Robert F. Kennedy

Robert F. Kennedy

Robert Francis Kennedy, known as RFK or Bobby Kennedy, was an important American politician and lawyer. He was born on November 20, 1925, in Brookline, Massachusetts, and came from the well-known Kennedy family. He studied at Harvard University and later earned a law degree from the University of Virginia.

Kennedy began his career as a writer for The Boston Post and worked as a lawyer before helping his brother John win elections. He became the United States attorney general in 1961 at just 35 years old, making him one of the youngest people to hold that position. He worked closely with his brother John until John died tragically in 1963.

As attorney general, Kennedy supported fair treatment for all people and worked against illegal activities by groups. After John’s death, he continued to serve for a short time and then was elected as a U.S. senator from New York in 1964. In the Senate, he spoke out against the Vietnam War and helped bring attention to poor communities.

In 1968, Kennedy decided to run for president. He had just won an important election in California when he died. His death shocked the nation and remains a significant moment in American history.

Early life

Robert Francis Kennedy was born on November 20, 1925, in Brookline, Massachusetts. He was one of nine children. His parents, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, were from important Irish-American families. Robert grew up in many places, including Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, Palm Beach, Florida, and Bronxville, New York. He also lived in London for a time.

Robert went to several schools and finished at Milton Academy in Milton, Massachusetts. When he was a teenager, he worked at a bank in East Boston. He saw that some people had very hard lives, and this helped shape his views later.

Naval service (1944–1946)

Robert F. Kennedy joined the United States Naval Reserve as a seaman apprentice before he turned 18 in 1943. He attended college programs at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts and later at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.

After his oldest brother passed away, Robert got more attention from his family. In 1945, a Navy ship named the USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. was launched to honor his brother. Robert served on this ship as a seaman apprentice and traveled to the Caribbean. He left the Navy with an honorable discharge in May 1946.

Further study and journalism (1946–1951)

Robert Kennedy helped his brother John in his campaign for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. After his time in the navy, Robert went to Harvard University. He tried out for the football team, played in a game, and scored a point before hurting his leg. He finished his studies at Harvard in 1948 with a degree in political science.

He then went to law school at the University of Virginia. There, he was elected president of a student group and brought in many important speakers. Robert finished law school in 1951. Before starting law school, he traveled to Europe and the Middle East as a reporter for The Boston Post. He wrote stories about what he saw, including tensions in Palestine and the Berlin Blockade. Later, he covered a big meeting in San Francisco about making peace with Japan.

Senate committee counsel and political campaigns (1951–1960)

In 1951, Robert Kennedy became a lawyer and worked for the U.S. government. In 1952, he helped his brother John win a seat in the U.S. Senate. Later, he worked with Senator Joseph McCarthy for a short time but left because he did not agree with McCarthy’s harsh methods.

From 1957 to 1959, Robert Kennedy led investigations into unfair practices in labor unions. His work brought attention to important issues and helped expose some wrongdoings. During this time, he also helped manage his brother John’s successful campaign for President in 1960. Robert worked hard to support John, even defending him against health rumors and helping a civil rights leader leave jail after being arrested for protesting unfair treatment.

Attorney General of the United States (1961–1964)

Robert Kennedy became the U.S. attorney general because his brother, President John F. Kennedy, chose him for the job. Some people thought this wasn’t fair, but Robert accepted the position. He worked very closely with the president and became one of his most trusted advisors.

As attorney general, Robert Kennedy focused on fighting organized crime. He worked with many federal agencies to target important crime leaders and passed new laws to stop illegal activities like gambling and moving illegal goods across state lines. He also worked to protect people’s rights, especially during peaceful protests and in schools. His efforts helped change laws to ensure everyone was treated fairly, no matter their background.

1964 vice presidential candidate

See also: 1964 Democratic Party presidential primaries and 1964 Democratic National Convention

The "Bobby problem"

After his brother was killed and Lyndon Johnson became president, Robert Kennedy was a popular choice to be Johnson's vice president in the 1964 election. Some people in the Democratic Party wanted Johnson to pick Kennedy as his running mate, but Johnson did not want another Kennedy to share the spotlight.

Kennedy’s supporters tried to get him nominated during the New Hampshire primary, where many people wrote his name in as a vote for vice president. But when the Republicans chose a conservative candidate, Barry Goldwater, Johnson no longer needed Kennedy on the ticket to win the election.

Democratic National Convention

At the Democratic National Convention, Johnson made sure Kennedy would not be chosen as vice president. Kennedy spoke at the convention to honor his brother’s memory, and the crowd applauded for a long time.

Kennedy's political future

In 1964, Kennedy thought about leaving politics after his brother Ted was in a plane crash. But after a successful trip to Germany and Poland, he decided to stay in politics. He thought about running for governor of Massachusetts or for the U.S. Senate from New York. Advisors told him the Senate would give him more chances to speak around the country and prepare for a future run for president.

U.S. Senate (1965–1968)

1964 election

See also: 1964 United States Senate election in New York

On August 25, 1964, two days before the end of that year's Democratic National Convention, Kennedy announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate representing New York. He resigned as attorney general on September 3. Kennedy could not run for the U.S. Senate from his native Massachusetts because his younger brother Ted was running for reelection in 1964. Despite their difficult relationship, President Johnson gave support to Kennedy's campaign.

His opponent, Republican incumbent Kenneth Keating, tried to say Kennedy was an outsider since he did not live in the state and was not registered to vote there. Kennedy was a legal resident of Massachusetts, and, under New York law, was not eligible to vote in the election. His wife Ethel made light of the criticism. Kennedy said Keating had "not done much of anything constructive" despite his time in Congress. During the campaign, Kennedy was met by large crowds. In the end, New York voters ignored the issue and Kennedy won the November election with a comfortable margin, helped in part by Johnson's victory in the state. With his victory, Robert and Ted Kennedy became the first brothers since Dwight and Theodore Foster to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Senate. Frequent appearances during this campaign period would help Kennedy refine his style, and he would give more than 300 speeches throughout his time in the Senate.

Tenure

Kennedy drew attention in Congress early on as the brother of President Kennedy, which set him apart from other senators. But he also saw a decline in his power, going from the president's most influential advisor to one of a hundred senators. Though fellow senator Fred R. Harris expected not to like Kennedy, the two became allies. Kennedy's younger brother Ted was his senior there. Robert saw his brother as a guide on managing within the Senate, and the arrangement worked to deepen their relationship. Kennedy gained a reputation in the Senate for being well prepared for debate, but his tendency to speak in a more direct fashion caused him to be unpopular with many of his colleagues.

While serving in the Senate, Kennedy advocated gun control. In May 1965, he co-sponsored a bill, proposed by President Johnson and sponsored by Senator Thomas J. Dodd, that would put federal restrictions on mail-order gun sales. Speaking in support of the bill, Kennedy said, "For too long we dealt with these deadly weapons as if they were harmless toys. Yet their very presence, the ease of their acquisition and the familiarity of their appearance have led to thousands of deaths each year. With the passage of this bill we will begin to meet our responsibilities. It would save hundreds of thousands of lives in this country and spare thousands of families … grief and heartache." The bill forbade "mail order sale of guns to the very young, those with criminal records and the insane", according to The Oregonian's report.

Kennedy and his staff had employed a strategy for his first year in the Senate. He added an amendment to an act to add low-income New York counties. He succeeded in amending an act to protect U.S. educated non-English speakers from unfair imposition of English-language literacy tests. Kennedy delayed passage of an act until an evaluation clause was included. In 1966 and 1967 they took more direct legislative action, but were met with increasing resistance from the Johnson administration. Despite perceptions that the two were hostile in their respective offices to each other, U.S. News reported Kennedy's support of the Johnson administration's "Great Society" program through his voting record.

On February 8, 1966, Kennedy urged the United States to pledge that it would not be the first country to use nuclear weapons against countries that did not have them noting that China had made the pledge and the Soviet Union indicated it was also willing to do so.

Kennedy increased emphasis on human rights as a central focus of U.S. foreign policy. He criticized U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic in 1965 and concluded that Johnson had abandoned the reform aims of President Kennedy's Alliance for Progress. He warned after a trip to Latin America in late 1965, "if we allow communism to carry the banner of reform, then the ignored and the dispossessed, the insulted and injured, will turn to it as the only way out of their misery." In June 1966, he visited apartheid-era South Africa accompanied by his wife, Ethel, and a few aides. The tour was greeted with international praise at a time when few politicians dared to entangle themselves in the politics of South Africa. Kennedy spoke out against the oppression of the native population.

In 1966, Kennedy sponsored an amendment that created a program. Kennedy saw the program as differing from earlier programs in its strong focus on specific distressed communities and its emphasis on economic development as a way to alleviate poverty. To demonstrate these principles, Kennedy and his staff created a corporation in Brooklyn, the first community development corporation in the country.

As Senator, Kennedy's attention focused on the marginalized and dispossessed. In April 1967, Kennedy made a fact-finding tour of the Mississippi Delta, where circumstances stunned him as he saw children in substandard housing. Kennedy asked an attorney to call on a leader to bring the impoverished to Washington, D.C., to make them more visible. He also learned about a movement to earn a living wage and improve employment conditions. In March 1966, the Senate Subcommittee on Migratory Labor held hearings. When the local sheriff told Kennedy that his deputies arrested people who looked "ready to violate the law," Kennedy shot back, "May I suggest that during the luncheon, the sheriff and the district attorney read the Constitution of the United States?" Kennedy deplored the poverty on Native American reservations, and had the Senate create a Special Subcommittee on Indian Education with him as chairman.

Kennedy sought to remedy the problems of poverty by introducing two bills in 1967. The first bill provided, among other initiatives, tax incentives for private industry to invest in poverty areas based on provisions similar to those of an act, which was designed to fuel American investment in underdeveloped countries. The second bill, furnished benefits including tax credits and low-interest loans to firms which agreed to construct low-rent housing in poverty areas under specific conditions, stipulating that they employ workers from the local community. The Senate Finance Committee did not approve either bill, in part because of opposition from President Johnson. According to Kennedy, government welfare and housing programs ignored the unemployment and social disorganization that caused people to seek public assistance in the first place, and often become bogged down in bureaucracy and lack flexibility.

Vietnam

The Kennedy administration backed U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia and other parts of the world in the frame of the Cold War, but Robert was not known to be involved in discussions on the Vietnam War as his brother's attorney general. Entering the Senate, Kennedy initially kept private his disagreements with President Johnson on the war. Though bothered by the beginning of the bombing of North Vietnam in February 1965, Kennedy did not wish to appear antagonistic toward the president's agenda. But by April, Kennedy was advocating a halt to the bombing to Johnson, who acknowledged that Kennedy played a part in influencing his choice to temporarily cease bombing the following month. Kennedy cautioned Johnson against sending combat troops as early as 1965, but Johnson chose instead to follow the recommendation of the rest of his predecessor's still intact staff of advisers. In July, after Johnson made a large commitment of American ground forces to Vietnam, Kennedy made multiple calls for a settlement through negotiation.

On January 31, 1966, Kennedy said in a speech on the Senate floor: "If we regard bombing as the answer in Vietnam, we are headed straight for disaster." In February 1966, Kennedy released a peace plan that called for preserving South Vietnam while at the same time allowing the Front, better known as the Viet Cong, to join a coalition government in Saigon. When asked by reporters if he was speaking on behalf of Johnson, Kennedy replied: "I don't think anyone has ever suggested that I was speaking for the White House." Kennedy's peace plan made front-page news with The New York Times calling it a break with the president.

In April 1966, Kennedy had a private meeting with an official to discuss efforts to secure the release of American prisoners of war in Vietnam. Kennedy wanted to press the Johnson administration to do more, but an official insisted that the administration believed the "consequences of sitting down with the Front" mattered more than the prisoners they were holding captive. On June 29, Kennedy released a statement disavowing President Johnson's choice to bomb a city, but he avoided criticizing either the war or the president's overall foreign policy, believing that it might harm Democratic candidates in the midterm elections. In August, a newspaper described Kennedy's popularity as outpacing President Johnson's, crediting Kennedy's attempts to end the Vietnam conflict which the public increasingly desired.

In early 1967, Kennedy traveled to Europe, where he had discussions about Vietnam with leaders and diplomats. A story leaked to the State Department that Kennedy was talking about seeking peace while President Johnson was pursuing the war. Johnson became convinced that Kennedy was undermining his authority. He voiced this during a meeting with Kennedy, who reiterated the interest of the European leaders to pause the bombing while going forward with negotiations; Johnson declined to do so. On March 2, Kennedy outlined a three-point plan to end the war which included suspending the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam, and the eventual withdrawal of American and North Vietnamese soldiers from South Vietnam; this plan was rejected by an official, who believed North Vietnam would never agree to it. On November 26, during an appearance, Kennedy asserted that the Johnson administration had deviated from his brother's policies in Vietnam, his first time contrasting the two administrations' policies on the war.

On February 8, 1968, Kennedy delivered an address in Chicago, where he critiqued Saigon "government corruption" and expressed his disagreement with the Johnson administration's stance that the war would determine the future of Asia. On March 14, Kennedy met with a secretary at the Pentagon regarding the war. Notes indicate that Kennedy was offering not to enter the ongoing Democratic presidential primaries if President Johnson would admit publicly to having been wrong in his Vietnam policy and appoint "a group of persons to conduct a study in depth of the issues and come up with a recommended course of action"; Johnson rejected the proposal. On April 1, after President Johnson halted bombing of North Vietnam, Kennedy said the decision was a "step toward peace" and, though offering to collaborate with Johnson for national unity, opted to continue his presidential bid. On May 1, while campaigning in Indiana, Kennedy said continued delays in beginning peace talks with North Vietnam meant both more lives lost and the postponing of the "domestic progress" hoped for by the U.S. Later that month, Kennedy called the war "the gravest kind of error" during a speech.

1968 presidential campaign

See also: 1968 United States presidential election and 1968 Democratic Party presidential primaries

In 1968, President Johnson wanted to be re-elected. At first, Robert F. Kennedy said he would not run. But later, he decided to challenge Johnson. He announced his candidacy on March 16. He said he wanted to bring new ideas and change the country.

Kennedy’s campaign focused on fairness, helping people in need, and working for peace. He traveled to many places, speaking to crowds and sharing his ideas. Many younger people liked his ideas for a better future. However, not everyone supported him, and he faced challenges from other candidates.

Assassination

Main article: Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy

Robert Kennedy won important votes in California and South Dakota on June 4. He was in second place for the presidency. On June 5, he spoke to supporters late at night at a hotel in Los Angeles. After his speech, he was hurt by a man named Sirhan Sirhan. Kennedy was taken to the hospital but sadly passed away the next day, June 6. His death caused many questions and theories.

Funeral

Kennedy's body was brought back to Manhattan for a special service at a big church. Family, friends, and important leaders attended. After the service, his body was taken by a special train to Washington, D.C. Thousands of people lined the tracks to show their respect. The train took longer than expected because of the large crowds.

Burial

Main article: Grave of Robert F. Kennedy

Kennedy was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, next to his brother John. The burial happened at night, which was unusual. People along the route lit candles to guide the funeral procession. A special ceremony was held, and his family received flags and other honors. After his death, extra safety measures were added for presidential candidates.

The Robert F. Kennedy Memorial was built in 1971 near his grave.

Personal life

Robert F. Kennedy married Ethel Skakel on June 17, 1950, at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Greenwich, Connecticut. They first met during a skiing trip to Mont Tremblant Resort in Quebec, Canada in December 1945. The couple had 11 children: Kathleen in 1951, Joseph in 1952, Robert Jr. in 1954, David in 1955, Mary Courtney in 1956, Michael in 1958, Mary Kerry in 1959, Christopher in 1963, Maxwell in 1965, Douglas in 1967, and Rory in 1968.

As a law student, Kennedy lived in the Beacon Hill section of Boston, across from the Massachusetts State House. After law school, he and Ethel lived in a townhouse in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. In 1956, they bought Hickory Hill, a large estate in McLean, Virginia, from his brother John. They held many gatherings there. They also owned a home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts on Cape Cod until 1964. When he prepared to run for the U.S. Senate from New York, Kennedy rented a home in Glen Cove, Long Island. In 1965, he bought an apartment at United Nations Plaza in Manhattan.

Kennedy was known for working very hard and feeling a strong sense of duty. He balanced his family life with his public service. He was determined and could adapt to new situations. He spoke about his temper, saying it was important to stay calm in his work. People liked him because he seemed real and honest. Over time, his views became more liberal, shaped by the people he met and his own experiences.

Kennedy’s faith was very important to him. It guided many of his decisions and gave him strength, especially during hard times. His family often prayed together, and their home showed his deep religious beliefs. In his later years, he also found inspiration in the works of ancient Greek writers.

Legacy

Robert F. Kennedy is remembered for his strong beliefs in helping people and using the government to make positive changes. Many respected leaders and writers have praised his efforts to support fairness and unity.

His ideas about using government to help those in need have had a lasting impact.

Even after his passing, many people from different backgrounds respect Kennedy for his dedication to important causes. His words and actions continue to inspire others to work towards a better future.

Honors

After Robert F. Kennedy passed away, many places in the United States were named to remember him. For example, a big stadium in Washington, D.C. was called Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium starting in 1969. In 2001, the main building of the U.S. Department of Justice was named the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building. In 2008, a bridge in New York City was renamed the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Bridge.

The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights was created in 1968 to honor his work. It gives an international award each year to people who fight for human rights. In 1978, Kennedy received the Congressional Gold Medal for his important service. In 1998, a special silver dollar coin with his picture was made. In 2025, he was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom after his death.

Items from Kennedy's office are shown at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, along with papers from his time as a leader and activist.

Several places honor both Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. In 1969, a college in Chicago was renamed Kennedy–King College. In 1994, a peace memorial was built in Indianapolis. In 2019, Kennedy's speech about Dr. King's death was chosen to be kept safe in the National Recording Registry because it was very important to history.

Publications

Robert F. Kennedy wrote several books about important events and ideas. Some of his books include The Enemy Within: The McClellan Committee's Crusade Against Jimmy Hoffa and Corrupt Labor Unions (1960), Just Friends and Brave Enemies (1962), and The Pursuit of Justice (1964). He also wrote To Seek a Newer World, a collection of essays in 1967, and after his passing, Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis was published in 1969.

Depictions in media

Robert F. Kennedy has appeared in many movies and TV shows. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, he was played by Martin Sheen in a TV play called The Missiles of October from 1974. Later, Steven Culp played him in the movie Thirteen Days from 2000. The film Bobby from 2006 shows stories from around the time of Kennedy's death, using real footage from his campaign. Actor Barry Pepper won an award for playing Kennedy in the miniseries The Kennedys in 2011. He also appeared in other films, such as Jackie from 2016, where he was played by Peter Sarsgaard, and in The Irishman from 2019, played by Jack Huston.