"I run for the Presidency because I want the United States to Stand for the reconciliation of men..." -RFK
This month of June marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, the brother of the late president John F. Kennedy and former Democratic candidate during the 1968 election. His death marked one of many tragedies to occur during that decade and has led many to wonder how the course of American history may have been different hadn't he been killed that night at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. With a campaign platform grounded on anti-war sentiments and civil rights advocacy, the political scandals, racial discontinuity, and the conflicts in Indochina may not have had the devastating effect on the American people as it did in the years following his death. But beyond just speculation, it is important that we remember the life and death of Robert Kennedy: a man who stood for unity and peace during a time of great division and horror.
As a journalist and original eyewitness to the assassination, Pete Hamill, put in an interview with CBS News, "It's a story about what might have been, not about what happened, but what we lost when it happened." Before Robert Kennedy took the stage, the principles of ensuring social welfare and pacifying the tensions between hostile powers were pioneered and championed by his late older brother, John F. Kennedy. A young and vibrant president, Jack Kennedy called for a fight against poverty, an assurance of equality for all Americans, a securing of peace in Vietnam, and a generating of less hostility between the United States and the Soviet Union. Although some criticized Kennedy for his overwhelming pacifism, he was widely regarded as a champion for human rights. However, once Jack Kennedy was struck down in November 1963 by an assassin's bullet, the American people searched vigorously to find someone who would continue to uphold his ideals. By March of 1968, Robert Kennedy seemed to be their man.
One of the first things that Robert inherited from his brother was his fervent resentment towards the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War. Of the various reasons that he called for the American people to reexamine the United States' own role in the conflict, the notion of a dramatic loss of life on both the part of American and Vietnamese combatants reigned supreme:
"The ... illusion is that the unswerving pursuit of military victory, whatever its cost, is in the interest of either ourselves or the people of Vietnam. For the people of Vietnam, the last three years have meant little but horror. Their tiny land has been devastated by a weight of bombs and shells greater than Nazi Germany knew in the Second World War. We have dropped 12 tons of bombs for every square mile in North and South Vietnam. Whole provinces have been substantially destroyed. More than two million South Vietnamese are now homeless refugees…"
Robert Kennedy soon became regarded as one of the leading anti-war advocates in Washington. President Lyndon Johnson's own inability to resonate with the anti-war movement eventually gave Kennedy fertile ground to plant his campaign for the presidency in 1968. But besides just his call for peace in Indochina, Kennedy was also known for his fervent support for both the civil rights community and those subsequently suffering in low standards of living.
However, Robert Kennedy wasn't always the civil rights activist and social justice crusader that many remember him to be today. In 1963, while he was Attorney General for his brother's staff, he ordered the FBI to wiretap Martin Luther King Jr. due to concerns that the civil unrest that Dr. King evoked may lead to complications in his brother's presidency. But after his brother's assassination, Robert Kennedy, during his run for senator from New York in 1964, became more in tune with the struggles faced by racial minorities and the degradation of their opportunities. The war on poverty and racial injustice championed by both his brother and president Johnson soon became his own to bare. And by the assassination of Martin Luther King in April of 1968, Kennedy sought to become the racial healer that he knew the country so desperately needed.
"What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black."
Although many consider the movement of social welfare, humanity, and racial depolarization lead by Robert F. Kennedy as what helped begin the gradual movement towards the social sphere that we now reside in today, one cannot help but wonder what the atmosphere of the country might have been if Kennedy survived his assassination on June 5th of 1968. A few months after his death, the election fell in the favor of Republican nominee, Richard M. Nixon: a far more rigid and stiff-man that in comparison to Robert Kennedy. Albeit he was a widely successful politician, the Nixon administration saw an escalation of the Vietnam War, growing division in the American people, and ended with the infamous Watergate scandal. What followed would be another decade of social discontinuity and distrust.
That being said, many like to imagine that a world with Robert Kennedy in the White House would have been far different and ultimately better for the attitude of the American people. But in all honesty, it's not even conclusive that Kennedy would have received the nomination from his own party let alone win the presidency should he have survived. His opponents Eugene McCarthy and vice president Hubert Humphrey were doing exceedingly well in the poles, if not slightly better than the young Kennedy. The important takeaway isn't mere speculation on the outcome of the election; that's not what we lost. What we should speculate is the nature of the country without the loss of such a soothing and optimistic voice, whether he was president or not. Robert Kennedy offered a future of unity and harmony to a people that were living in an age of fear and uncertainty. In such a polarized age that we seem to be living in now, the hope shared by Robert Kennedy may be the most important thing we can model ourselves after.
