Robert Francis Kennedy Essay, Research Paper
ROBERT FRANCIS KENNEDY
The mystery of Robert F. Kennedy?s life and tragic death, may never be
solved. However, it can be said that Kennedy always tried to help the poor, and the
prejudged. He helped to boost the morale of the inner city poor, and the African
Americans, who had to fight just to keep their basic rights. His efforts were not just
kept within American boundaries. Kennedy also helped fight for South Africans,
ruled by British Apartheid. Until his dying day, Kennedy wanted to turn the United
States around. Even today, his legend lives on. Here is my biography of that
legend. Robert Francis Kennedy.
Robert F. Kennedy was born, the 7th child of Joseph and Rose Kennedy, on
November 22, 1925. As a child, and even up through high school and college, the
Kennedy boys were in constant competition with each other, whether it be
scholastic achievements or a touch football game. They were competitive in
everything. Robert lacked in physical stature, and intellect, unlike his brothers. He
had to strive to be the best that he could be. It was said of Robert that virtually
everything seemed to be an uphill battle. Bobby, got through high school, with very
good grades, and went on to college.
Kennedy went to Harvard University, where he graduated in 1948, after a
short stint in the U.S. Navy. He then went on to the University of Virginia School
of Law, where he received his law degree in 1951. In 1952, Bobby Kennedy ran his
brother John?s successful campaign for the U.S. Senate.
In 1956, Kennedy became Chief Counsel of the Senate Labor Rackets
Committee Hearings, where he went up against Jimmy Hoffa, during a long verbal
sparring match, that marked Hoffa?s testimony. Robert left the Rackets Committee
in 1959, in order to run his brother?s presidential campaign. This was also a
success.
After John was elected in 1960, he rewarded Bobby, by appointing him to his
Cabinet, as Attorney General. At that position, Robert played a large role in the
Bay of Pigs invasion, in Cuba, 1961. 18 Months later, he helped with the Cuban
Missile Crisis. He was also a factor in military action in Vietnam, and the Civil
Rights Movement.
On November 22, 1963 (two days after Bobby?s 38th birthday) John F.
Kennedy was shot and killed while in riding his limo in a parade in Dallas. He was
supposedly shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, from a book depository, but further
investigation shows that he may not have acted alone, and that a conspiracy by the
Government, may have caused his death.
After John?s death, Bobby decided to leave the cabinet, and run for a seat in
the U.S. Senate. He was elected in November, 1964. During his years as a U.S.
Senator, Kennedy visited Apartheid-ruled South Africa, and helped start a
successful redevelopment project in the poverty stricken slums of New York City.
He also visited, the Mississippi Delta, as a member of the Senate Committee on
hunger, and called for a halt to further escalation of military involvement in
Vietnam.
On March 16 1968, Kennedy declared that he was going to run for president.
On April 4, 1968, during a campaign stop at Indianapolis, Indiana, Bobby learned
that Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated. During an impressive, spur of
the moment speech, in Indianapolis, Kennedy called for reconciliation between
blacks and whites. Here is the speech that Kennedy gave that evening.
I have bad news for you, for all of our fellow citizens, and people who
love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was
shot and killed tonight.
Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love, and to Justice for his
fellow human beings, and he died because of that effort.
In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is
perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are, and what direction
we want to move in. For those of you who are black–considering the
evidence there evidently is that there were white people responsible–you
can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We
can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization–black
people amongst black, white people amongst white, filled with hatred
toward one another.
Or we can make an effort, as Martin King did, to understand and to
comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that
has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compass-
ion and love.
For those of you who are black, and are tempted to be filled with hatred
and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can
only say that I feel in my own heart that the same kind of feeling. I had a
member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. But we
have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to
understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times.
My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: ?In our sleep, pain which
cannot forget falls drop by drop upon our heart until, in our own
despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of
God.?
What we need now in the United States is not division; 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.
So I shall ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family
of Martin Luther King, that?s true, but more importantly to say a prayer
for our own country, which all of us love–a prayer for understanding
and that compassion of which I spoke.
We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times; we?ve had
difficult times in the past; we will have difficult times in the future. It is
not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end
of dissorder.
43 people were killed during riots all across America, following
Martin Luther King?s Death. However, Indianapolis was quiet.
Kennedy went on to win the Indiana, and Nebraska Primaries, lost the
Oregon primary, and on June 4, 1968, won South Dakota and California, to help
give him momentum toward the Democratic nomination.
After addressing his supporters that evening, in the ballroom of the
Ambassador hotel in L.A., RFK was shot at point blank range, in the hotel kitchen
by a Jordanian American named Sirhan Sirhan. Kennedy died, in the early morning
hours of June 6, at the age of 42.
The police reports show that Kennedy was shot with a .22 revolver, along
with five other men. Sirhan was arrested at the scene, charged with first degree
murder, and was sentenced to be executed, but the U.S. Supreme court voided the
the constitutionality of the death sentence, before it could be carried out. Under
California law, Sirhan should have been released in 1984, but that was not the case,
and still resides at Corcoran State Prison, in California.
The contreversy in all this, is that, more bullet holes were found in the area,
than could have been accounted for Sirhan?s eight shot revolver. Sirhan first shot
Kennedy, and supposedly missed, as two men wrestled him to the ground. He
emptied the gun wildly into the air. Just eight shots that came from Sirhan?s gun.
At least 15 or more bullets or traces of bullets were found in the hotel kitchen.
Another interesting note, is that Sirhan was facing Kennedy when he started
shooting at him. The bullet holes that entered Kennedy?s body were from the back.
There is almost no possible way, pending the magic bullet, that the bullets that
struck Kennedy from behind, while Sirhan Sirhan was facing him the entire time.
So what?s the theory here? Sirhan was in the pantry, along with some other
suspicious looking men waiting for Kennedy to finish his speech. When Kennedy
left the ballroom and entered the kitchen, Sirhan fired at him, creating a deversion,
creating a deversion, while the two men wrestled him to the ground, and the
suspicious looking men finish Kennedy off with two shots from behind with a well
concealed weapon. The men then left the building promptly, while Sirhan was
retained and arrested.
Now it gets interesting. In 1968, it was not a federal offense to murder a
presidential candidate. The case, therefore went to the LAPD instead of the FBI.
The idea was that this was going to end up being ?another Dallas? investigation.
This idea was probably correct.
Shortly after the investigation of the homicide, no evidence was released.
Researchers never bothered to pressure investigators to release the reports. In 1988,
Researchers finally forced the LAPD to release the reports. After the release of the
files in 1988, it became clear to what extent the cover-up had been carried out.
Evidence that contradicted the official reports were destroyed. this destruction
included.
- 2400 photograghs burned because they were ?duplicates.? There were no
that could prove that the photographs that were destroyed were actually
duplicates.
- Ceiling tiles and the door frames from the kitchen were destroyed, because,
according to then Assistant Chief Daryl Gate, they wouldn?t fit into the card
files.
It was also said that the bullet holes in the door were just dings from bus boys
running into them with carts. This was obviously a blatant lie. The pictures showed
that the hole were clearly bullet holes. Add to that, the fact that, out of 3,470 people
interviewed in the investigation, only 301 interviews were released. 51 key
?conspiracy witnesses were not even interviewed. They all point to a cover-up.
While the JFK assassination has reached the point where ?Oswald might have
done it, or he might not have? it is not possible that Sirhan Sirhan could have
inflicted the wounds on Robert Kennedy. Kennedy?s senseless murder was
obviously a conspiracy.
While the LAPD tried to sort out what happened, Robert F. Kennedy made
his final trip, on a funeral train from New York City to Arlington National Cemetary
in Washington. Nothing was more telling than the huge crowd of people that lined
the tracks to wave farwell to a fallen warrior. Kennedy repressented poor white on
one side of the tracks, while repressenting the poor blacks on the other side of the
tracks. Just think. If people only knew how to cross the tracks. Where would we
be? Kennedy helped people take a step in that direction. In time of divisions in this
country, Robert Kennedy brought people together.
Robert Francis Kennedy left behind his wife Ethel Skakel Kennedy and
eleven children. But more importanly, he left behind a legacy that will live on
forever.
?Some men see things as they are, and say, why? I dream
things that never were, and say, why not??
Robert Francis Kennedy (1925-1968)
WORKS CITED
Netscape Navigator (Internet)
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Location: http://homepages.tcp.co.uk/~dlewis/rfk/crime.htm
Title: The RFK Assassination
Netscape Navigator (Internet)
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Location: http://sdcc13.ucsd.edu/~sapatter/rfk
Title: Robert F. Kennedy
Netscape Navigator (Internet)
Excite Search
Location: http://www.cs.umb.edu/jfklibrary/r040468
Title: Robert F. Kennedy…Robert M. Kennedy
Netscape Navigator (Internet)
Excite Search
Location: http://pc000448.ed.uidaho.edu/mlk/index.htm
Title: Martin Luther King Sites
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