Robert F. Kennedy

This is the most common use of RFK. For other uses, see RFK (disambiguation).

Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy, also called "RFK" (November 20, 1925 – June 6, 1968) was the younger brother of President John F. Kennedy, and was appointed by his brother as Attorney General for his administration. He worked closely with his brother during the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. After his brother's death, Kennedy ran in 1964 for the New York senate seat, winning that office in the November of that year. In 1968, he was assassinated during his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Early Life

Robert Kennedy was the seventh child of Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Kennedy born on November 20, 1925. He attended and graduated from Harvard University in 1948, after brief service in the Navy. Though Kennedy had a very strong work ethic, he did not make very high grades. As a result, he was not accepted to Harvard Law School, and instead received his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1951. Following this, he managed his brother John's successful U.S. Senate campaign in 1952. He worked as a Junior Counsel for an Investigations Subcommittee that was run by Senator McCarthy. However, when this committee began its communist purge, Kennedy left in favor of the Labor and Rackets Committee.

RFK soon made a name for himself as the chief counsel of the Senate Labor Rackets Committee hearings, which began in 1956. In a dramatic scene, Kennedy squared off against Jimmy Hoffa during the antagonistic verbal sparring that marked Hoffa's testimony. Kennedy left the Rackets Committee in 1959 in order to run his brother John's successful Presidential campaign.

Working for JFK

President Kennedy rewarded his younger brother's efforts by naming him to his Cabinet as Attorney General of the United States. During the Kennedy Administration, "Bobby" played a key advisory role for President Kennedy. Among the weighty issues they faced were the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 18 months later, the escalation of military action in Vietnam and the widening spread of the Civil Rights Movement and its retaliatory violence. It is not clear if he gave J. Edgar Hoover]] permission to wiretap Martin Luther King, though it is certain that the FBI was required to ask the Attorney General for such permission. Kennedy is remembered most for his work on civil rights, namely the integration of the University of Mississippi in Oxford, MS (the student was James Meridith) and his support of the civil rights bill that passed in 1964. After the assasination of President Kennedy in 1963, Robert Kennedy remained the attorney general, though his relationship with President Lyndon Johnson was very cold.

Senator for New York

Soon after President John F. Kennedy's assassintion, Robert Kennedy left the Cabinet to run for a seat in the United States Senate representing New York. He was elected in November of 1964, defeating Republican incumbent Kenneth Keating. At first Keating was able to portray Kennedy as an arrogant carpetbagger. However, after a tough campaign – in which Kennedy tied himself to his nemesis, President Lyndon Johnson, Kennedy was triumphant.

During his three and a half years as a US Senator, Kennedy visited Apartheid-ruled South Africa, helped to start a successful redevelopment project in poverty stricken Bedford-Stuyvesant in New York City, visited the Mississippi Delta as a member of the Senate committee on hunger and, reversing his prior stance, called for a halt in further escalation of the Vietnam War.

Presidential Candidacy and Assassination

Originally Kennedy had declined speculations that he was going to try for the Democratic nomination in 1968 against the incumbent President Lyndon Johnson. After Johnson won only a very narrow victory in the New Hampshire primary on March 12, 1968 against Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, an anti-war candidate, Kennedy too declared his candidacy for the Presidency on March 16. Two weeks later Johnson appeared on television to state that he was no longer a candidate for re-election.

On April 4, during a campaign stop in Indianapolis, Kennedy learned of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. During a heartfelt, impromptu speech in Indianapolis' inner city, Kennedy called for a reconciliation between the races. In the aftermath of King's murder, thousands of people were injured and 43 were killed in riots throughout the United States, but Indianapolis remained quiet.

Kennedy won the Indiana and Nebraska primaries, but lost the Oregon primary. On June 4, 1968 Kennedy scored a major vicory in his drive toward the Democratic nomination when he won primaries in South Dakota and in California. After Kennedy addressed his supporters that evening in a ballroom at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, he left the ballroom through a service area. In a kitchen hallway, Sirhan B. Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian, shot into the crowd surrounding Kennedy. Several people were wounded, including Kennedy, who was shot at point blank range.

Sirhan confessed to the shooting, and is currently imprisoned for the crime. It is generally believed that Sirhan fired the shots that hit Kennedy. As with his brother John's death, however, many have suggested the official account of RFK's murder is inconsistent or incomplete, and that his death was the result of a conspiracy. For more information, see Robert F. Kennedy assassination.

Robert Kennedy died in the early morning hours of June 6, 1968 at the age of 42. He was buried near his brother in Arlington National Cemetery on June 8.

Personal life

See also: Kennedy political family.

In 1950, he married Ethel Skakel, who would eventually give birth to 11 children. The last child, Rory Kennedy, was born after Robert's assassination.

His pallbearers included Robert McNamara, John Glenn, Averell Harriman, C. Douglas Dillon, Kirk Lemoyne Billings (schoolmate of John F. Kennedy), Stephen Smith (husband to Jean Ann Kennedy), David Hackett, Jim Whittaker, John Seigenthaler Sr., and Lord Harlech.

D.C. Stadium in Washington, D.C. was renamed Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in 1969.

In 1998, the United States Mint released a special dollar coin that featured Kennedy on the obverse and the emblems of the United States Department of Justice and the United States Senate on the reverse. In Washington, DC on November 20, 2001, US President George W. Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft dedicated the Department of Justice headquarters building as the Robert F. Kennedy 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, who made reference to his uncle's book, Profiles in Courage, when he said to the president as he spoke: "Mr. President, your strength since September 11 has been a profile in leadership." [1] [2]

References

• RFK Biography

External links

• Robert F. Kennedy: Remarks on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Robert F. Kennedy Memorial
• American Experience: RFK — From PBS
• Robert F. Kennedy Commemorative Silver Dollar Fact Sheet — From the US Mint
• The Presidential Promise of Robert F. Kennedy