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.
- Robert F. Kennedy, “Day of Affirmation”,
University of
Cape Town, South Africa, 6 June 1966.
The starkest depiction of unfulfilled potential can be found
in the simple, unadorned results of the 1968 California Democratic Primary:
Senator
Robert F. Kennedy Senator
Eugene J. McCarthy[1]
46.3% 41.8%
Just hours after the results were announced on 4 June, Bobby
Kennedy’s path to the Democratic nomination and the White House was cut
tragically short when he was shot in the head by a mentally disturbed young man
in the kitchens of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. After hours of surgery by top neurosurgeons,
Kennedy succumbed to his wounds and passed away in the early hours of 6 June
1968; forty-five years ago last Thursday.
This November marks the fiftieth anniversary of President
John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
Doubtless much will be written about that fateful day in Dallas, which
has captured the imagination of conspiracy theorists around the world. A young liberal President cut down in his
prime, with so much work left undone and so many questions unanswered – the man
on the grassy knoll, the sixth floor of the Texas School Book depository; the
assassin silenced before he could stand trial; who and why? In contrast, Bobby’s assassination was a cut
and dried affair. The assassin was a
24-year-old Jordanian immigrant who was arrested, convicted and is still
serving a life sentence today. And yet,
for its effect on the course of US politics and the disintegration of American
society, Bobby Kennedy’s assassination is unquestionably the more significant
of the two.
Born in 1925, Robert Francis Kennedy was the seventh of Joseph
and Rose Kennedy’s nine children, eight years younger than John and born after
four girls. Bobby’s affluent and
privileged upbringing was dominated by two currents - the sense of
determination possessed and encouraged by his father and the strong moral character
instilled by his mother. Like his
mother, Bobby was a more observant Catholic than his brothers, which shaped his
sense of right and wrong throughout his political career. He married young, to Ethel Skakel, and the
couple had eleven children; Bobby was an affectionate father to them all, save his
youngest daughter whose birth he did not live to see. After graduating from Harvard and gaining a
law degree from the University of Virginia, Bobby worked as an attorney in the
Department of Justice, but advancement of his brother’s career was always his
main concern. Bobby ran both JFK’s successful
senate campaign in 1952 and his presidential campaign 1960 and was appointed
Attorney General shortly after President Kennedy took office. He became his brother’s closest confidant in
the White House, and his foremost advisor on both domestic and foreign policy.
The seeds had been sown during his time as Attorney General,
but it was after the assassination of his brother that Bobby came into his own,
as a politician and a man. After a
period of indecision and mourning, Bobby shunned a quiet life and, in 1964,
took the opportunity to run for the vacant New York Senate seat, which he won. As the decade progressed, RFK became the
champion of the grassroots left wing, a passionate advocate of African American
civil rights and the leading critic of President Lyndon Johnson’s escalating military
campaign in Vietnam. RFK was young and a
charismatic orator, who was able to speak to and for the disadvantaged and the
disenfranchised. He used his unique
position and reputation to exert influence far beyond that of the average
junior Senator. His speeches drew large
audiences and his words inspired. His
entry into the 1968 presidential race galvanised minority groups and created an
atmosphere of optimism across the United States. His death, at the age of forty-two, was a
crushing blow to those who saw in him a better future, at home and abroad.
RFK had not always been a champion of the causes he came to
be associated with. When JFK first took
office, Bobby had hoped that the race relation issues in the US could be
brushed under the carpet to allow his brother to concentrate on the Cold War
and stopping the spread of communism. As
he became acquainted with the plight of African Americans, his views began to
change. In June 1963, RFK faced off
against Alabama Governor George Wallace and called in the National Guard to
escort the first black students to the State University. Following the incident, RFK was the only
member of the cabinet to recommend that President Kennedy send a civil rights
bill to Congress, which would eventually become the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
RFK came to be most prominently associated with the anti-war
movement during the sixties, which gathered momentum as the decade went
on. His acrimonious relationship with
President Johnson had originated in their clashes during the 1960 presidential
campaign and had worsened during JFK’s time in office. The press made much of the feud, which was
only heightened by Kennedy’s criticism of Johnson’s escalation of the Vietnam
War. Although uneasy about the direction
the war was taking, Kennedy was inspired in his opposition to the conflict by correspondence
with pacifists, academics, veterans and even officers serving in Saigon. In linking the war in Vietnam with the
US-backed action in the Dominican Republic, Kennedy was among the first to
question US foreign policy and the country’s right to impose its will upon
other nations. “Can we ordain to
ourselves the awful majesty of God,” he asked, in a speech at Kansas State
University in March 1968, “to decide what cities and villages are to be
destroyed, who will live and who will die, who will join refugees wandering in
a desert of our own creation?”[2]
Bobby Kennedy’s strength lay in allowing others to shape the
causes he fought for. He saw suffering
and used his privileged position to do all he could to right it, combining
political acumen with a strong sense of morality. Speaking in South Africa in 1966, where
apartheid would not be ended for another twenty-five years, Kennedy told his
audience: “We must recognise the full human equality of all of 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 of the
laws of God command it, although they do; 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.”[3]
Words are easy to manipulate and speeches are easy to give. Many on the left of American politics in the
1960s felt that RFK was exploiting minorities to use as foot soldiers in his
campaign; that he would abandon them and head for the middle ground if he took
office. But Robert Kennedy had substance
as well as style. He embodied both
traditional values of integrity and steadfastness as well as the progressive
thinking required to address the growing social divisions in 1960s America. He promoted women’s rights and was among the
first politicians to emphasise the need to conserve the environment. He advocated for the poor – working-class
whites, African Americans, Latinos and young people – uniting them in a vibrant
grassroots coalition; impressive in a decade characterised by its divisiveness.[4] Kennedy gave them a figurehead - a politician
they could trust, who understood their problems and had a plan to fix them. He was not afraid to go and meet the people
he was representing; to speak to them and find out what they needed and wanted for their
communities. He made himself accessible
to the voters; his hands were bloodied and scratched from people’s desire to
get close to him during his presidential campaign.
Historians cannot deal in hypotheticals. We are also supposed to avoid romanticising
historical figures. But there are some
so truly significant that we can allow ourselves this indulgence. It is impossible to say for certain what a
Robert F. Kennedy presidency would have looked like. Perhaps, despite his forward momentum in
winning the California primary, he would not have secured the Democratic
nomination. If he had gained the nomination,
perhaps he would not have won the election.
What is certain is that the
Democratic National Convention descended into chaos in Kennedy’s absence, with
rioting in the streets, and that Richard Nixon won the general election,
comfortably beating Vice President Hubert Humphrey. With the solitary exception of Jimmy Carter’s
single term, the Democrats would not be back in the White House for over two
decades. The war in Vietnam continued to
escalate, until the US pulled out and left South Vietnam to the communists in
1975. Fifteen years and hundreds of thousands of
senseless deaths had not, as RFK had predicted, prevented what the US had been
seeking to deter. Race relations deteriorated
further in the 1970s, fuelled by Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” of exploiting white
racism to reinstate the South as a Republican stronghold.
Had Robert F. Kennedy lived, whether or not he had been
elected President, the United States would have been taken in a very different
direction. There is no doubt that
Kennedy and the alliance of progressive social movements he embodied would have
been challenging the Republicans every step of the way. He was a politician who recognised that
reaching down to help others up was not merely a political expedience but a
moral imperative, fighting for justice with a perfect balance of humility and
tenacity. “Let us dedicate ourselves to
what the Greeks wrote so many years ago,” Kennedy proposed, speaking after
Martin Luther King’s assassination, just months before his own death; “to tame
the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.”[5] We should take the time on this sobering
anniversary, in an age of sleaze and scandal, to be inspired by his words to lend
a voice to those who do not have one and to remember a man who used the
privileges he was born with to try and leave a better world than the one he
entered.
[1] http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=36010
– Accessed 29.05.2013
[2] Robert
F. Kennedy, “Ending the War in Vietnam”, Kansas State University, 18 March 1968.
[3] Robert F. Kennedy, “Day of
Affirmation”, University of Cape Town, South Africa, 6 June 1966.
[4]
Joseph A. Palermo, “In His Own Right: the Political Odyssey of Robert F.
Kennedy” (New York, 2003), p.257.
[5]
Robert F. Kennedy, “On the Death of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”,
Indianapolis, Indiana, 4 April 1968.
Very informative to one who lived through this, but failed to appreciate the significance of this man.
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