RFK: Tears for a Tough Guy
Forty years ago tonight, hours before Robert Kennedy was killed, I was campaigning as a Eugene McCarthy delegate to the 1968 Democratic convention. When a man rose to spew out Kennedy hatred, I cut him off and said, “I’m running to stop the war. If McCarthy drops out, I’ll vote for Kennedy.”
Two days later, from an office window, I was looking down at a line of people more than a mile long inching toward St. Patrick’s Cathedral on a brutally hot day to view RFK’s body lying there.
Watching became unbearable, and I went down with others to wheel a plastic barrel on a dolly and hand out paper cups of water. The air was heavy with heat and tears. Without words, there was an occasional meeting of eyes in shared sadness. In that year of political murder and chaos, we were mourning the loss of more than one man.
Robert Kennedy had been his brother’s fierce protector, enforcer, campaign manager, Attorney General and, after the assassination, keeper of the flame. But like JFK before him, in the last days of his life, he became something more.
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6 Responses to “RFK: Tears for a Tough Guy”
Thinking about both JFK and RfK has made me ponder how they would have fared in today's world of video clip scandals and cable news punditry.
We are in the throes of discarding one and all who are discovered to have human flaws. It's not enough anymore to say someone is wrong about this or that. We insist on denouncing, rejecting and demonizing the whole person. We discard so much of value in the process, it's a wonder we have any leaders left standing.
This is a dangerous road we're on. We may soon have no one of stature left to tell our children about, except for annals of persoanl failings and salacious scandals
I was never a Kennedy fan like those who lived in the mystique of Camelot.
But I admired much about the brothers and was inspired by much. I'm just glad they lived at a time when the vultures of personal destruciton were still relatively tame.
The death of RFK was particularly heart-breaking, because it was the final dowsing of his brother's flame as well. Somehow, while RFK lived, both brothers still seemed present.
Deeply felt and beautifully written. Thank you, Bob.
thank you dear Robert: the elders remember. Your remark, 'I'm running to stop the war'; i can't think of a more pithy phrase to encapsulate where many of us stand at this moment in time. Right, right on. I'm glad youre on the planet. 20 more years baby. That's my prayer for you.
dr.e
What some forget is that the Sixties were more dangerous than the supposed GWOT. College students and militant blacks were in the streets rioting and being killed. RFK's and MLK's assassinations and Altamont put an end to young people hopes. With the election of Nixon, their parents spoke out, and the Sixties died out.
Rudi'a comment led me to remember those years more broadly, up to and inlcuisng the subsequent killing of students at Kent State.
It was truly the best of times and the worst of times, all rolled into one huge jumble.
There was chaos, but in that chaos, there were ideals clashing: demand for social justice, wanting to defeat communism, class and race clashes and gneratonal clashes. It brought out the best and the worst on all sides.
When it was over, we sttled for order. I think, though, that we burried much of the best along with the worst. .
I was a kid in the '60's but remember vividly both the violence and the exhuberence.. As volatile as the times were, I would prefer them to today's atmosphere of partisan rancor among politicians and uber-patriotic acceptance among the rest of us. There was an unending search for the truth which inevitably lead to intellectual growth.
I wonder if we will ever learn the truth about who was behind the assasinations of both Kennedy's and MLK? Or about this administration's road to war in Iraq???