The Rise and Tragic Fate of RFK | America’s Lost President Robert F. Kennedy JJ
January the 20th, 1969. The 37th president of the United States was about to take the oath of office. Few had thought he stood a chance of victory. His party had been against him. The sitting president hated him. But against the odds, Robert Francis Kennedy had triumphed. >> Bobby shows toughness. He shows guts. [music] He shows persistence. >> You see him show some of the courage and some of the compassion for people. His desire [music] to do what was right. >> He was going up against probably a much
more qualified candidate. And it looked like he was a real long shot. >> His campaign was about reconciliation, cooperation, bringing everybody together. It was a presidency to heal division and mend injustice. It was a presidency to chart the course of American history for decades to come. It was a presidency that was not to be. [cheering] For the last 50 years, America has been looking for [music] what Bobby Kennedy could have given us. He’s someone who people could identify with because they
felt like they’ve seen him endure horrendous tragedy and to come out the other side [music] with a positive and hopeful vision. >> Had he [music] lived, I think he would have been one of our great presidents. >> It is the story of a cold war warrior who became an advocate for peace, of a son of privilege [music] who became a champion of the downtrodden. It is a story of tragedy and triumph, of high ideals and dirty tricks. It is the story of America’s lost president. Cape Cod on America’s Atlantic coast.
Like many [music] wealthy families, it was here that the Kennedys passed their summers. In 1930, Bobby [music] Kennedy was four years old, the seventh of nine children. He was a small and awkward boy. His siblings mocked his buck teeth, his stammer, [music] his inability to swim. One day, while they were out sailing, Bobby’s brothers made one joke too [music] many. Bobby decided to show them just how well he could swim. He jumped off the boat and almost drowned. [music] Bobby always had [music] that quiet,
stubborn tenacity, that gut instinct for the sudden gesture. [music] It was an inner resolve forged by insecurity. >> Bobby was what his dad described [music] as the runt of the litter. >> He was shy. He was not as sociable or naturally gregarious [music] as his older brothers and his older sisters. Bobby Kennedy was an introverted [music] child. He really in a way identified with Rose, his mother, more. >> Bobby was a devout Catholic much like his mother. [music] And by embracing
that part of his mother, he had a different relationship with her than the other ones did. >> His father, Joseph P. Kennedy, [music] had high expectations of all his children, especially the boys. >> Joseph P. Kennedy was [music] one of the wealthiest men in America at the time. It was Cape Cod for [music] summers. It was Palm Beach for winters. >> He had made a fortune in the stock market. He was about to expand into Hollywood movies, um, into other financial pursuits. Um, and his fortune
would continue to grow. >> He knew everybody in Boston was a big mover and shaker. Kind of like a godfather. Joe [music] Senior set the pattern and the way things were that you fell in [music] line and did what was expected of you. Kennedy was a powerful figure in the Democratic Party. He was determined that one of his sons would become president of the United States. It was his [music] eldest child, Joseph Jr., who carried those hopes at first. But in August 1944, he was killed while [music] on a dangerous mission in
wartime Europe. He was just 29. This was the golden [music] child, Joe Jr., the devastation to Joe Kennedy and through Joe to all of the eight [music] remaining kids was extraordinary. >> Of course, it it broke the whole family to pieces, [music] but it really shattered Bobby. He didn’t know what to do. >> I mean, this was his um his older brother, someone that he idolized. He [music] was 10 years older than Bobby. Um, so he’s a real hero uh to Bobby and and he took the news very very hard.
>> He also understood that he now has to play a new role in this family that he had not thought he was going to have to play. >> Joseph Kennedy shifted his ambitions to his second son, Jack. In 1946, [music] he won his first election, becoming congressman for the 11th district of Massachusetts. That [music] same year, Bobby began his studies at Harvard. >> He wasn’t a stellar student. I mean, [music] the teacher said he kind of like didn’t make an impression. >> He was sort of a C student, maybe even a
D student. [music] Bobby was a little bit outshone academically by his um his older brothers particularly. >> However, [music] Bobby did excel his brothers in one respect. He was the first of them to marry. Ethel Skakel [music] was the roommate of Bobby’s younger sister, Jean, in college. >> Bobby was in those years shy and [music] had to have the real personality pulled out of him. And there was nobody better in the world [music] to do that than the extraordinary, outgoing, gregarious,
funny, charming [music] Ethel. Thanks to a word from his father, in 1951, the newly married Bobby began work as a lawyer at the Department of Justice. But within months, [music] he was called away. His brother Jack was running for Senate. His father wanted the 26-year-old Bobby to run the campaign. He took the role out of a family obligation. And that was something that Bobby often did. It was [music] Bobby who was there steering the campaign. It was Bobby doing all the dirty work behind the scenes where Jack could look
like the good guy up front. He [music] was his concigliary. Bobby Kennedy understood very clearly what his job was to be. His job was to help the crown prince, Jack. The election took place on the same day as the [music] presidential contest that saw Republican Dwight Eisenhower demolish his opponent in a landslide. [music] But the Kennedy brothers bucked the trend. John F. Kennedy was elected senator. >> Good. Fine. Well, I’m guess you’re glad it’s over, aren’t you, Bobby?
>> I am, Jack. Okay. >> Weeks later, Bobby began a new job of his own. He joined the office of another senator, an old family friend and fellow Catholic. It was not a Democrat, however, but a Republican and one of the most notorious men in the country. Joe Kennedy had given enough money to Joe McCarthy that when he called up and said, “My son [music] needs a job,” Joe McCarthy was going to give him a job. He’s a [music] staunch anti-communist who’s convinced that there are, you
know, subversive communist [music] types hiding out in the government at all levels and he’s going to root them out. >> You had these hearings on TV where people would come on and Joe McCarthy would ask people if they were communists, accuse them of all kinds of stuff and Bobby would be at the table as the lawyer, as the council, [music] and he was he was there. Bobby Kennedy’s role with Joe McCarthy was rooted in his fierce [music] morality was rooted in the idea that there were communists and
somebody needed to do something about it. Bobby Kennedy believed in what Joe McCarthy was [music] doing. He believed like Joe McCarthy that there was no threat to the world that was greater than the communist threat. Bobby soon became disillusioned. However, his advancement was blocked by other staff. He clashed with them repeatedly. He left the senator’s office after less than a year. Bobby was nearing 30 and desperate to make a name for himself. That opportunity finally arrived in 1957 when he became chief counsel to the
Senate Labor Rackets Committee. >> Bobby was on that committee to [music] go after the ruthless elements in it, the the labor unions which were all powerful in those days. He went after especially [music] the most powerful union leader in America at the time, the head of the biggest union called the Teamsters, which represented all the truckers. And this was a guy named Jimmy Hoffa. This experience really suits Bobby because he feels like he’s going after the bad guys. And um he’s a very right
and wrong person, particularly at this stage in his life. At the root of his experience with the Rackets Committee was Bobby Kennedy’s desire to find justice, to expose corrupt [music] people, to expose the problems of American society, cuz that’s what he believed he was always fighting for. [music] Bobby Kennedy saw what was going on with Jimmy Hoff and union corruption as almost as big a threat to America [music] as the communists. Hoffer would continue to elude justice, but Bobby’s
efforts were not unnoticed. No longer the runt of the Kennedy clan, there was even talk of a political career of his own. But family loyalty intervene once again. In 1960, his older brother launched a bid to become president. Bobby would be there to help. [music] 1960. This was the year the Kennedy family had been waiting for. It would bring a presidential election in the November. It had long been earmarked as JFK’s moment. First though, he had to win the nomination. >> Bobby Kennedy was the person who
controlled that election. [music] He had been so successful in the Senate election that he had taken [music] uh the reigns of this election and he was fiercely committed to this. [music] you didn’t necessarily win the the presidential nomination through primaries. [music] They were important more as kind of signals of who had popular support. >> He did [music] it by taking on the opposition, taking on the difficult issues of whether a Catholic in the White House would be an instrument of
the [music] pope. Um Bobby took on all those issues. >> He runs a pretty innovative campaign. [music] He wants to tap the excitement and um the the sort of novelty and [music] sense of of of freshness about Jack’s campaign. It’s sort of a glimpse of what more modern campaigns will become. >> Early victory in Protestant West Virginia seemed to prove the Kennedy appeal could break [music] down the barriers of anti-atholicism. In primary after primary, Kennedy victory followed Kennedy victory. But
the nomination was not secure yet. The decision would be made at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. There, the Kennedy’s last possible rival made his move. Lyndon Baines Johnson is arguably one of the most incredible politicians [music] that ever lived in the United States of America. An absolute master of politics. >> He’s the Senate majority leader. He’s [music] one of the most powerful men uh in Washington and he decides to run a very different kind of campaign. [music]
>> Johnson had entered the race late. He thought based on his his name [music] and his connections within politics, he could still maybe get the nomination. >> He thinks that he will be [music] able to control uh and win support of more delegates at the Democratic convention. He doesn’t need to enter the primaries [music] and win delegates that way. Bobby had disliked Lynden Johnson from their first meeting and the feeling was mutual. >> Bobby Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson [music]
did not get along. >> Lyndon Johnson was a politician who can get bills passed into law cuz he understood how the system worked. [music] Bobby Kennedy was the moralist. He didn’t like the politicians that did the backroom deals. >> He started off as a school teacher. He worked his way up and the Kennedys were rich [music] guys and they got everything they wanted. So there was this enmity that began. >> Lyndon Johnson tried to get out a story that John F. Kennedy was [music]
actually very sick. Bobby Kennedy found out and he was furious with Johnson. >> Bobby Kennedy got a doctor to come [music] out and say, “No, my brother doesn’t have life-threatening Addison’s disease.” Well, in fact, [music] um, Jack Kennedy had a really serious version of Addison’s disease. >> So, Bobby Kennedy essentially flat out lies, but [music] in defense of his brother, and Johnson actually ends up backing down. It >> made Bobby Kennedy hate Lyndon Johnson
for the rest of his life. >> Johnson’s dirty tricks failed. >> And I can assure all of you here who have reposed this confidence in me that I will be worthy of your trust. We will carry the fight to the people in the fall and we shall win. >> Now JFK had to choose a running mate. One man’s connections and knowhow made him the obvious choice. Johnson would share the Kennedy ticket, but neither he nor Bobby would forget their dispute. Jack went on to face sitting Vice President Richard [music]
Nixon in the general election. Once again, Bobby ran his brother’s campaign. It would be the narrowest of triumphs. But at last, the Kennedys were on their [music] way to the White House. >> After Jack is elected, Joe Kennedy, his father, turns around and says, “Okay, what about Bobby?” >> Bobby didn’t want to be involved in the [music] cabinet. He wanted to go do something by himself. So Bobby said to his brother, you know, what are we going to do about my situation? And he said,
look, I need [music] somebody next to me who I can count on. So Bobby accepted right then and there. His official title in the new administration [music] was attorney general, which was an interesting title for a guy who had never practiced a day in a court of law. >> He’s very inexperienced. He’s one of the youngest attorney generals ever [music] named. Is this the right person to be choosing for this role? Should you be putting your kid brother [music] into office? >> The 35-year-old Bobby was made head of a
bureaucracy with more than 30,000 employees and a $400 million budget. And his power extended far beyond the justice department. If you couldn’t get past Bobby, you didn’t get to Jack. So, he was the gatekeeper. He was his first counsel. He was the guy who told I mean, he was everything to Jack Kennedy. He looks to his brother for advice and counsel and [music] expects his brother to do an enormous amount within the cabinet, within government to um to advance his agenda and and protect his political
interests. >> John Kennedy didn’t have a chief of staff. His brother became his chief of staff. If Bobby spoke, he was speaking not only for himself, but also his brother. He was the closest thing that America had ever seen and probably will ever see to a co-president. >> Bobby was there through crisis and triumph. And when the world faced the horrors of nuclear Armageddon, he was at his brother’s side once again. >> There are a lot of conflicting stories [music] about the Cuban missile crisis
and who was most influential and who was articulating what strategy when. It’s really hard now for people who weren’t born then or were too young to really realize how dangerous that was. >> Kennedy’s [music] confronted with these missiles in Cuba. If he responds, it could mean war. Well, Bobby Kennedy was right in that room giving him advice. It was a 13-day crisis. And Bobby would have you believe in the book that he wrote called 13 days that he was the great Dove. He is depicted [music]
as someone who is reluctant to go with a more aggressive solution [music] um whether an air strike or an invasion of Cuba. >> The truth is for the first six or so days Bobby Kennedy was one of the biggest hawks and it was midway through the crisis when his brother Jack made clear that a middle ground of a blockade was [music] the way to save the world from a nuclear armageddon that Bobby jumped on board and became [music] Jack’s best advocate. Nuclear confrontation was averted. The crisis
passed. Energies [music] in the White House shifted to conflicts closer to home. America remained an [music] unequal, unjust land. But the Kennedy brothers had long been cautious about civil [music] rights. The support of pro-segregation southern Democrats had been crucial to their victory in 1960 and would be [music] again, they thought, at the next election. It’s not necessarily the top priority and it’s not necessarily something that’s keeping Bobby Kennedy up at night. [music] >> He started out as clueless on civil
rights having grown up in lily white worlds. >> There’s voting rights laws on the on the books by then and as attorney general. Bobby Kennedy’s Department [music] of Justice is involved in trying to, you know, file suits and prosecute cases to try and get more African-Americans [music] enrolled in southern states. But there isn’t really a lot of action on civil rights early on in the Kennedy administration. >> It was the violence suffered by the freedom riders in 1961 [music] that
opened Bobby’s eyes. The activists fighting segregation on interstate bus routes were set upon by white mobs in Aniston, Birmingham, and Montgomery. Local [music] police colluded in the attacks. This is, you know, a rude awakening for Bobby Kennedy in terms of dealing with these southern governors [music] who will tell him one thing but then essentially allow um violence to be perpetrated on these on these activists. And so he starts to um to [music] get much more involved. >> I think he identified with them
somewhere in himself. He understood something quite [music] profound and and and black people knew that he did. He ended up being somebody [music] that was the most effective attorney general maybe ever [music] in terms of promoting civil rights. >> Bobby really said, “Look, we got to do this. We got to make this happen. We got to go allin with these people because this country is not going to be anything [music] if we don’t go allin with them.” >> Bobby expanded the civil rights division
at the Department of Justice. He demanded that government recruit [music] more black employees. And he convinced his brother, the president, that civil rights was the defining [music] domestic issue of their times. >> This nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal. And that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened. >> But as ever in the White House, one eye was on the politics. The end of 1963
approached and thoughts turned [music] to the presidential contest due the following year. The Kennedy machine geared up once more. Campaign visits were sketched out, practice runs arranged. Among the first was a trip to Dallas, Texas. Something like you stand by, please. >> Bobby was at home when the news came. He’d just taken a swim on his lunch break and was about to head back to the Justice Department when the phone rang. The direct line to the White House. It was urgent. >> Ethel Kennedy, his wife, picks it up and
holds up the line and says, [music] “It’s Jay Edgar Hoover on the phone for you.” And as soon as Bobby heard that, his stomach began to sink. He knew that Hoover never called with good news. >> Jarger Hoover said the president [music] has been shot and it may be fatal. >> He is ashenfaced. [music] He’s uh you know shocked and in that moment Bobby Kennedy’s life changed dramatically and forever. >> It created a kind of fatalistic feeling in Bobby. His brother was the golden
boy. So if he can get killed, anything can happen now. Anything [music] can happen. Bobby became America’s mourner in chief. Every time [music] a picture was taken, he was there delivering the most moving eulogies. Bobby pulled it together and he helped America pull it together. Just when the rest of the family [music] was starting to come out of their sense of grief, just when the country was coming out of its sense of mourning, Bobby crashed and burned. Out of the public eye, Bobby collapsed
into a deep depression. Jack had been his [music] work and his family life. Bobby had nowhere to hide from his grief. >> He questions [music] his faith. He can’t understand how this happened. How could God [music] let something like this happen? >> He would drive around in the middle of winter in a convertible with the top down going nowhere. He would go to work at the Justice Department and would look so out of it that people were afraid to talk to him. And it lasted until the following fall, nearly a full 9 or 10
months. And it was devastating for him. >> There was one person who came close [music] to understanding Bobby’s pain. His sister-in-law, the newly widowed Jackie. >> He went to help his sister-in-law, who is in shock and depression, of course, cuz she was there when it happened. [music] He died on her lap. She recommends [music] certain books to RFK who had never been the most amazing student, had never been the most intellectually curious. But in this moment when his faith is shaken, his
fundamental beliefs are shaken. [music] He’s looking for something. >> He started to question certain things. [music] And it was Jackie Kennedy who gave him Edith Hamilton’s The Greek Way. His whole philosophy as he got older he [music] believed was to tame the savagess of man and make gentle the world we live in. And that came directly from the Greeks. [music] >> Robert Kennedy goes on an intellectual and spiritual journey. What comes out of that is actually a new sense of himself as an individual, his
own sense of purpose, [music] and a sense that he still wants to contribute to the [music] world. >> Bobby had to figure out at that point what he was going to do for the rest of his life. Was he going [music] to go off and be a monk or teach at a college or travel the world with his father’s money [music] and his burgeoning family that would become 11 kids? or was he going to somehow re-enter the public arena? >> After Jack’s death, Lyndon B. Johnson had been sworn in immediately as his
successor. Many hoped it would be Bobby to fill the now vacant vice presidency, but the two men hated each other. They went through a long dance as to who was going to be LBJ’s vice president. Bobby said that he wanted it. LBJ said that he was seriously going to consider him. These two guys hated one another enough [music] that there was never a question. The last guy in the world that Johnson would have wanted at his side in the White House was Bobby Kennedy. And he said basically, if this guy is my vice
president, people will think I can’t do this by myself. I’m not going to win the next, you know, the [music] election by myself because I’m with a Kennedy. >> Despite the clamor for another Johnson Kennedy partnership, the [music] president chose Hubert Humphrey instead. Bobby remained as attorney general, but his vast influence over government was gone. >> He helps to push through the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which Lyndon Johnson also pushes for as a kind of legacy to President Kennedy.
>> He and [music] his enemy, Lyndon Johnson, collaborated on getting that bill passed. Johnson couldn’t have done it without Bobby, and Bobby couldn’t have done it without a Southerner like Johnson backing it. He stayed there mostly for the Civil Rights Act of 64 and wanted to pass that. And when that passed in July, he started [music] thinking about the next step. Bobby resigned as attorney general in September 1964, shortly after announcing his bid for the Senate seat of New York.
Finally, he was launching a political career of his own. >> Ultimately, he decides [music] that he wants to continue in public service, but he wants to do so in a new way, and he needs to do it on his own steam. He struggled a little bit. He understood how to be the guy behind the guy. He didn’t understand how to be the candidate. He talked a [music] lot about his brother. He used some of the same gestures as his brother. And in a lot of ways, I think he saw that [music] campaign as a way to honor his brother’s
legacy. And some of his aids were telling him, [music] “You have to speak your own mind.” It wasn’t until the middle of that campaign [music] when it looked like he could be the first Kennedy ever to lose an election that Bobby started [music] pulling it together. On November the 3rd, 1964, Lyndon Johnson was reelected president [music] in a landslide. That same day, Bobby Kennedy won his race in New York. >> He has a different kind of stature from your average, you know, incoming junior
senator. [music] he’s able to shine a spotlight on particular issues that he cares about and he does that um immediately. >> He believed that poverty was one of the biggest problems that the United States had been experiencing. So he started to look at ways to [music] affect that. Bobby Kennedy set up a model program, a model anti-poverty program in [music] a place called Bedford Stasent, the biggest ghetto in America in Brooklyn, New York, just outside of Manhattan. That became the model for Lyndon Johnson’s famous war on
poverty. No senator was more effective in promoting an end to poverty and an end to racial injustice than Bobby Kennedy. But America was a divided nation. The pace of change, too slow for some, frightened [music] others. And all the while, the war in Vietnam dragged on and on. >> The US had been involved in the [music] conflict since the time of Eisenhower. The Kennedy administration, with Bobby’s support, had broadened that military aid. [music] But it was under Johnson that the war became an American
nightmare. Stop children. >> He didn’t want to look like [music] the guy who took over for Jack Kennedy and lost America’s first war. [music] >> Johnson commits combat troops. He starts bombing campaigns so that uh the Vietnam conflict is growing and becoming much bigger war and a much bigger part of the public conversation. [music] >> Bobby had been a hawk in the early 60s during his brother’s administration, but the situation in Vietnam had changed in the years since. and so had Bobby.
>> Bobby Kennedy [music] is concerned about the escalation of the Vietnam War. And at first, he tries to keep that concern [music] relatively quiet. He’s worried about how it will be perceived. He’s worried about [music] implications for the Democratic Party. At the same time that he’s incredibly worried about what the [music] president is doing. >> Lyndon Johnson wasn’t about to listen to Bobby Kennedy on Vietnam or anything important. [music] In 1967, Bobby traveled to Europe.
There he held talks with foreign leaders and diplomats who backed peace in Vietnam, but the discussions were leaked to a newspaper. Johnson was furious. Johnson sees this as an attempt to undermine him and he, you know, personally and publicly [music] condemns Bobby Kennedy who thinks he’s kind of conducting, you know, backdoor diplomacy, um, and challenging his position as president. >> Bobby Kennedy decided that he was going to publicly take a [music] stand against the Vietnam War and against the bombing
campaign that Lyndon Johnson had been waging against North [music] Vietnam. So in March of ‘ 67, he gave a speech on the Senate floor that admonished the administration and said that this was not the right way to go in Vietnam. He [music] was the first one to matter to get up in the floor of the Senate and say, “May a Kalpa, we got it wrong. We made a mistake, but [music] we’ve got to correct that mistake. We’ve got to get out of Vietnam.” So he was the most effective anti-war politician [music]
and figure of any kind in America in the mid60s. Johnson had assured the American people that victory was in sight. But in January 1968, North Vietnam launched a new offensive. A wave of surprise attacks targeted cities and military installations across the country. America’s enemy was far from beaten. The American people who were told by Lynden Johnson that the war was almost over and there was a light at the end of the tunnel had seen the battles and believed that the war had a long way to
go and they felt [music] deceived somewhat by Lyndon Johnson. >> It’s a real unnerving moment for the American public and it’s an important turning point [music] in terms of larger public opinion about the war. The Tet offensive could not have come at a worse time for Johnson. 1968 was a general election year. He was entitled to seek another term in office, but by now he was deeply unpopular. There was talk in the Democratic Party of a challenge against him. Lyndon Johnson had won one
of the most convincing victories ever in 1964. And yet by 1968, the Vietnam War was unpopular enough that in the first contested primary in the state of New [music] Hampshire, a young no nothing senator from Minnesota named Gene McCarthy was running against him. >> It’s unusual to challenge [music] uh the sitting president of your own party. As an incumbent president, you certainly would expect to to [music] get your own party’s nomination again without too much trouble. and Gene McCarthy when you added up the
Democratic votes and the Republican right-in votes actually beat the sitting president in this New Hampshire primary. The president [music] was even weaker than people thought. The Democratic nomination and the White House itself were up for grabs. Bobby’s thoughts turned to a gift his brother had given him years before. When Jack first won the nomination, he’d given his trusted campaign manager a cigarette case. Inscribed on it were the words, “When I’m through, how about you?”
On March the 16th, 1968, Robert Francis Kennedy launched [music] his bid to become president. >> I do not run for the presidency merely to oppose any man, but to propose new policies. Bobby was a seasoned [music] campaigner, but his entry into the contest was anything but graceful. Exactly [music] 4 days after Gene McCarthy showed how vulnerable Lyndon Johnson was by beating him in New Hampshire, Bobby Kennedy jumps into [music] the race and says, “Me, too. I’m running, too.”
>> Is it political opportunism? Is he jumping in because, you know, Eugene McCarthyy’s shown that an anti-war candidate can win. The [music] truth is that a full nine days before the New Hampshire vote, Bobby Kennedy had told a bunch of reporters that he trusted and everybody who was close to him, “I’m going to run.” >> He decided to delay it. Um, [music] actually so that he wouldn’t deny McCarthy whatever result he was going to get. >> It was ham-handed, but it was trying to
do a [music] favor rather than undermine Gene McCarthy. Bobby announced his run on the same spot in the same room where his brother had almost a decade earlier. But Bobby was now his own man. His platform would embrace causes long dear to him. Civil rights, poverty, and of [music] course the war in Vietnam. Bobby knew it would be difficult. If he had enthusiastic support [music] from some, he was loathed by just as many. and toppling an incumbent [music] president, even one as weak as Lyndon Johnson, would be no simple task. Or so
he thought. >> I shall not see, and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president. >> Nobody could believe he said that. It just the the whole the United States erupted. This guy was going. He was gone. He was gone. >> Johnson is exhausted. He’s [music] been been dealing with the escalation of the Vietnam War, the anti-war protests. Lyndon Johnson [music] looks at these developments. Suddenly, Bobby Kennedy’s there in the race doing exactly [music]
what Johnson fears, saying, “I’m the I’m the heir. I’m the person that should be in [music] the Oval Office.” And so Johnson takes himself out of the mix. >> The race was wide open. Within weeks, Vice President Hubert Humphrey announced his candidacy. He became the party establishment’s pick and snapped up hundreds of delegates. But Bobby had been here before. He dusted off the strategy book that had taken [music] his brother to the nomination. He would prove his support in the primaries.
>> He’s got a tough [music] contest um with McCarthy and he’s certainly got a tough contest against Hubert Humphrey. And [music] so Bobby Kennedy has to do incredibly well in the primaries. It was really a question of whether Bobby Kennedy could convince America that he was a good candidate. [music] >> Bobby was kicking off his campaign in Indiana when news broke from Memphis. >> I have some very sad news for all of you and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis.
in the black community in Indianapolis, Bobby Kennedy delivered the most passionate [music] speech and the most effective speech that a white politician has ever delivered in black America. He said that people need [music] to love each other and we need to if we really want to honor Dr. King’s vision, we shouldn’t hate, we should love. What we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom and compassion toward one another, feeling of justice toward those who
still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black. On a night when there were riots in more than a 100 American cities, one of the only cities in America with a sizable black population that didn’t riot was Indianapolis. And the reason was Robert Francis Kennedy. >> And what dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago to tame the savagess of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that. and say a prayer for our country and for our
people. Thank you very much. >> Bobby won in Indiana. A week later, he triumphed in Nebraska. His campaign was gaining momentum. Defeat in Oregon, however, left Bobby’s chances on a knife edge. June 4th would see two key primaries, one in South Dakota and the other in California. Losing either would destroy Bobby’s hopes, but victory could put him on the path to the presidency. >> But the allimp important [music] primary was California. It was all important because it was the biggest state in the
country. It had the [music] most diverse population. >> California is a huge state with a lot of delegates at play. He needs to win there. He needs to [music] win convincingly to have a chance. >> California seemed forbidding territory. McCarthy had a wellestablished and well-funded organization there. Bobby’s chances looked slim. >> He goes into California. He campaigns all over the state. He campaigns in in the ghettos in these urban [music] centers. And he is able to, you know,
generate a lot of excitement and momentum around his campaign. >> What G. McCarthy didn’t do that Bobby Kennedy did do was encompass the whole of Vietnam into jobs and and racism and all of that. >> People talk a lot about Bobby Kennedy’s charisma and his appeal. It’s different than his brothers. His brother was was sort of cool and reserved. Bobby Kennedy, people want to touch him, to grab at him. There are kids running [music] after his car, people shouting out at him. some someone grabs his shoe at one
point and sort of takes it home as a prize. Kennedy’s campaign is really, you know, on the ground and exciting and [music] emotive. >> Bobby triumphed in South Dakota. He scored a clear win. In California, it was closer, defeating McCarthy by just four points. But what mattered was the victory. Suddenly, the nomination [music] seemed within grasp. My thanks to all of you and now it’s on to Chicago and let’s win. [cheering] >> Bobby left his supporters celebrating in the ballroom of the Los Angeles
Ambassador Hotel. Hurrying to a press conference, he took a shortcut through the kitchens. It was there he crossed paths with 24year-old Palestinian Sirhan Seahan. [screaming] [cheering] See your hand. See your hand popped out. Shot him once in the head. shot him twice in the back and uh left him on the floor. >> The asalent is caught there in that moment [music] and Bobby Kennedy is still alive, but the bullet had had penetrated his brain. He’s taken to hospital and he dies about a day later.
The reason he was gunned down, Sir Hanshan [music] said in a note that he had left behind, was because of Bobby Kennedy’s support for Israel. >> The speculation is that it [music] had something to do um with the six- day war, which had been the previous year [music] in which Bobby Kennedy had supported Israel. >> At the most promising moment in his life, the biggest political victory of his life, [music] he’s gone down. It was Hubert Humphrey who went on to contest the 1968 election for the Democrats. It
would be another close campaign, but this time Republican Richard Nixon triumphed. >> That election in 1968 was arguably one of the most important elections of the [music] last century. There was this extraordinary schism in America over race and Richard Nixon got [music] a lot of people, a lot of whites who were very angry to rally around him. the cities are starting to erupt uh because of poverty and also just grief and anger. So America wanted a law and order man. >> The the Nixon [music] years come to be
associated with continuing war in Vietnam, the Watergate [music] scandal, the resignation of a president, unprecedented resignation. [music] It’s a dark time in American political life and it’s easy to look back at 1968 [music] as this turning point. >> But what might have been? What if Bobby had not taken the shortcut through the kitchens? What if a bodyguard had been with him? What if Bobby had lived? the famous powerful [music] mayor of Chicago, Richard Daly, maybe the most powerful Democratic establishment
politician, was going to get behind Bobby, I think would have created a title wave of support and it would have overwhelmed not just Gene McCarthy, [music] who I think was already beaten. It would have overwhelmed Hubert Humphrey. Would he have been able to win in November? Would he have been able to [music] get the American people who were scared, concerned about [music] chaos at home, concerned about America’s reputation abroad? Would Bobby Kennedy have been able to to [music] find a message that would have mobilized
the public more generally? When we think back to the fact that Hubert [music] Humphrey came within a whisker of beating Richard Nixon, you would have had, I think, on the day after the election [music] in November of 1968 in a president-elect named Robert Francis Kennedy, you would have had a very different America. we probably get an earlier end to the war in Vietnam and we get someone that cared about [music] poverty, that cared about civil rights. >> Just his transparency alone and his
ability to connect with people would have changed how people [music] see the role of government. >> He would have not just been a very different and in my mind a much better president to heal the wounds in America than Richard Nixon turned out to be. I think he would have been a better president than his brother had been. His brother’s assassination really made him see [music] that life was short and that your job is to do something with it. Do something good. Uh leave something good behind. I think he would have been a
great president. >> The aims that he articulated, [music] the sense of hope, um the sense of optimism, the sense of unity and reconciliation, [music] those are themes um that endure. It is a vision of America that was not to be. It is hope untarnished by compromise or scandal. It is a path forever in sight, but one that [music] can never be reached. >> [music]