| 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 38.88118°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, aDemocratic 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 (unknown operator: u'strong' 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 (unknown operator: u'strong' 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.Robert F. Kennedy 4
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
25000-mile (unknown operator: u'strong' 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.Robert F. Kennedy 5
Attorney General of the United States (1961–1964)
Kennedy speaking to a Civil Rights crowd in
front of the Justice Department building on June
14, 1963.
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 bothRobert F. Kennedy 6
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 F. Kennedy 7
Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.,
June 22, 1963, Washington, D.C.
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. InRobert F. Kennedy 8
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 inRobert F. Kennedy 9
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
Robert Kennedy at the funeral of John F.
Kennedy, November 25, 1963.
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. ”Robert F. Kennedy 10
Senator from New York
Senator Robert F. Kennedy and President Lyndon
B. Johnson in the oval office 1966
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]
President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the
Immigration Act of 1965 as Sen. Edward
Kennedy, Sen. Robert Kennedy, and others look
on.
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.Robert F. Kennedy 11
Presidential candidate
Tired, but still intense in the last days before his
Oregon defeat, Robert Kennedy speaks from the
platform of a campaign train.
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]Robert F. Kennedy 12
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]
Robert Kennedy campaigns in Los Angeles (photo
by Evan Freed)
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.Robert F. Kennedy 13
Assassination
Robert F. Kennedy's grave in Arlington National
Cemetery.
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 atRobert F. Kennedy 14
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)
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.
Robert F. Kennedy Memorial, built in 1971 across from his grave in Arlington National Cemetery
Personal life
Family
The Kennedy brothers: John (Jack), Robert
(Bobby) and Edward (Ted)
In 1950, he married Ethel Skakel. Together, they had eleven children:
1. Kathleen Hartington (b.1951)
2. Joseph Patrick II (b.1952)
3. Robert Francis, Jr. (b.1954)
4. David Anthony (1955–1984)
5. Mary Courtney (b.1956)
6. Michael LeMoyne (1958–1997)
7. Mary Kerry (b.1959)
8. Christopher George (b.1963)
9. Matthew Maxwell Taylor (b.1965)
10. Douglas Harriman (b.1967)
11. 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]Robert F. Kennedy 15
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] ”Robert F. Kennedy 16
Electoral history
1964 New York United States Senatorial Election
Robert F. Kennedy (D) 53.5%
Kenneth Keating (R) (inc.) 45.4%
Honors
Justice Department building being renamed in
honor of Robert Kennedy
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.
1998 Robert Kennedy special dollar coin
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 speechesRobert F. Kennedy 17
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."
• "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 ofRobert F. Kennedy 18
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).
References
[1] Oppenheimer, Jerry. The Other Mrs. Kennedy (http://books.google.com/books?id=pLFNINq53NUC&lpg=PA307&dq=kennedy repeated
third grade&pg=PA307#v=onepage&q&f=false), p. 307.
[2] Schlesinger 2002 (reprint), pp. 73–77.
[3] Schlesinger (1978) p. 101
[4] Schlesinger (1978) p. 106
[5] Schlesinger (1978) p. 109.
[6] Schlesinger (1978) p. 113, 115
[7] Leamer, Laurence (2001). The Kennedy Men: 1901–1963. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-688-16315-7.
[8] Schlesinger (1978) pp. 137–91
[9] Schlesinger, Arthur Jr. (1978). Robert Kennedy and His Times
[10] "New Administration: All He Asked" (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,872026,00.html). TIME. February 3, 1961. .
[11] Kempe, Frederick (2011). Berlin 1961. Penguin Group (USA). pp. 478–479. ISBN 0-399-15729-8.
[12] "Robert F. Kennedy" (http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Biographies+and+Profiles/Biographies/
bio_kennedy_Robert_F.htm). .
[13] Kennedy, Robert F. "Law Day Address at the University of Georgia Law School" (http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/
rfkgeorgialawschool.htm) (speech, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, May 6, 1961), American Rhetoric Online Speech Bank. AccessedRobert F. Kennedy 19
May 2, 2012.
[14] "The FBI's War on King" (http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/king/d1.html). American Public Radio. .
[15] Frum, David (2000). How We Got Here: The '70s. New York, New York: Basic Books. p. 41. ISBN 0-465-04195-7.
[16] Herst, Burton (2007). Bobby and J. Edger, Carroll & Graf: New York, New York. ISBN 0-7867-1982-6. p. 372
[17] Herst, Burton, (2007) pp 372–374
[18] Garrow, David J. (2002-07/08). "The FBI and Martin Luther King" (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200207/garrow). The Atlantic
Monthly. .
[19] 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).
[20] Rucker, Walter, Upton James (2007). Encyclopedia of American Race Riots. Greenwood Publishing Press, p. 239.
[21] Ayers, Edward. Gould, Lewis. Oshinsky, David. (2008). American Passages: A History of the United States: Since 1865, Vol. 2, Cengage
Learning, p. 853.
[22] Arsenault, Raymond (2006). Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice. Oxford UP. ISBN 978-0-19-513674-6.
[23] Schlesinger, Arthur (2002). Robert Kennedy and His Times, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, p. 298.
[24] Thomas, Evan (2002). Robert Kennedy: His Life, Simon and Schuster, p. 298.
[25] Schlesinger 2002 (reprint), pp. 317–320.
[26] Bryant, Nick (Autumn 2006). "Black Man Who Was Crazy Enough to Apply to Ole Miss". The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (53):
71.
[27] Clarke, Thurston (2008). The last campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 days that inspired America. New York: Henry Holt and Company. p.
85.
[28] Ripple of Hope in the Land of Apartheid: Robert Kennedy in South Africa, June 1966 (http://www.rfksa.org/magazines/magazine.
php?id=6)
[29] "Flying with Bobby K", Empire volume 1, issue 3.
[30] "Smiting the Foe" (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,873526-3,00.html). TIME. April 20, 1962. .
[31] O'Brien, Michael (2005). John F. Kennedy (http://books.google.com/?id=gFRzBSBmGaIC&pg=PA645&lpg=PA645&dq=kennedy+
steel+price+increase+fbi). Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-312-28129-8. .
[32] "Federal Executions, 1790 to 1963" (http://users.bestweb.net/~rg/execution/DATA FEDERAL.htm). . Retrieved May 5, 2009.
[33] The Smoking Gun: Archive (http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/feguer3.html)
[34] Parise, Theresa (January 17, 2006). "Robert F. Kennedy Miscellaneous Information" (http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/
Archives/Reference+Desk/Robert+F.+Kennedy+Miscellaneous+Information.htm). John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. . Retrieved
May 3, 2009.
[35] January 4, 1975, memorandum of conversation (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB222/family_jewels_wh2.pdf)
between President Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger, made available by the National Security Archive, June 2007
[36] CIA's 'family jewels' on show (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/23/wcia123.xml), The Telegraph,
June 23, 2007
[37] Schlesinger 2002 (reprint), pp. 493–494.
[38] Schlesinger, "The Cuban Connection", Robert Kennedy and His Times
[39] Clarity Through Complexity (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_10_32/ai_66495286), October 2000, FindArticles.com
(http://findarticles.com), Retrieved 2007-6-10
[40] 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
[41] Donnelly, Sally B. (July 26, 1999), "Kathleen Kennedy Townsend: Just like her father?" (http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/
1999/07/26/kennedy.townsend.html), Time, , retrieved April 6, 2011
[42] Grubin, David. RFK. American Experience, 2004.
[43] Robert F. Kennedy in South Africa.org—Overview (http://www.rfksa.org/contents/overview.php)
[44] Schlesinger (1978) p. 845
[45] Witkin, Richard (March 16, 1968). "Kennedy decides to run; will discuss plans today" (http://select.nytimes.com/mem/archive/
pdf?res=F10911F83E541A7493C4A81788D85F4C8685F9). The New York Times (paid archive): pp. 1, 14. . Retrieved August 31, 2009.
[46] HERBERS, JOHN (March 17, 1968). "SCENE IS THE SAME, BUT 8 YEARS LATER; Kennedy Brothers Declared for Race In Same
Room" (http://select.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=FB071EF73F541B7B93C5A81788D85F4C8685F9). The New York Times (paid
archive): pp. 68. . Retrieved August 31, 2009.
[47] Kennedy, Robert F. (March 16, 1968). "Kennedy's Statement and Excerpts From News Conference" (http://select.nytimes.com/mem/
archive/pdf?res=F4071EF73F541B7B93C5A81788D85F4C8685F9). The New York Times (paid archive): pp. 68. . Retrieved August 31,
2009.
[48] Remarks of Robert F. Kennedy at the University of Kansas (http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+
Desk/Speeches/RFK/RFKSpeech68Mar18UKansas.htm), March 18, 1968
[49] Newfield, Jack. (1969;1988). Robert Kennedy: A Memoir. Plume
[50] Clyde Tolson, qu. in: Thurston Clarke, 'The Last Good Campaign', Vanity Fair, No. 574, June, 2008, p. 173.Robert F. Kennedy 20
[51] See e.g. Statement of Mayor Bart Peterson (http://www.indygov.org/eGov/Mayor/PR/2006/4/20060404b.htm) April 4, 2006 press
release.
[52] Clarke, Thurston (2008). Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days that Inspired America. New York: Henry Holt. p. 189.. ISBN 9780805077926.
[53] Schlesinger, Arthur M. (1978). Robert Kennedy and His Times. 2 (book club ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. 947..
[54] Taraborrelli, J. Randy (2000). Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot. Warner Books. pp. 333. ISBN 0-446-52426-3.
[55] Martinez, Michael (April 30, 2012). "RFK assassination witness tells CNN: There was a second shooter" (http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/
28/justice/california-rfk-second-gun). CNN. .
[56] George Plimpton May 1, 2010
[57] Slaying gave US a first taste of Mideast terror (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2008/06/05/
slaying_gave_us_a_first_taste_of_mideast_terror/?page=full)
[58] "Part II: Why Sirhan Sirhan Assassinated Robert Kennedy by Mel Ayton" (http://web.archive.org/web/20080822134625/http://www.
crimemagazine.com/05/sirhansirhan,0906-5.htm). Crimemagazine.com. September 6, 2005. Archived from the original (http://
crimemagazine.com/05/sirhansirhan,0906-5.htm) on August 22, 2008. . Retrieved January 16, 2009.
[59] "Edward M. Kennedy Address at the Public Memorial Service for Robert F. Kennedy" (http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/
ekennedytributetorfk.html). American Rhetoric: Top 100 Speeches. . Retrieved August 29, 2009.
[60] http://www.online-literature.com/george_bernard_shaw/back-to-methuselah/2/
[61] "1968 Year In Review UPI.com" (http://www.upi.com/Audio/Year_in_Review/Events-of-1968/Robert-F.-Kennedy-Assasinated/
12303153093431-3/)
[62] "Robert F. Kennedy Memorial" (http://www.arlingtoncemetery.org/visitor_information/Robert_F_Kennedy.html). Arlington National
Cemetery. . Retrieved August 29, 2009.
[63] "Senator Robert F. Kennedy's Funeral" (http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Senator+Robert+
F+Kennedys+Funeral.htm), John F. Kennedy Library, Retrieved February 22, 2010
[64] Schlesinger, p. 150.
[65] Schlesinger, p. 191 Cf. Murray Kempton, The Progressive, Sept 1960.
[66] Boomhower, Ray E. (2008). Robert F. Kennedy and the 1968 Indiana Primary. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. p. 136..
ISBN 9780253350893.
[67] RFK Memorial (http://www.rfkmemorial.org/home/)
[68] Newsday article about the rename (http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/
ny-bc-ny--paterson-billssig0808aug08,0,463527.story).
[69] Nwiltrout (January 14, 2011). "Landmark for Peace: A tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy" (http://www.in.gov/
visitindiana/blog/index.php/2011/01/14/landmark-for-peace-a-tribute-to-dr-martin-luther-king-and-robert-kennedy/). Indiana Office of
Tourism Development. . Retrieved February 16, 2012.
[70] ""Robert F. Kennedy on Death of Martin L. King" historical marker" (http://www.in.gov/history/markers/470.htm). Indiana Historical
Bureau. . Retrieved March 6, 2012.
[71] "Assassination: The Night Bobby Kennedy was Shot" (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/
assassination-the-night-bobby-kennedy-was-shot-432970.html). The Independent (London). January 21, 2007. Retrieved May 5, 2009.
[72] Address, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, February 24, 1967, JFK Library (http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/
Reference+Desk/Quotations+of+Robert+F.+Kennedy.htm) Quotations of Robert F. Kennedy
[73] (Berkeley, October 22, 1966)
[74] (Robert F. Kennedy paraphrasing Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw)
[75] Robert F. Kennedy, University of Cape Town, South Africa, N.U.S.A.S. "Day of Affirmation" Speech (http://www.rfksa.org/speeches/
speech.php?id=1), June 6, 1966
[76] (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 (http://www.rfksa.org/magazines/magazine.php?id=6)
[77] Boomhower, p. 136.
[78] From the last speech he gave (http://www.rfkmemorial.org/lifevision/rfkquotes/), June 5, 1968
[79] (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)
[80] (Address, Day of Affirmation, University of Capetown, June 6, 1966) (http://www.rfkcenter.org/lifeandvision/selectedquotes)
[81] Fleming, Mike (March 8, 2011). "Jeffrey Donovan Playing RFK in 'J. Edgar'" (http://www.deadline.com/2011/03/
jeffrey-donovan-playing-rfk-in-j-edgar). Deadline.com. Retrieved 2011-03-08.
[82] "RFK in the Land of Apartheid: A Ripple of Hope" (http://www.rfksafilm.org/). Larry Shore. . Retrieved April 7, 2011.
[83] "Ripple of Hope" (http://www.rippleofhopemovie.com/). . Retrieved May 4, 2012.Robert F. Kennedy 21
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
• Annotated Bibliography for Robert F. Kennedy from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues (http://alsos.
wlu.edu/qsearch.aspx?browse=people/Kennedy,+Robert)
• Text, Audio, and Video of Robert Kennedy's Address at Ball State University (http://libx.bsu.edu/collection.
php?CISOROOT=/RFKen)
• American Experience: RFK (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rfk/index.html) – From PBS
• Text, Audio, and Video of Robert Kennedy's Remarks on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr (http://
www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/rfkonmlkdeath.html)
• Text, Audio, and Video excerpt of Robert Kennedy's Address at Cape Town University (http://www.
americanrhetoric.com/speeches/rfkcapetown.htm)Robert F. Kennedy 22
• Edward Kennedy eulogy to Robert Kennedy (text and audio) (http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+
Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/EMK/Tribute+to+Senator+Robert+F.+Kennedy.htm)
• Robert F. Kennedy (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0448305/) at the Internet Movie Database
• Robert F. Kennedy (http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=573) at Find a Grave
• My Father's Stand on Cuba Travel (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/22/
AR2009042203088_pf.html) 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. (http://www.
awesomestories.com/flicks/bobby-kennedy)
• Radio airchecks/recordings (http://radiotapes.com/specialpostings.html) 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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