Robert F. Kennedy

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Robert F. Kennedy

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Robert "Bobby" Francis Kennedy (1925–1968) was a United States Senator from 1965 until his assassination in 1968. Kennedy was one of the first of the new "American Royal Families," families that seemingly have a continuous presence in national politics. Kennedy served as Attorney General under his brother, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Baines Johnson after his brother's assassination. He was elected Senator from New York in 1964, despite being from Massachusetts.

Generally considered a mean cuss, especially while serving as U.S. Attorney General. Kennedy cut his teeth as a counsel for Joe McCarthy, to whom he'd maintain his loyalty after the scandals, although he was always critical of the tactics McCarthy used. He also served as counsel to the McClellan Committee, investigating Mafia involvement in organized labor. This led to several heated exchanges with Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa, who became Kennedy's lifelong nemesis. During his brother's administration, Robert was one of the President's closest advisors. Besides continuing to attack Hoffa, Kennedy was heavily involved in the Administration's Civil Rights initiatives. Unfortunately, J. Edgar Hoover had blackmail files on approximately threeve fafillion people, the Kennedy Bros. included, thus 'motivating' RFK (ostensibly his boss) to sign off on some of the harsher decisions. He was also JFK's point man for Operation Mongoose, the CIA operation to assassinate Fidel Castro.

Due to disillusionment with the Vietnam War, Kennedy underwent an epiphany following Jack's death and became a born-again lefty (or so the legend goes). He certainly had a very hostile relationship with Lyndon Johnson, although that dated back to 1960 when Kennedy tried to convince Johnson not to accept the nomination for Jack's running mate, which led to Kennedy not only leaving Johnson's cabinet, but challenging him for President in 1968.

RFK & MLK

Although RFK was a stern supporter of Civil Rights, even helping enforce Civil Rights that already existed during his tenure as Attorney General, one of his most infamous actions as Attorney General involved how he treated a certain Civil Rights activist: Martin Luther King Jr.

Starting in 1962, the FBI began wiretapping King's friends due to suspected ties to the Communist Party, with this evolving into them wiretapping King specifically starting in October 1963. Although the actions were done by the FBI and not the Justice Department, Kennedy still had to sign off on these actions. Furthermore, even if Kennedy did not engage in any of the worst abuses of power done by the FBI to King, he put the actions which allowed the FBI to engage in their actions into motion.

Death

Robert Kennedy was making a strong run for the presidency when he was shot dead in a Los Angeles hotel on June 6, 1968. His assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, was a Christian Palestinian national angry at Kennedy's vocal support of Israel.

As with his brother, there is a conspiracy theory concerning his assassination, claiming Sirhan was brainwashed by the CIA, and/or there were other assassins involved. These conspiracies typically revolve around a few, not very convincing, pieces of evidence: there were a lot of CIA agents in the area; a mysterious woman in polka dot dress reportedly shouted: "We shot him" (as any professional assassin would); and (as with the JFK assassination) supposed inconsistencies in the number and trajectory of bullets fired that suggest a second gunman. Sirhan, who's still serving a life sentence, has tried to appeal his conviction on these grounds 15 times; unsurprisingly, they've been declined. After all, he did go to a shooting range on the day of the assassination, was arrested at the scene with a revolver, and confessed during the trial; and problems with the forensic evidence can be explained by police incompetence.

See also

• John F. Kennedy
• Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
• John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories

References

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