Robert F. Kennedy

 ( 1925 Births ) 

In search of a way out of the dilemma, Kennedy asked speechwriter Milton Gwirtzman to write a memo comparing two offices: 1) governor of Massachusetts and 2) U.S. senator from New York, and "which would be a better place from which to make a run for the presidency in future years?" Biographer Shesol wrote that the Massachusetts governorship offered one important advantage: isolation from Lyndon Johnson. However, the state was hobbled by debt and an unruly legislature. Gwirtzman informed Kennedy that "you are going to receive invitations to attend dedications and speak around the country and abroad and to undertake other activities in connection with President Kennedy" and that "it would seem easier to do this as a U.S. senator based in Washington, D.C. than as a governor based in Boston."

His opponent, Republican incumbent Kenneth Keating, attempted to portray Kennedy as an arrogant "carpetbagger" since he did not reside in the state and was not registered to vote there.Schlesinger (2002) 1978, p. 668. Kennedy was a legal resident of Massachusetts, and, under New York law, was not eligible to vote in the election. His wife Ethel Kennedy made light of the criticism by suggesting this slogan: "There is only so much you can do for Massachusetts."Schlesinger (1978), p. 668. Kennedy charged Keating with having "not done much of anything constructive" despite his presence in Congress during a September 8 press conference. During the campaign, Kennedy was frequently met by large crowds where he encountered multitudes of hecklers carrying signs that read: "BOBBY GO HOME!" and "GO BACK TO MASSACHUSETTS!".Kennedy, Rory. Ethel. HBO Documentary Films. October 18, 2012. In the end, New York voters ignored the carpetbagging issue and Kennedy won the November election with a comfortable 700,000 vote margin, helped in part by Johnson's huge 2½ million vote victory margin in the state.Shesol (1997), p. 229. With his victory, Robert and Ted Kennedy became the first brothers since Dwight and Theodore Foster to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Senate.Schlesinger (1978), p. 676. Frequent appearances during this campaign period would help Kennedy refine his style, and he would give more than 300 speeches throughout his time in the Senate.

Kennedy and his staff had employed a cautionary "amendments–only" strategy for his first year in the Senate. He added an amendment to the Appalachian Regional Development Act to add 13 low-income New York counties situated along the Pennsylvania border.Shesol (1997) p. 238. He succeeded in amending the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to protect U.S. educated non-English speakers (mainly Puerto Ricans in New York City) from unfair imposition of English-language literacy tests. Kennedy, concerned that federal funds would be misspent and not used to help disadvantaged children, delayed passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act until an evaluation clause was included.Shesol (1997) pp. 238–240. In 1966 and 1967 they took more direct legislative action, but were met with increasing resistance from the Johnson administration.Shesol (1997) p. 329 Despite perceptions that the two were hostile in their respective offices to each other, U.S. News reported Kennedy's support of the Johnson administration's "Great Society" program through his voting record. Kennedy supported both major and minor parts of the program, and each year over 60% of his roll call votes were consistently in favor of Johnson's policies.Shesol (1997) p. 336.

On February 8, 1966, Kennedy urged the United States to pledge that it would not be the first country to use nuclear weapons against countries that did not have them noting that China had made the pledge and the Soviet Union indicated it was also willing to do so.

Kennedy increased emphasis on human rights as a central focus of U.S. foreign policy. He criticized U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic in 1965 and concluded that Johnson had abandoned the reform aims of President Kennedy's Alliance for Progress. He warned after a trip to Latin America in late 1965, "if we allow communism to carry the banner of reform, then the ignored and the dispossessed, the insulted and injured, will turn to it as the only way out of their misery."Schlesinger (2002) 1978, p. xv.Shesol (1997) pp. 277–283. In June 1966, he visited apartheid-era South Africa accompanied by his wife, Ethel, and a few aides. The tour was greeted with international praise at a time when few politicians dared to entangle themselves in the politics of South Africa. Kennedy spoke out against the oppression of the native population and was welcomed by the black population as though he were a visiting head of state.Schlesinger (2002) 1978 pp. 743–744Sullivan, Patricia (2021). Justice Rising: Robert Kennedy's America in Black and White. Harvard University Press. pp. 291–295. In an interview with Look magazine he said:

At the University of Cape Town he delivered the annual Day of Affirmation Address. A quote from this address appears on his memorial at Arlington National Cemetery: "Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope." South Africa was considered in the United States to be an anti-communist ally, a position he critiqued, asking "What does it mean to be against communism if one's own system denies the value of the individual and gives all the power to the government—just as the Communists do?".

In 1966, Kennedy sponsored an amendment to the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 that created the Special Impact Program (SIP). Kennedy saw SIP as differing from the earlier war on poverty programs in its strong focus on specific distressed communities and its emphasis on economic development as a way to alleviate poverty.Schlesinger, p. 789. To demonstrate these principles, Kennedy and his staff created the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation (BSRC) in Brooklyn, the first community development corporation in the country. BSRC developed affordable housing, started a job-training program, and convinced IBM to locate a major plant in its neighborhood that would employ over 400 individuals.

As Senator, Kennedy’s attention focused on the marginalized and dispossessed. In April 1967, Kennedy, as part of the Senate Subcommittee on Employment, Manpower, and Poverty, made a fact-finding tour of the Mississippi Delta, where circumstances stunned him as he saw children starving in substandard housing.Thomas, p. 339.Schlesinger (2002) 1978, p. 794. Kennedy asked NAACP attorney Marian Wright Edelman to call on Martin Luther King Jr. to bring the impoverished to Washington, D.C., to make them more visible, leading to the creation of the Poor People's Campaign.Mills, p. 402. He also learned about Cesar Chavez and the National Farm Workers Association's (NFWA) movement to earn a living wage and improve employment conditions. In March 1966, the Senate Subcommittee on Migratory Labor held hearings in Delano, California. When the local sheriff told Kennedy that his deputies arrested strikers who looked "ready to violate the law," Kennedy shot back, "May I suggest that during the luncheon, the sheriff and the district attorney read the Constitution of the United States?"Thomas, p. 320. Kennedy deplored the poverty on Native American reservations, and had the Senate create a Special Subcommittee on Indian Education with him as chairman.Newfield, Jack (1969). RFK: a Memoir. p. 81. In 1964, the Johnson administration made Appalachia its unofficial ground zero for the war on poverty. When Senator Kennedy toured eastern Kentucky in February 1968, he found conditions "intolerable, unacceptable, and unsatisfactory" and judged the federal antipoverty effort a dismal failure.Mills, p. 340.

Kennedy sought to remedy the problems of poverty by introducing two highly complex bills in 1967. The first bill, the Urban and Rural Employment Opportunities Development Act, provided, among other initiatives, tax incentives for private industry to invest in poverty areas based on provisions similar to those of the Foreign Investment Credit Act, which was designed to fuel American investment in underdeveloped countries. The second bill, the Urban Housing Development Act, furnished benefits including tax credits and low-interest loans to firms which agreed to construct low-rent housing in poverty areas under specific conditions, stipulating that they employ workers from the local community. The Senate Finance Committee did not approve either bill, in part because of opposition from President Johnson.Palmero, Joseph A. (2002). In His Own Right: The Political Odyssey of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Columbia University Press. pp. 168–169.Schlesinger (2002) 1978, p. 789. According to Kennedy, government Welfare spending and housing programs ignored the unemployment and social disorganization that caused people to seek public assistance in the first place, and often become bogged down in bureaucracy and lack flexibility.

On January 31, 1966, Kennedy said in a speech on the Senate floor: "If we regard bombing as the answer in Vietnam, we are headed straight for disaster."A. J. Langguth Our Vietnam (2000) p. 422 In February 1966, Kennedy released a peace plan that called for preserving South Vietnam while at the same time allowing the National Liberation Front, better known as the Viet Cong, to join a coalition government in Saigon. When asked by reporters if he was speaking on behalf of Johnson, Kennedy replied: "I don't think anyone has ever suggested that I was speaking for the White House." Kennedy's peace plan made front-page news with The New York Times calling it a break with the president while the Chicago Tribunal labelled him in an editorial "Ho Chi Kennedy".A. J. Langguth Our Vietnam (2000) p. 423 Vice President Humphrey on a visit to New Zealand said that Kennedy's "peace recipe" included "a dose of arsenic" while the National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy quoted to the press Kennedy's remarks from 1963 saying he was against including Communists in coalition governments (though Kennedy's subject was Germany, not Vietnam). Kennedy was displeased when he heard anti-war protesters chanting his name, saying "I'm not Wayne Morse." To put aside reports of a rift with Johnson, Kennedy flew with Johnson on Air Force One on a trip to New York on February 23, 1966, and barely clapped his hands in approval when Johnson denied waging a war of conquest in Vietnam. In an interview with the Today program, Kennedy conceded that his views on Vietnam were "a little confusing."

In April 1966, Kennedy had a private meeting with Philip Heymann of the State Department's Bureau of Security and Consular Affairs to discuss efforts to secure the release of American prisoners of war in Vietnam. Kennedy wanted to press the Johnson administration to do more, but Heymann insisted that the administration believed the "consequences of sitting down with the Viet Cong" mattered more than the prisoners they were holding captive.Palmero, pp. 33–34. On June 29, Kennedy released a statement disavowing President Johnson's choice to bomb Haiphong, but he avoided criticizing either the war or the president's overall foreign policy, believing that it might harm Democratic candidates in the 1966 midterm elections.Palmero, pp. 36–37. In August, the International Herald Tribune described Kennedy's popularity as outpacing President Johnson's, crediting Kennedy's attempts to end the Vietnam conflict which the public increasingly desired.

In early 1967, Kennedy traveled to Europe, where he had discussions about Vietnam with leaders and diplomats. A story leaked to the State Department that Kennedy was talking about seeking peace while President Johnson was pursuing the war. Johnson became convinced that Kennedy was undermining his authority. He voiced this during a meeting with Kennedy, who reiterated the interest of the European leaders to pause the bombing while going forward with negotiations; Johnson declined to do so. On March 2, Kennedy outlined a three-point plan to end the war which included suspending the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam, and the eventual withdrawal of American and North Vietnamese soldiers from South Vietnam; this plan was rejected by Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who believed North Vietnam would never agree to it. On November 26, during an appearance on Face the Nation, Kennedy asserted that the Johnson administration had deviated from his brother's policies in Vietnam, his first time contrasting the two administrations' policies on the war. He added that the view that Americans were fighting to end communism in Vietnam was "immoral".Shesol, p. 386.Clarke, p. 32.

On February 8, 1968, Kennedy delivered an address in Chicago, where he critiqued Saigon "government corruption" and expressed his disagreement with the Johnson administration's stance that the war would determine the future of Asia. On March 14, Kennedy met with defense secretary Clark Clifford at the The Pentagon regarding the war. Clifford's notes indicate that Kennedy was offering not to enter the ongoing Democratic presidential primaries if President Johnson would admit publicly to having been wrong in his Vietnam policy and appoint "a group of persons to conduct a study in depth of the issues and come up with a recommended course of action";

At his household, Kennedy and his family prayed before meals and bed, and had every bedroom of his children outfitted with a Catholic Bible, a statue of St. Mary, a crucifix and holy water. In their visit to the Vatican City in 1962, Pope John XXIII gave Robert and Ethel medals of his Pontificate and rosaries for themselves and each of their seven children. Kennedy also pressured the Catholic hierarchy to move toward progressivism. In 1966, he visited Pope Paul VI and urged him to address the misery and poverty of South Africa's black population. In 1967, he asked Paul to adapt more liberal rhetoric and extend the Church's appeal to Hispanics and other nationalities.