The
assassination of Robert Kennedy on June 5, 1968, has never attracted
the same level of public fascination and passion as the 1963 assassination
of his brother, President John F. Kennedy. But, the passing of Bobby,
as many affectionately called him, may have impacted our country
in a more significant manner.
Robert Kennedy was unique in American politics; he reached out to
the poor and disenfranchised, he reached out to working class whites,
he reached out to inner city blacks, he reached out to the migrant
worker - the very classes of people most politicians of that time
ignored. He came from a place of privilege and money, yet passionately
spoke for the victimized and the oppressed. Robert Kennedy embodied
an attitude and idealism that is rare for any generation. By leading
with an inspiring call to action he asked the American people of
that time to support racial and educational equality, to accept environmental
responsibility and to negotiate for peace in a war ravaged world.
RFK asked Americans to believe that as individuals they could make
a difference in the world.
Bobby understood that America's real greatness came from empowering
its citizens through equal opportunities to secure a better
life, but Robert Kennedy's vision for a better tomorrow was not limited
to the United States. He went to Poland and Latin America to tell
them that their dream of freedom was obtainable, and when South Africans
suffered the tyranny of apartheid, RFK was there to say:
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 that can sweep down the mightiest walls
of oppression and resistance. - RFK
Bobby Kennedy - the ripple
of hope...
UPDATES
Remembering Robert Kennedy
ABC News Photos, Some Never Published
A Time It Was: Bobby Kennedy in
the Sixties
Sen. Robert F. Kennedy standing in front of a poster of his late
brother, President John F. Kennedy, 1966. The photo appeared on
the cover of Life magazine.
Robert Kennedy made his political debut in 1952,
managing John Kennedy's Senate campaign. In 1960, he again assumed
the position of campaign manager, for his brother's bid for the
White House.
Kennedy served as attorney general in his brother's
Cabinet, resigning soon after President Kennedy's 1963 assassination
to run for the United States Senate from New York.
June 5, 2008 marks the 40th anniversary of Sen. Kennedy's
assassination.
(Bill Eppridge/LIFE/Time Inc.)
LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Forty years ago, on June 5, 1968,
Robert F. Kennedy was brimming with the confidence of a young,
charismatic and liberal political star.
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He had just won the California Democratic primary,
giving him a strong chance to win the party's presidential nomination,
rising out of the shadow of his brother John F. Kennedy, the president
murdered less than five years before.
And in a split second, its was all over: a deranged
Palestinian shot him dead in a Los Angeles hotel as he reveled
in his victory.
The assassination of Bobby Kennedy plunged the United
States into deep trauma.
It came in the wake of the devastating Tet offensive
against US and South Vietnamese troops in Vietnam, which showed
the US was not winning the war and forced then-president Lyndon
Johnson, also a Democrat, to concede that he was too weak to seek
the White House in that November's election.
And it followed by two months the April 4 assassination
of civil rights leader Martin Luther King in Memphis, Tennessee,
which sparked riots across the country.
Johnson's decision to bow out from the race opened
the door to Kennedy to jump in the battle against liberal anti-war
hero, senator Eugene McCarthy, and Johnson's more conservative
vice president Hubert Humphrey that March.
But Kennedy, who also took a stance against the increasingly
unpopular war, had the advantage of youth -- he was just 42, his
powerful name, his experience as attorney general under his brother,
and then nearly four years as senator from New York.
The primary in California, the country's most populous
state, was key, and Kennedy came out of it with a big advance,
putting him ahead of McCarthy and with the possibility of catching
up with Humphrey.
But what for many was the second Kennedy "dream" was
again cut short. As he entered the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel
to thank supporters, Sirhan Sirhan pulled out a pistol and at close
range shot Bobby several times, including once in the head.
Kennedy died the next day, leaving behind wife Ethel,
10 children and an 11th soon to be born, and a clan and the nation
in shock at yet another Kennedy tragedy.
The photograph of a young assistant chef, holding
up the candidate's bloodied head as he lay on the floor, was seen
around the world.
Boris Yaro, then working for the Los Angeles Times,
recalled in 1998 that he went not on assignment but as a fan to
take pictures.
"To me, Bobby represented what was left of the
Camelot era of American politics, and I wanted him to win.
"I wanted a picture of him for my wall -- something
that said a new era was aborning."
But as his victory became apparent, suddenly "there
were a couple of explosions that seemed to light up the entire
room," Yaro recalled.
"The crowd around Bobby parted and there was
a man with a contorted face and a revolver, and shots were still
being fired."
"I froze. 'No,' I said to myself. 'Not again.
Not another Kennedy.'"
In the struggle to subdue Sirhan, Yaro himself grabbed
at the gun before someone else took it away.
He took his pictures and went back to the newspaper.
"After all the questions were over in the newsroom,
I walked back to my cubbyhole darkroom in the photo department
and, out of sight of everybody, I cried hot tears of anger.
"I cried for me and you and all the world. Bobby
would cling to life for another day, but the truth was already
there: Camelot was lost."
Forty years later, the desire for another "Camelot" has
filled supporters of Illinois Senator Barack Obama, likened to
the Kennedy brothers by some from the Massachusetts clan themselves.
In January both John F. Kennedy's brother Senator
Edward Kennedy and the slain president's daughter Caroline suggested
Obama was his spiritual heir.
But also, in what came to be seen as an ugly comparison,
Obama's now-vanquished rival Hillary Clinton in May made reference
to their close-quarters battle and the fact that the 1968 race
changed radically when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated.
The reference provoked outrage that Clinton was suggesting
something nefarious, and she quickly apologized.
Sirhan, a Christian-born Palestinian who first said
he killed Kennedy over his support for Israel, but whose sanity
was later questioned, was given a life sentence in a California
prison, where he remains today.
Discovery Channel Program now online
The RFK Assassination Audio Test
An astonishing discovery is made when a sound recording
of Robert F. Kennedy's assassination, lost to the world for 39
years, is found and examined. Audio analysts say the dramatic recording
changes history. Learn the startling results of their investigation.
Hear the actual sounds of the Bobby Kennedy shooting as DISCOVERY
TIMES CHANNEL broadcasts this important, previously-unknown recording
for the first time.
For those of you that missed the Discovery Channel
program Conspiracy Test: The RFk Assassination it can now be viewed
online at the following link...
Brothers:
The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, new book by David
Talbot:
"Brothers" begins on
the shattering afternoon of November 22, 1963, as a grief-stricken
Robert Kennedy urgently demands answers about the assassination
of his brother. Bobby's suspicions immediately focus on the nest
of CIA spies, gangsters, and Cuban exiles that had long been plotting
a violent regime change in Cuba.
"Brothers then shifts back
in time, revealing the shadowy conflicts that tore apart the Kennedy
administration, pitting the young president and his even younger
brother against their own national security apparatus. The tensions
within the Kennedy administration were heading for an explosive
climax, when a burst of gunfire in a sunny Dallas plaza terminated
John F. Kennedy's presidency."
Larry Hancock's book SOMEONE
WOULD HAVE TALKED demonstrates how this nest - frustrated
with the highly secret Kennedy outreach to Castro - instigated
and orchestrated JFK's murder in Dallas. RFK intuitively had
the right answer, its just taken 40 plus years to find and document
what he knew in his gut on that Friday afternoon.
In the 1960s racial segregation prevented black Americans from educational
opportunities, economic opportunities, from voting. Sadly, black Americans
who fought against racial inequality were often victims
of violence.
As Attorney General, Robert Kennedy actively enforced civil right laws.
His stance on civil rights became evident on May 6, 1961, when he traveled
to the University of Georgia to deliver one of his first major talks
as Attorney General. In that speech, RFK compared the domestic
struggle for civil rights to the Free World's fight against communism.
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. - RFK
Robert Kennedy was committed to the rights of African Americans to
vote, and attend school and in 1962 sent US Marshals to Oxford, Mississippi
to enforce a Federal Court Order admitting the first black student,
James Meredith, to enter the University of Mississippi.
The
Missile Crisis
Robert Kennedy had a major role in the Missile Crisis. He acted
as a meeting facilitator and as an unquestioned confidante to President
Kennedy. Because the President could not be present at all the
EX-COMM meetings, he assigned Robert Kennedy the task of facilitating
the discussions. As such, Bobby Kennedy proved an excellent leader
by guiding the discussions and asking complex questions. Robert
Kennedy quickly exhibited his ability to analyze the situation
and recognize how decisions would impact the future of the world.
Robert Kennedy's second major contribution was his secret contact
with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. Privately, RFK was able
to convey President Kennedy's position and generate a secret deal.
In Khrushchev's memoirs there is a section devoted to the crisis
and Robert Kennedy's communications with Ambassador Dobrynin.
I said President Kennedy wished to
have peaceful relations between our two countries. He wished to
resolve the problems that confronted us in Europe and Southeast
Asia. He wished to move forward on the control of nuclear weapons.
However, we could make progress on these matters only when the
crisis was behind us. Time was running out. We had only a few more
hours—we needed an answer immediately from the Soviet Union.
I said we must have it the next day.
[Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile
Crisis (New York: New American Library, 1969), 107-109.]
The
assassination of Robert Kennedy on June 5, 1968, has never attracted
the same level of public fascination and passion as the 1963 assassination
of his brother, President John F. Kennedy. But, the passing of Bobby,
as many affectionately called him, may have impacted our country
in a more significant manner. 
