Who was Bobby Kennedy?

Question

JFK's brother is the focus of a new film, Bobby. But was the man himself the great leader the US never had, or another ruthless Kennedy player?

Answer 1

By the time Bobby Kennedy was killed he was just 42, frozen in time as the eternal younger brother, the tragic contender rather than the champion.

In terms of a legacy, Jeffrey Buchanan, spokesperson for the Robert F Kennedy Memorial human rights foundation, points to the "gospel of political hope" that Kennedy delivered - inspiring people to believe that political action could make a difference.

And in terms of what was lost - "You can't know what would have been, but we lost an exceptional leader - he would have become president and quickly ended the war in Vietnam, he would have worked extremely hard in the areas of racial justice and poverty," says Mr Edelman.

But it's difficult to predict how such a youthful politician as Robert Kennedy's views would have developed. Bobby Kennedy was the kind of political figure that does not come around that often, and sadly that we are lacking in the world today. He inspired people, he had a clear vision based on hope, and people believed in him.

Answer 2

We will never know now will we; and as to the "ruthless Kennedy player" comment, those in the spotlight are the most judged and we are not here to judge. The Kennedys are well known and rich but they are human, have faults and they have suffered deeply as we all have at one time or another. It saddens me that we never will get to see what more John Jr. may have done...I remember where I was when I heard his father was shot, saw the news over and over and can still see Bobby lying on the ground dying. The sadness their family has been through is something I cannot relate to...

Answer 3

Bobby Kennedy was a charismatic politico who served as his brother's Attorney General. In that position, he was the driving force behind the civil rights movement. Hated by J Edgar Hoover, he was hounded by the FBI for his purported philandering, especially with Marilyn Monroe. No one could say for sure where the country had gone had Joe Kennedy had his way. he planned for his sons, John, Bobby and Teddy to serve in the White House from 1961 through 1984.

Answer 4

Robert Kennedy was not a radical. In office he had been a moderate attorney general, and in the early stages of Vietnam supported the war. He worked as an aide to conservatives SENATORS JOE MCCARTHY AND JOHN MCCLELLAN IN THE 1950s. So you really do not know what your are talking about. I do not think Sen. Barack Obama has shown any radicalism. As an earlier reader said there is an improper tone to this question. Every person meeting the requirements to run for office, has that right. I would not call a brutal murder history repeating itself; just an act of a maniac.

Answer 5

At the time I was young and loved him. but over time I have come to know the man he was. His father insisted JFK appoint him Attorney General of the US. He never even had a law practice. He was an arrogant termite who I believe indirectly caused the death of JFK...and he knew it and the family knew it and why everyone was so willing to accept the Warren Report as fact (a cover up). So he didn't stop and ran for President. He was loved, hated and taken out. Their is still doubt over the Sirhan "lone gunman" theory on him too. Sirhan had a gun with 8 bullets and 9 were fired accoring to autopsy and others hit with bullets.
Go figure....

Answer 6

His brother, Senator Edward M. 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 and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it."

"Few will have the greatness to bend history; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation ... It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and 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, 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, University of Cape Town, South Africa, N.U.S.A.S. "Day of Affirmation" Speech June 6, 1966

Answer 7

Robert F. Kennedy was a candidate for U.S. president when he was assassinated in 1968. His death was doubly shocking because his older brother, President John F. Kennedy, had also been assassinated five years earlier.

Robert was the seventh of nine children of Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy. He left Harvard to enlist in the U.S. Navy during World War II. After the war he completed his degree, then earned a law degree from the University of Virginia. In the 1950s he was counsel to a U.S. Senate committee investigating labor unions, leading to his well-known feud with Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa.

But Kennedy's political career is more closely associated with his brother, John; he managed JFK's successful campaigns for the U.S. Senate (1952) and the presidency (1960), and then served as Attorney General in the JFK administration. After his brother's 1963 assassination, Robert Kennedy served briefly with the Lyndon Johnson administration, then successfully ran for senator from New York. (This win was often recalled in 2000 when another New York "outsider," Hillary Clinton, similarly won a senate race there.)

In early 1968 Kennedy declared his candidacy for the U.S. presidency. He was shot by Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968, just after delivering a speech to supporters upon winning the California primary. He died early the next morning.

Kennedy's book Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis was published posthumously in 1969.
Extra credit: Kennedy and his wife Ethel were married on 17 June 1950 and had 11 children; the last, Rory, was born after RFK's death... His son Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Jr. was a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts from 1987-1999... Eldest daughter Kathleen Kennedy Townshend was lieutenant governor of Maryland from 1995-2003... Son David died of a drug overdose in 1984... Son Michael Kennedy was killed in a skiing accident in 1997... Ethel Kennedy is an aunt of Michael Skakel, who in 2002 was convicted of the 1976 murder of Martha Moxley... Robert Kennedy is buried in Arlington National Cemetery, near the graves of John Kennedy and former First Lady Jackie Kennedy.

Answer 8

I had just lived the first decade of my life when Bobby Kennedy ran for America's highest office. I remember the hopes, the dreams and the promise of what might have been and then tragically, he was gone and the light been died with him. If only he had lived, I really think the world might have been a different place.

Answer 9

He was noted as the last Kennedy lover of Marilyn Monroe, Ted was too young.

He had the shoe in to be president in 1968, but a creased gun man killed him on the night of his successful primary in California.

Unfortunately we will never know what his affects would have been if elected.

Answer 10

Possibly a great leader who never got the chance...the world would probably have been a different place had he lived.