System Mechanic - Clean, repair, protect, and speed up your PC!Robert F. Kennedy, US Senator
November 20, 1925 - June 06, 1968
Robert Francis Kennedy was born on November 20, 1925, in Brookline, Massachusetts, the seventh child of nine in the close-knit and competitive family of Rose and Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy. He attended Milton Academy and, after wartime service in the Navy, received his degree in government from Harvard University in 1948. He earned his law degree from the University of Virginia Law School three years later.
On June 17, 1950, Robert Kennedy married Ethel Skakel of Greenwich, Connecticut, daughter of Ann Brannack Skakel and George Skakel, founder of Great Lakes Carbon Corporation. Robert and Ethel Kennedy later had eleven children. In 1952, he made his political debut as manager of his older brother John's successful campaign for the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts. The following year, he served briefly on the staff of the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Senator Joseph McCarthy. Kennedy's investigative work confirmed reports that countries allied with the United States against Communist China in the Korean War were also shipping goods to Communist China, but did not imply, as Senator McCarthy often did, that traitors were making American foreign policy.
Disturbed by McCarthy's controversial tactics, Kennedy resigned from the staff after six months. He later returned to the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations as chief counsel for the Democratic minority, in which capacity he wrote a report condemning McCarthy's investigation of alleged Communists in the Army. His later work as chief counsel for the Senate Rackets Committee investigating corruption in trade unions won him national recognition for his investigations of Teamsters Union leaders Jimmy Hoffa and David Beck.
In 1960 he managed brother John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign. After the election, he was appointed Attorney General in President Kennedy's Cabinet. While Attorney General he won respect for his diligent, effective and non-partisan administration of the Department of Justice. Attorney General Kennedy launched a successful drive against organized crime - convictions against organized crime figures rose by 800% during his tenure - and became increasingly committed to the rights of African Americans to vote, attend school and use public accommodations. He also demonstrated his commitment to civil rights.
In September 1962, Attorney General Kennedy sent U.S. Marshals and troops to Oxford, Mississippi to enforce a Federal court order admitting the first African American student - James Meredith - to the University of Mississippi. The riot that had followed Meredith's registration at "Ole Miss" had left two dead and hundreds injured. Robert Kennedy saw voting as the key to racial justice and collaborated with President Kennedy when he proposed the most far-reaching civil rights statute since Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, passed after President Kennedy was slain on November 22, 1963. Robert Kennedy was not only President Kennedy's Attorney General, he was also his closest advisor and confidant. As a result of this unique relationship, the Attorney General played a key role in several critical foreign policy decisions. During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, for instance, he helped develop the Kennedy Administration's strategy to blockade Cuba instead of taking military action that could have led to nuclear war and then negotiated with the Soviet Union on removal of the weapons.
Soon after President Kennedy's death, Robert Kennedy resigned as Attorney General and, in 1964, ran successfully for the United States Senate from New York. Kennedy waged an effective statewide campaign against incumbent Republican Senator Kenneth Keating and, aided by President Lyndon Johnson's landslide, won the November election by 719,000 votes. As New York's Senator, he initiated a number of projects in the state, including assistance to underprivileged children and students with disabilities and the establishment of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation to improve living conditions and employment opportunities in depressed areas of Brooklyn. Now in its 32nd year, the program remains a model for communities all across the nation.
In early 1968 Kennedy declared his candidacy for the U.S. presidency. His 1968 campaign brought hope and challenge to an American people troubled by discontent and violence at home and war in Vietnam. He won critical primaries in Indiana and Nebraska and spoke to enthusiastic crowds across the nation. Robert Francis Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan on June 5, 1968 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California shortly after claiming victory in that state's crucial Democratic primary. He died early the next morning, at 42 years of age. Robert Kennedy is buried in Arlington National Cemetery, near the graves of John Kennedy and former First Lady Jackie Kennedy.
Kennedy and his wife Ethel had 11 children; the last, Rory, was born after RFK's death.
Kennedy's book Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis was published posthumously in 1969.
