What do you know or remember about Robert Kennedy's assassination?

I have a better memory of MLK's murder. Don't know why. My parents were huge Kennedy fans. What I mostly remember about RFK is the funeral train, which passed through a local Jersey Central RR stop, and the fact that I did not go and watch it move past. It seems strange, as it's something I'm sure I would do today if I were able.

Of course, I remember what I was doing when Jackie died.

I had just turned 50 on June 5th, one day before his assisination. Needless to say, those two days were stressful for a lack of a better word and not the best way to celebrate a landmark birthday. I greatly admired RFK.

R2 just may be Queen of the Eldergays.

Anyone remember the assassination of President Lincoln? Was it a big deal at the time?

R2?

I remember the RFK assassination quite well-- I was a junior in high school in California, and that day in school we had had a mock primary election and one of my best friends "played" RFK. The next morning I remember waking up before my parents and hearing the news on the radio and running in and telling them "Kennedy has been shot." It must have been a weird sort of dreamlike deja-vu for them, since they'd heard the same thing just five years earlier.

Most in the east heard the news when they awoke the next morning and then he lived for another day after being shot. What I recall best is Ted Kennedy's moving eulogy and his voice breaking.

I was 15 and we were all mad at LBJ about the war, because we had the Draft back then and my older brother had his number and would eventually have to serve. He did his two year stint and came back in one piece, but he was completely opposed to war forever after. Anyway. As avid Kennedy fans, we were happy when RFK announced he would challenge LBJ and Senator McCarthy (who I could not stand) for the Presidency. Oddly, while watching the news of his announcement, My grandmother, who lived with us, said, "He'll never make it. They'll kill him too." Of course we all shushed her and dismissed it as something some senile old fool would say. I remember waking up very early for some reason. My clock radio came on and the news was on, saying he had been shot and was rushed to the hospital. At first I thought I was dreaming. Then I realized. We live in the Midwest. So then we waited and watched as the family gathered, and afterwards watching the family gather, the funeral train, the mass and Senator Kennedy's eulogy, I think that's when everything changed for America. That's when we became more cynical and felt more powerless. We had JFK, MLK,Jr., RFK all dead. It seemed like "they" were cleaning house. Wiping the slate. It was a scary time. They ended up not drafting me. 4F.

As I've said many times, I think this would have been a very different country if he had lived and been elected

I was between my Sophomore and Junior years in high school on June 6 when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, I felt like him becoming President would solve so many of the problems we had, yeah I was naive. However after just going through Martin Luther Kings assassination in April, it seems like the whole world was coming apart. People I knew of (although not closely) were being drafted and routinely dying in Vietnam. Then in August there was the Democratic Party convention in Chicago where protesters were being beaten by police live on television, it was the most horrible thing I had ever seen on TV. It was an unreal time to be a teenager. Wondering if I would be drafted when I graduated, and wondering if I was, would I go to Vietnam or Canada. My mom said she would support me if I chose to go to Canada. Went to college, was lucky enough to get a high draft number, dropped my student deferment and sweated out the year I was eligible for the draft. And idiots today say Obama is destroying the country.

[quote] Oddly, while watching the news of his announcement, My grandmother, who lived with us, said, "He'll never make it. They'll kill him too." Of course we all shushed her and dismissed it as something some senile old fool would say.

Did you go crawling for forgiveness on your hands and knees to her when she was proved right? Did she laugh in your face?

r5 you were in high school on June 5? I call bullshit.

[quote]I think this would have been a very different country if he had lived and been elected

Very true, although there was no guarantee that he would even win the nomination let alone win the election.

R2, so are you really 97?!!!!!!!!! Wow!!

I was in second grade in a catholic school. Remember we prayed for him when he was still clinging to life and we got the day off when he died.

School ended mid-June thenadays, R11.

I remember the death of Lincoln like it was yesterday. What he was doing in that plane with Buddy Holly no one has ever figured out. I have my own theory but do not want to sound outlandish.

I was in 4th grade.

It took him a long time to die.

I remember how the corrupt Chicago Police forced brown Sirhan Sirhan into confessing to a crime he didn't commit.

wtf r11? Most schools in the northeast go well into the 3rd or 4th week of June, depending on how many snow days they used the prior winter.

My cousins went to school near Boston and were often there until around June 20th most years, and didn't go back until the 1st week of Sept always after Labor Day.

Coming right after the MLK murder it was an even bigger deal than it would have been without MLK's murder. He was heading toward a nomination and, if he had been nominated, I think he most likely would have been elected. If nothing else the disastrous Democratic convention would have been completely different if he'd lived. His death started more "what if" conversations over the years: would he have been elected, would the war have ended sooner, would Teddy not have killed Mary Jo Kopechne, etc.

I was about 11 and I was very surprised when Lee Harvey Oswald was able to be killed in front of about 50 police and press. Did anyone else think that was strange? If it was strange to an 11 year old...what did adults think of that particular piece of bullshit?

Sorry, I didn't read that correctly.

With Robert, I was kind of devastated and wondered in such a crowd, how did they know exactly what happened because it was such a crush of people.

We were in a motel in Atlantic City a week into the big East Coast Family Vacation in the station wagon and all, and my Father walked into the room with the newspapers.

We were set to spend three days in NYC, but my parents cancelled that and we bypassed NY altogether. They said it was because everything would be closed, but I think the real reason was they thought there would be riots. Anyway, it would be almost 20 years before I would see New York. That was bad enough, but I was *this close* to getting my mother to agree to let me see the horse dive off the Steel Pier, and that got scrubbed too.

Kennedy held a political rally in Philadelphia a few weeks before the assassination. Only one friend was interested, so we went after school. We got there way too early Robert Kennedy and his bodyguard were there alone. He seemed frail and nervous, not what I expected. He also was not very friendly. We ralk a bit and that was it.

Despite that experience it was devastating when I heard Kennedy had been assassinated. It was too close to the dearh of MLK and body bags were coming back every day from Vietnam, and poor, sad Lyndon Johnson could not seem to find a solution

The TV coverage is actually one of my first, if not the first, childhood memories; I was three. My parents watched on the Zenith B & W and were incredibly upset. I was playing with wooden blocks on the floor and crossed myself occasionally, probably because my mother said something to the effect that I shouldn't be playing at a time of mourning. I remember the hearse. I don't remember the funeral train at all.

The funeral train was a trip -- it took hours and hours to get from NYC to DC because of all the people crowded on the tracks to wave goodbye. Mary Chapin Carpenter described it one one of her songs, It made such a mark, Nixon used a train a few months later for his campaign

Train remembered:

Photo from train:

[quote]We got there way too early Robert Kennedy and his bodyguard were there alone. He seemed frail and nervous, not what I expected. He also was not very friendly.

I always wonder what the differences between the private person and the public figure are. He went from McCarthy's right hand man to supporting Cesar Chavez in a relatively short span of time. Sometimes, the most cynical side of me wonders if he had a change of heart and really developed a passion for social justice or if he was pandering to a potential electorate like the hypocritical tea partiers now who present a Christian face then solicit prostitutes, have affairs, never step in a church, and wish death on those without health insurance, etc.

This excerpt in an article about the history of La Grenouille gave me pause. He was drunk, but....

[quote]Yet it was a Democrat who caused one of the most unpleasant scenes in the history of a restaurant with very few unpleasant scenes. Robert Kennedy and a group were there in the mid-60s for dinner. As Charles Masson the son tells it, “He was very drunk. He said, ‘This vichyssoise is canned.’ My father was deeply insulted by the charge. He took my mother over to the senator and said, ‘Will you please tell Senator Kennedy how I make the vichyssoise?’ And she did, step by step—none of those quick ways he’d learned in Hawaii—at the end of which Robert Kennedy said, ‘It’s canned.’

[quote]“Later in the dinner, he finds a raspberry in his dessert with a blemish, and he gets up and clinks his glass and makes a speech about the raspberry. He says, ‘It’s unacceptable that in a restaurant like this that we should be served a rotten raspberry.’

[quote]“At this point, my father’s had it. He said to the senator, ‘Just because you have one bad Democrat does not mean the whole party’s rotten!’ ”

When his brother was still in office, Mr anti-war RFK went to Vietnam and got off flying around with the Special Forces wearing the green beret they had given him.

Eight years old and living in Phoenix AZ with my family. What I remember most was that my mom— a Kennedy loving democrat who happened to be from Massachusetts— was devastated. Just totally devastated.

[quote]“Later in the dinner, he finds a raspberry in his dessert with a blemish, and he gets up and clinks his glass and makes a speech about the raspberry. He says, ‘It’s unacceptable that in a restaurant like this that we should be served a rotten raspberry.’

I wonder what he thought of the service at the Ambassador Hotel.

R11, I was in seventh grade and we were still in school in Ohio. Had about two more days left till end of school year. So there...

I agree with R9 about it being an unreal time to be a teen. My older siblings' teen years (late 50s-early and mid sixties ) seemed so much more carefree and fun. I remember in high school (69-73) the tension among the senior class guys on the day of the draft lottery. They would bring transistor radios to school to listen to it broadcast. Teachers pretty much just let those guys spend the day in the cafeteria glued to the radio. The rest of us all knew to pretty much leave them alone on that day. I'm surprised they even bothered to come to school. I turned 18 on 12/21/73 and registered for the draft and filled out my first college application that day in the school guidance counselor's office. I remember her saying "Welcome to adulthood! You'll be doing a LOT of this (filling out paperwork) from now on.) Boy, was she right! I didn't experience the tense ritual of the draft lottery because the draft ended 10 days after my birthday. Just one of many lucky breaks I've had in my life...

Coming of age then was both exciting and scary.

I saw him speak about a week before he was killed. I was 5 years old and my mother convinced me to walk up to the stage and tell someone I was lost. I did it and she succeeded in being able to meet him. She was such a manipulator!

R18 RFK was assassinated in Los Angeles, not Chicago.

If RFK had lived, would so many of his kids still have become fuck ups?

It is by no means clear that RFK would have gotten the Democratic nomination in 1968. A LOT of Democrats detested him. He was always the "bad guy" for his brother and ran roughshod over a lot of people over the years. That cutesy name of "Bobby" bore no resemblance to the read man who could be a nasty SOB.

And then there was his past association with Joe McCarthy which was not forgotten.

The idea that the Kennedys seemed to believe that they were somehow entitled to be in the White House led him to run for the NY Senate where everyone believed he was only doing it in preparation for a Presidential - and that soured some people.

In addition, those who supported Eugene McCarthy detested RFK because he only entered the race for the nomination after Eugene McCarthy had led the way by entering primaries and challenging a sitting President LBJ for the nomination. RFK waited until McCarthy had challenged LBJ, a courageous thing to do, and McCarthy was having success at gathering delegates. And then, after the hard part had been done, in waltzes Bobby.

So, all this rewriting of history about Bobby Kennedy may be all warm and fuzzy, but lean on facts.

I remember that it was during that period when they got away with political assassinations.

You know. The period we're still in.

Sorry about the typos..."read" should be "real". "in preparation for a Presidential" should follow with "bid"

I was 6 years old. I remember going with my mom, dad and sister to watch the train go throught Central NJ. I have no idea where we went, but my uncle worked for Penn RR so we might have been with him. I remember my mother crying.

I love R4.

God God Viola Davis walks like a hulking linebacker. The woman has absolutely no sex appeal which makes it doubly absurd that she keeps pushing to exploit more of her character's sexuality on HTGAWM. No one wants to see that. And don't get me started on the statement-making natural hair look. She needs to go back to weaves.

Viola Davis killed Robert Kennedy!

My parents probably cheered and I blocked it out.

If Bobby had lived, there would have been no Nixon in the Oval Office.

Bobby's best bet would have been to wait until 1972 or 1976. He was too young and too new to the Senate to run for President. Time was on his side.

R37 Well, he HAD just won the delegate-rich California primary minutes before he was shot.

We were living in Chicago then. I was 7, almost eight and I think that was our last week of school for the year. Our school was like the above poster who said that there was never the same day that school got out every year because of snow days to be made up.

I remember my mom crying and her sisters, and sisters-in law, and all the kids had congregated at our house every day after school, and then all the uncles coming over after work and there was a lot that went over my head but I know it really scared them. There were a lot of whispered conversations between the adults that stopped every time one of us kids came in the room. They were very afraid of more rioting after the riots a few months before after MLK died, and several families stayed together at each others houses for about a week or so after that. My father and several uncles and one aunt were surgeons or doctors and were put on an extended "on call" at their hospitals and every time the phone rang everything stopped, even with us kids. who were outside, or on the porch, playing. We had no idea why but I think we picked up the emotions of our elders. I found out later that just about every family had gone out and bought guns after MLK's assassination and riots and they had stored their arsenal at our house, so that was probably why everyone congregated there.

Oh dear-ing myself. Sorry for all those run on sentences.

I remember it was the only thing on television that day and my mother and aunt watched it the entire time.

I lived in California; we had NO snow days --EVER, and our school year always ran until mid-June.

Dang R7. Quite the nursing home cat, that grandmother of yours.