Robert F. Kennedy was born on this day in 1925.

Ten Notes On Robert Kennedy

1. Bobby Kennedy was the Attorney General for his brother Jack. He qualifications for the position were iffy at best but the old man Joe Kennedy told Jack to make Bobby the AG and it was done. Bobby would of course be the closest advisor his brother would have. John Kennedy was the outwardly calm one, Bobby the ruthless Kennedy.

2. Bobby Kennedy had a couple famous feuds, one with Vice President / President Lyndon Johnson and the other with FBI Director J.Edgar Hoover. I don’t know who he hated the most. When JFK was assassinated Bobby received the word from Hoover in a cold, emotionless phone call. Hoover was a scumbag, a disgrace who got away with murder for decades because he ‘dug up dirt ‘ on everyone to use against them. If Hans Postcard is ever elected POTUS his first act will be to take J. Edgar Hoover’s name off of the FBI Building in Washington D.C.

3. Bobby was JFK’s campaign manager in 1960. The last person he wanted to be his brothers running mate was Lyndon Johnson but it had to be done. JFK needed Texas in the general election and LBJ could and would deliver it. Bobby worked until the end to try and convince his brother not to give it to LBJ and to try and get LBJ not to accept it. LBJ always refered to Bobby was ‘that little pissant”

4. When JFK was assassinated in Dallas, Bobby also got a call from LBJ asking about whether he should take the oath of office before leaving Dallas or upon arriving in Washington and asking Bobby how the ceremony should be done. That had to be one of the worst moments of RFK’s life. His brother had just been killed and now this man he hates with a passion is taking his place.

5. Bobby stayed on briefly as Johnson’s Attorney General before resigning to run for the U.S. Senate in New York. Bobby won even though he wasn’t from New York. Hillary Clinton would follow that playbook in New York in 2000.

6. Bobby Kennedy and his wife Ethel had eleven children. Nine of the eleven are still living.

7. Bobby and LBJ would have a public split over the war in Vietnam. In 1968 [one of the worst years in American history- 1968 was America having a nervous breakdown} there was pressure of Bobby Kennedy to run for the presidency. Clean Gene McCarthy did the dirty work, running against LBJ in New Hampshire. After LBJ announced he would not seek and would not accept the nomination of his party for POTUS in 1968, RFK got into the race.

8. There are those who claim that the RFK who ran for POTUS in 1968 was a different man than the “Ruthless Bobby” of old. That he had changed, was a lot more compassionate. He had huge support in the minority communities of America. He was drawing huge crowds on the campaign trail. On June 5th RFK won the California primary. After he gave his victory speech he left the ballroom and was taking a shortcut through the kitchen when he was shot by a 24 year old Palestinian named Sirhan Sirhan. RFK was hit three times. Author George Plimpton, Olympic decathlon champion Rafer Johnson and football player Rosey Grier are credited with wresting Sirhan to the floor after the shots. RFK would die of his wounds on June 6th, 26 hours after he had been shot. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery near his brother JFK. Ted Kennedy is buring now nearby also.

9. After his death the myth that has grown was, if he had lived he would have won the presidency in 1968. Very doubtful that he would have won the Democratic nomination that year. The numbers were not there. Who knows if he would have won in 1972 or in the future. He was only 42 when he was assassinated.

10. 1968 was terrible. I was young but I have clear memories of that nightmare. In early April RFK was announcing before a crowd in Indianapolis that Martin Luther King Jr had been killed. 2 months later it was RFK. The war in Vietnam, riots in the cities of America, LBJ had lost all credibility. An awful time in America.