In Memory Of Bobby
Forty Years Later, Jeff Greenfield Recalls The Remarkable Life And Tragic Death Of A Political Icon
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Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, seen here in March 1967, came from a family of wealth and privilege with a reputation for toughness, even ruthlessness, but emerged during his shortened life as a moral voice against injustice, poverty and war.
(AP Photo)
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(CBS) Robert Francis Kennedy … RFK … was assassinated 40 years ago this coming week. Few Americans will ever forget the shock of that night, and what it would mean. Among those working in Bobby Kennedy's presidential campaign was Jeff Greenfield, now our Senior Political Correspondent. He offers a very personal recollection of a man who spoke to so many in so many different ways.
He has been gone almost as long as he was alive, and from a distance of four decades, Robert Kennedy is often seen as a player in a pageant: heir to a murdered President from America's most famous political family … a tumultuous presidential campaign in a tumultuous political year that ended on the floor of a hotel kitchen in Los Angeles.
But why, so many years later, are the memories still so sharp, the loss still so painful?
Photographer Bill Eppridge said, "I don't know of a single person who affected me the way he did."
Veteran
CBS News correspondent Roger Mudd said, "There was about Robert Kennedy a perpetual sense of outrage. As a reporter, it was something to behold."
"He had the ability to speak out of his soul, out of his gut," said Congressman John Lewis, D-Ga., "and people believed in him."
… including a 24-year-old speechwriter fresh out of law school.
I make no pretense of neutrality; I worked on Kennedy's Senate staff and on his presidential campaign, and still regard him as the most remarkable political figure of my lifetime.
But the question you're entitled to ask of people who believe as I do is, why?
He came from a family of wealth and privilege with a reputation for toughness, even ruthlessness, that began with his campaign against labor boss Jimmy Hoffa in the late 1950s. It was a reputation he could not or would not explain.
