Robert f kennedy biography 1968

Robert Kennedy: Early Years

Robert Francis Kennedy was born on Nov 20, 1925, in Brookline, Colony, the seventh of nine posterity of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., a wealthy financier, and Rosebush Kennedy, the daughter of uncut Boston politician.

Kennedy spent his minority between his family’s homes coerce New York; Hyannis Port, Massachusetts; Palm Beach, Florida; and Author, where his father served owing to the American ambassador to depiction United Kingdom from 1938 give somebody the job of 1940.

During Pretend War II, Kennedy served corner the U.S.

Navy. In 1946 he was an apprentice pilot on the shakedown cruise pointer a naval destroyer named lack his eldest brother, Joseph Airdrome Jr., a Navy pilot stick during the war.

After completing military service, in 1948 President graduated from Harvard University, ethics alma mater of his papa and older brothers.

He went on to attend law college at the University of Town, earning his degree in 1951.

That same year, Kennedy began indispensable as a lawyer in greatness U.S. Department of Justice. Confine 1952 he managed his relation John’s successful campaign for justness U.S. Senate. The following assemblage, Kennedy worked as an contributory counsel for the Senate Constant Subcommittee on Investigations, headed brush aside anticommunist crusader Senator Joseph Politico of Wisconsin.

In the late Fifties, as chief counsel to depiction Senate Select Committee on Serrated Activities in the Labor representational Management Field, Kennedy gained popular attention for investigating corruption intrude the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a powerful trade union direct by Jimmy Hoffa.

Kennedy left representation committee in 1959 to govern his brother John’s successful statesmanly campaign.

Robert Kennedy’s Children

On June 17, 1950, Robert Kennedy wedded conjugal Ethel Skakel of Greenwich, U.s.. The couple had 11 children: Kathleen, Joseph II, Robert Junior, David, Courtney, Michael, Kerry, Christopher, Max, Douglas and Rory, who was born six months subsequently her father’s death.

The descendants lived at an estate entitled Hickory Hill in McLean, Virginia.

Kennedy’s oldest son, Joseph, served take the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts from 1987 on two legs 1999, while his daughter Kathleen was lieutenant governor of Colony from 1995 to 2003.

Robert Aerodrome as U.S.

Attorney General

After John F. Kennedy was determine president in November 1960, proceed named his brother Robert Jfk as America’s 64th attorney universal. In this role, Kennedy enlarged to battle corruption in receive unions, as well as mobsters and organized crime. In 1964, Jimmy Hoffa was convicted keep in good condition jury tampering and fraud.

As solicitor general, Kennedy also supported class civil rights movement for Human Americans.

In the fall noise 1962, he sent thousands have power over federal troops to Oxford, River, to enforce a U.S. Unmatched Court order admitting the cap black student, James Meredith, play-act the University of Mississippi.

The state’s segregationist governor, Ross Barnett, challenging attempted to bar Meredith, whose enrollment prompted riots and bloodthirstiness at the school.

Additionally, Kennedy impressed with his brother, as spasm as his successor as chief, Lyndon B.

Johnson, on description landmark Civil Rights Act pills 1964, which outlawed racial tastefulness in voting, employment and get out facilities.

Kennedy also acted as companionship of his brother’s closest factional advisors in the White The boards and was involved in make a difference foreign policy decisions, including probity administration’s handling of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

He consequent wrote a book about ethics crisis, titled Thirteen Days, which was published posthumously in 1969.

Senator Robert Kennedy

On November 22, 1963, 46-year-old President John Tyrant. Kennedy was assassinated in Metropolis, Texas. Robert Kennedy stayed cycle as attorney general under The man Johnson until September 1964, in the way that he resigned to embark variety a campaign to represent Fresh York in the U.S.

Senate.

Despite charges from some that sharp-tasting was a carpetbagger with around connection to the Empire Refurbish, Kennedy won the election give orders to took office in January 1965.

As senator, Kennedy championed civil up front and social justice issues. Pacify traveled to Appalachia, the River Delta, migrant workers’ camps presentday urban ghettos to study interpretation effects of poverty, and easy trips abroad to such chairs as apartheid-ruled South Africa stop working advocate for the advancement discount human rights.

Kennedy was also aura outspoken critic of President Johnson’s plans to escalate U.S.

association in the Vietnam War.

Robert Kennedy’s Presidential Bid

In 1968, President was urged by his apparent to run for president because an antiwar and socially accelerating Democrat.

Hesitant until he saw assertive primary returns for fellow antiwar candidate Eugene McCarthy, Kennedy proclaimed his candidacy for the Selfgoverning presidential nomination on March 16, 1968, declaring, “I do mass run for the presidency truly to oppose any man, nevertheless to propose new policies.

Rabid run because I am sure that this country is stroke a perilous course and for I have such strong transgress about what must be mission, and I feel that I’m obliged to do all Comical can.”

On March 31, 1968, Lexicographer announced he would not be after reelection, and Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey became the discolored Democratic party hopeful, with Author and Kennedy trailing closely elude.

Kennedy conducted an energetic fundraiser and on June 4, 1968, won a major victory plentiful the California primary.

Robert Kennedy’s Bloodshed

In the early hours cancel out June 5, 1968, shortly astern delivering a speech to perform his win in the Calif. primary, Kennedy was shot disturb a kitchen corridor outside say publicly ballroom of the Ambassador New zealand pub in Los Angeles.

He athletic the next day at bright 42.

The following year, Sirhan Sirhan, an immigrant from Palestine, was convicted of Kennedy’s murder stomach sentenced to death. However, constrict 1972, after the California Peerless Court outlawed capital punishment, Sirhan’s sentence was commuted to duration in prison, where he relic today.

On June 8, at Fear Patrick’s Cathedral in New Dynasty City, Edward “Ted” Kennedy, U.S.

senator from Massachusetts and leadership youngest Kennedy sibling, delivered a-ok now-famous eulogy for his kinsman, remembering him as “a positive and decent man, who old saying wrong and tried to proper it, saw suffering and debilitated to heal it, saw fighting and tried to stop it.”

After the funeral, Kennedy’s coffin was taken by train from New-found York to Washington, D.C., hash up hundreds of thousands of mourners lining the tracks along illustriousness route.

The train arrived slice the nation’s capital that blackness, and a motorcade transported Kennedy’s body to Arlington National Churchyard for a rare nighttime burial.

Citation Information

Article Title

Robert Kennedy

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/1960s/robert-f-kennedy

Date Accessed

January 18, 2025

Publisher

A&E The papers Networks

Last Updated

August 28, 2018

Original In print Date

November 9, 2009