A Biography of Bobby Kennedy

A Biography of Bobby Kennedy

Born November 20, 1925, Brookline, Massachusetts,
Died June 6, 1968, Los Angeles, California
Nationality Irish American
Spouse Ethel Skakel Kennedy
Religion Roman Catholic
Died whilst serving as Senator for New York
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy, also called RFK, was one of two younger brothers of U.S. President John F. Kennedy & served as United States Attorney General from 1961 to 1964. He was one of President Kennedy's most trusted advisors & worked closely with the president during the Cuban Missile Crisis. His contribution to the African-American Civil Rights Movement is sometimes considered his greatest legacy. After his brother's assassination in late 1963, Kennedy continued as Attorney General under President Johnson for nine months. He resigned in September 1964 & was elected to the United States Senate from New York that November. He broke with Johnson over the Vietnam War & after Eugene McCarthy nearly upset Johnson in the New Hampshire Primary in early 1968 Kennedy announced his own campaign for president. It was a battle for control of the Democratic Party. Kennedy defeated McCarthy in the critical California primary, but was assassinated moments after claiming victory. On June 9, 1968, President Johnson declared an official day of national mourning in response to the public grief following Kennedy's death.

Early life, education, & military service
Robert Francis Kennedy was born on November 20, 1925, in Brookline, Massachusetts, the seventh child of Joseph P. Kennedy & Rose Kennedy.

In September 1927, when he was almost two years old, Kennedy moved with his family to a rented 20-room mansion in Riverdale, New York, then two years later, moved five miles northeast to a 21-room mansion on a six-acre estate in Bronxville, New York, purchased in May 1929. Kennedy spent summers with his family at their home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, purchased in 1929, & Christmas & 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 2nd grade, then Bronxville School, the public school in Bronxville from 3rd through 5th grade, then Riverdale Country School, a private school for boys in Riverdale for 6th grade.

In March 1938, when he was twelve years old, Kennedy sailed on his first trip abroad on the SS Manhattan with his mother & his four youngest siblings to England where his father had begun serving as American ambassador. Kennedy attended Gibbs School for Boys at 134 Sloane Street in London for 7th grade, returning to the United States just before the outbreak of World War II in Europe.

In September 1939, for 8th grade, Kennedy was sent 200 miles away from home to St. Paul's School, an elite private university preparatory boarding school for boys in Concord, New Hampshire, but he did not like it there & his mother thought it too Episcopalian, so after two months at St. Paul's, Kennedy transferred to Portsmouth Priory School, a Benedictine boarding school for boys in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, 140 miles from home for 8th through 10th grades. In September 1942, Kennedy transferred to Milton Academy, an elite private university preparatory boarding school in Milton, Massachusetts, 170 miles from home for 11th & 12th grade.

In October 1943, six weeks before his 18th 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), & Harvard (June 1945-January 1946). On December 15, 1945 the U.S. Navy commissioned the destroyer USS Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. & 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 received his honorable discharge from the Navy.

In September 1946, Kennedy entered Harvard as a junior having received credit for his two & a half years in the V-12 program. Kennedy worked hard to make the Harvard varsity football team as an end, was a starter & 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 an A.B. in government in March 1948 & immediately sailed off on the RMS Queen Mary with a college friend for a six-month tour of Europe & the Middle East, accredited as a correspondent of the Boston Post, for which he filed six stories.

In September 1948, Kennedy enrolled at the University of Virginia School of Law in Charlottesville, Virginia. On June 17, 1950, Kennedy married Ethel Skakel at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Greenwich, Connecticut. Kennedy graduated from law school in June 1951 & 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, & 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) & his sister Patricia to Israel, India, Vietnam, & Japan. Because of their eight-year separation in age, the two brothers had previously seen little of each other. This 25,000 mile trip was the first extended time they had spent together & resulted in their becoming best friends in addition to being brothers.

Career until 1960
In November 1951, Kennedy moved with his wife & daughter to a townhouse in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. & started work as a lawyer in the Internal Security Section (which investigated suspected Soviet agents) of the Criminal Division of the United States 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 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 Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He resigned in July 1953 but "retained a fondness for McCarthy." After a spell 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. 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.

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 Jimmy Hoffa during the antagonistic argument that marked Hoffa's testimony. Kennedy left the Rackets Committee in late 1959 in order to run his brother John's successful presidential campaign.

Attorney General
Kennedy speaking to a Civil Rights crowd in front of the Justice Department building on June 14, 1963.Appointed following John F. Kennedy's election victory in 1960, Robert Kennedy's tenure as Attorney General was easily the period of greatest power for the office; no former United States Attorney General had enjoyed such clear influence on all areas of policy during an administration. Yet to a greater extent, it was President Kennedy who sought the advice & counsel of his younger brother, & it is to this extent that Robert Kennedy remained the President's closest political advisor. Kennedy was relied upon as both the President's primary source of administrative information & as a general counsel with whom trust was implicit, given the familial ties of the two men.

President Kennedy once remarked on his brother that, "If I want something done & done immediately I rely on the Attorney General. He is very much the doer in this administration, & has an organizational gift I have rarely if ever seen surpassed."

Yet Robert Kennedy believed strongly in the separation of powers & 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.

Organized crime & the Teamsters
As Attorney General, Kennedy pursued a relentless crusade against organized crime & the mafia, sometimes disagreeing on strategy with FBI head J. Edgar Hoover. Convictions against notorious organized crime figures rose by 800% during his term.

Kennedy was relentless in his pursuit of Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa resulting from widespread knowledge of Hoffa's corruption in financial & electoral actions, both personally & organizationally. The emnity between the two men was something of a cause celebre during the period, with accusations of personal vendetta being exchanged between Kennedy & Hoffa. Hoffa was eventually to face open, televised hearings before the Attorney General which became iconic moments in Kennedy's political career & which gained him equal praise & criticism from the press.

Civil rights
Robert 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 the law. Some of you may believe the decision was wrong. That does not matter. It is the law." Where many see the hand of the President, it was in fact the determination & zeal of the Attorney General that often led the way, according to historian Arthur Schlesinger , in tackling the problems of racial discrimination in 60s America; many of the decisions attributed to President were in fact the decisions of his brother.

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 & private life — from prosecuting corrupt southern electoral officials to answering late night calls from Mrs King concerning the imprisonment of her husband for demonstrations in Alabama. During his tenure as Attorney General he undertook the most energetic & persistent desegregation of the administration that Capitol Hill had ever experienced. He demanded that every area of government begin recruiting realistic levels of black & 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 common place to assert the phrase "The Kennedy Administration" or even, "President Kennedy" when discussing the legislative & executive support of the civil rights movement, between 1960 & 1963, a great many of the initiatives which occurred during President Kennedy's tenure were as a result of the passion & 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." 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.

During the attack & burning, by a vast white mob, of the First Baptist Church in Montgomery Alabama, at which Martin Luther King, Jr. was in attendance with protesters, the Attorney General telephoned King to ask his assurance that they would not leave the building until the US Marshals & National Guard 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 which might otherwise have ended King's life. The relationship between the two men was to undergo great change over the years that they would know each other - from a position of mutual suspicion to one of shared aspirations. For Dr King, Robert Kennedy initially represented the 'softly softly' approach that in former years had disabled the movement of blacks against oppression in the US. For Robert Kennedy, King initially represented what was then considered the unrealistic militancy which many in the white-liberal camp had regarded as the cause of so little governmental progress.

In September 1962, he sent U.S. Marshals & troops to Oxford, Mississippi, to enforce a Federal court order admitting the first African American student, James Meredith, to the University of Mississippi. Riots ensued during the period of Meredith's admittance, which resulted in hundreds of injuries & 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 & began to work cautiously with leaders of the civil rights movement. Robert Kennedy saw voting as the key to racial justice, & collaborated with Presidents Kennedy & Johnson to create the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which helped bring an end to Jim Crow laws.

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 & into matters of foreign & economic policy. At Ball State University, Kennedy was to question the student body as to what kind of life America wished for herself; whether privileged Americans had earned the great luxury they enjoyed & whether such Americans had an obligation to those, in US society & across the world, who had so little by comparison.

Responding to allegations that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a communist whose close confidantes were insurrectionists, Kennedy, as Attorney General, issued written approvals to the FBI in order for the Bureau to track & eavesdrop on Martin Luther King, Jr. & the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King's civil rights organization. The source of the original allegations was none other than J. Edgar Hoover, who had a burning hatred for King, whom he viewed as an upstart troublemaker. Although Kennedy only gave written approval for limited wire-tapping the Bureau, as was common under Hoover's leadership, extended the clearance to encompass whichever areas of King's life they deemed worthy of examination - without Kennedy's knowledge.

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 & 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 & we, all our lives, have treated the Negro as an inferior, & God is there, & we look up & He is not white? What then is our response?' There was no answer. Only silence."

Cuba
As his brother's confidante, 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 & 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, are today rejected by most historians. The lack of any evidence linking even close advisors to the Kennedys, coupled with statements from figures such as Maxwell Taylor (concerning the two men's personal/political beliefs), indicates that the Kennedys had no part in the many & various attempts by the CIA (with help from organized crime elements) to murder the Cuban dictator. Schlesinger, for example, is of the opinion that operatives linked to the CIA were among the most reckless individuals to have operated during the period - providing themselves with unscrutinised freedoms to threaten the lives of Castro & other members of the Cuban regime regardless of the legislative apparatus in Washington - freedoms which, unbeknownst to those at the White House attempting to prevent a nuclear war, placed the entire US/Soviet relationship in perilous danger.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis Kennedy proved himself to be a gifted politician, with an ability to obtain compromises from key figures in the hawk camp concerning their position of aggression. 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 US & Soviet Russia. His clandestine meetings with members of the Soviet government continued to provide a key link to Khruschev during even the darkest moments of the Crisis, in which the threat of nuclear strikes was considered a very present reality.

The assassination of JFK
The assassination of President Kennedy on November 22, 1963, was a brutal shock to the world, the nation, & of course to Robert & the rest of the Kennedy family. Robert was absolutely devastated, & was described by many as being a completely different man after his brother's death.

During the two days after the assassination, Kennedy wrote letters to his two eldest children, Kathleen & Joseph II, telling them about the tragedy, as well as to follow what their uncle started, as his son, Max, who was born in 1965, said in Make Gentle the Life of This World : The Vision of Robert F. Kennedy & the Words That Inspired Him.

As Kennedy was introduced prior to the showing of a memorial film dedicated to JFK at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey thousands of delegates & others broke into thunderous applause for 22 minutes.

Kennedy remained as Attorney General for President Johnson, but the bad blood between them forced him to make new plans, running in New York for the U.S. Senate.

Senator for New York
Nine months after President John F. Kennedy's assassination, Robert Kennedy left the Cabinet to run for a seat in the United States Senate, representing New York.

President Johnson & Robert Kennedy were often at severe odds with each other, both politically & personally, yet Johnson gave considerable support to RFK'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 June 1966, Kennedy visited apartheid-ruled South Africa accompanied by his wife, Ethel Kennedy, & 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 gravestone 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....")

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 & , reversing his prior stance, called for a halt in further escalation of the Vietnam War.

As Senator, Robert endeared himself to African Americans, & other minorities such as Native Americans & immigrant groups. He spoke forcefully in favor of what he called the "disaffected," the impoverished, & "the excluded," thereby aligning himself with leaders of the civil rights struggle & social justice campaigners, leading the Democratic party in a pursuit of a more aggressive agenda to eliminate perceived discrimination on all levels. Kennedy supported busing, integration of all public facilities, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 & anti-poverty social programs to increase education, offer opportunities for employment, & provide health care for African-Americans.

Kennedy's presidential campaign was powered by an aggressive vision on behalf of African Americans, who flocked to his banner.

The administration of President Kennedy had backed U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia & other parts of the world, in response to Soviet-sponsored Communist aggression. Robert Kennedy vigorously supported President Kennedy's earlier efforts, but, like President Kennedy, RFK never advocated commitment of ground troops. Senator Kennedy cautioned President Johnson against commitment of U.S. ground troops as early as 1965, but Lyndon Johnson chose to commit ground troops. RFK 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, Senator Kennedy placed increasing emphasis on human rights as a central focus of U.S. foreign policy.

Presidential candidacy
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 early February 1968, Kennedy received a letter from writer Pete Hamill (later acclaimed author of the novel Snow in August). Hamill wrote an anguished letter to Kennedy noting that poor people kept pictures of JFK on their walls & that Robert Kennedy had an "obligation of staying true to whatever it was that put those pictures on those walls." Kennedy traveled to California, to meet with 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 an astonishingly narrow victory in the New Hampshire primary on March 12, 1968 against McCarthy. Kennedy declared his candidacy on March 16, 1968 stating, "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 & because I have such strong feelings about what must be done, & I feel that I'm obliged to do all I can." McCarthy supporters angrily denounced Kennedy as an opportunist, & thus the anti-war movement was split between McCarthy (whose base was among intellectuals, students & the upper middle class) & Kennedy (whose base was among working class Catholics & blacks). On March 31, 1968, Johnson stunned the nation by dropping out of the race. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, long a champion of labor unions & civil rights, entered the race with the support of the party "establishment," including most members of Congress, mayors, governors & labor unions. He entered the race too late to enter any primaries, but had the support of the president & 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 ticket of racial & economic justice, non-aggression in foreign policy, decentralization of power & 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 & equality.

Tired, but still intense in the last days before his Oregon defeat, RFK speaks from the platform of a campaign train.Kennedy's policy objectives did not sit well with the business world, in which he was viewed as something of a fiscal liability, given that the tax increases necessary to fund such programs of social improvement would be a threat to sustained economic growth. When verbally attacked at a speech he gave during his tour of the universities he was asked, "And who's going to pay for all this, senator?", to which Kennedy replied with typical candor, "You are." It was this intense & frank mode of dialogue with which Kennedy was to continue to engage those whom he viewed as not being traditional allies of Democrat ideals or initiatives. 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 & 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 progress that had been made in the 5 years since the President's death.

On April 4, 1968, Kennedy learned of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. & gave a heartfelt, impromptu speech in Indianapolis' 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 Indianapolis, a fact many attribute to the effect of this speech. Kennedy openly challenged young people who supported the war while benefiting from draft deferments, visited numerous small towns, & made himself available to the masses by participating in long motorcades & 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.

Kennedy won the Indiana & Nebraska Democratic primaries, but lost the Oregon primary. If he could defeat McCarthy in the California primary, the leadership of the campaign thought, he would knock him out of the race & 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 convention in August.

Robert F. Kennedy assassination
On June 4, 1968, Kennedy scored a major victory when he won the California primary. He addressed his supporters in the early morning hours of June 5, 1968 in a ballroom at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He left the ballroom through a service area to greet supporters working in the hotel's kitchen. In a crowded kitchen passageway, Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian, opened fire with a .22 caliber revolver & shot Kennedy in the head at close range (although some have questioned this account). Following the shooting, Kennedy was rushed to The Good Samaritan Hospital where he died the next day.

Robert Kennedy's Grave in Arlington National CemeteryHis body was returned to New York City, where he lay in state at St. Patrick's Cathedral for several days before the funeral mass held there. His brother, Senator 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 & decent man, who saw wrong & tried to right it, saw suffering & tried to heal it, saw war & tried to stop it."

Senator Kennedy concluded his eulogy, paraphrasing his deceased brother Robert by quoting George Bernard Shaw: "Some men see things as they are & say 'Why?' I dream things that never were & say, 'Why not?'"

Immediately following the Mass, Kennedy's body was transported by special train to Washington, D.C. Thousands of mourners lined the tracks & stations, paying their respects as the train passed by.

Kennedy was buried near his brother, John, in Arlington National Cemetery. 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 & ceremony. Robert Kennedy's burial at Arlington National Cemetery was the only one to ever take place at night.

After the assassination, the mandate of the Secret Service was altered to include protection of presidential candidates.

Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery

Family

The Kennedy brothers: John, Robert & Edward (Ted)In 1950, he married Ethel Skakel, who would eventually give birth to 11 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 several months after her father's assassination.

Kennedy owned a home at the well-known Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts on Cape Cod, but spent most of his time at his estate in Virginia, known as Hickory Hill, located just outside Washington, D.C.. His widow, Ethel, & his children continued to live at Hickory Hill after his death in 1968. Ethel Kennedy now lives full time at the family's vacation home in Hyannis Port.

Attitudes & approach
Despite the fact that his father's most ambitious dreams centered around his older brothers, Kennedy maintained the code of personal loyalty which seemed to infuse the life of the Kennedy family as a whole. His competitiveness was admired by his father & 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.

Working on the campaigns of John Kennedy, Robert was more involved, passionate & tenacious than the candidate himself, obsessed with every detail, fighting out every battle & taking workers to task. Robert had, all his life, been closer to older brother Jack than the other members of the Kennedy family.

Kennedy's opponents on Capitol Hill maintained that his collegialist magnanimity was sometimes hindered by a tenacious & somewhat impatient manner. His professional life was dominated by the selfsame attitudes which governed his family life - a certainty that good humor & leisure must be balanced by service & accomplishment. Schlesinger comments that Kennedy could be both the most ruthlessly diligent & yet generously adaptable of politicians - at once both temperamental & yet forgiving. In this, Kennedy was very much his father's son; lacking truly lasting emotional independence & yet possessing a great desire to contribute. He lacked the innate self-confidence of his contemporaries & yet found a greater self-assurance in the experience of married life, an experience which he stated had given him a base of self-belief from which to continue his efforts in the public arena.

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." & yet he also openly confessed to possessing a bad temper which 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 & tell the truth. To see people sit in front of us & lie & evade makes me boil inside. But you can't lose your temper - if you do, the witness has gotten the best of you"

Again in contrast to his brother, Kennedy lacked a natural flair for public speaking, & instead relied upon a passion for the issues of social justice which resonated deeply with his own fervor.

Religious faith
Central to Kennedy's politics & personal attitude to life, & its purpose, remained the heritage of Kennedy's Catholicism. Throughout his life, he made constant reference to his faith having informed every area of his life & having given him the strength to re-enter the political landscape following the assassination of his elder brother. Yet his was by no means an unresponsive & staid faith, but rather the faith of a Catholic Radical — perhaps the first successful Catholic Radical in American political history.

Robert Kennedy was easily the most religious of his brothers. Whereas John F. Kennedy maintained an aloof sense of his faith Robert approached his duties to mankind through the looking glass of his Catholicism. In the last years of his life, he found great solace in the metaphysical poets of ancient Greece, most especially in the writings of Aeschylus. At his announcement of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Kennedy quoted these lines from Aeschylus in a speech which was to become one of his most memorable moments:

"He who learns must suffer. 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 by the awful grace of God."

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 for Robert KennedyD.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 & the emblems of the United States Department of Justice & the United States Senate on the reverse.

In Washington, D.C. on November 20, 2001, US President George W. Bush & Attorney General John Ashcroft dedicated the Department of Justice headquarters building as the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building, honoring RFK 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 & other facilities across the United States were named in memory of Robert F. Kennedy in the months & years after his death. The Robert F. Kennedy Memorial organization was founded in 1968, with an international award program to recognize human rights activists. 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 & 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.

In 1994 the City of erected a monument in Kennedy's honor in the space made famous by his oration from the back of a pickup truck the night Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. died. The monument depicts Bobby Kennedy as a piece of a large metal slab reaching out to Dr. King, who is also part of a similar slab. This is meant to symbolize their attempts in life to bridge the gaps between the races--an attempt that united them even in death.

The site of the monument is Kennedy King Park & is located at 17th Street & Broadway, in Indianapolis. A historical marker has also been placed at the site. A nephew of Martin Luther King Jr. & U.S. Congresswoman Julia Carson (D) presided over the event; both made speeches from the back of a pickup truck in similar fashion to Robert Kennedy.Indiana Historical Society

Writing
Considered an eloquent speaker generally, RFK also wrote extensively on politics & issues confronting his generation:

The Enemy Within: The McClellan Committee's Crusade Against Jimmy Hoffa & Corrupt Labor Unions (1960)
To Seek a Newer World (1967)
Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis (1969)

Quotes
"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly."

"The problem of power is how to achieve its responsible use, rather than its irresponsible & indulgent use- how to make people of power live for the public, rather than off the public."

"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 & love of country." Address, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, February 24, 1967.

"How do you tell if Lyndon is lying? If he wiggles his ears, that doesn't mean he's lying. If he raises his eyebrows, that doesn't mean he's lying. But when he moves his lips, he's lying." (On President Johnson)

"Men without hope, resigned to despair & 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 & the passion for justice are unloosed."

"There are those who look at things the way they are, & ask why... I dream of things that never were & ask why not."

"Few will have the greatness to bend history; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, & in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation ... It is from numberless diverse acts of courage & 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, & crossing each other from a million different centers of energy & daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression & resistance." Robert F. Kennedy, University of Cape Town, South Africa, N.U.S.A.S. "Day of Affirmation" Speech, June 6, 1966

"Like it or not we live in interesting times." Robert F. Kennedy, University of Cape Town, South Africa, N.U.S.A.S. "Day of Affirmation" Speech, June 6, 1966

"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 & we, all our lives, have treated the Negro as an inferior, & God is there, & we look up & He is not white? What then is our response?" There was no answer. Only silence." (Article for LOOK Magazine following visit to South Africa, 1966)

"Fear not the path of truth for the lack of people walking on it." From the last speech he gave, June 6, 1968

"Laws can embody standards; governments can enforce laws--but the final task is not a task for government. It is a task for each & 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 & ears to the corrupt because we are too busy, or too frightened--when we fail to speak up & speak out--we strike a blow against freedom & decency & justice." June 21, 1961

This article was written in May 2007

An Index with links to almost all our sites.

A game where you can be elected President of a country like the US

US Senate majorities of 1789-2007

A list of all the Presidents of the USA to 2006

A Link to the numbers for the House, 1789-2007

The Lonympics Entertainment Special zone A Pleasure crammed compendium of fun, exitement, & sensation tugging links. For instance lists of some of the best comedians ever's official websites.

Our report on the history of racism, in US mainstream media, from the 1900s to 2006, & wonderings of what conclusions we can have, A short report.

Our Sports index

A site stating which animals, would be best at football, it is comical, & there are 2 teams, by 2 people, so some needle & competition for the best

A game where you are the candidate for the leadership of the British Tory Party in 1990, I am not a Tory, but this election was the most exiting election in Britain in the past couple of decades so why not play it

A game where you have to play to win a US style presidential election, if you win you become the president & if you lose you lose, great fun.

A Multimedia Centre for World TV chanells, you click on the TV & you get their website or U Tube style TV website

http://www.lonympics.co.uk/new/10Mostfamous_fictional_SA_people.htm The 10 most famous fictional Americans
http://www.lonympics.co.uk/new/10Mostfamous_fictionalScottish_people.htm The 10 most famous fictional Scottish people

A recipe site http://www.lonympics.co.uk/delicousdishes.htm

A site stating what have been the world's largest empires ever

Cool Music

A site stating the 10 largest majority English speaking lands, as their main tongue in the world

A site stating what are the 10 largest cities in Celtic lands, & a list of lands which are considered Celtic