everybodyâs talking about, but they donât know the why .â
â BOBBY,â AS EVERYONE CALLED HIM, had announced his candidacy a month before, sounding very much like his idealistic older brother. He was running, he said, âto close the gaps that now exist between black and white, between rich and poor, between young and old.â Much of the public was suspicious. Here was a dyed-in-the-brine Cape Cod, Massachusetts, man who dropped into New York State on a carpetbag and used his slain brotherâs gilded connections to help win a Senate seat.
By 1968, America was murdering its dream of itself. TV cameras were showing our dark side. We had witnessed three summers of inner-city racial convulsions; brave black students being prodded like cattle; federal troops patrolling American cities; and U.S. Marines torching thatched huts in South Vietnam with women and children inside.
In Indianapolis two weeks before, on April 4, a largely black crowd had an hour to hear Senator Kennedy speak. The cityâs police chief had warned him not to appear. As Kennedyâs car entered a black neighborhood, his police escort veered off. Kennedy turned to his aide and asked, âDo they know about Martin Luther King?â
They didnât. On the platform, Kennedy faced the crowd and told them the horrific news: King had been shot dead that night in Memphis, Tennessee. The crowd gasped and wailed in horror. Kennedy spoke reverently of Kingâs dedication to âlove and to justice between fellow human beingsâ and assured the crowd that âhe died in the cause of that effort.â As an undercurrent of anger began to build, Kennedy reached beyond and into the hearts of the crowd to make a human connection.
âFor those of you who are black and are tempted to . . . be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling,â he said. âI had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.â
That reminder of his personal tragedy cut through the color barrier. While sixty American cities erupted in rage and grief, in the city of Indianapolis where the words of Robert Kennedy had been heard, there was no fire.
A man of enormous empathy was not what I expected from Robert Kennedy. I had read about an edge of cruelty. Even his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, an unapologetic fascist, had described his youngest son as âa hater.â But during the two weeks when the world had teetered on the edge of nuclear war, back in 1962, as President Kennedy and his advisers debated what to do about photographs showing missiles on Cuban soil, it was Robert Kennedy who offered the voice of reason. In a man legendary for his aggressive behavior, it was a complete reversal of character. Here was the arch anti-Communist who represented Senator Joe McCarthy in his witch hunt now going up against the advice from almost all the members of the presidentâs executive committee convened to respond to the Cuban missile crisis.
âI could not accept the idea that the United States would rain bombs on Cuba, killing thousands and thousands of civilians in a surprise attack,â Bobby argued, as later revealed in Robert Caroâs exhaustive account in Passage to Power . Kennedy believed the Russians had to be allowed to pull back without losing face. The rest of the advisers were surprised at the passion with which he put forward his moral argument. When Kennedy saw his brother, the president, alone, by the White House pool, he persuaded him to give Khrushchev every chance to reconsider, and above all, to avoid war by miscalculation. Bobby may have saved the world from destruction.
As a young liberal woman fiercely against Americaâs misadventure in Vietnam from the start, I was primed to like Bobby Kennedy. I had baptized my baby in antiwar marches in Washington.
â BOBBY,â AS EVERYONE CALLED HIM, had announced his candidacy a month before, sounding very much like his idealistic older brother. He was running, he said, âto close the gaps that now exist between black and white, between rich and poor, between young and old.â Much of the public was suspicious. Here was a dyed-in-the-brine Cape Cod, Massachusetts, man who dropped into New York State on a carpetbag and used his slain brotherâs gilded connections to help win a Senate seat.
By 1968, America was murdering its dream of itself. TV cameras were showing our dark side. We had witnessed three summers of inner-city racial convulsions; brave black students being prodded like cattle; federal troops patrolling American cities; and U.S. Marines torching thatched huts in South Vietnam with women and children inside.
In Indianapolis two weeks before, on April 4, a largely black crowd had an hour to hear Senator Kennedy speak. The cityâs police chief had warned him not to appear. As Kennedyâs car entered a black neighborhood, his police escort veered off. Kennedy turned to his aide and asked, âDo they know about Martin Luther King?â
They didnât. On the platform, Kennedy faced the crowd and told them the horrific news: King had been shot dead that night in Memphis, Tennessee. The crowd gasped and wailed in horror. Kennedy spoke reverently of Kingâs dedication to âlove and to justice between fellow human beingsâ and assured the crowd that âhe died in the cause of that effort.â As an undercurrent of anger began to build, Kennedy reached beyond and into the hearts of the crowd to make a human connection.
âFor those of you who are black and are tempted to . . . be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling,â he said. âI had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.â
That reminder of his personal tragedy cut through the color barrier. While sixty American cities erupted in rage and grief, in the city of Indianapolis where the words of Robert Kennedy had been heard, there was no fire.
A man of enormous empathy was not what I expected from Robert Kennedy. I had read about an edge of cruelty. Even his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, an unapologetic fascist, had described his youngest son as âa hater.â But during the two weeks when the world had teetered on the edge of nuclear war, back in 1962, as President Kennedy and his advisers debated what to do about photographs showing missiles on Cuban soil, it was Robert Kennedy who offered the voice of reason. In a man legendary for his aggressive behavior, it was a complete reversal of character. Here was the arch anti-Communist who represented Senator Joe McCarthy in his witch hunt now going up against the advice from almost all the members of the presidentâs executive committee convened to respond to the Cuban missile crisis.
âI could not accept the idea that the United States would rain bombs on Cuba, killing thousands and thousands of civilians in a surprise attack,â Bobby argued, as later revealed in Robert Caroâs exhaustive account in Passage to Power . Kennedy believed the Russians had to be allowed to pull back without losing face. The rest of the advisers were surprised at the passion with which he put forward his moral argument. When Kennedy saw his brother, the president, alone, by the White House pool, he persuaded him to give Khrushchev every chance to reconsider, and above all, to avoid war by miscalculation. Bobby may have saved the world from destruction.
As a young liberal woman fiercely against Americaâs misadventure in Vietnam from the start, I was primed to like Bobby Kennedy. I had baptized my baby in antiwar marches in Washington.
Similar Books
