MAN: And now, it is my privilege
and honor

to introduce Robert Kennedy.

(cheers and applause)

 

NARRATOR:
On a hot August night in 1964,

Robert F. Kennedy mounted
the podium

at the Democratic convention
in Atlantic City.

 

JOHN SEIGENTHALER: It was first
a rumble and then a roar

and pretty soon,
it just consumed the whole place

and they would not stop.

(cheers and applause)

Mr. Chairman...

SEIGENTHALER:
They simply would not stop.

Mr. Chairman...

SEIGENTHALER: I don't know,
15, 16, 17, 18 minutes,

I don't remember
how long it was.

I only remember
that I couldn't stop crying.

♪ ♪

ANTHONY LEWIS:
It didn't surprise me

that they would
not let him speak,

not let him...
you know, not let go of him.

(cheering continues)

He was the representation
of what they had lost.

 

And if the delegates had
a sense of loss,

imagine what his feelings were.

Every day, every hour,
every minute,

he felt the loss
of his brother.

NARRATOR:
Ten months before,

President John Kennedy had been
assassinated in Dallas.

Bobby had given his life
to his brother,

as confidant, protector,
lightning rod.

Now his brother was gone,

and he was left
to carry on, alone.

JACK NEWFIELD: He was not
really built for the spotlight,

he was built for the wings.

He had to fight
against a basic shyness,

a basic nervousness in public.

Many times,
I would stand behind the stage

and I would see his leg shaking
during his speech,

or his hands shaking.

He wasn't a natural.

 

But that all had to change when
his brother was assassinated.

And I think change is the motif
of his whole life and career.

(cheering continues)

JEFF SHESOL: He really becomes
something much larger

than what he was
when he began.

He becomes stronger
through suffering.

 

NARRATOR: The pandemonium
went on for 22 long minutes.

 

As the crowd grew quiet,
he bared his grief,

enshrining his brother

in words from
"Romeo and Juliet."

KENNEDY:
When I think of...

President Kennedy,

I think of...

what Shakespeare said
in "Romeo and Juliet,"

that, "When he shall die,

"take him and cut him out
in little stars,

"and he shall make
the face of Heaven so fine

"that all the world will be
in love with night,

and pay no worship
to the garish sun."

 

(applause)

 

NARRATOR:
When he was finished speaking,

he left the hall,
sat on a fire escape, and wept.

 

♪ ♪

 

♪ ♪

 

NARRATOR:
In the spring of 1952,

Massachusetts Congressman
John Kennedy

was keeping up a brave face

while his campaign
for the United States Senate

unraveled into chaos.

He desperately needed

a tough, disciplined
campaign manager.

As he would
for the rest of his life,

he reached out
to his kid brother.

Bobby didn't want to do it--
he already had a job,

working as a lawyer
in the Justice Department.

But Robert F. Kennedy knew
what his family expected.

For the next 12 years,

he would devote himself
to Jack,

putting his brother's ambitions
before his own.

That had been the great lesson
of his childhood.

♪ ♪

As the third boy and
the seventh of nine children,

Bobby Kennedy easily got lost.

He was born
in Brookline, Massachusetts,

on November 20, 1925.

All through his early years,
he struggled just to keep up.

♪ ♪

 

EVAN THOMAS: Everything was
a competition,

within the family
and without.

They still talk, at this
little yacht club in Hyannis,

about how the Kennedys cheated

by adding more sailcloth
to their boats.

 

The Kennedys were
very competitive,

and they wanted to win
at everything they did.

 

NARRATOR: "We don't want
any losers around here,"

Joseph Kennedy told
all his children.

"In this family,
we want winners.

"Don't come in second or third--
that doesn't count.

Win."

 

Bobby's father was
the towering figure

in his childhood.

Joseph P. Kennedy had
made millions

with shrewd investments
in the stock market, the movies,

and, some say,
by bootlegging liquor,

but he wanted more
out of life than money.

He wanted his two oldest sons,
Joe Jr. and Jack,

to win elected office,

and even more, he wanted Joe Jr.
to become president someday.

ROBERT DALLEK:
This would give the family

a kind of visibility,
a kind of cachet,

a kind of social status

that Joe Kennedy was
very hungry for.

And the children imbibed
this ambition.

 

NARRATOR: While Joe's attention
was lavished

on his two oldest boys,

Bobby quietly took his place

among the younger children--
the girls.

He was small, awkward, shy.

His father described him
as the family "runt."

He would set out to prove

he was as tough
as his brothers.

 

When he was only four,
he dove off the family sailboat

in a desperate attempt to prove
he could swim ashore.

As he was going under,
Joe Jr. had to haul him out.

"It either showed
a lot of guts," Jack said later,

"or no sense at all."

THOMAS: And that's how Bobby got
his father's attention,

by being the tough guy.

But beneath that toughness,

there was always this softness
and this sensitivity.

♪ ♪

He was a mama's boy.

In fact, his grandmother worried
that he was too much of a sissy,

too much of a girlie-boy,

because he clung
to his mother's skirts.

NARRATOR: Rose Kennedy was
a devout Catholic,

and Bobby absorbed
her religious intensity.

He made his first communion
when he was seven

and went on to become
an altar boy

and attend a school
run by Benedictine monks.

 

Bobby Kennedy grew up
with a strong sense

of right and wrong,
good and evil.

Like his brothers,
he was toughened

by the rigorous demands
of his father,

but he disguised, as well,
a gentler nature.

Bobby, a friend said,

was "truly in touch
with his emotions."

He was saved
by being "overlooked."

 

When World War II began,
Bobby was in high school

and chafed to get
into the action,

like his two older brothers.

He flushed with pride
when Jack became a hero,

rescuing most of his crew

after his PT boat was sliced
in two by a Japanese destroyer.

But disaster was to follow

and determine the direction
of Bobby's life.

♪ ♪

In the summer of 1944,

Joe Jr. volunteered
for a near-suicidal mission:

to pilot a plane loaded with
dynamite toward an enemy target

and then parachute to safety.

His plane exploded
before he ever got there.

 

Joe Jr. was dead,

along with all the hopes
his father had invested in him.

Now it would be up to Jack

to realize
his father's ambitions.

And it would become Bobby's role
to help him.

 

But Bobby was young-- only 18--

still struggling to determine
his own destiny.

♪ ♪

In 1948 he graduated
from Harvard,

went on to law school,

and then became the first of
the Kennedy boys to settle down.

 

24 years old,
he married Ethel Skakel--

wealthy, outgoing, athletic,

so devout she had almost
become a nun.

 

A year later, the first
of his 11 children was born.

When it came to those he loved,
Bobby was tender, maternal,

but he turned a hardened face
to the world.

THOMAS: He was particularly
edgy and volatile

and, I think, unhappy
when he was in his early 20s.

He was an angry young man.

I mean, he was always
getting into fistfights.

I mean, his temper was about
that far from the surface.

NARRATOR:
In 1952,

when he managed his brother's
victorious run for the Senate,

Robert Kennedy gained
a reputation as "ruthless,"

a rude, arrogant, impatient kid.

But he shrugged off complaints.

"I don't care if anyone around
here likes me," Bobby said,

"as long as they like Jack."

 

Now with Jack in the Senate,

Bobby would darken
his reputation further

when his father got him a job
with a family friend,

one of the most
controversial men in America:

Wisconsin Senator
Joseph McCarthy.

Any man
who has been given the honor

of being promoted to general
and who says,

"I will protect another general
who protects communists,"

is not fit to wear
that uniform, General!

NARRATOR: In 1953, Bobby
enlisted in McCarthy's crusade

against what both men saw

as the evil of communism
in America.

DALLEK: Robert Kennedy
in the 1950s

was very much his father's son.

His father was fiercely
anti-communist.

Joe Kennedy saw Joe McCarthy
as doing the Lord's work.

THOMAS: History thinks
of Joe McCarthy

as this virulent Red-baiter,

but Bobby Kennedy was
a black-and-white moralist

at this stage of his life.

And the communists were
the bad guys,

and anybody who was
against the communists

was therefore a good guy.

And so, he liked the kind of
black-and-white morality

that Joe McCarthy was selling.

RONALD STEEL: What was striking
about Bobby

was not that he worked
for Joe McCarthy so much,

but rather that
he admired Joe McCarthy,

and became very close
to Joe McCarthy.

So when McCarthy was conducting
his investigations

into suspected communists,

Bobby enthusiastically
joined in this role.

NARRATOR: Bobby worked
for McCarthy for six months,

then moved on,

still grimly determined
to root out evil in America.

I decline to answer
this question

on the grounds that the answer
may tend to incriminate me.

I decline to answer
on the ground...


MAN: The answer...

(stammers): The answer may...
tend on recriminate myself.

KENNEDY: Somebody that's been
as successful as you

can remember how to say, "I
decline to answer the question,"

so don't put that act on.

MAN: I wanted to make sure.

KENNEDY:
Yeah.

NARRATOR:
As chief legal counsel

for what became known
as the Senate Rackets Committee,

Bobby began probing
into labor unions and mobsters,

grilling some of the toughest
gangsters in America.

 

But no one rankled him
more than Jimmy Hoffa.

Hoffa was president of
the Brotherhood of Teamsters,

the country's largest, richest

and one of
its most corrupt unions.

Bobby said he detected in Hoffa
"absolute evilness."

KENNEDY: Did you say anything
to the effect

that the jury treated you
very well,

and that you thought that you
could do very well

before a jury?

You know, that's
pretty ridiculous.

KENNEDY:
Did you say anything...

I did not!


And I appeal to the chair

that that be taken
out of the record!

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Bobby turned
his investigation of Hoffa

into a holy cause,

holding hearings
month after month

and calling
more than 1,500 witnesses.

 

Punishing Hoffa
became a crusade.

You've got people
in Detroit, at least 15,

who have police records.

You've got Joey Glimco
in Chicago.

I say you're not tough enough

to get rid of these people,
then.

NARRATOR:
But Hoffa was contemptuous.

He denied any wrongdoing,

taunting the crusading
young investigator.

KENNEDY: Did you say, "That
S.O.B., I'll break his back"?

Who?


KENNEDY: You.

Say it to who?

KENNEDY:
To anyone.

HOFFA: Figure of speech--

I don't even know
who I was talking about,

and I don't know
what you're talking about.

KENNEDY: Mr. Hoffa,
all I'm trying to find out...

I'll tell you
what I'm talking about.

I'm trying to find out whose
back you were going to break.

Figure of speech.


Figure of speech.

NARRATOR: "I used to love,"
Hoffa said,

"to bug the little bastard."

 

Bobby could never
bring Hoffa down,

but his zealous efforts won him
the attention

of the nation's press--

much to the delight
of his brother Jack,

who was a member of the
Senate Rackets Committee, too.

♪ ♪

"Two boyish young men
from Boston,"

wrote a reporter
in "Look" magazine,

"have become hot tourist
attractions in Washington."

♪ ♪

 

The Kennedys' fabulous wealth,

their marriages,
their glamour,

all made them favorites
of the picture magazines.

 

"I think he found himself
during the Hoffa investigation,"

a friend said.

"For the first time in his life,
Bobby was happy."

 

But in September 1959,

Bobby resigned from
the Senate Rackets Committee,

where he had made his mark.

His brother was running
for president.

(crowd cheering)

♪ ♪

 

When Jack set out to win
the Democratic nomination,

Bobby once again put
his own ambitions aside.

He would do whatever it took
to get his brother elected.

 

While Jack rose above the fray,

Bobby took on the gritty
day-to-day business

of running the campaign:

pushing his staffers
to their limits;

 

attacking Jack's opponents;

becoming the campaign's
dark driving force.

As one journalist put it,

"Whenever you see Bobby Kennedy
in public with his brother,

he looks as though
he showed up for a rumble."

(crowd cheering)

By the time the Democrats met
for their convention

in Los Angeles,

Kennedy seemed to have
the nomination wrapped up.

But Lyndon Johnson,

the powerful Senate
majority leader from Texas,

set out to stop him.

The person you select
as your president...

his judgment,

the responsibilities
he's shouldered,

the weight he's carried,
the burdens he knows...

the decision he makes
may well determine

whether you live as free men.

(cheering)

NARRATOR: LBJ was one

of America's smartest
political operators,

but Bobby outmaneuvered him,

skillfully working
the convention floor,

making sure that LBJ didn't
get the votes.

DELEGATE:
Mr. Chairman...

Wyoming's vote will make the
majority for Senator Kennedy.

(cheers and applause)

NARRATOR: John Kennedy was
nominated overwhelmingly

on the first ballot.

Now all that was left was
the choice for vice president.

When he chose Lyndon Johnson,

he set into motion
a sequence of events

that left Bobby and LBJ

smoldering with resentments
that would never go away.

From the very first, LBJ
and Bobby detested each other.

It was, as Johnson politely
described it,

"a matter of chemistry."

NICHOLAS KATZENBACH:
It was just oil and water.

Bobby was very moralistic;

integrity meant everything
to him.

And LBJ was a...
was a politician.

Robert Kennedy spoke
the word "politician"

as if it were an obscenity.

He hated the back slapping,
the log rolling,

all of the horse trading
of politics--

the sort of thing that
Lyndon Johnson absolutely loved.

DALLEK: Bobby dislikes Johnson
intensely,

but Jack Kennedy
is calling the shots.

And what Jack Kennedy
understands

is that as a Northeastern
Irish Catholic,

he needs very much
to get Southern votes.

And so it becomes essential

to bring someone like
Lyndon Johnson onto the ticket.

But once they let out the word

that they're going to make
Lyndon Johnson

the vice presidential nominee,

labor and liberals
in the party throw a fit.

Bobby is charged by his brother
with the responsibility

of talking Johnson
off the ticket.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Bobby confronted
Johnson in his hotel room

and told him flatly
that JFK no longer wanted him

to be the vice presidential
nominee.

LBJ didn't believe him.

Insulted, he refused to quit.

DALLEK: Johnson wants to be
vice president.

He's not going to back down.

He's not going to give up.

And he thinks
that Bobby is operating

without Jack's approval.

NARRATOR:
"Bobby's been out of touch,"

Jack leaked to a reporter.

"He doesn't know
what's happening."

SHESOL: Bobby is absolutely
taking the fall

for his brother here,

and that suits John Kennedy
perfectly well.

And Johnson has fallen
for this head fake,

but it is absolutely
inconceivable

to anybody who knew
the Kennedy brothers

that Robert Kennedy would be
acting on his own

to split up his brother's
presidential ticket

within hours
of the deal being sealed.

And I am grateful, finally,

that I can rely
in the coming months

on many others,

on a distinguished running mate

who brings unity and strength
to our platform and our ticket--

Lyndon Johnson.

(cheers and applause)

SHESOL: Lyndon Johnson will
never forgive Robert Kennedy

for this.

The manner of the selection

of Lyndon Johnson
as vice president

severed the relationship between
the two of them permanently,

and there would be
no turning back.

For the rest of his life,
Johnson will say

that "John Kennedy offered me
the vice presidency,

"and in the dark of night,

Bobby Kennedy came downstairs
to try to take it away from me."

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: The election of 1960
was too close to call.

 

JFK won
by only 120,000 votes--

as one Kennedy aide
described it,

"a gnat's eyebrow."

 

Bobby had driven himself
relentlessly,

and JFK was forever grateful.

"He's the hardest worker,
he's the greatest organizer,"

President John Kennedy said.

"Easily the best man
I've ever seen."

 

As JFK prepared to assume
the reins of power,

he wanted Bobby by his side

and appointed his 35-year-old
brother attorney general.

SEIGENTHALER: It was
a controversial appointment--

he had never been a lawyer
in a courtroom--

and it was nepotism.

I mean, he was the brother
of the president.

ANTHONY LEWIS:
His experience was zero.

He'd been a lawyer
for Senate committees,

a zealot with no understanding
of the terrible responsibilities

of an attorney general.

I was appalled.

I thought it was
a simply awful idea.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
Bobby surprised everyone,

moving quickly to show

he was more than just
the president's brother.

There are a number
of different areas

where action is needed.

I think that in the field
of organized crime,

I think
it's a very serious situation

that's facing the country
at the present time.

NARRATOR: Within two weeks
of taking office,

he became the first
attorney general ever

to declare "war on crime."

 

He proved a hard,
tireless worker,

and his casual, freewheeling
style was a striking departure

from the formality
of bureaucratic Washington.

 

ANTHONY LEWIS:
He was unlike

any other attorney general
I've known.

He wandered around
in his shirtsleeves.

He had his big, huge dog,
Brumus, in his office.

The kids came in.

The children's drawings were
on the wall.

HARRIS WOFFORD: If you saw Bob
Kennedy in a tie at his office,

it would be way down, open.

His office was a place
of constant motion,

and doing things unexpected,
breaking the schedule.

He was not
a sit-behind-your-desk man.

NARRATOR: But just three months

after Bobby had started
his new job,

he received an urgent summons
to the Oval Office.

The president was face-to-face
with disaster.

 

JFK had gone along with
a C.I.A. plan to invade Cuba

with a small army
of Cuban exiles.

The president had been assured

that the Cuban people
would rise up

against the communist government
of Fidel Castro

and revolt.

But the C.I.A. had been wrong.

 

Bobby watched helplessly

as his brother wrestled
with catastrophe.

The invaders were under attack.

Castro's army was taking
prisoners.

"They can't do this
to you," Bobby said.

But the invasion failed.

JFK had fumbled badly.

 

Now the president would turn
to his brother

for advice and counsel

as he never had before.

SHESOL: Traditionally,
attorneys general

have nothing to do
with foreign policy,

but after the Bay of Pigs,

John Kennedy really wanted Bobby
by his side,

helping him to make
the decisions on everything.

Because there was only
one person in the world

that John Kennedy trusted
unequivocally,

and that was Robert Kennedy.

I think that brought them
much closer together

than they had been earlier.

There was, I think,

a recognition
for the first time by Jack,

on a need for Bobby, rather than
simply a use of Bobby.

THOMAS: You would think
that after the Bay of Pigs,

the lesson would be,
don't mess with Castro.

Bobby's nature, however,

was not, when the yellow light
was blinking,

to hit the brakes,
but rather to hit the gas.

 

NARRATOR:
Castro became Bobby's obsession.

Working closely with the C.I.A.,

Bobby launched a secret war
against him,

code-named
"Operation Mongoose."

SAMUEL HALPERN: All kinds of
things were tried, all kinds--

tried to infiltrate
the military,

to have a coup
or a revolt, sabotage.

He was pushing, always pushing.

Bobby Kennedy wanted things
blown up, so we blew things up.

NARRATOR:
Nothing was off-limits.

Between 1960 and 1965,

the C.I.A. made at least
eight separate attempts

on Fidel Castro's life.

But neither of the Kennedys
was ever directly linked

to any of them.

HALPERN: The orders I got were,
"Get rid of Castro."

And I kept asking them, "What
do you mean by, 'Get rid of?'

"Can you be a little bit
more specific?

"What do you want to happen?

What do you want to see
as an end result?"

They said,
"We want him to disappear."

Then it's left up to you,
as a senior officer,

to decide what your limits are,
if any.

THOMAS: My own conclusion

is that Bobby never quite
came out and said,

"You must kill this guy."

You will never find
good evidence.

They didn't write it down.

Uh, Joe Kennedy
once said to Bobby,

"Never write it down--
old Irish rule in Boston."

 

NARRATOR: Bobby attempted
to oust Castro

for nearly two years,

but his efforts only seemed
to stiffen Cuban resolve.

HALPERN:
Total waste of effort.

I tried to tell them that
at the time.

We were not going to succeed.

Fidel was going to be there,
and he's going to stay there.

But Bobby Kennedy didn't
understand what his limits were.

No matter what we told him,
no matter what we tried to do,

no matter how many people
we put on the job,

he was always screaming
for more.

 

♪ ♪

 

NARRATOR: By the end of 1961,
Bobby Kennedy was 36 years old

and the father
of seven children.

After a long day
at the Justice Department,

he returned home
to a Civil War mansion

just outside of Washington

called Hickory Hill.

 

SEIGENTHALER: It was a household
where there was constantly

something going on.

Bob was overloaded with work,

but he always took time
for those children.

♪ ♪

KATHLEEN KENNEDY TOWNSEND: There
was a lot of physical affection.

Saturday or Sunday,
all the children

would pile into my parents' beds

and tickle each other, and it
was called a "tickle tumble."

 

And of course,
there were plenty of dogs,

plenty of horses.

My brother Bobby collected,
you know, reptiles.

We had a coatimundi,
hawks, falcons.

It was a menagerie.

♪ ♪

(child laughing)

 

NARRATOR: Hickory Hill was the
center of Bobby's private world.

 

To be invited
to a Hickory Hill party

signaled acceptance
into an exclusive community

of power and privilege.

THOMAS: A Hickory Hill party
was a weird mixture

of kind of fraternity party

and high-minded salon.

And it was kind of
a fun mix of both,

because they did talk
about serious issues.

They had Hickory Hill seminars,

where they would bring in
famous people

to lecture about child
development or juvenile crime

or the future of the Cold War.

At the same time,
they're goofing around

and they're playing charades.

♪ ♪

It was an odd mixture

of high sophistication
and childish hijinks.

There was a childlike quality
to Bobby Kennedy.

Bobby was always asking
what flavor ice cream you like,

and his favorite was chocolate.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: There were always
plenty of games,

including Bobby's favorite,
touch football.

 

SEIGENTHALER: I really didn't
like to play the Kennedy brand

of touch football.

The rules were crazy.

They made up the rules
as they went along,

or they had their own rules.

 

I played a couple of times,

but I'd usually try to find
something to do--

you know, somebody had
to make a phone call,

or have to go to the bathroom.

 

They were so competitive
with each other,

it was no real fun to play.

 

NARRATOR: When all the guests
had gone home,

Bobby and Ethel assembled
their children

for an evening ritual.

 

TOWNSEND: My mother
and my father shared a belief

that we are on earth
for a short period of time,

and that we are actually
children of God.

We prayed every night

that John Kennedy would be
the best president ever

and that our father would be
the best attorney general ever.

 

NARRATOR: The Kennedy brothers
were now a team.

Jack needed his brother,

and nowhere more
than with a problem

that had begun
to tear the country apart--

the struggle
of African-Americans

for equal rights.

♪ ♪

In the spring of 1961,

a group called
the Freedom Riders set out

to integrate bus stations
across the South.

 

In a little Alabama town
called Anniston,

an angry mob attacked them,
burning their bus,

beating them mercilessly.

♪ ♪

 

JOHN LEWIS: The Freedom Ride
was very dangerous.

Just our very being,
our very presence,

was very, very dangerous.

 

During those days, it was
impossible for a person of color

to get on a bus in the South

without being forced to go
to the back of the bus,

or go to a waiting room
marked "Colored Waiting."

 

Or use a restroom facility

marked "Colored Men,"
"Colored Women."

 

We wanted to bring down
those signs.

 

NARRATOR: The Freedom Riders
were acting

on their constitutional rights.

Federal statute outlawed
segregation in bus terminals

used in interstate
transportation,

and as attorney general,

Robert Kennedy was obligated
to enforce the law.

I didn't know a great deal
about Robert Kennedy.

I knew he was the brother of the
president of the United States.

I knew he was
the attorney general.

I wanted him to... to intervene.

NARRATOR:
But Bobby was reluctant.

The rage and resistance
from white Southerners

had taken him by surprise.

"Before I became attorney
general," he admitted,

"I won't say I lay awake
at night

worrying about civil rights."

NEWFIELD: I think he was slow
and late in getting it

about the Civil Rights Movement.

Robert Kennedy was saying

what most of the establishment
said in that period--

"It's a good idea,
but it's the wrong time."

KATZENBACH:
I don't think any of us

going into the department,

despite our views
on civil rights,

really appreciated
how mean it was in the South

and how dangerous it was.

Bobby used to compare the
discrimination against blacks

to... to the "No Irish Wanted."

And you know, that... that was
a wrong... a wrong comparison--

one I think was actually
resented by blacks,

despite the fact
that he meant it well.

ROGER WILKINS:
They didn't know black people.

They didn't know black pain.

They were not comfortable
with black people.

So there was no reason
to expect,

I can say in retrospect,

them to be wise
and passionate about this.

WOFFORD: The president and the
attorney general both realized

that the civil rights issue

was the hot rail
in American politics.

They had won an election with,
by 100,000 votes.

They didn't really command a,
a working majority in Congress.

It was very narrow on any issue.

The Southern Democrats defecting

would have meant the loss
of, of any legislative agenda.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: As the Freedom Riders
traveled deeper into Alabama,

Bobby, fearing more violence,
was determined to stop them.

 

"Tell them," he told the special
deputy for civil rights,

"to call it off!"

WOFFORD: He got on the phone

and said,
"Stop those Freedom Riders.

"The president's about to go
to Vienna to meet Khrushchev.

"It's embarrassing us
before the world.

Stop it!"

They were under way.

They were not a stoppable group.

WILKINS:
Black people in the South

had gotten the sense
of their efficacy

as people and as citizens.

And to have Bob Kennedy's
Justice Department

tell them what to do

would have been taking
a major step backward.

Who are you going to listen to?

Are you going to listen to
the black people of the South,

or are you going to listen
to the kid from Massachusetts?

Well, that's an easy answer.

WOFFORD:
Bob was angry

that they were upsetting
everything by doing this.

He wanted
the civil rights movement

to focus on winning
the right to vote,

and he didn't like his
more stately agenda being upset.

But, once it was upset,
then Bobby went into action.

NARRATOR: Desperate to find
a way to protect the riders,

frantically improvising, Bobby
sent his aide John Seigenthaler

to meet with Alabama Governor
John Patterson.

SEIGENTHALER:
I go in and sit down,

and I say,
"I'm from the attorney general.

These people have
to be given safe conduct."

He says, "We can't protect them.

"I am telling you,
it is impossible.

"All the people we've got
in this state upset about this--

"I mean, of course
people are violent.

"These people are coming here
asking for a fight,

and they're going
to get a fight."

JOHN LEWIS: That evening,
we stayed in the waiting room

at the Greyhound bus station
in Birmingham all night.

We kept hearing rumors
that Robert Kennedy was trying

to negotiate a way for us
to leave Birmingham.

He kept saying to people,
we had a right to travel.

I said, "Governor, look.

"If you can't protect them,
we don't have any choice.

"Either we've got
to have marshals come in

"and protect them,

"or troops come in
and protect them.

That's the last thing you want,
the last thing,"

and he banged the table,
he said,

"If marshals or troops
come into Alabama,

blood will run in the streets."

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Seigenthaler
and Patterson struck a deal.

The Freedom Riders would have
state protection.

 

As they headed toward the
Alabama capital in Montgomery,

Bobby believed that they would
be given safe passage.

JOHN LEWIS: It was so strange;
it was eerie, frightening.

 

It was so quiet, so peaceful.

And the moment we arrived
at the bus station,

the very moment we started down
the steps off of that bus,

a mob came out of nowhere,

and they beat and beat
the reporters,

and you saw blood everywhere.

And then they turned on us.

I was hit in the head
by a member of the mob

with a wooden crate.

And my seatmate was...
beaten so bad,

and I found myself laying
in a pool of blood.

 

SEIGENTHALER: And as I pulled up
to the bus station,

you could hear the screams.

I just leaped out of the car.

And at that moment, they
wheeled me around and said...

Two guys, and said,

"What do you think
you're doing?"

I said-- magic words: "Get back.

I'm with
the federal government."

And as I turned back,

they hit me with a pipe,
right here.

JOHN LEWIS: Robert Kennedy
became educated

in a real hurry.

And I'll tell you the thing
that sealed it for him,

perhaps more
than anything else--

after John Seigenthaler
was beaten,

someone that he knew.

I think everything he thought

the administration of justice
and law enforcement

was supposed to be about

had been violated--
that it was an outrage,

that it was a stain on law
enforcement to let that happen.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Frustrated
by Southern officials,

Bobby ordered the
Interstate Commerce Commission

to enforce the ban
on segregation

in public transportation.

All of those signs that said

"White Waiting,"
"Colored Waiting," "White Men,"

"Colored Men," "White Women,"
"Colored Women"--

those signs came tumbling down.

 

NEWFIELD: He began to understand
civil rights in stages.

Very few people who are
in great positions of power

actually go through
real interior change,

but Robert Kennedy
really did change,

and that change, I think,
began around civil rights.

 

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
While civil rights protests

and demonstrations continued,

the Kennedy administration was
faced with yet another crisis.

 

On October 16, 1962,

the president learned
that the Soviet Union

was deploying nuclear missiles
in Cuba

capable of vaporizing American
cities along the East Coast

within minutes.

ARTHUR SCHLESINGER: It is
the most dangerous moment

in all human history.

Never before had two contending
powers possessed between them

the technical capacity
to blow up the world.

NARRATOR:
As the president's advisers

debated the American response,

Bobby's first instinct
was to lash out,

pressing for air strikes
to destroy the bases--

even for an invasion
of the island itself.

THOMAS: On the first day,
when they discover the missiles,

all Bobby wants to do is stage
a provocation and bomb Cuba.

I mean, he's a complete
and total hawk.

But this is
the significant part.

He changes his mind.

NARRATOR: After hours and hours
of intense debate,

Bobby began to reconsider.

"We've talked for 15 years
about the Russians

making the first strike
against us," he said,

"and we'd never do that.

"Now to do that
to a small country...

It's a hell of a burden
to carry."

SHESOL: It's Robert Kennedy

who makes the powerful
moral argument

that to invade Cuba would be to
wage a Pearl Harbor in reverse,

that America simply
didn't do this.

We simply didn't wage
pre-emptive attacks.

We didn't strike
without warning.

And this argument
didn't carry the day,

but it was
an important argument,

and it started to affect
and slow down this rush to war.

NARRATOR: "I was
very much surprised

by Bobby's performance,"

Undersecretary of State
George Ball said.

"I always had a feeling
that Bobby had

"a much too simplistic position
toward things.

"But he behaved
quite differently

during the Cuban
missile crisis."

♪ ♪

The crisis lasted 13 days,

until the Russians finally
agreed to withdraw the missiles

in exchange
for a public American pledge

not to invade Cuba

and a secret promise to withdraw
American missiles from Turkey.

 

Bobby had hardly slept,
rarely gone home.

An aide who walked
into his office remarked,

"Something is different
in here."

Bobby replied, "I'm older."

 

♪ ♪

 

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: The
thing that is hurting us most

is the continued existence of
segregation and discrimination,

and we think we are rendering
a great service to our nation,

for this is not a struggle
for ourselves alone;

it is a struggle to save
the soul of America.

NARRATOR:
While the Kennedys

were confronting
the Soviet Union,

the civil rights movement
had not gone away.

Bobby was determined to help,
but on his own terms.

He was growing increasingly
exasperated with the man

who was emerging
as the movement's

most conspicuous and inspiring
leader,

Martin Luther King.

WOFFORD: Tension between King
and Bob Kennedy was inevitable.

Here was an uncontrollable
force, a moral force,

a person who was as much his
own man as Robert Kennedy was.

Bob liked to, you know,
control his agenda.

And King's business
was to, you know,

overthrow people's agendas.

King, I think,
worried about Bobby.

He worried that he wasn't
morally committed enough.

He didn't sense the passion
in Bobby.

On the other hand,
he had great hope

that Bobby's readiness
to use power

would be turned to civil rights.

He had hope, but he worried.

 

NARRATOR: On May 3, 1963,

King sent nonviolent protesters
into the streets of Birmingham

to boycott the city's
segregated businesses.

(screaming)

NARRATOR:
As the Birmingham police

used high-pressure hoses
to disperse them,

Bobby watched it all
on television.

 

Many of the protesters
were children.

 

He was furious--

caught between
a civil rights movement

that refused to back down

and the violent antagonism
of the South.

ANTHONY LEWIS:
That a police chief would set

police dogs and fire hoses
on people

for demanding to be treated
fairly in a department store,

that was bound to hit
at his moral core.

The events entirely transformed
Robert Kennedy.

He started out thinking
that it would be better

if people would calm down,

slow down, and let gradual
improvement take place.

Bobby learned
that you couldn't wait,

and that black people
were entitled

to the most
elementary rights now.

NARRATOR: That summer,
Bobby urged his brother

to put a civil rights bill
before Congress

that would put an end
to segregation

in public accommodations.

But the president
and his advisers hesitated.

KATZENBACH: If you put
civil rights legislation

before Congress,

it was going to tie up
the Congress

for the best part
of the next year.

And that meant that whatever
other programs you had

were going to be put
on a back burner.

But Bobby convinced his brother
that not only was it right,

but for the first time,
it was possible,

and that the president
really has to take leadership

on a moral issue.

We are confronted primarily
with a moral issue.

It is as old as the scriptures

and is as clear
as the American Constitution.

The heart of the question is

whether all Americans
are to be afforded

equal rights
and equal opportunities,

whether we are going to treat
our fellow Americans

as we want to be treated.

JOHN LEWIS:
It was probably the first time

in the history of our country

that an American president
would say

that the question
of civil rights,

the question of race,

was a moral issue.

And he had the encouragement
of Robert Kennedy

to push him in this direction.

Robert Kennedy was learning--
he was growing.

He said to me,
"John, I now understand.

The young people
have educated me."

And you could see it,
you could feel it.

And Robert Kennedy during that
period became so convinced,

not just as a politician,

not just
as the attorney general,

but as a human being,

that it was time
for there to be some major steps

to end racial discrimination
in America.

NARRATOR: While Bobby
increasingly empathized

with the civil rights movement,

that fall, he authorized
a wiretap on Martin Luther King

at the request

of one of the most powerful
figures in Washington.

FBI director J. Edgar Hoover
hated King,

insisted that King was
a communist threat,

and placed him
under close surveillance.

Bobby acquiesced.

If there were communists
in the civil rights movement,

he wanted to know about it.

But there was another reason:

Bobby was afraid of Hoover,

not for himself,
but for his brother.

STEEL:
Jack was a promiscuous guy

who took great pleasure

in having
a lot of women around him,

and he was careless about this
after he became president,

almost to the point
of recklessness.

THOMAS: Bobby knew that Hoover
was a blackmail artist.

He knew that Hoover had files
on his brother.

Hoover had heard
that Bobby wanted to fire him.

And he had wanted to use

President Kennedy's
sexual habits

to essentially blackmail
the administration

to make sure
that he kept his job.

WOFFORD: There's no question
Bob regretted

that he had authorized
the wiretapping of King,

but Hoover was somebody that
everybody was intimidated by.

If Hoover ever released
any of the information he had,

allowed it to be known,

what would happen
to the Kennedy presidency?

♪ ♪

 

NARRATOR:
On November 20, 1963,

Bobby celebrated
his 38th birthday

at a party at Hickory Hill.

 

The president stopped by
to wish him well.

He was about to leave
for a political trip to Dallas.

He said
he was looking forward to it.

 

Already the brothers were
thinking about the next election

and the opportunities
a second term would give them.

Three years
of intense collaboration

had bound them
so closely together,

each seemed to know
what the other was thinking.

SCHLESINGER: No sooner
did one of them begin a sentence

than the other knew
what he was saying.

They understood each other
so well

that they talked
in a kind of shorthand.

 

RICHARD GOODWIN: Well, everybody
was having a good time.

It was a birthday party,
and the president stopped by.

The motorcade came up,

and he came in and shook hands.

He didn't stay very long,
as I remember.

Then he was off to Dallas,
I guess, the next day.

 

NARRATOR: Bobby would never see
his brother again.

 

On the afternoon
of November 22, 1963,

Robert Kennedy received a phone
call from J. Edgar Hoover.

 

"I have news for you,"
Hoover said.

"The president's been shot."

 

30 minutes later,
the phone rang again.

Bobby's brother was dead.

 

♪ ♪

 

NARRATOR:
On November 24, 1963,

while the nation mourned
a president,

Robert Kennedy grieved
for a brother

to whom he had been devoted.

 

SEIGENTHALER:
It was a physical blow to him,

that loss of his brother--

an emotional blow,
intellectual blow,

but it took
a physical toll on him.

He was physically in pain.

 

ADAM WALINSKY:
The enormous sadness and ache,

it was there all the time.

I never knew him

when he wasn't in a kind of
mourning for President Kennedy.

♪ ♪

CHARLES SPALDING:
I was with Bobby,

and I talked with him
for a while

and it came time to go to bed,

so I closed the door
and I waited outside,

and I heard him just sobbing,

and he was saying,
"Why, why, God, why?"

 

STEEL: I think that Bobby found
himself bereft, alone,

and the inheritor of not only
a family ambition,

but a national myth.

 

♪ ♪

When Jack died,
Bobby was truly at a loss.

He was deprived not only
of a brother he loved,

but, in a sense,
of his own identity,

because to be the helper,

and be the servant,
and be the henchman

could no longer be his identity.

He had to forge some kind
of identity for himself.

 

NARRATOR: He didn't know
who he was or what he stood for

or what he was capable of.

His brother's legacy
was his to bear.

Now he would have to struggle
to create a legacy of his own.

(fire)

 

(fire)

 

♪ ♪

 

(crowd applauding)

It would have been difficult
for Robert Kennedy

to watch any man take
his brother's place,

but watching Lyndon Johnson
was next to impossible.

 

All I have

I would have given gladly

not to be standing here today.

NARRATOR: The two men
now rarely spoke of one another

without contempt.

Bobby described LBJ
as "mean, bitter, vicious."

LBJ called Bobby
"a snot-nosed kid"

and "a grandstanding
little runt."

SHESOL: Johnson had particular
contempt for the fact

that Robert Kennedy had never
run for office,

he had never been elected
to anything.

And he saw him
as a child of privilege,

as someone who had never really
earned the offices that he held.

Whereas Lyndon Johnson had had
to fight for it on his own

and earned it in his own right.

NARRATOR: LBJ moved quickly
to assume the mantle

of the fallen president.

He convinced
a reluctant Robert Kennedy,

along with the rest
of John Kennedy's Cabinet,

to stay on,

then swiftly began to push

JFK's sputtering
legislative program

through Congress.

My fellow Americans,

I am about to sign into law
the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

SHESOL:
The Kennedy legislative program

was sitting on the Hill
and not doing much of anything

by the time
of John Kennedy's assassination.

Lyndon Johnson picks it up,
infuses it with energy,

gives it new meaning
and new strength,

and drives it
through the Congress

like only Lyndon Johnson can.

This administration today,
here and now,

declares unconditional war
on poverty in America.

(applause)

SHESOL: One might expect
Robert Kennedy to be pleased

about the success
of the Kennedy agenda.

But it was hard to be pleased
with what LBJ was doing

when it was LBJ doing it,
and not his brother.

SHESOL: He thinks of Johnson
as a usurper,

he thinks of Johnson
as illegitimate,

and it's painful for him

to watch Johnson take these
pieces of his brother's legacy,

and take ownership
of his brother's legacy.

It no longer belongs
to his brother.

It no longer belongs to him.

It belongs to Lyndon Johnson.

 

NARRATOR: While LBJ dominated
the nation's politics,

Bobby remained inconsolable.

He was a haunted man,
forever dwelling on his loss,

as if cultivating the pain

helped keep
his brother's memory alive.

He took to wearing
his brother's old jacket,

although he often
forgot it somewhere,

as if the jacket was at once
a connection to his brother,

and a kind of burden

he desperately wanted
to leave behind.

SEIGENTHALER:
Pain was etched on his face.

He told me he couldn't sleep,
he'd lost weight.

He asked me how he looked.

I said, "You look like hell."

And he did.

STEEL: He'd become--
as in the Robert Frost poem

that his brother also
often loved to quote--

acquainted with the night.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
He and the president's widow

often visited
John Kennedy's grave--

their shared sorrow
drawing them closer together.

 

When his faith
in the Catholic Church

could not alone sustain him,

it was Jacqueline Kennedy
who suggested

he read the tragic dramas
of the ancient Greeks.

 

"In agony, learn wisdom,"
he read in Aeschylus.

"Injustice is the nature
of things."

 

STEEL:
Grief humanized him.

I think it took him away
from a life

dedicated to power and will
and ambition

toward a...

a deeper identification
with people who suffered.

NARRATOR: Slowly, Bobby emerged
from his despair,

reconnecting to the everyday
world through politics

and his need to carry forth
the legacy of his brother.

 

Over the past few weeks,
many leading members

of the Democratic
and the Liberal parties

here in the state of New York

have talked to me
about being a candidate

for the United States Senate...

NARRATOR:
On August 22, 1964,

still wearing the black tie

he had worn since
his brother's death,

Robert Kennedy announced
that for the first time,

he would run
for political office.

I shall resign from the Cabinet
to campaign for election.

I shall devote all of my effort

and all of whatever talents
that I possess

to the state of New York.

This I pledge.

(crowds cheering)

NEWFIELD: It is the biggest
transition of his life,

to go from the shadows
to the stage.

And he had a fear:
"What if I lose?

"What if I let my brother down?

"What if I let my family down?

"What if I've made
the wrong decision?

What if I'm not ready
to run for the Senate?"

He was still a wounded animal,
half a zombie.

He wasn't ready
to, to face the voters.

MAN: The former attorney general
of the United States

and candidate for United States
Senate from New York,

Robert F. Kennedy.

(cheers and applause)

NEWFIELD: He was still hurting
and suffering.

 

NARRATOR: Although voters
turned out in large numbers,

Bobby found it hard
to accept their enthusiasm.

"They're cheering him,"
he said.

"They're for him."

He didn't want to trade
on being his brother's brother.

He didn't think that was right.

At the same time, he didn't
really have a series of things

that "I, Robert Kennedy, will do

as the senator
from the state of New York."

REPORTER: What about this tour
of the Fulton Fish Market?

What are your impressions?

Well, they have a lot of fish
in the, uh...

And it just didn't work
very well.

I am very pleased and happy

to have the opportunity to speak
with all of you this morning.

NARRATOR: He quickly fell behind
in the polls.

He was struggling to define
himself and what he stood for.

I, uh... join, uh...
Senator Rob, Bob Brownstein

and Congressman Multer...

SHESOL: He has spoken
for his brother,

on behalf of his brother,

for most of his political life.

Suddenly he's a figure
in his own right,

but he can really
only see himself

as fulfilling
his brother's legacy,

doing what his brother would do

if only his brother
were still with us.

I think we started something
three-and-a-half years ago.

I think it was started
January 1961,

and I think this election

is whether
we're going to keep it going.

(crowd cheers)

NEWFIELD: He quoted his brother
almost obsessively.

He... had a lot of the hand
gestures of his brother.

And it was easy to believe
for a minute,

and you didn't have to close
your eyes to do it,

that John Kennedy
was still with us.

And if we want
to continue that effort,

then we have to elect
a Democratic administration.

(cheers and applause)

NARRATOR:
Bobby was at war with himself,

his need to emulate his brother

battling with his desire
to find his own voice.

♪ ♪

KENNEDY: I think
that this election's important,

because I think there's
a lot that needs to be done.

...an intolerable situation,
and it has to be changed.

If I'm elected
to the United States Senate,

I intend to fight for that.

NARRATOR:
Despite the cheering crowds,

as the campaign wound down,

the election remained
too close to call.

♪ ♪

Much to Kennedy's chagrin,

there was only one man
who could help him.

The United States

needs a young, dynamic,
compassionate, fighting liberal

representing New York
in the United States Senate--

Bob Kennedy.

(cheers and applause)

EDELMAN:
It had to stick in RFK's craw

to have to accept anything
from Lyndon Johnson.

 

NARRATOR: Bobby had trouble
hiding his distaste,

but he was a pragmatist.

LBJ may have hated Bobby,

but he wanted a Democrat
in the Senate.

(crowds cheering)

When all the votes were counted,

LBJ had helped put Bobby
over the top.

KENNEDY: For all of us who were
elected on this day,

all of us now have
a responsibility.

Our job has just begun.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: But even victory could
not relieve his melancholy.

"If my brother was alive,"
Bobby told a friend,

"I wouldn't be here.

I'd rather have it that way."

 

That night, Bobby called LBJ
to thank him for his help.

JOHNSON (on phone): We got a lot
to be thankful for, Bobby,

and give our love to Ethel,
and, uh...

Let's... Let's stay as close
together as he'd want us to.

KENNEDY: That'd be fine,
that'd be fine, Mr. President.

Congratulations, sir.

JOHNSON:
Tell all that staff of yours

that ain't nobody going
to divide us,

and I'll tell mine
the same way, and we'll...

KENNEDY:
That's right.

JOHNSON:
We'll move ahead, and...

I'm proud of you.

KENNEDY: Thanks very much,
thanks for your help.

JOHNSON:
Thank you for calling.

KENNEDY:
It made a hell of a difference.

Thanks.

(phone disconnects)

 

NARRATOR: Bobby Kennedy was
never cut out to be a senator.

He was used
to making things happen,

and the Senate's glacial pace
irritated him.

THOMAS: He was
the second-most powerful man

in the most powerful country
in the world,

and now he's a junior senator.

He can't even get a seat on
the Foreign Relations Committee.

He used to run covert actions,

and now he can't even
go to the hearings.

So he is a grumpy,
cranky senator,

who won't sit
through long-winded speeches

and is disrespectful
of other senators.

He'll just get up and walk out.

NARRATOR:
Bobby, a friend said,

felt impotent,
frustrated, floundering.

He escaped the Senate chambers
as often as he could,

channeling his restless
energies elsewhere.

♪ ♪

Two months after taking his seat
in the Senate,

he set out to scale a 14,000-
foot mountain in Canada,

recently named Mount Kennedy
after his brother.

No one had ever made it
to the top before.

And Robert Kennedy had never
climbed a mountain before.

THOMAS:
Bobby hated heights.

He was afraid of heights.

He didn't train for it, really.

I mean, he joked that,
as Ethel said,

that he trained for it

by running up and down
the stairs yelling, "Help."

 

NARRATOR:
He was nearly 40 years old.

Now, roped between
two veteran climbers,

Bobby forced his way forward,

urging the others
to increase the pace.

 

NEWFIELD: I think Robert Kennedy
had a reckless streak in him.

He was a ferocious competitor

and with a tremendous amount
of aggression and will.

♪ ♪

 

NARRATOR:
After two days of climbing,

nearing the top,
Bobby moved ahead

and reached the summit alone.

♪ ♪

Kneeling down, he wedged
his brother's inaugural address

into the snow.

 

For a moment, he stared off
into the distance.

"I didn't really enjoy
any part of it," he said later.

 

It was a daring exploit,

and a media sensation that would
have delighted any politician.

But American politics were
about to take a darker turn.

Bombs had begun to fall

on a small impoverished country
in Southeast Asia.

(explosions booming,
bombs whistling)

♪ ♪

Lyndon Johnson began bombing
North Vietnam

in February 1965.

 

He had inherited the war
from Bobby's brother.

Now he was escalating it.

(helicopter rotors spinning)

With Vietnam divided
into a communist North

and an American-supported
South,

LBJ hoped
that massive air assaults

would force the North Vietnamese
to abandon their efforts

to reunite the country.

 

But the North Vietnamese
resisted.

 

For the next three years,

Robert Kennedy's fate
would be increasingly bound

to the outcome of a war
on the other side of the world.

 

Bobby had been committed
to the war

when his brother was president.

Now that LBJ was
in the White House,

he continued to support
its objectives.

 

"The loss of Vietnam,"
he told an aide,

would mean "the loss
of all of Southeast Asia

"and have profound effects

on our position
throughout the world."

THOMAS:
Bobby is a Cold Warrior.

He shares the worldview
that communism is a threat,

and it's advancing,
and that you have to contain it,

so he doesn't question
the underlying assumptions

of the Vietnam War.

He embraces them
and endorses them.

♪ ♪

 

(explosions booming)

SHESOL: But Robert Kennedy
is deeply uneasy

about Johnson's escalation
of the war,

really from the very beginning.

 

He speaks to Johnson
privately, on the telephone--

conversations
that were recorded.

KENNEDY (on phone): I have
not been involved intimately

with, uh,
Southeast Asia, Vietnam,

but I would think that that war
will never be won militarily;

that where it's going to be won,
really, is a political war.

Military action obviously
will have to be taken,

but unless the political action
is taken concurrently,

in my judgment, I just don't
think it can be successful.

JOHNSON:
I think that, uh...

that's good thinking

and that's not any different

from the way
I have felt about it.

SHESOL: Johnson says

that he agrees
with Bobby Kennedy completely.

And this is the sort of thing

that Johnson probably believes
when he's saying it,

but it is not the course
of U.S. policy.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
All through the spring of 1965,

Johnson continued
to up the ante.

He had already sent 75,000
American soldiers to Vietnam.

 

That July, he sent 50,000 more.

As the war drifted
out of control,

Bobby began to tentatively air
his doubts in public.

May I ask you
the direct question:

Do support fully
his present policy on Vietnam?

 

Well, I support basic...

I basically support the policy,
Mr. Spivak.

I have some reservations
about whether we're doing enough

in the economic
and the political field,

and I also have felt
for some period of time

that a major effort
had to be undertaken

in the diplomatic field.

SHESOL: Robert Kennedy believes
that America needs

to bring Ho Chi Minh
to the table to negotiate.

Johnson, meanwhile,
is taking the opposite course,

which is to escalate, to try
to bomb Ho into submission.

NARRATOR: For the rest of 1966,
Bobby said little about the war.

Instead, he turned his attention
to problems at home.

He would begin to speak out
on behalf of the dispossessed,

and as he reached out to them,

he would transform
his sense of himself.

(sirens wailing)

 

In the summer of 1965,

riots in Watts,

a poor African-American section
of Los Angeles,

left 34 people dead
and more than 1,000 injured.

Bobby was shaken.

WALINSKY:
He bumped into some reporter,

who asked him what he thought

about, you know,
"Should these Negroes"--

as we called them then--

"be obeying the law?"

And he said, "Well," he said,
"I don't know."

He said, "What did the law
ever do for the Negro?"

I don't think that
it's possible in our society

and with our government

to tolerate lawlessness
and disorder and violence.

But at the same time,

I think that we've got
to make more progress

than we have in the past,

be more effective with the
programs that we've instituted,

have some imagination to try
to deal with the lack of hope

that exists in many
of these communities.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: In a neighborhood
in Brooklyn

called Bedford-Stuyvesant,

Bobby Kennedy meant
to show the nation

what could be done
about poverty.

 

NEWFIELD: Bedford-Stuyvesant
has got tremendous problems

of unemployment,
drugs, slum housing,

and Robert Kennedy
was an activist.

He wanted to do something
about it.

He felt it was cheap grace
to just make a speech

and deplore poverty or racism
and not do something about it.

EDELMAN: And so he gets involved
with the community leadership,

and they plan together
an initiative that will be,

not only about housing
in the neighborhood,

but about jobs
and about public safety

and about really trying
to build a community there.

What we brought together
for the first time, really,

is the city,
private foundations,

the federal government,

and I think most significant,
the private sector.

WALINSKY: When he went to the
businesspeople, he didn't say,

"I want you to give money,
I want charity,"

because that's too easy--
that just buys off.

What he did was, he said,
"I want investment here.

"I want you to run
business here.

"I want you to hire people.

I want you to make things here."

To have any success
in Bedford-Stuyvesant

is going to require
the initiative

and the imagination
and the courage

of the people who live
in the community.

The programs are going
to have to be developed

by the people who live
in the community.

WALINSKY: He believed the core
of any program had to be

work and self-help
and self-mastery.

People had to have
the wherewithal

not to be defined by others,

but to be able
to define themselves.

America's a very rich country.

We could just hand out incomes.

What he said was, was that that
would be profoundly destructive.

He hated welfare, but thought
jobs were the solution,

not just throwing people
off the rolls.

 

He had this empathy, seeing it
from the point of view

of what it was like
to be a black child

in a desperate situation,

with no jobs
and no chance of college

and broken family and drugs
and gangs all around.

 

I grew up in Bedford-Stuyvesant,
and I'll never forget

one of the days we're going
around Bed-Stuy, he said to me,

"I envy the fact
you grew up in poverty,

and you grew up
with black friends."

And I said, "Well, what
would've happened to you,

if you had grown up
on this block, instead of me?"

And he looks up and down the
block at all... all of this,

you know, poverty and drug
addiction and alcoholism,

and he says, "If I grew up here,
I would've either become

a juvenile delinquent
or a revolutionary."

 

NARRATOR:
Robert Kennedy had begun

to reach beyond the guarded
politics of his brother.

John Kennedy had always
moved slowly, with caution.

Now, Bobby was throwing
caution to the wind.

(chanting)

 

In March 1966,
Kennedy flew to California,

where his Senate subcommittee

was investigating
the causes of a strike

by migrant grape pickers.

(man talking indistinctly)

EDELMAN: Robert Kennedy walks
into the hearings,

and the witness is this sheriff

who is explaining
to the committee

how it is that he's arresting
these demonstrators

who are legally picketing.

If I have reason
to believe

that there's going
to be a riot started,

and somebody tells me that
there's going to be trouble

if you don't stop them,

then it's my duty
to stop them.

KENNEDY: And you go out
and arrest them?

Well, absolutely.

How can you go arrest somebody

if they haven't violated
the law?

SHERIFF: They're ready
to violate the law.

In other words...

(crowd clamoring)

Just like these labor people
out here,

if they ask their attorney,
"What shall we do?"

KENNEDY:
Could I suggest

in the luncheon period
of time

that the sheriff
and the district attorney

read the Constitution
of the United States?

(cheers and applause)

 

NARRATOR: Bobby declared his
support for the grape strike,

even joined a picket line.

He was discovering there were
causes he believed in,

people he could fight for.

NEWFIELD:
Kennedy took things personally.

He saw somebody hurting,
and he hurt.

He was so intense,
so personal

about somebody else's pain
or injustice,

and that's what made him

a totally different
kind of senator.

♪ ♪

 

NARRATOR:
By the beginning of 1967,

almost 400,000 Americans
were fighting in Vietnam.

 

More than 9,000 had been killed,

more than 60,000 wounded.

 

As the carnage continued,

senators and congressmen
from Lyndon Johnson's own party

began to speak out
against the war,

but Bobby Kennedy
still hesitated.

NEWFIELD:
It took Kennedy a long time

to decide he was going
to oppose the Vietnam War.

It was an agonizing process
of indecision.

He values courage
above all other human qualities,

and he realizes he's not
displaying courage,

he's not displaying leadership.

But he was conflicted.

 

NARRATOR:
Not until February 1967

would Kennedy break decisively
with the president,

after a bitter confrontation
in the White House.

SHESOL: Robert Kennedy takes
a trip to Europe

in January of 1967,

and he comes back to find that
there's a report in "Newsweek"

that he has received
an important "peace feeler"--

as it was called--
from the Vietnamese;

that they are trying to send
a plan for peace through him.

Now, there's no truth
to this whatsoever,

but there it is in "Newsweek."

KATZENBACH:
And LBJ called

and asked if we both could come
to the White House,

which we did.

Johnson was in a foul mood.

And he was embarrassed by it.

And he was... he was always
prepared to think

that anything that he was
embarrassed by

was something
that Bobby had done.

LBJ was just terrible.

He was mean and nasty to Bobby.

And Bobby was saying,
"I had nothing to do with this.

I don't know of any peace
feelers that were made."

And Johnson believed none of it.

And Bobby was just livid.

He was so mad.

And Bobby comes back
to his office

and says,
"The president's unhinged."

I mean, he was abusive and maybe
just not mentally stable.

He told his aides that he would
never again have anything to do

with Lyndon Johnson,

that the way he had been treated
was so inexcusable

that he could simply never have
any real dealings with the man

past that point.

NARRATOR: A month later,
Bobby rose in the Senate,

condemned the morality
of the war,

and then admitted his own share
of responsibility.

"I can testify," he said,
"that if fault is to be found,

there is enough to go around
for all, including myself."

SHESOL: He is the first
politician, of either party,

to take responsibility
for what's happening in Vietnam,

the first politician
to accept blame,

which gives a moral strength to
the argument that he's making.

Do we have a right here
in the United States to say

that we're going to kill
tens of thousands,

make millions of people--
as we have--

millions of people refugees,

kill women and children--
as we have...

I very seriously question
whether we have that right.

Now we're saying,
"We're going to fight there

"so that we don't have
to fight in Thailand,

"so that we don't have to fight

"on the West Coast
of the United States,

so that they won't move
across the Rockies."

But do we...
our whole moral position,

it seems to me,
changes tremendously.

SHESOL:
Robert Kennedy in 1967

has come to question the basic
assumptions of the war.

He has begun to question

whether we really do need
to make a stand in Vietnam

to protect that region
from communism.

He's come to question

whether our national security
interest in Vietnam

is outweighed by
the incredible human suffering

that we're inflicting
by waging war in this country.

He's questioning the moral
legitimacy of this war,

which is something that
he hasn't done to this point.

He's confronted by new issues,

and he grows in order to be able
to face these challenges.

He really learns
from experience,

and he really becomes
something much larger

than what he was when he began.

DALLEK: He becomes more
and more thoughtful,

more and more philosophical,
more and more ready to accept

that he does not have
a monopoly on wisdom,

that maybe this war in Vietnam
was a fundamental mistake,

and that maybe his brother
would've gotten out.

 

ANTHONY LEWIS:
Most people acquire certainties

as they grow older.

Bobby Kennedy discarded
certainties.

He grew.

He started as this zealot,

and he ended up as this man
very sympathetic

to those who were the despisèd
and rejected of life.

 

NARRATOR: Robert Kennedy
was now reaching out

to Americans everywhere
who had been left behind.

 

He had fully awakened
from his dark night of mourning.

The moral impulse to fight evil
and do good

that had always been
a part of him

was taking a new direction.

NEWFIELD: He wanted to know what
life was like for someone else.

He would ask, "What do you feel,
what do you think?"

He wanted to be inside the eyes
of America's casualties.

He wanted to see the world
the way they saw it.

ANTHONY LEWIS: People believed
in his understanding

of their situation,

because he visibly was moved.

He was someone who responded

in the most graphic,
human, emotional terms.

He was somebody who bled,

who was raw
from the hurt done to others.

The hurt he felt from the
assassination of his brother

gave him that empathy

for everyone else
who hurt after that.

I think he did begin
to change incrementally

while he was attorney general,
before his brother was killed,

but I think
that all grew dramatically

after his brother's murder,

because then he identified
with every other victim.

Anyone who was a casualty
in life,

he began to feel,
was his brother.

 

PROTESTERS (chanting):
Hey, hey, LBJ,

how many kids
did you kill today?

Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids
did you kill today?

NARRATOR:
By 1967, America was in turmoil.

PROTESTERS: Hey, hey, LBJ,

how many kids
did you kill today?

NARRATOR: Protesters
against the war in Vietnam

marched on Washington

and bitterly attacked
the president.

With the election
just one year away,

they were desperate
for someone to challenge him.

Bobby Kennedy was besieged
from all sides

by people urging him
to take on Johnson.

But he hesitated,
profoundly conflicted.

"If I run," Bobby said, "I will
go a long way toward proving

"everything that everybody
who doesn't like me

"has said about me:

"that I've never accepted
Lyndon Johnson as president,

"that I'm just a selfish,
ambitious little S.O.B.

that can't wait to get his hands
on the White House."

He is absolutely tormented by
this decision he has to make,

either to support Johnson
or to run for president.

I said to him, "Don't run."

I said to him,

"You're not going to unseat
Lyndon Johnson.

"He despises you.

"There's no way he's going
to step aside if you get in.

He'd love to take you
to the convention and beat you."

But he was caught
in an emotional trap.

It was as if inexorable forces
were pushing him

in the direction of running.

And everything he was about
in life

was suddenly on the line.

♪ ♪

NEWFIELD:
He was tortured about it.

I remember talking to him,

and he suddenly,
this gusher came out

about his feelings
about Johnson.

And he says,
"I know he's president today

"because
my brother appointed him...

"nominated him
for vice president.

"I know my brother is implicated

"in the beginning
of the Vietnam War.

"For me to run against Johnson,

I have to run against
President Kennedy's judgment."

And that was agonizing,
agonizing for Robert Kennedy,

because, in a way,
it would have meant

running against the person
he loved most in the world,

his brother.

PANELIST: Isn't it true

people who believe that you
are the real alternative

to President Johnson

are going to bring pressure
upon you

and increase their activities
on your behalf?

I don't anticipate
that that will occur.

But, uh...

I'm going to continue
as I have said,

and I'm not a candidate
for the Democratic nomination.

MARTIN AGRONSKY:
Senator, I'm...

KENNEDY: No matter what I do,
I'm in difficulty.

PANELIST: Well,
I wasn't trying to get you...

No, I know you weren't,
but isn't that...

But you say, "Isn't that
what is going to happen?"

I suppose now all kinds
of things can happen.

I don't know what I can do
to prevent that

or what I should do
that is any different,

other than to try to get off
the earth in some way.

Senator, nobody wants you
to get off the earth, obviously.

Nobody's trying to put
you on the spot, really.

No?

AGRONSKY: Everyone appreciates
the difficulty of your position.

 

NARRATOR:
"The hottest places in hell,"

Bobby liked to say,
quoting Dante,

"are reserved for those who,
in a time of great moral crisis,

maintain their neutrality."

 

While Bobby hesitated,
another liberal Democrat,

Minnesota senator
Eugene McCarthy,

picked up the sword that Kennedy
was still refusing to wield.

I intend to enter the Democratic
primaries in four states...

NARRATOR:
As McCarthy campaigned

through New Hampshire
that winter,

Bobby watched
with dismay and envy.

NEWFIELD: It hurt Kennedy
that he was on the sidelines.

More and more college students

were not just going
to McCarthy's campaign

but were starting to heckle him.

I mean, he spoke
at Brooklyn College one day,

and there was a big sign,
"RFK: hawk, dove, or chicken?"

And that was a razor
in his heart.

He was really reeling around

about what's
the right thing to do.

WALINSKY: But he did not see
how it's practical to run.

He took a poll in New Hampshire
in January of that year

that showed Johnson
beating him there 67 to nine,

or something like that.

That was a pretty
convincing argument.

 

NARRATOR:
At the end of January 1968,

a miserable Robert Kennedy
finally reached a decision.

He would not,
he told the National Press Club,

oppose the president
for the Democratic nomination

under any foreseeable
circumstances.

(explosions booming)

(automatic gunfire rattling)

 

That very same day,

Vietnamese communists
launched a series of attacks

that made him bitterly regret
his decision.

REPORTER: 232 G.Is. killed
and 900 wounded

in just over two days,
the past two days--

two of the worst
we have known in Vietnam.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
The widespread fighting

convinced many Americans
that the war was far from over.

 

Frustrated with
the seemingly endless fighting,

more and more turned away
from Johnson to Eugene McCarthy.

WALTER CRONKITE:
The big surprise

of the first primary
of Campaign '68

has been the strength
of Senator Eugene McCarthy.

The volume with which
New Hampshire's voters

today endorsed his effort

signals trouble

for President Johnson's as-yet
undeclared re-election bid.

The president and his advisers
are most concerned

about what tonight's returns
mean in terms of Bobby Kennedy.

Will Gene McCarthy's showing
be enough to tempt Kennedy

into an open race
for the Democratic nomination?

"We just don't know
what Bobby will do,"

one of the president's
closest friends said tonight,

adding, "And until we do know,
we'll be wary."

As I say, maybe I'll have
something further to say

after I see the rest
of the figures-- thank you.

REPORTER: Would you accept
a draft, Senator?

I don't think anybody's
suggested that.

REPORTER: Well, I'm
suggesting it now.

Would you accept it?

I don't think
that's a practical matter.

REPORTER:
Would you refuse it?

I just don't think...
would you accept one?

 

SHESOL:
He retreats into a deep funk.

He stops taking phone calls.

He paces around his office,
he won't talk to his aides.

He goes back to Hickory Hill

and seems to disappear
for several days.

What he's doing
during this time--

besides castigating himself
for making such a mistake--

is deciding that he's going
to run for president.

And when he emerges,
he comes out swinging.

I am announcing today
my candidacy

for the presidency
of the United States.

I do not run for the presidency
merely to oppose any man,

but to propose new policies...

SCHLESINGER: Jackie Kennedy
was much concerned

by Robert Kennedy's entry
into the presidential contest.

She said, "I believe
they're going to do

the same thing to him
that they did to Jack."

♪ ♪

 

(cheering)

 

NARRATOR: Kennedy's campaign
in the state primaries

was part politics,
part crusade, part circus.

 

In 15 days, he stormed
through 16 states,

tens of thousands
of people screaming his name.

ALL (shouting):
Bobby! Bobby!

TOWNSEND: My father was mobbed,
wherever he went.

People were trying to touch him,
trying to feel him,

taking off his cuff links,
taking off his ties.

I'd like to announce

that somebody's taking off
my shoe as I speak.

(crowd laughing)

WOFFORD: Bob was at his best
in that campaign.

He touched people, he was
speaking very directly to them.

It was very heart-to-heart.

He said he was doing it
to save the soul of the country.

And I believed him.

We can return government
to the people.

We can change
this nation around.

We can make a new effort
for peace in Vietnam.

We can improve the life
and the quality of America

here in the United States.

I ask for your help.

Am I going to receive
your help?

(crowd screaming)

THOMAS: When he first goes out
on the stump,

people go crazy.

There's so much pent-up
anger and frustration,

and it's explosive
when Bobby goes out there.

He goes to the Midwest--

you would think
a bastion of conservatism--

and he appears in the University
of Kansas and Kansas State,

in these big field houses,

and it's like the roof
is blown off.

(cheers and applause)

WALINSKY:
We get there,

the place is just...
not only is it packed,

not only is every seat packed,

the entire floor
is wall-to-wall people.

And there are people
sitting on the girders,

practically hanging
from the ceiling,

and an unbelievable
cacophony of noise.

(cheers)

NEWFIELD:
18,000 white farm kids

in this big basketball
field house--

he gives this powerful speech,

uh, against the war,
all out, finally, like it's...

He's like a tiger
let out of the cage.

Our country is in danger
not just from foreign enemies,

but above all,
from our own misguided policies.

This war must be ended,

and in my judgment,
it can be ended.

And it does not involve
giving up,

but it does involve
not continuing to follow

the bankrupt policy
that we're following

at the present time.

(applause)

WALINSKY: The stronger he gets,
the louder the cheers.

And I remember

they had a photographer
for "Look" magazine.

He looks over,
and he yells at me,

he says, "This is Kansas!

"This is Kansas!

"(no audio) Kansas!

He's going
all the (no audio) way!"

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
In spite of his wild popularity,

Bobby knew he was fighting
an uphill battle.

The nomination was in the hands
of the party bosses--

mayors, governors,
labor leaders--

who would control the votes
at the Democratic convention.

"I have to win
through the people,"

Kennedy told a reporter.

"Otherwise,
I'm not going to win."

Then, on March 31, 1968,
he was taken by surprise,

along with
the rest of the nation.

I shall not seek,
and I will not accept,

the nomination of my party

for another term
as your president.

NARRATOR:
With no warning,

a physically and emotionally
exhausted president

had put an end to the contest
with Robert Kennedy

just 15 days
after it had begun.

"I wonder," Bobby said,

"if he would have done this
if I hadn't come in."

(people talking indistinctly)

Four days later,
Bobby flew to Indianapolis

for a campaign speech
in a black neighborhood.

En route,
a reporter had told him

that Martin Luther King
had been murdered.

♪ ♪

JOHN LEWIS: We were trying
to pull together people

for a mass rally
for Bobby Kennedy,

but there were some people
saying that evening

that maybe he shouldn't come.

Because maybe
there would be violence.

WALINSKY: The police thought
it was dangerous.

They didn't want us
to go in there, but he went.

(crowd clamoring)

I scribbled something
on a piece of paper,

because I knew
he'd want to say something.

But he had figured out
what he was going to say.

He had written it himself.

We brought them the news

that Martin Luther King
had been shot.

 

I have some very sad news
for all of you,

and I think sad news
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 was killed tonight...

(crowd screams)

JOHN LEWIS: Most of the people
hadn't even heard

that Dr. King had been shot,

and we were stunned.

And we all cried.

But that evening, Robert Kennedy
spoke from his soul.

For those of you who are black

and are tempted to be filled
with hatred and mistrust,

of the injustice
of such an act,

against all white people,

I would only say that
I can also feel in my own heart

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.

The words, they just rang,

they just chilled your body.

And he did it not in a loud,

but almost
in a prayerful manner.

My favorite poet was Aeschylus.

And he once wrote...

 

"Even in our sleep,
pain which cannot forget

"falls drop by drop
upon the heart

"until, in our own despair,
against our will,

comes wisdom
through the awful grace of God."

 

"In our sleep,
pain that cannot forget

"falls drop by drop
upon the heart

"until, in our despair,
against our will,

comes wisdom
through the awful grace of God."

 

NARRATOR: There were riots

in more than 100 cities across
America after King's death.

But that night,
there was calm in Indianapolis.

 

♪ Senator McCarthy
is the one for me ♪

♪ And it's smart to vote
for Eugene for the presidency ♪

NARRATOR: There was no way
that Eugene McCarthy

could inspire crowds
the way Bobby Kennedy did,

but he didn't seem to care.

Yeah, be ready for us there--
how do you do?

NARRATOR:
Cool and aloof,

he appealed to white middle-
class opponents of the war,

especially college students,

scornful of Kennedy's late entry
into the race.

THOMAS: Bobby Kennedy had
a natural affinity for students,

and it pained him deeply
when the best students

often signed up
with Gene McCarthy.

NEWFIELD: Robert Kennedy loved
the McCarthy kids.

He once said to me,

"It drives me crazy that Gene
gets all the A students

and I get all the C students."

(applause)

NARRATOR:
On election night,

Indiana voters gave Bobby
the victory he wanted,

but not the knockout blow
he needed.

GOODWIN: This was his first
face-to-face primary

with McCarthy.

He had to win it,
and he did win it.

But winning Indiana
was just the first inning

of a nine-inning game.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
A week later,

Bobby proved that
he could appeal to farmers,

winning again,
this time in Nebraska.

Oregon was next.

KENNEDY:
The attention of the nation

is going to be focused
on the state of Oregon.

You could very well determine

who's going to be the next
president of the United States.

NARRATOR:
But Oregon Democrats

were mostly comfortable
white suburban voters.

They turned away
from Bobby's campaign

with its focus
on race and poverty.

For the first time ever,
a Kennedy lost an election.

"Let's face it,"
Bobby told a reporter,

"I appeal best to people
who have problems."

GOODWIN:
He was devastated by that loss.

He said, "If only
we could've moved a ghetto

"up here for a day,

we could've won this election."

 

THOMAS: It was not going to be
the victory march

that he had hoped for.

He had to win California--
he just absolutely had to win.

(cheering)

♪ ♪

NARRATOR:
California was pure mayhem.

(people talking excitedly)

JOHN LEWIS: People treated him
like he was some rock star.

It was young people,
it was blacks, white, Hispanic--

just pulling for him.

NEWFIELD: It was
the most emotional adulation

I've ever seen in politics,

particularly in the black
and Mexican areas.

(cheers and applause)

The Sunday before the primary,

he invited me
to ride in his car

going through Watts
in East L.A.

He said to me,
"I want you to see what I see."

(clamoring)

And I see this ecstasy

in the eyes of blacks
and Mexican-Americans.

♪ ♪

 

KENNEDY:
If we make the effort,

if we have that love and
friendship and understanding

for our fellow citizens,

we will have a new America.

And you here in Watts,
you here in Los Angeles,

and in California--

you will have made it possible,

and I will work with all of you.

Give me your help!

Give me your help!


Thank you.

NARRATOR:
Not since Abraham Lincoln

had a white politician

been so embraced
by people of color.

"These are my people,"
he told an aide.

"These are my people."

 

On the final day
of the campaign,

Bobby and Ethel rode slowly

through San Francisco's
Chinatown.

As usual, there were
no armed bodyguards

or Secret Service agents.

"You've just got to give
yourself to the people

and to trust them,"
Bobby said,

"and from then on, either luck
is with you or it isn't."

 

(firecrackers popping)

What sounded like shots turned
out to be Chinese firecrackers.

Bobby flinched,
then went right on campaigning.

NEWFIELD: Robert Kennedy
was fearless

to the cusp of reckless,

and I think there was
some daring

of death and fate
in... in what he did.

CROWD (chanting):
RFK! RFK!

RFK! RFK! RFK!

NARRATOR: On election night,
there was only good news.

Bobby got the victory he needed,

with blacks and Hispanics voting
for him in overwhelming numbers.

The 1,500 volunteers
jamming the ballroom

of the Ambassador Hotel
in Los Angeles

were ecstatic as they waited
for Bobby to appear.

It's a lot of people there.

There are a lot of people.

(chanting and cheers)

WALINSKY:
And everybody, you know,

really having a wonderful time

and getting ready
for a terrific party

that was going to take place
later.

 

This was really his win--
hadn't been done by staff,

hadn't been done
by all these people around him.

He did it.

NEWFIELD:
He had liberated himself

from leaning
on his brother's myth.

He had found that inner voice.

(wild cheers and applause)

NARRATOR:
"I feel now for the first time,"

Bobby told an aide,

"that I've shaken off the shadow
of my brother."

♪ ♪

KENNEDY:
Thank you very much.

JOHN LEWIS:
We watched him speaking

from the ballroom
of the Ambassador Hotel,

and we all was feeling
very, very good.

What I think is quite clear

is... is that we can work
together, in the last analysis,

and that what has been going on
within the United States

over the period
of the last three years--

the divisions, the violence,

the disenchantment
with our society,

the divisions, whether it's
between blacks and whites,

between the poor
and the more affluent,

or between age groups
or on the war in Vietnam,

that we can start
to work together.

We are a great country
and a selfish country

and a compassionate country,

and I intend to make that
my basis for running

over the period
of the next few months.

(cheers and applause)

So, uh...

my thanks to all of you,

and now it's on to Chicago,
and let's win there.

Thank you very much.

(cheers and applause)

 

CROWD (chanting):
RFK! RFK! RFK!

(chanting continues)

 

NEWFIELD: I left the suite
on the fifth floor

during RFK's acceptance speech

and got into the ballroom just
as he was leaving the podium.

And he goes into...
into the kitchen area,

and then I hear the...
this moan, this cry, screams.

(murmuring)

(screaming)

 

NARRATOR: As Bobby had reached
out to shake the hands

of the men and women
who worked in the kitchen,

24-year-old Sirhan Sirhan
fired a bullet into his brain.

♪ ♪

 

NEWFIELD:
All delirium broke loose,

and I realized
that he had been shot.

And the people just went nuts.

 

I saw people punch the walls,

lie on the ground and weep.

John Lewis and I just hugged
each other and sobbed.

Dr. King, two months earlier,
and now Robert Kennedy.

It was just too much.

 

NARRATOR:
On June 6, 1968, Bobby died.

 

Like his brother
less than five years before,

Robert Kennedy passed on
into legend.

 

Two days after Bobby's death,

his body was carried to
Washington's Arlington Cemetery

accompanied by family
and friends.

♪ ♪

SEIGENTHALER: It was like...

it was like an Irish wake.

Everybody was in pain.

Everybody was numb, in shock.

Just one...

Just one long cortege
of grief,

hour after hour after hour.

♪ ♪

 

JOHN LEWIS:
And all along the way,

you saw these unbelievable
crowds carrying signs

saying, "We love you, Bobby,"
"Good-bye, Bobby."

 

EDELMAN: You saw white faces
and black faces and Latino

and... and all the diversity
of America.

It was all there
on the side of the tracks

as the train went back
to Washington.

 

KATZENBACH:
It was quite remarkable, really,

what Bobby Kennedy suddenly
meant to the American people.

And I say "suddenly"
because it... it had happened

in just a couple of years,
really.

I mean, it would've
been laughable

to think of Bobby Kennedy as a
presidential candidate in 1961,

and it certainly wasn't
laughable in 1968.

♪ ♪

JOHN LEWIS: He had the capacity
to open up himself.

We saw him grow.

We saw him change.

 

NEWFIELD:
He was 42 when he was killed.

We'll never know,

would he really have gotten us
out of Vietnam?

Would he have really dealt
with poverty and racism?

But he was cheated
out of his chance

to... to test his ideas
and his values.

 

WALINSKY:
It seems to me

that what we're doing
when we mourn Robert Kennedy

is mourning...

our own lost possibilities.

♪ ♪

 

NARRATOR: 30 yards
from his brother's grave,

Robert Kennedy was laid to rest.

 

Carved on the marble gravestone
are the words from Aeschylus

that he could recite
from memory:

"He who learns must suffer.

"And even in our sleep,
pain that cannot forget

"falls drop by drop
upon the heart,

"and in our own despair,
against our will,

comes wisdom to us
by the awful grace of God."

 

♪ ♪