June 6, 1968, 1:44 AM
Has anybody here seen my old friend Bobby,
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up over the hill
With Abraham, Martin and John.Songwriters: Richard HollerAbraham, Martin And John lyrics © Stonehenge Music, Regent Music Corporation
Given recent events, it seems more than appropriate to remember Bobby Kennedy and his assassination amidst his 1968 California Presidential Primary victory. On June 4, 1968, California gave RFK a primary victory over Democratic frontrunner Eugene McCarthy. Within minutes of declaring victory onstage at the Ambassador Hotel, Kennedy made his way through the pantry area that was adjacent to the stage. Within seconds he was shot three times by a waiting assassin—once in the shoulder, behind his left ear, and through the chest with a 22 caliber bullet. Twenty-five hours later RFK, on June 6, died of his wounds. While not inevitable, Kennedy’s victory presaged his party’s nomination for president in the 1968 election.
For those of us who had lived through the murders of JFK and Martin Luther King, the death of yet another leader was devastating. The deaths, months apart, of King and Kennedy, have fueled conspiracy theories for decades. James Earl Ray and Sirhan Sirhan, were added to Lee Harvey Oswald as unlikely and questionable perpetrators of the “crimes of the decade.” While the era of the ‘60s was fraught with oddities and firsts, the sheer implausibility of coincidences that took three dynamic leaders from us, all at the hand of smalltime and obscure “loners’ has fueled the speculation that their deaths were not unrelated. I share that view, but that is not the purpose of this diary.
Robert Kennedy’s assassination has been viewed by many to be the end of an era. That era could be defined as a progressive niche in time during which civil rights, voting rights, and anti-war sentiment were pushing against the more bellicose forces reacting to institutional changes brought about by political activism. This activism generally resided in the Democratic party which embraced the movements of black Americans and social justice advocates who had achieved hard-fought legislative and judicial victories promoting racial and social equality, voting rights, and an end to poverty that were mostly championed by Democrats during the administration of Lyndon Johnson. Johnson who succeeded JFK virtually purged his party of its racist Dixiecrat heritage, in part in response to social activism demanding change. The “party of Lincoln” was somehow left behind in this conversion, as many of its members were loathe to join in. Further, the “party of Nixon” devised a southern strategy to provide cover and a base for disgruntled racists fleeing the Democrats. The fight for racial equality as well as Johnson’s “War on Poverty” challenged the Republicans’ conservative views as it extended policies brokered by FDR which turned the nation around after the Great Depression and World War II. Democrats had become the majority party and their policies attracted middle-class America and its working class. Republicans morphed into a party representing the wealthy and upper class. They were animated, then embarrassed by their anti-communist stance during the fifties. Joseph McCarthy became their lightning rod-turned-albatross as postwar paranoia swept the nation.
A Career Bookended by McCarthys
Inexplicably, Bobby Kennedy’s origins could be traced back to this dark period during which he served as an assistant counsel to McCarthy, and worked under McCarthy lead counsel, Roy Cohn. This led to his appointment as chief counsel for the labor racketeering McClellan Committee. While RFK’s liberal bona fides appear authentic and unassailable, Kennedy's conversion from anti-communist and anti-union prosecutor to liberal icon is a gradual one and his incremental “education” proves to be a more faithful reading of the career and character of Robert Kennedy. His “anti-war” fueled incursion into the 1968 campaign for the presidency demonstrated a real epiphany for Robert whose dislike for his brother’s successor was both well known and chronicled at the time. Bobby would agree with LBJ on social issues, but it was Johnson’s stance on the war that gave Kennedy an opening to consider a run for the presidency. Another McCarthy, Senator Eugene, was the party’s insurgent anti-war candidate and announced his opposition to the sitting president in what was considered a valiant but ultimately futile effort. After the disastrous Tet Offensive in January 1968 galvanized a national will to end the war, McCarthy’s strong showing against LBJ in the New Hampshire primary forced Johnson to famously withdraw from the race. With Johnson out of the race, RFK entered the field.
The competing forces for the presidency were Richard Nixon and the Democrat turned independent Governor of Alabama and heir to the Dixiecrat remnant in the old South, segregationist George Wallace. With VP Hubert Humphrey in the wings, it was rather clear that the best chance for a democratic victory resided in Robert Kennedy. Gene McCarthy, who resisted the role of “stalking horse” for RFK would be hard-pressed to defeat Richard Nixon. Wallace, for his part, was simply looking to gain influence while running his independent campaign. It is unlikely that Nixon, with Wallace draining off the far right, could have defeated an RFK who had found his own voice after the death of his brother. Bobby staked out traditional positions on key Democratic issues and merged them with a principled stance on the war to nuance his image as a firebrand defender of his brother’s legacy. He was ready to assert a legacy of his own.
After his assassination, McCarthy could not sustain enough delegate votes within his party to win the nomination. What ensued was a broken convention characterized by rioting in the streets of Chicago outside the convention hall. The nomination defaulted to vice president Hubert Humphrey who chose not to enter the primaries convinced the democratic electors that his candidacy was a safer bet than McCarthy. Humphrey’s candidacy could not overcome his role as vice president of supporting the administration’s conduct of the war. After gaining the nomination, Humphrey’s nod to his party’s left wing was to promise to halt the bombing in North Vietnam if elected. It wasn’t enough. Although he ran a spirited campaign against the odds, Humphrey was ultimately beaten by a Nixon-Agnew ticket which featured a “Southern Strategy” based upon limiting social advancements achieved under Johnson and the Democrats and promising “peace with honor” with regard to Vietnam. They collected 301 electoral votes. Wallace, with General Curtis LeMay running alongside him, siphoned 46 electoral votes taking 5 Southern states as Nixon assumed the presidency with only 43% of the popular vote.
Clearly, the removal of Kennedy from the race cast a pall over the election for key Democratic constituencies. Humphrey’s defeat was decisive but close as he lost by less than 600,000 votes with the Wallace/LeMay ticket garnering over 9 million votes. 1968 was the last election that saw 60% or more eligible voters going to the polls. The 60.7% who did vote contrasted with the 62.8% who voted in 1960. The highest percentage of eligible voters participating in a presidential election since 1968 turned out for the 2008 race (58.2%) in which Barack Obama defeated John McCain.
And so the assassination of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy might be looked upon as unrelated and coincidental. The effects, however, were not. The decade marked a coup d’ etat of the progressive movement and a chilling of the impact of the newfound voting rights for all Americans. After a half-century of Democratic ascendancy from 1932 to 1968, Republicans have taken the presidency in 7 of the subsequent 13 elections and now hold sway in the House and Senate, despite the Republican Party being considered the minority party by registration during the same period.
We are still the captives of the events that occurred in 1968. One only has to imagine what the world would be like if Robert Kennedy had lived, had become president, and had served out two terms. What if MLK had not been cut down in his prime?
Didn't you love the things they stood for?
Didn't they try to find some good for you and me?
And we'll be free,
Someday soon it's gonna be one day.
The death of Robert Kennedy marked the end of the post-WWII social justice surge that began during the Truman Administration. Another casualty was the anti-war movement and the peace initiatives espoused by a generation of young Americans whose reward was to fight on for another 5 years in a war their nation had grown weary of. Nearly 30% of all Vietnam casualties occurred in 1968, while another 35% occurred during the subsequent Nixon presidency. Post 1968, increased partisanship and social division have plagued our politics.
RFK’s assassination together with those of Martin Luther King and JFK has undoubtedly changed the course of history. Of course, we can only speculate as to what might have been and the extent that they would have shaped a different future for our country. For those of us who believe that there is a straight line between the election of Richard Nixon and the current occupant, there is little doubt that during an era in which the world was in turmoil its leaders preached to our hopes and mitigated our fears. As we enter the second half of a Trump first term, hope is a hostage to our fears, and the fear is palpable and unrelenting.
Mark Twain’s wisdom enlightens the discussion with words that describe the reactions of men like Lincoln, the Kennedy’s, and King who faced fear bravely. Fear is not defeated, it is resisted. The fearless are not unafraid, but have the courage to defy and confront its despair:
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”
Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar
In the early morning of June 5, 1968, Robert Francis Kennedy was cut down, not by fear, but by evil. He was mortal with all the imperfections that mortality bestows on us. Yet his mortality allowed him a grace that he could connect with people and embrace their suffering. He came to his beliefs about the plight of the poor, the underserved, and the righteous through experience-- by walking among us, joining us in our homes and communities. More than talking, he listened. He empathized. On this, the fiftieth anniversary of his passing, we could certainly benefit from the wisdom of our old friend Bobby. And, yes it is true, thegood, they sure do die young.