My introduction to the politics of this country was during the 82 day campaign that Senator Robert F. Kennedy ran for Presiddent in 1968, cut short only by his assasination in June of that year. He ran as the anti-Vietnam War candidate, as did Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota. In a sense they competed for some of the same Democratic vote.
Robert Francis Kennedy was born into the wealthy Kennedy family. His father, Joseph P., had served as an ambassador to Great Britain in the 1930's. His older brother, JFK was President for just short of three years, when an assassin killed him in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. The mantle now fell to RFK.
RFK served as Attorney General in his brother's administration. With little legal background, his brother was accused of appointing him just because of their relationship. During his four years at the helm of the Justice Department, Kennedy focussed on civil rights and ending the grip that organized crime had on the labor unions. During the tumoltuous 1960's, at the height of the Civil Rights movement, Kennedy, with the President's approval, RFK had lcivil rights leader Martin Luther King, jr. jailed, he said for his own protection. When King was assassinated in April of 1968, Kennedy announced to the largely black crowd in Indianpolis of the murder. Not many white people could have done that without fear for their lives, but Robert Kennedy did, with but a few security personnel. He is credited with calming the crowd, while other cities around the nation broke into violence and riots.
RFK was ruthless. He rewrded his political colleagues and punished his enemies. He and his brother's vice pesident, Lyndon Johnson of Texas did not like one another. He was really running against Johnson in 1968. Speculation rose that he would run as Johnson's VP in 1964, but that was just a pipe dream, as Johnson chose longtime Democratic stalwart Senator Hubert Humphrey as his running mate. RFK left the cabinet.
in 1966 he ran and won the office of junior United States Senator from New York. (Ironically, in latter years, Hillary Rodham Clinton would occupy that post, unitl her nomination as Barack Obama's Secretary of State.)
In March of 1968, President Johnson announced that he would not be a candidate for re-election, or even to accept the nomination of the Democratic Party at the Chicago convention. Kennedy had announced his candidacy about two weeks before Johnson's. It may be what prompted him to make the final decision.
Kennedy campaigned throughout the country for those just less than three months. He racked up impressive numbers where ever he went, including California, which, with over 400 delegates wouldhave assured his nomination. Then, tragedy struck: After declaring victory, Kennedy changed plans, something he very seldom did and exited his hotel through the kitchen. In the kitchen lurked a small dark man, who came from out of the crowd and fired a bullet into Kennedy's head. As he lay there dying, with his blood all over the place, the hope of the nation began to die. He died less than 36 hours later, having never awakened after a serious brain operation.
His body was flown back to New York for a funeral Mass, in which his brother Ted, also a United States Senator, said '...Many people see things and say why, my brother saw things and said why not?"
The body was then taken by train to Arlington Natinal Cemetery near Washington D.C. The procession was scedhuled to take under three hours. The train had to take it slow, since there were so many people lining the tracks, danger would have ensued if they had gone at a faster clip. Two people did die when the fell in front of the train. Old reporters said that it reminded them of FDR's Funeral Train of just 23 years previous, in which hundreds of thousands had lined the tracks to get a last glimpse of Roosevelt's body.
Editorial Comment" I believe the idealism of this country died with Robert Kennedy. Only history will conclusively tell us that.