Robert F. Kennedy
by Krysta CardinaleRobert Francis Kennedy was born on November 20th 1925 in Brooklyn, Massachusetts. His father, Joseph P. Kennedy was a millionaire businessman who had also served in government. Joseph Kennedy instilled in his nine children, an intense competitive nature and desire to succeed. At the age of 27, Robert, or Bobby Kennedy, as he was known to friends, entered the political arena. He managed the winning senate campaign of his older brother, John Kennedy in 1952.
Soon after in Washington DC, Bobby Kennedy worked as a legal council on various senate committees. In 1960, at the age of 34, Bobby successfully managed his brother John Kennedy’s winning presidential campaign against the Republican Richard Nixon. The new President soon appointed Bobby to be United States’ Attorney General, the youngest Attorney General in American history. As the president’s closest advisor, Robert Kennedy played a key role during many important crises. On October 14th 1962, American spy planes took pictures of Soviet missile sites in Cuba. These sites had the capability to launch nuclear missiles at much of the United States.
President John F. Kennedy quickly formed a crisis response team, later known as the Executive Community or ExCom. Its mission was to meet in secret and debate US options in the face of the aggressive Soviet Union. Robert F. Kennedy led many of ExCom’s crucial deliberations. The attorney general ultimately helped convince the President to blockade Cuba rather than mount a full-scale air strike and invasion. This crucial decision not to use force ultimately allowed the Soviets to back down without losing face and help prevent a full-scale nuclear war from erupting between the super powers. On the domestic front, the justice department under Robert F. Kennedy’s leadership energetically enforced laws to protect African-American civil rights. Kennedy sent soldiers and US Marshals to Mississippi in 1962 to implement a court order that allowed the first African-American, James Meredith to attend the University of Mississippi.
On November 22nd 1963, the course of Robert Kennedy’s life as well as America’s history was forever changed when President John Kennedy was murdered in Dallas.
Bobby was emotionally devastated by his brother’s death. Within a year, he had resigned his cabinet post and mounted a successful campaign to become United States Senator from New York. Over the next three and a half years, Senator Robert Kennedy became a leading liberal voice in his party, focusing in particular, on issues such as poverty and urban decay. After some soul searching, Bobby announced his candidacy for the Presidency, on March 16th 1968.
Robert F. Kennedy: “This is a generous and compassionate country, that’s what I want a country to stand for, not bias, not laws, not disorder, but compassion and love and peace. That’s what this country should stand for and that’s what I intend to do.”
The Assassination of Another Kennedy
After winning the California primary on June 4th, Kennedy seemed likely to win the Democratic Presidential nomination. But as Bobby left a victory celebration at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, he was fatally shot by a disgruntled Palestinian immigrant named Sirhan Bishara Sirhan. The shock and tragic irony of seeing yet another famous Kennedy cut down by an assassin’s bullets, only five years after President John Kennedy’s murder, plunged the nation into mourning. Along with the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. a few months before, Robert Kennedy’s death seemed to symbolize for many, the violence and political chaos of the turbulent 1960’s.
A stunned and grieving nation turned out to honor Kennedy and his commitment to America. Bobby Kennedy was laid to rest near his slain brother, President John Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery. Robert Kennedy was an inspirational and dynamic leader who helped shape the course of American history. Perhaps the greatest tragedy of Robert Kennedy’s murder lay in the sense of his un-fulfilled promise; what might this visionary man have accomplished, if only he had lived?
Robert F. Kennedy: “And I don’t think we have to accept the idea that the stain of bloodshed, is going to be ever across our country. Jefferson once said about the United States that we were the last best hope for mankind. That’s what I want the United States to be, this is a generous and compassionate country, that’s what I want this country to stand for.”
