Listening to Robert F. Kennedy
Fifty-two years ago last Saturday, Robert Kennedy was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, after being declared the winner of the California presidential primary. He was 42 years old.
I was too young to remember his death, but over the years I have become something of a Bobby Kennedy devotee. That might seem strange coming from a lifelong conservative who served in three Republican administrations. So might the fact that I had a picture of Robert and John Kennedy hanging in my office while serving in the George W. Bush White House. But life is more complicated and variegated than political labels allow. (It’s perhaps worth pointing out, too, that Kennedy was not an “orthodox liberal,” in the words of his former aide Jeff Greenfield.)
As I learned about Kennedy, first in high school, then in college and afterward, I found him compelling. His career intrigued me, as a person interested in politics—a campaign manager in a presidential race; a Cabinet member and the closest adviser to his brother, the president; a United States senator from New York; and finally, a presidential candidate in 1968. But his career, while impressive, wasn’t exceptional.
[Conor Friedersdorf: The last words of Robert F. Kennedy]
What really drew me to RFK were his human qualities, including his literacy and eloquence—he could of .
