repeating the third grade;[1] then Riverdale Country School, a private school for boys in Riverdale, for sixth grade.
In March 1938, when he was 12, Kennedy sailed aboard the SS Manhattan with his mother and his four youngest siblings to England, where his father had begun serving as U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Kennedy attended the private Gibbs School for Boys at 134 Sloane Street in London for seventh grade, returning to the U.S. just before the outbreak of World War II in Europe.
In September 1939, for eighth grade, Kennedy was sent 200 miles (320 km) away from home to St. Paul's School, an elite private preparatory school for boys in Concord, New Hampshire. However, he did not like it and his mother thought it too Episcopalian. It was for these reasons that—after two months at St. Paul's—Kennedy transferred to Portsmouth Priory School, a Benedictine boarding school for boys in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, for eighth through tenth grades. In September 1942, Kennedy transferred to Milton Academy, a third boarding school in Milton, Massachusetts, for eleventh and twelfth grades.
Six weeks before his eighteenth birthday, Kennedy enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve as an apprentice seaman, released from active duty until March 1944 when he left Milton Academy early to report to the V-12 Navy College Training Program at Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His V-12 training was at Harvard (March–November 1944); Bates College in Lewiston, Maine (November 1944 – June 1945); and Harvard (June 1945 – January 1946). On December 15, 1945, the U.S. Navy commissioned the destroyer USS Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., and shortly thereafter granted Kennedy's request to be released from naval-officer training to serve starting on February 1, 1946, as an apprentice seaman on the ship's shakedown cruise in the Caribbean. On May 30, 1946, he received his honorable discharge from the Navy.
In September 1946, Kennedy entered Harvard as a junior, having received credit for his two and a half years in the V-12 program. Kennedy worked hard to make the Harvard varsity football team as an end, was a starter and scored a touchdown in the first game of his senior year before breaking his leg in practice, earning his varsity letter when his coach sent him in for the last minutes of the Harvard-Yale game wearing a cast. Kennedy graduated from Harvard with a bachelor's degree in government in March 1948 and immediately sailed off on RMS Queen Mary with a college friend for a six-month tour of Europe and the Middle East, accredited as a correspondent of the Boston Post, for which he filed six stories. Four of these stories, filed from Palestine shortly before the end of the British Mandate, provided a first-hand view of the tensions. He was critical of the British policy in Palestine. Further, he praised the Jewish people he met there "as hardy and tough". Kennedy held out some hope after seeing Arabs and Jews working side by side but, in the end felt the "hate" in Palestine was too strong and would lead to a war.[2] His prediction came to pass with the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
In September 1948, Kennedy enrolled at the University of Virginia School of Law in Charlottesville. On June 17, 1950, Kennedy married Ethel Skakel at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Greenwich, Connecticut. Kennedy graduated from law school in June 1951 and flew with Ethel to Greenwich to stay in his father-in-law's guest house. Kennedy's first child, Kathleen, was born on July 4, 1951, and Kennedy spent the summer studying for the Massachusetts bar exam.
In September 1951, Kennedy went to San Francisco as a correspondent of the Boston Post to cover the convention concluding the Treaty of Peace with Japan. In October 1951, Kennedy embarked on a seven-week Asian trip with his brother John (then Massachusetts 11th district congressman) and his sister Patricia to Israel, India, Vietnam, and Japan. Because of their eight-year separation in age, the two brothers had previously seen little of each other. This 25,000-mile (40,000 km) trip was the first extended time they had spent together and served to deepen their relationship.
Early career until 1960
In November 1951, Kennedy moved with his wife and daughter to a townhouse in Georgetown in Washington, D.C., and started work as a lawyer in the Internal Security Section (which investigated suspected Soviet agents) of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. In February 1952, he was transferred to the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn to prosecute fraud cases. On June 6, 1952, Kennedy resigned to manage his brother John's successful 1952 U.S. Senate campaign in Massachusetts.
In December 1952, at the behest of his father, he was appointed by Republican Senator Joe McCarthy as assistant counsel of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.[3] He resigned in July 1953, but "retained a fondness for McCarthy."[4] After a period as an assistant to his father on the Hoover Commission, Kennedy rejoined the Senate committee staff as chief counsel for the Democratic minority in February 1954.[5] When the Democrats gained the majority in January 1955, he became chief counsel. Kennedy was a background figure in the televised McCarthy Hearings of 1954 into the conduct of McCarthy.[6]
Kennedy worked as an aide to Adlai Stevenson during the 1956 presidential election to learn for a future national campaign by John. The candidate did not impress Kennedy, however, and he voted for incumbent Dwight D. Eisenhower.[7]:416–417 Kennedy soon made a name for himself as the chief counsel of the 1957–59 Senate Labor Rackets Committee under chairman John L. McClellan. In a dramatic scene, Kennedy squared off with Teamsters union President Jimmy Hoffa during the antagonistic argument that marked Hoffa's testimony.[8] Kennedy left the Rackets Committee in late 1959 in order to run his brother John's successful presidential campaign.
In 1960, he published the book The Enemy Within, describing the corrupt practices within the Teamsters and other unions that he had helped investigate; the book sold very well.
Attorney General of the United States (1961–1964)
John F. Kennedy's choice of Robert Kennedy as Attorney General following his election victory in 1960 was controversial, with The New York Times and The New Republic calling him inexperienced and unqualified.[9] He had no experience in any state or federal court,[9] causing the President to joke, "I can't see that it's wrong to give him a little legal experience before he goes out to practice law."[10] There was precedent, however, in an Attorney General being appointed because of his role as a close adviser to the President,[9] and Kennedy had significant experience in handling organized crime.[9] After performing well in the Senate hearing he easily won confirmation in January 1961.[9] To compensate for his deficiencies Kennedy chose an "outstanding"[9] group of deputy and assistant attorneys general, including Byron White and Nicholas Katzenbach.[9]
Robert Kennedy's tenure as Attorney General was easily the period of greatest power for the office; no previous United States Attorney General had enjoyed such clear influence on all areas of policy during an administration. To a great extent, President Kennedy sought the advice and counsel of his younger brother, resulting in Robert Kennedy remaining the President's closest political adviser. Kennedy was relied upon as both the President's primary source of administrative information and as a general counsel with whom trust was implicit, given the familial ties of the two men.
President Kennedy once remarked about his brother that, "If I want something done and done immediately I rely on the Attorney General. He is very much the doer in this administration, and has an organizational gift I have rarely if ever seen surpassed."
Yet Robert Kennedy believed strongly in the separation of powers and thus often chose not to comment on matters of policy not relating to his remit or to forward the enquiry of the President to an officer of the administration better suited to offer counsel.
Berlin
As one of President Kennedy's closest White House advisers, RFK played a crucial role in the events surrounding the Berlin Crisis of 1961. Operating mainly through a private backchannel connection to Soviet spy Georgi Bolshakov, RFK relayed important diplomatic communications between the US and Soviet governments. Most significantly, this connection helped the US set up the Vienna Summit in June 1961 and later defuse the tank standoff with the Soviets at Berlin's Checkpoint Charlie in October.[11]
Organized crime and the Teamsters
As Attorney General, Kennedy pursued a relentless crusade against organized crime and the mafia, sometimes disagreeing on strategy with J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Convictions against organized-crime figures rose by 800 percent during his term.[12]
Kennedy was relentless in his pursuit of Teamsters union President Jimmy Hoffa, resulting from widespread knowledge of Hoffa's corruption in financial and electoral actions, both personally and organizationally. The enmity between the two men was something of a cause célèbre during the period, with accusations of personal vendetta being exchanged between Kennedy and Hoffa. Hoffa was eventually to face open, televised hearings before Kennedy, as Attorney General, which became iconic moments in Kennedy's political career and earned him both praise and criticism from the press. When a key witness surfaced, Edward Grady Partin of Baton Rouge, Hoffa was convicted of jury tampering.
Civil rights
As Attorney General
Kennedy expressed the administration's commitment to civil rights during a 1961 speech at the University of Georgia Law School:
| “ | We will not stand by or be aloof—we will move. I happen to believe that the 1954 [Supreme Court school desegregation] decision was right. But my belief does not matter. It is now the law. Some of you may believe the decision was wrong. That does not matter. It is the law.[13] | ” |
In 1963, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who hated civil-rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and viewed him as an upstart troublemaker,[14] presented Kennedy with allegations that some of King's close confidants and advisers were communists. Concerned that the allegations, if made public, would derail the Administration's civil rights initiatives, Kennedy warned King to discontinue the suspect associations, and later felt compelled to issue a written directive authorizing the FBI to wiretap King and other leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King's civil rights organization.[15] Although Kennedy only gave written approval for limited wiretapping of King's phones "on a trial basis, for a month or so",[16] Hoover extended the clearance so his men were "unshackled" to look for evidence in any areas of King's life they deemed worthy.[17] The wire tapping continued through June 1966 and was revealed in 1968, days before Kennedy's death.[18]
Kennedy remained committed to civil rights enforcement to such a degree that he commented, in 1962, that it seemed to envelop almost every area of his public and private life—from prosecuting corrupt southern electoral officials to answering late night calls from Coretta Scott King concerning the imprisonment of her husband for demonstrations in Alabama. During his tenure as Attorney General, he undertook the most energetic and persistent desegregation of the administration that Capitol Hill had ever experienced. He demanded that every area of government begin recruiting realistic levels of black and other ethnic workers, going so far as to criticize Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson for his failure to desegregate his own office staff.
Although it has become commonplace to assert the phrase "The Kennedy Administration" or even "President Kennedy" when discussing the legislative and executive support of the civil rights movement, between 1960 and 1963, a great many of the initiatives that occurred during President Kennedy's tenure were as a result of the passion and determination of an emboldened Robert Kennedy, who through his rapid education in the realities of Southern racism, underwent a thorough conversion of purpose as Attorney General. Asked in an interview in May 1962, "What do you see as the big problem ahead for you, is it Crime or Internal Security?" Robert Kennedy replied, "Civil Rights."[19] The President came to share his brother's sense of urgency on the matters at hand to such an extent that it was at the Attorney General's insistence that he made his famous address to the nation.[9]
Robert Kennedy played a large role in the Freedom Riders protests. Kennedy acted after the Anniston bus bombings to protect the Riders in continuing their journey. Kennedy sent John Seigenthaler, his administrative assistant, to Alabama to attempt to secure the riders' safety there. He also forced the Greyhound bus company to provide the Freedom Riders with a bus driver to ensure they could continue their journey.[20] Later, during the attack and burning by a white mob of the First Baptist Church in Montgomery Alabama, at which Martin Luther King Jr. and some 1,500 sympathizers were in attendance, the Attorney General telephoned King to ask his assurance that they would not leave the building until the force of U.S. Marshals and National Guard he sent had secured the area. King proceeded to berate Kennedy for "allowing the situation to continue". King later publicly thanked Robert Kennedy for his commanding of the force dispatched to break up an attack that might otherwise have ended King's life.[9][21]
Kennedy then negotiated the safe passage of the Freedom Riders from the First Baptist Church to Jackson Mississippi, where they were arrested.[22] He offered to bail the Freedom Riders out of jail, but they refused. This upset Kennedy, who went as far to call any bandwagoners of the original freedom rides "honkers".
Kennedy's attempts to end the Freedom Rides early were in many ways tied to an upcoming summit with Khrushchev and De Gaulle, believing the continued international publicity of race riots would tarnish the President heading into international negotiations.[23] This reluctance to protect and advance the Freedom Rides alienated many of the Civil Rights leaders at the time who perceived him as intolerant and narrow minded.[24]
In September 1962, he sent U.S. Marshals to Oxford, Mississippi, to enforce a federal court order allowing the admittance of the first African American student, James Meredith, to the University of Mississippi. Kennedy had hoped that legal means, along with the escort of U.S. Marshals, would be enough to force the Governor to allow the school admission. He also was very concerned there might be a "mini-civil war" between the U.S. Army troops and armed protesters.[25] President John F. Kennedy reluctantly sent federal troops after the situation on campus turned violent.[26] Ensuing riots during the period of Meredith's admittance resulted in hundreds of injuries and two deaths. Yet Kennedy remained adamant concerning the rights of black students to enjoy the benefits of all levels of the educational system. The Office of Civil Rights also hired its first African-American lawyer and began to work cautiously with leaders of the civil rights movement. Robert Kennedy saw voting as the key to racial justice, and collaborated with Presidents Kennedy and Johnson to create the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which helped bring an end to Jim Crow laws.
As U.S. senator and presidential candidate
He was to maintain his commitment to racial equality into his own presidential campaign, extending his firm sense of social justice to all areas of national life and into matters of foreign and economic policy. During a speech at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana on April 4, 1968, Kennedy questioned the student body on what kind of life America wished for herself; whether privileged Americans had earned the great luxury they enjoyed and whether such Americans had an obligation to those, in U.S. society and across the world, who had so little by comparison. It has been argued that although this speech has been largely overlooked and ignored, because of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, it was one of most powerful and heartfelt speeches Kennedy delivered.[27]
After the assassination of President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy undertook a 1966 tour of South Africa in which he championed the cause of the anti-apartheid movement. The tour was greeted with international praise at a time when few politicians dared to entangle themselves in the politics of South Africa. Kennedy spoke out against the oppression of the native population and was welcomed by the black population as though a visiting head of state. In an interview with Look Magazine he had this to say:
| “ | At the University of Natal in Durban, I was told the church to which most of the white population belongs teaches apartheid as a moral necessity. A questioner declared that few churches allow black Africans to pray with the white because the Bible says that is the way it should be, because God created Negroes to serve. 'But suppose God is black', I replied. 'What if we go to Heaven and we, all our lives, have treated the Negro as an inferior, and God is there, and we look up and He is not white? What then is our response?' There was no answer. Only silence.[28] | ” |
In South Africa, a group of foreign press representatives chartered an aircraft, after the National Union of South African Students failed to make sufficient travel arrangements. Kennedy not only accommodated a suspected Special Branch policeman on board, but took with good grace the discovery that the aircraft had once belonged to Fidel Castro.[29]
Civil liberties
Kennedy also used the power of federal agencies to influence U.S. Steel not to institute a price increase.[30] The Wall Street Journal wrote that the administration had set prices of steel "by naked power, by threats, by agents of the state security police."[31] Yale law professor Charles Reich wrote in The New Republic that the Justice Department had violated civil liberties by calling a federal grand jury to indict U.S. Steel so quickly, then disbanding it after the price increase did not occur.[31]
Death penalty issues
During the John F. Kennedy administration, the federal government carried out its last pre-Furman federal execution (Victor Feguer in Iowa, 1963)[32] and Robert Kennedy, as Attorney General, represented the Government in this case.[33]
In 1968, Kennedy expressed his strong willingness to support a bill then under consideration for the abolition of the death penalty.[34]
Cuba
As his brother's confidant, Kennedy oversaw the CIA's anti-Castro activities after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. He also helped develop the strategy to blockade Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis instead of initiating a military strike that might have led to nuclear war. Kennedy had initially been among the more hawkish elements of the administration on matters concerning Cuban insurrectionary aid. His initial strong support for covert actions in Cuba soon changed to a position of removal from further involvement once he became aware of the CIA's tendency to draw out initiatives and provide itself with almost unchecked authority in matters of foreign covert operations.
Allegations that the Kennedys knew of plans by the CIA to kill Fidel Castro, or approved of such plans, have been debated by historians over the years. John F. Kennedy's friend and associate, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., for example, expressed the opinion that operatives linked to the CIA were among the most reckless individuals to have operated during the period—providing themselves with unscrutinized freedoms to threaten the lives of Castro and other members of the Cuban revolutionary government regardless of the legislative apparatus in Washington—freedoms that, unbeknownst to those at the White House attempting to prevent a nuclear war, placed the entire U.S.–Soviet relationship in perilous danger.
The "Family Jewels" documents, declassified by the CIA in 2007, suggest that before the Bay of Pigs invasion Robert Kennedy personally authorized one such assassination attempt.[35][36] However, ample evidence exists disputing that fact, specifically that Robert Kennedy was only informed of an earlier plot involving CIA's use of Mafia bosses Santo Trafficante, Jr. and John Roselli during a briefing on May 7, 1962, and in fact directed the CIA to halt any existing efforts directed at Castro's assassination.[37] Concurrently, Kennedy served as his brother's personal representative in Operation Mongoose, the post-Bay of Pigs covert operations program established in November 1961 by President Kennedy. Mongoose was meant to incite a revolution within Cuba that would result in the downfall of Castro, not Castro's assassination.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis Kennedy proved himself to be a gifted politician, with an ability to obtain compromises tempering aggressive positions of key figures in the hawk camp. The trust the President placed in him on matters of negotiation was such that Robert Kennedy's role in the crisis is today seen as having been of vital importance in securing a blockade, which averted a full military engagement between the United States and Soviet Russia. His clandestine meetings with members of the Soviet government continued to provide a key link to Nikita Khrushchev during even the darkest moments of the Crisis, in which the threat of nuclear strikes was considered a very present reality.[38]
On the last night of the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy was so grateful for his brother's work in averting nuclear war that he summed it up by saying, "Thank God for Bobby".[39]
Assassination of his brother, President John F. Kennedy
The assassination of President Kennedy on November 22, 1963, was a brutal shock to the world, his nation and, of course, Robert and the rest of the Kennedy family. Robert was absolutely devastated, and was described by many as being a completely different man after his brother's death.
In the days following the assassination, Kennedy wrote letters to his two eldest children, Kathleen and Joseph II, saying that as the oldest Kennedy family members of their generation, they had a special responsibility to remember what their uncle had started and to love and serve their country.[40][41]
Kennedy was asked by Democratic Party leaders to introduce a film about his late brother John F. Kennedy at the 1964 party convention. When he was introduced, the crowd—including party bosses, elected officials and delegates—applauded thunderously and tearfully for a full 22 minutes before they would let him speak.[42] He was close to breaking down before he spoke about his brother's vision for both the party and the nation, and recited a quote from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (3.2) that Jacqueline Kennedy had given him:
| “ | [...] and when [he] shall die Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun. |
” |
Senator from New York
Nine months after President John F. Kennedy's assassination, Robert Kennedy left the Cabinet to run for a seat in the U.S. Senate, representing New York.
President Johnson and Robert Kennedy were often at severe odds with each other, both politically and personally, yet Johnson gave considerable support to Robert Kennedy's campaign, as he was later to recall in his memoir of the White House years.
His opponent in the 1964 race was Republican incumbent Kenneth Keating, who attempted to portray Kennedy as an arrogant carpetbagger. Kennedy emerged victorious in the November election, helped in part by Johnson's huge victory margin in New York.
In 1965 Robert Kennedy became the first person to summit Mount Kennedy.[12] At the time it was the highest mountain in Canada that had not yet been climbed. It was named in honor of his brother John Kennedy after his assassination.
In June 1966, Kennedy visited apartheid-ruled South Africa accompanied by his wife, Ethel Kennedy, and a small number of aides. At the University of Cape Town he delivered the Annual Day of Affirmation speech. A quote from this address appears on his memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. ("Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope....")[43]
During his years as a senator, Kennedy also helped to start a successful redevelopment project in poverty-stricken Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn in New York City, visited the Mississippi Delta as a member of the Senate committee reviewing the effectiveness of 'War on Poverty' programs and, reversing his prior stance, called for a halt in further escalation of the Vietnam War.
As Senator, Kennedy endeared himself to African Americans, and other minorities such as Native Americans and immigrant groups. He spoke forcefully in favor of what he called the "disaffected," the impoverished, and "the excluded," thereby aligning himself with leaders of the civil rights struggle and social justice campaigners, leading the Democratic party in a pursuit of a more aggressive agenda to eliminate perceived discrimination on all levels. Kennedy supported desegregation busing, integration of all public facilities, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and anti-poverty social programs to increase education, offer opportunities for employment, and provide health care for African-Americans.
The administration of President Kennedy had backed U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia and other parts of the world in the frame of the Cold War. While Robert Kennedy vigorously supported President Kennedy's earlier efforts, like his brother he never publicly advocated commitment of ground troops. Senator Kennedy had cautioned President Johnson against commitment of U.S. ground troops as early as 1965, but Lyndon Johnson chose to commit ground troops on recommendation of the rest of President Kennedy's still intact staff of advisers. Robert Kennedy did not strongly advocate withdrawal from Vietnam until 1967, within a week of Martin Luther King taking the same public stand. Consistent with President Kennedy's Alliance for Progress, Robert Kennedy placed increasing emphasis on human rights as a central focus of U.S. foreign policy.
Presidential candidate
Main article: Robert F. Kennedy presidential campaign, 1968
In 1968, President Johnson began to run for reelection. In January 1968, faced with what was widely considered an unrealistic race against an incumbent President, Senator Kennedy stated he would not seek the presidency. After the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, in early February 1968, Kennedy received a letter from writer Pete Hamill that said that poor people kept pictures of President Kennedy on their walls and that Robert Kennedy had an "obligation of staying true to whatever it was that put those pictures on those walls".[44] Kennedy traveled to California, to meet with civil rights activist César Chávez who was on a hunger strike. The weekend before the New Hampshire primary, Kennedy announced to several aides that he would attempt to persuade little-known Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota to withdraw from the presidential race. Johnson won a narrow victory in the New Hampshire primary on March 12, 1968, against McCarthy, which boosted McCarthy's standing in the race.
After much speculation and reports leaking out about his plans,[45] and seeing in McCarthy's success that Johnson's hold on the job was not as strong as originally thought, Kennedy declared his candidacy on March 16, 1968, in the Caucus Room of the old Senate office building—the same room where his brother declared his own candidacy eight years earlier.[46] He stated, "I do not run for the Presidency merely to oppose any man, but to propose new policies. I run because I am convinced that this country is on a perilous course and because I have such strong feelings about what must be done, and I feel that I'm obliged to do all I can."[47]
McCarthy supporters angrily denounced Kennedy as an opportunist, and thus the anti-war movement was split between McCarthy and Kennedy. On March 31, 1968, Johnson stunned the nation by dropping out of the race. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, long a champion of labor unions and civil rights, entered the race with the support of the party "establishment", including most members of Congress, mayors, governors and labor unions. He entered the race too late to enter any primaries, but had the support of the president and many Democratic insiders. Robert Kennedy, like his brother before him, planned to win the nomination through popular support in the primaries.
Kennedy stood on a platform of racial and economic justice, non-aggression in foreign policy, decentralization of power and social improvement. A crucial element to his campaign was an engagement with the young, whom he identified as being the future of a reinvigorated American society based on partnership and equality. A good idea of his proposals come from the following extract of a speech given at the University of Kansas.
| “ | If we believe that we, as Americans, are bound together by a common concern for each other, then an urgent national priority is upon us. We must begin to end the disgrace of this other America. And this is one of the great tasks of leadership for us, as individuals and citizens this year. But even if we act to erase material poverty, there is another greater task, it is to confront the poverty of satisfaction—purpose and dignity—that afflicts us all. Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product—if we judge the United States of America by that—that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs that glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.[48] | ” |
Kennedy's policy objectives did not sit well with the business world, in which he was viewed as something of a fiscal liability, opposed as they were to the tax increases necessary to fund such programs of social improvement. At one of his university speeches (Indiana University Medical School) he was asked, "Where are we going to get the money to pay for all these new programs you're proposing?" Kennedy replied to the medical students, about to enter lucrative careers, "From you."[9][49] It was this intense and frank mode of dialogue with which Kennedy was to continue to engage those whom he viewed as not being traditional allies of Democratic ideals or initiatives. He aroused rabid animosity in some quarters, with J. Edgar Hoover's Deputy Clyde Tolson reported as saying, "I hope that someone shoots and kills the son of a bitch."[50]
It has been widely commented that Robert Kennedy's campaign for the American presidency far outstripped, in its vision of social improvement, that of President Kennedy; Robert Kennedy's bid for the presidency saw not only a continuation of the programs he and his brother had undertaken during the President's term in office, but also an extension of these programs through what Robert Kennedy viewed as an honest questioning of the historic progress that had been made by President Johnson in the 5 years of his presidency. Kennedy openly challenged young people who supported the war while benefiting from draft deferments, visited numerous small towns, and made himself available to the masses by participating in long motorcades and street-corner stump speeches (often in troubled inner-cities). Kennedy made urban poverty a chief concern of his campaign, which in part led to enormous crowds that would attend his events in poor urban areas or rural parts of Appalachia.
On April 4, 1968, Kennedy learned of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and gave a heartfelt, impromptu speech in Indianapolis's inner city, in which Kennedy called for a reconciliation between the races. Riots broke out in 60 cities in the wake of King's death, but not in Indianapolis, a fact many attribute to the effect of this speech.[51]
Kennedy finally won the Indiana Democratice primary on May 7 and the Nebraska primary on May 14, but lost the Oregon primary on May 28.[52][53] If he could defeat McCarthy in the California primary, the leadership of the campaign thought, he would knock McCarthy out of the race and set up a one-on-one against Hubert Humphrey (whom he bested in the primary held on the same day as the California primary in Humphrey's birth state, South Dakota) at the Chicago national convention in August.
Assassination
Main article: Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy
Kennedy scored a major victory in winning the California primary. He addressed his supporters shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, in a ballroom at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. Leaving the ballroom, he went through the hotel kitchen after being told it was a shortcut,[54] despite being advised to avoid the kitchen by his bodyguard, FBI agent Bill Barry. In a crowded kitchen passageway, Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian-born Jordanian, opened fire with a .22-caliber revolver. Kennedy was hit three times and five other people also were wounded.[55] George Plimpton, former decathlete Rafer Johnson, and former professional football player Rosey Grier are credited with wrestling Sirhan Sirhan to the ground after Sirhan shot the Senator.[56] Following the shooting, Kennedy was first rushed to Los Angeles's Central Receiving Hospital and then to the city's Good Samaritan Hospital where he died early the next morning.[57] Sirhan said that he felt betrayed by Kennedy's support for Israel in the June 1967 Six-Day War, which had begun exactly one year before the assassination.[58]
His body was returned to New York City, where it lay in repose at Saint Patrick's Cathedral for several days before the Requiem Mass held there on June 8. His brother, U.S. Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy, eulogized him with the words:
| “ | My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it. Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world. As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: 'Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.'[59] | ” |
The quote is actually a paraphrase of a line spoken by the devil (The Serpent) to Eve in George Bernard Shaw's Back to Methuselah, "You see things; and you say 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?'"[60]
The Requiem Mass concluded with the hymn, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" sung by Andy Williams.[61] Immediately following the Requiem Mass, his body was transported by a special private train to Washington, D.C. Thousands of mourners lined the tracks and stations along the route, paying their respects as the train passed. This slow transport delayed arrival at Arlington National Cemetery, causing it to be the only night burial to have taken place there.[62]
Kennedy was buried near his brother, John, in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia (just outside Washington, D.C.).[61] He had always maintained that he wished to be buried in Massachusetts, but his family believed that since the brothers had been so close in life, they should be near each other in death. In accordance with his wishes, Kennedy was buried with the bare-minimum military escort and ceremony. The casket was borne from the train by 13 pallbearers, including former astronaut John Glenn, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, family friend Gen. Maxwell Taylor, Robert's eldest son Joe and his brother Senator Edward Kennedy. In August 2009, Senator Edward Kennedy was also buried at Arlington, near his brothers John and Robert.
The procession stopped once during the drive to Arlington National Cemetery at the Lincoln Memorial where the Marine Corps Band played "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". The funeral motorcade arrived at the cemetery at 10:30 pm Archbishop Terence Cooke of New York and Cardinal Patrick O'Boyle, Archbishop of Washington, conducted the brief graveside service. Afterwards, John Glenn presented the folded flag on behalf of the United States to Ethel and Joe Kennedy.[62][63] (coordinates: 38°52′52″N 77°04′17″W / 38.88118°N 77.07150°W)
On June 9, President Johnson assigned security staff to all U.S. presidential candidates and declared an official national day of mourning. After the assassination, the mandate of the U.S. Secret Service was altered by Congress to include Secret Service protection of U.S. presidential candidates.
Personal life
See also: Kennedy family
Family
In 1950, he married Ethel Skakel. Together, they had eleven children:
- Kathleen Hartington (b.1951)
- Joseph Patrick II (b.1952)
- Robert Francis, Jr. (b.1954)
- David Anthony (1955–1984)
- Mary Courtney (b.1956)
- Michael LeMoyne (1958–1997)
- Mary Kerry (b.1959)
- Christopher George (b.1963)
- Matthew Maxwell Taylor (b.1965)
- Douglas Harriman (b.1967)
- Rory Elizabeth Katherine (b.1968)
The last child, Rory, was born six months after her father's assassination.
Kennedy owned a home at the well-known Kennedy Compound on Cape Cod in Hyannis Port, but spent most of his time at his estate in McLean, Virginia, known as Hickory Hill, located west of Washington, D.C. His widow Ethel and their children continued to live at Hickory Hill after his death. She now lives full time at the Hyannis Port home.
Attitudes and approach
Despite the fact that his father's most ambitious dreams centered around his older brothers,[9] Robert maintained the code of personal loyalty that seemed to infuse the life of the Kennedy family as a whole. His competitiveness was admired by his father and elder brothers, while his loyalty bound them more affectionately close. A rather timid child, Robert was often the target of his father's dominating temperament.[9]
Working on the campaigns of John Kennedy, Robert was more involved, passionate and tenacious than the candidate himself, obsessed with every detail, fighting out every battle and taking workers to task. Robert had, all his life, been closer to older brother John than the other members of the Kennedy family.[9]
RFK's opponents on Capitol Hill maintained that his collegiate magnanimity was sometimes hindered by a tenacious and somewhat impatient manner. His professional life was dominated by the selfsame attitudes that governed his family life—a certainty that good humor and leisure must be balanced by service and accomplishment. Schlesinger comments that Kennedy could be both the most ruthlessly diligent and yet generously adaptable of politicians—at once both temperamental and yet forgiving. In this, Kennedy was very much his father's son; lacking truly lasting emotional independence and yet possessing a great desire to contribute. He lacked the innate self-confidence of his contemporaries and yet found a greater self-assurance in the experience of married life, an experience that he stated had given him a base of self-belief from which to continue his efforts in the public arena.[9]
Upon hearing yet again the assertion that he was "ruthless", Kennedy once joked to a reporter, "If I find out who has called me ruthless I will destroy him." And yet he also openly confessed to possessing a bad temper that required self-control: "My biggest problem as counsel, is to keep my temper. I think we all feel that when a witness comes before the United States Senate he has an obligation to speak frankly and tell the truth. To see people sit in front of us and lie and evade makes me boil inside. But you can't lose your temper—if you do, the witness has gotten the best of you."[64]
Religious faith
Central to Kennedy's politics and personal attitude to life and its purpose was his Catholicism, which he inherited from his family. Throughout his life, Kennedy made reference to his faith, how it informed every area of his life, and how it gave him the strength to re-enter politics following the assassination of his elder brother. His was not an unresponsive and staid faith, but the faith of a Catholic Radical—perhaps the first successful Catholic Radical in American political history.[65]
Robert Kennedy was easily the most religious of his brothers.[9] Whereas John maintained an aloof sense of his faith, Robert approached his duties with a Catholic worldview. In the last years of his life, he found great solace in the metaphysical poets of ancient Greece, especially the writings of Aeschylus.[9] In his Indianapolis speech on April 4, 1968, following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Kennedy quoted these lines from Aeschylus:
| “ | Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.[66] | ” |
Electoral history
1964 New York United States Senatorial Election
| Robert F. Kennedy (D) 53.5% |
| Kenneth Keating (R) (inc.) 45.4% |
Honors
D.C. Stadium in Washington, D.C. was renamed Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in 1969. In 1978, the United States Congress posthumously awarded Kennedy its Gold Medal of Honor. In 1998, the United States Mint released a special dollar coin that featured Kennedy on the obverse and the emblems of the United States Department of Justice and the United States Senate on the reverse.
In Washington, D.C. on November 20, 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft dedicated the Department of Justice headquarters building as the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building, honoring Robert F. Kennedy on what would have been his 76th birthday. They both spoke during the ceremony, as did Kennedy's eldest son, Joseph II.
Numerous roads, public schools and other facilities across the United States were named in memory of Robert F. Kennedy in the months and years after his death. The Robert F. Kennedy Memorial organization[67] was founded in 1968, with an international award program to recognize human rights activists. It is now known as the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. In a further effort to not just remember the late Senator, but continue his work helping disadvantaged, a small group of private citizens launched the Robert F. Kennedy Children's Action Corps in 1969, which today helps more than 800 abused and neglected children each year. A bust of Kennedy resides in the library of the University of Virginia School of Law, from where he obtained his law degree.
On June 4, 2008, on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Kennedy, the New York State Assembly voted to rename the Triborough Bridge in New York City the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Bridge in honor of the former New York Senator. New York State Governor David Paterson signed the legislation into law on Friday, August 8, 2008.[68]
Kennedy and King
Several public institutions jointly honor Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.
- In 1969, the former Woodrow Wilson Junior College, a two-year institution and a constituent campus of the City Colleges of Chicago, was renamed Kennedy–King College.
- In 1994, the City of Indianapolis erected the Landmark for Peace Memorial in Kennedy's honor near the space made famous by his oration from the back of a pickup truck the night King died. The monument in Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Park depicts a sculpture of Kennedy reaching out from a large metal slab to a sculpture of King, who is part of a similar slab.[69] This is meant to symbolize their attempts in life to bridge the gaps between the races—an attempt that united them even in death. A state historical marker has also been placed at the site.[70] A nephew of King and Indiana U.S. Congresswoman Julia Carson presided over the event; both made speeches from the back of a pickup truck in similar fashion to Kennedy's speech.[71]
Writings
Considered an eloquent speaker, Kennedy also wrote extensively on politics and current events:
- The Enemy Within: The McClellan Committee's Crusade Against Jimmy Hoffa and Corrupt Labor Unions, (1960)
- Just Friends and Brave Enemies, (1962)
- The Pursuit Of Justice, (1964)
- To Seek a Newer World, essays, (1967)
- Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis, published posthumously, (1969)
Quotations
- "Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly."[12]
- "Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital, quality for those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change."[citation needed]
- "The sharpest criticism often goes hand in hand with the deepest idealism and love of country."[72]
- "Men without hope, resigned to despair and oppression, do not make revolutions. It is when expectation replaces submission, when despair is touched with the awareness of possibility, that the forces of human desire and the passion for justice are unloosed."[73]
- "There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were and ask why not."[74]
- "Few will have the greatness to bend history; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation ... It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is thus shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."[75]
- "At the University of Natal in Durban, I was told the church to which most of the white population belongs teaches apartheid as a moral necessity. A questioner declared that few churches allow black Africans to pray with the white because the Bible says that is the way it should be, because God created Negroes to serve. "But suppose God is black", I replied. "What if we go to Heaven and we, all our lives, have treated the Negro as an inferior, and God is there, and we look up and He is not white? What then is our response?" There was no answer. Only silence." South Africa, June 1966[76]
- "What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black." Indianapolis, Indiana, April 4, 1968, announcing to the crowd that Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated.[77]
- "Fear not the path of truth for the lack of people walking on it." From his last speech, June 5, 1968[78]
- "Laws can embody standards; governments can enforce laws—but the final task is not a task for government. It is a task for each and every one of us. Every time we turn our heads the other way when we see the law flouted—when we tolerate what we know to be wrong—when we close our eyes and ears to the corrupt because we are too busy, or too frightened—when we fail to speak up and speak out—we strike a blow against freedom and decency and justice." June 21, 1961[79]
- "...We must recognize the full human equality of all our people-before God, before the law, and in the councils of government. We must do this, not because it is economically advantageous-although it is; not because the laws of God and man command it-although they do command it; not because people in other lands wish it so. We must do it for the single and fundamental reason that it is the right thing to do."[80]
Media
Barry Pepper won an Emmy for his portrayal of Robert Kennedy in The Kennedys, an 8-part 2011 miniseries.
In the biographical movie J. Edgar, Kennedy is played by Jeffrey Donovan.[81]
The 2010 film RFK in the Land of Apartheid: A Ripple of Hope is a documentary that follows Kennedy's five day visit to South Africa in June 1966, during which he made his famous Ripple of Hope speech at the University of Cape Town.[82]
The 2008 film A Ripple of Hope is a documentary that retells Kennedy's call for peace during a campaign stop in Indianapolis on April 4, 1968, following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.[83]
The 2006 film Bobby is the story of multiple peoples' lives leading up to Kennedy's assassination. The film employs stock footage from Kennedy's presidential campaign, and he is briefly portrayed by Dave Fraunces.
The 2002 made-for-TV movie RFK portrays Kennedy's life from the time of his brother's assassination to his own death. He is played by Linus Roache.
The 1985 three part TV mini-series Robert Kennedy & His Times stars Brad Davis and is based on the book of the same title by Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
Kennedy's role in the Cuban Missile Crisis has been portrayed by Martin Sheen in The Missiles of October and by Steven Culp in Thirteen Days.
Kennedy is portrayed by John Shea in the 1983 TV miniseries Kennedy.
Kennedy is portrayed in Hoffa by Kevin Anderson.
In 1967, Soviet poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko met with Robert Kennedy and in 1968 wrote a poem about him, "Я пристрелен эпохой" ("I was shot by an epoch").
Robert Lowell wrote several poems about Robert Kennedy, his elegy "For Robert Kennedy 1925–1968" included the line 'doom was woven in your nerves'.[9]
Documentary filmmaker DA Pennebaker made a number of films featuring Robert Kennedy and his family. His short film Jingle Bells (1964) follows Robert Kennedy and his children as they celebrate Christmas in New York City with local school children and Sammy Davis, Jr. His later film Hickory Hill documents the 1968 Annual Spring Pet Show at Kennedy's Virginia estate, Hickory Hill (McLean, Virginia).
See also
- Kennedy family
- Ted Kennedy
- John F. Kennedy
- Robert F. Kennedy assassination
- List of assassinated American politicians
References
- ^ Oppenheimer, Jerry. The Other Mrs. Kennedy, p. 307.
- ^ Schlesinger 2002 (reprint), pp. 73–77.
- ^ Schlesinger (1978) p. 101
- ^ Schlesinger (1978) p. 106
- ^ Schlesinger (1978) p. 109.
- ^ Schlesinger (1978) p. 113, 115
- ^ Leamer, Laurence (2001). The Kennedy Men: 1901–1963. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-688-16315-7.
- ^ Schlesinger (1978) pp. 137–91
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Schlesinger, Arthur Jr. (1978). Robert Kennedy and His Times
- ^ "New Administration: All He Asked". TIME. February 3, 1961. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,872026,00.html.
- ^ Kempe, Frederick (2011). Berlin 1961. Penguin Group (USA). pp. 478–479. ISBN 0-399-15729-8.
- ^ a b c "Robert F. Kennedy". http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Biographies+and+Profiles/Biographies/bio_kennedy_Robert_F.htm.
- ^ Kennedy, Robert F. "Law Day Address at the University of Georgia Law School" (speech, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, May 6, 1961), American Rhetoric Online Speech Bank. Accessed May 2, 2012.
- ^ "The FBI's War on King". American Public Radio. http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/king/d1.html.
- ^ Frum, David (2000). How We Got Here: The '70s. New York, New York: Basic Books. p. 41. ISBN 0-465-04195-7.
- ^ Herst, Burton (2007). Bobby and J. Edger, Carroll & Graf: New York, New York. ISBN 0-7867-1982-6. p. 372
- ^ Herst, Burton, (2007) pp 372–374
- ^ Garrow, David J. (2002-07/08). "The FBI and Martin Luther King". The Atlantic Monthly. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200207/garrow.
- ^ Bob Spivack, Interview of the Attorney General, May 12, 1962; published in "Robert Kennedy and His Times," by Arthur M. Schlesinger, p. 313, Ballantine Books (1996).
- ^ Rucker, Walter, Upton James (2007). Encyclopedia of American Race Riots. Greenwood Publishing Press, p. 239.
- ^ Ayers, Edward. Gould, Lewis. Oshinsky, David. (2008). American Passages: A History of the United States: Since 1865, Vol. 2, Cengage Learning, p. 853.
- ^ Arsenault, Raymond (2006). Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice. Oxford UP. ISBN 978-0-19-513674-6.
- ^ Schlesinger, Arthur (2002). Robert Kennedy and His Times, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, p. 298.
- ^ Thomas, Evan (2002). Robert Kennedy: His Life, Simon and Schuster, p. 298.
- ^ Schlesinger 2002 (reprint), pp. 317–320.
- ^ Bryant, Nick (Autumn 2006). "Black Man Who Was Crazy Enough to Apply to Ole Miss". The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (53): 71.
- ^ Clarke, Thurston (2008). The last campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 days that inspired America. New York: Henry Holt and Company. p. 85.
- ^ Ripple of Hope in the Land of Apartheid: Robert Kennedy in South Africa, June 1966
- ^ "Flying with Bobby K", Empire volume 1, issue 3.
- ^ "Smiting the Foe". TIME. April 20, 1962. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,873526-3,00.html.
- ^ a b O'Brien, Michael (2005). John F. Kennedy. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-312-28129-8. http://books.google.com/?id=gFRzBSBmGaIC&pg=PA645&lpg=PA645&dq=kennedy+steel+price+increase+fbi.
- ^ "Federal Executions, 1790 to 1963". http://users.bestweb.net/~rg/execution/DATA%20FEDERAL.htm. Retrieved May 5, 2009.[dead link]
- ^ The Smoking Gun: Archive
- ^ Parise, Theresa (January 17, 2006). "Robert F. Kennedy Miscellaneous Information". John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Robert+F.+Kennedy+Miscellaneous+Information.htm. Retrieved May 3, 2009.
- ^ January 4, 1975, memorandum of conversation between President Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger, made available by the National Security Archive, June 2007
- ^ CIA's 'family jewels' on show, The Telegraph, June 23, 2007
- ^ Schlesinger 2002 (reprint), pp. 493–494.
- ^ Schlesinger, "The Cuban Connection", Robert Kennedy and His Times
- ^ Clarity Through Complexity, October 2000, FindArticles.com, Retrieved 2007-6-10
- ^ Kennedy, Robert F., Kennedy, Maxwell Taylor, ed., Make Gentle the Life of This World: The Vision of Robert F. Kennedy, Orlando, FL: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, pp. 137–139, ISBN 978-0-15-100356-3
- ^ Donnelly, Sally B. (July 26, 1999), "Kathleen Kennedy Townsend: Just like her father?", Time, http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/1999/07/26/kennedy.townsend.html, retrieved April 6, 2011
- ^ Grubin, David. RFK. American Experience, 2004.
- ^ Robert F. Kennedy in South Africa.org—Overview
- ^ Schlesinger (1978) p. 845
- ^ Witkin, Richard (March 16, 1968). "Kennedy decides to run; will discuss plans today". The New York Times (paid archive): pp. 1, 14. http://select.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F10911F83E541A7493C4A81788D85F4C8685F9. Retrieved August 31, 2009.
- ^ HERBERS, JOHN (March 17, 1968). "SCENE IS THE SAME, BUT 8 YEARS LATER; Kennedy Brothers Declared for Race In Same Room". The New York Times (paid archive): pp. 68. http://select.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=FB071EF73F541B7B93C5A81788D85F4C8685F9. Retrieved August 31, 2009.
- ^ Kennedy, Robert F. (March 16, 1968). "Kennedy's Statement and Excerpts From News Conference". The New York Times (paid archive): pp. 68. http://select.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F4071EF73F541B7B93C5A81788D85F4C8685F9. Retrieved August 31, 2009.
- ^ Remarks of Robert F. Kennedy at the University of Kansas, March 18, 1968
- ^ Newfield, Jack. (1969;1988). Robert Kennedy: A Memoir. Plume
- ^ Clyde Tolson, qu. in: Thurston Clarke, 'The Last Good Campaign', Vanity Fair, No. 574, June, 2008, p. 173.
- ^ See e.g. Statement of Mayor Bart Peterson April 4, 2006 press release.[dead link]
- ^ Clarke, Thurston (2008). Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days that Inspired America. New York: Henry Holt. p. 189.. ISBN 9780805077926.
- ^ Schlesinger, Arthur M. (1978). Robert Kennedy and His Times. 2 (book club ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. 947..
- ^ Taraborrelli, J. Randy (2000). Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot. Warner Books. pp. 333. ISBN 0-446-52426-3.
- ^ Martinez, Michael (April 30, 2012). "RFK assassination witness tells CNN: There was a second shooter". CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/28/justice/california-rfk-second-gun.
- ^ George Plimpton May 1, 2010
- ^ Slaying gave US a first taste of Mideast terror
- ^ "Part II: Why Sirhan Sirhan Assassinated Robert Kennedy by Mel Ayton". Crimemagazine.com. September 6, 2005. Archived from the original on August 22, 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080822134625/http://www.crimemagazine.com/05/sirhansirhan,0906-5.htm. Retrieved January 16, 2009.
- ^ "Edward M. Kennedy Address at the Public Memorial Service for Robert F. Kennedy". American Rhetoric: Top 100 Speeches. http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ekennedytributetorfk.html. Retrieved August 29, 2009.
- ^ http://www.online-literature.com/george_bernard_shaw/back-to-methuselah/2/
- ^ a b "1968 Year In Review UPI.com"
- ^ a b "Robert F. Kennedy Memorial". Arlington National Cemetery. http://www.arlingtoncemetery.org/visitor_information/Robert_F_Kennedy.html. Retrieved August 29, 2009.
- ^ "Senator Robert F. Kennedy's Funeral", John F. Kennedy Library, Retrieved February 22, 2010
- ^ Schlesinger, p. 150.
- ^ Schlesinger, p. 191 Cf. Murray Kempton, The Progressive, Sept 1960.
- ^ Boomhower, Ray E. (2008). Robert F. Kennedy and the 1968 Indiana Primary. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. p. 136.. ISBN 9780253350893.
- ^ RFK Memorial
- ^ Newsday article about the rename.
- ^ Nwiltrout (January 14, 2011). "Landmark for Peace: A tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy". Indiana Office of Tourism Development. http://www.in.gov/visitindiana/blog/index.php/2011/01/14/landmark-for-peace-a-tribute-to-dr-martin-luther-king-and-robert-kennedy/. Retrieved February 16, 2012.
- ^ ""Robert F. Kennedy on Death of Martin L. King" historical marker". Indiana Historical Bureau. http://www.in.gov/history/markers/470.htm. Retrieved March 6, 2012.
- ^ "Assassination: The Night Bobby Kennedy was Shot". The Independent (London). January 21, 2007. Retrieved May 5, 2009.
- ^ Address, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, February 24, 1967, JFK Library Quotations of Robert F. Kennedy
- ^ (Berkeley, October 22, 1966)
- ^ (Robert F. Kennedy paraphrasing Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw)
- ^ Robert F. Kennedy, University of Cape Town, South Africa, N.U.S.A.S. "Day of Affirmation" Speech, June 6, 1966
- ^ (Article for LOOK Magazine following visit to South Africa, 1966) Ripple of Hope in the Land of Apartheid: Robert Kennedy in South Africa, June 1966
- ^ Boomhower, p. 136.
- ^ From the last speech he gave, June 5, 1968
- ^ (Robert F. Kennedy, attorney general, remarks before the Joint Defense Appeal of the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League of the B'nai B'rith, Chicago, Illinois)
- ^ (Address, Day of Affirmation, University of Capetown, June 6, 1966)
- ^ Fleming, Mike (March 8, 2011). "Jeffrey Donovan Playing RFK in 'J. Edgar'". Deadline.com. Retrieved 2011-03-08.
- ^ "RFK in the Land of Apartheid: A Ripple of Hope". Larry Shore. http://www.rfksafilm.org/. Retrieved April 7, 2011.
- ^ "Ripple of Hope". http://www.rippleofhopemovie.com/. Retrieved May 4, 2012.
Bibliography
- Altschuler, Bruce E. (1980). "Kennedy Decides to Run: 1968". Presidential Studies Quarterly 10 (3): 348–352. ISSN 0360-4918.
- Brown, Stuart Gerry (1972). The Presidency on Trial: Robert Kennedy's 1968 Campaign and Afterwards. Honolulu: U. Press of Hawaiʻi. ISBN 0-8248-0202-0.
- Burner, David; West, Thomas R. (1984). The Torch Is Passed: The Kennedy Brothers and American Liberalism. New York: Atheneum. ISBN 0-689-11438-9.
- Dooley, Brian (1996). Robert Kennedy: The Final Years. New York: St. Martin's. ISBN 0-312-16130-1.
- Goldfarb, Ronald (1995). Perfect Villains, Imperfect Heroes: Robert F. Kennedy's War against Organized Crime. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-679-43565-4.
- Grubin, David, director and producer, RFK. Video. (DVD, VHS). 2hr. WGBH Educ. Found. and David Grubin Productions, 2004. Distrib. by PBS Video
- Hilty, James M. Robert Kennedy: Brother Protector (1997), vol. 1 to 1963. Temple U. Press., 1997. 642 pp.
- Murphy, John M. (1990). "'A Time of Shame and Sorrow': Robert F. Kennedy and the American Jeremiad". Quarterly Journal of Speech 76 (4): 401–414. doi:10.1080/00335639009383933. ISSN 0033-5630. RFK's speech after the death of Martin Luther King in 1968.
- Navasky, Victor S. Kennedy Justice (1972). Argues the policies of RFK's Justice Department show the conservatism of justice, the limits of charisma, the inherent tendency in a legal system to support the status quo, and the counterproductive results of many of Kennedy's endeavors in the field of civil rights and crime control.
- Newfield, Jack (2003). RFK: A Memoir. Nation Books.
- Niven, David (2003). The Politics of Injustice: The Kennedys, the Freedom Rides, and the Electoral Consequences of a Moral Compromise. U. of Tennessee Press.
- Palermo, Joseph A. (2001). In His Own Right: The Political Odyssey of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Columbia U. Press.
- Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr. (1978). Robert Kennedy and His Times. National Book Award.
- Schlesinger, Arthur, M. Jr. (2002 re-print), Robert Kennedy And His Times, Mariner Books-Houghton Mifflin Co., ISBN 0-618-21928-5
- Schmitt, Edward R. (2010). President of the Other America: Robert Kennedy and the Politics of Poverty. UMass Press. ISBN 1-55849-730-7
- Shesol, Jeff (1997). Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, and the Feud that Defined a Decade.
- Schmitt, Edward R. President of the Other America: Robert Kennedy and the Politics of Poverty (University of Massachusetts Press, 2010) 324 pp. ISBN 978-1-55849-730-6
- Thomas, Evan (2002). Robert Kennedy: His Life.
- Zimmermann, Karl R. (1977). The Remarkable GG1.
External links
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- Text, Audio, and Video of Robert Kennedy's Address at Ball State University
- American Experience: RFK – From PBS
- Text, Audio, and Video of Robert Kennedy's Remarks on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr
- Text, Audio, and Video excerpt of Robert Kennedy's Address at Cape Town University
- Edward Kennedy eulogy to Robert Kennedy (text and audio)
- Robert F. Kennedy at the Internet Movie Database
- Robert F. Kennedy at Find a Grave
- My Father's Stand on Cuba Travel by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, The Washington Post, April 23, 2009
- Rare photos, videos, audio-clips and other RFK source materials from the U.S. National Archives.
- Radio airchecks/recordings of the shooting and death of Senator Kennedy including Mutual Radio's Andrew West's shooting coverage, continued live coverage from CBS Radio, announcements of RFK's death, CBS Radio's complete coverage of funeral mass St. Patrick's Cathedral, and CBS Radio coverage of the train arrival of RFK's body in Washington DC.
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