1968 : ROBERT KENNEDY BURIED:
Three days after falling prey to an assassin in California, Senator
Robert F. Kennedy is laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in
Virginia, just 30 yards from the grave of his assassinated older
brother, President John F. Kennedy.
Robert Kennedy, born in Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1925, interrupted
his studies at Harvard University to serve in the U.S. Navy during
World War II. He was legal counsel for various Senate subcommittees
during the 1950s and in 1960 served as the manager of his brother's
successful presidential campaign. Appointed attorney general by
President Kennedy, he proved a vigorous member of the cabinet,
zealously prosecuting cases relating to civil rights while closely
advising the president on domestic and foreign issues. After John F.
Kennedy's assassination in 1963, Robert joined President Lyndon B.
Johnson's administration but resigned in 1964 to run successfully in
New York for a Senate seat. He became a leader of liberal Democrats in
Congress and voiced criticism of the war in Vietnam.
In 1968, he was urged by many of his supporters to run for president
as an anti-war and socially progressive Democratic. Hesitant until he
saw positive primary returns for fellow anti-war candidate Eugene
McCarthy, he announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential
nomination on March 16, 1968. Fifteen days later, President Johnson
announced that he would not seek reelection, and Vice President Hubert
Humphrey became the key Democratic hopeful, with McCarthy and Kennedy
trailing closely behind. Kennedy conducted an energetic campaign and
on June 4, 1968, won a major victory in the California primary. He had
won five out of six primaries and seemed a shoo-in for the Democratic
nomination and, some thought, the presidency.
Shortly after midnight, Kennedy gave a victory speech to his
supporters in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. At 12:50 a.m.,
while making his way to a press conference by a side exit, he was shot
three times in a hail of gunfire that wounded five others. One bullet
entered Kennedy's brain. The shooter, a Palestinian drifter named
Sirhan Sirhan, had a .22 revolver wrested from his grip and was
promptly arrested. Kennedy was rushed to the hospital, where he fought
for his life for the next 24 hours. At 1:44 a.m. on the morning of
June 6, he died. He was 42 years old.
His assassination came only two months after civil rights leader
Martin Luther King, Jr., was shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee.
Like King, Robert Kennedy had advocated social reform, defended the
rights of minorities, and called for an end to the Vietnam War. The
loss was devastating to many Americans and was made only more tragic
by memories of his older brother's assassination five years earlier.
On the evening of June 6, Kennedy's body was brought to St. Patrick's
Cathedral in New York City, and the next day a line of mourners 25
blocks long waited to pass by his coffin. On Saturday morning, June 8,
thousands attended a funeral Mass at St. Patrick's. The diverse
collection of mourners listened to Leonard Bernstein conduct a Mahler
symphony and Andy Williams sing Kennedy's favorite anthem, "The Battle
Hymn of the Republic." Edward M. Kennedy, Robert's younger brother and
a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, delivered a eulogy:
"My brother need not be idolized or enlarged in death beyond what he
was in life. [He should] be remembered simply as a good and decent
man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to
heal it, saw war and tried to stop it. Those of us who loved him, and
who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us, and what
he wished for others, will someday come to pass for all the world. As
he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched
and who sought to touch him: "Some men see things as they are and say,
'Why?' I dream of things that never were and say, 'Why not?'"
On Saturday afternoon, Kennedy's coffin was taken by funeral train
from New York to Washington. Hundreds of thousands of mourners,
perhaps more than a million, lined the tracks. In New Jersey, two
bystanders who jumped the tracks were killed by a train passing in the
other direction. The funeral train arrived at Washington's Union
Station shortly after 9 p.m. A motorcade then took Robert F. Kennedy's
body to Arlington National Cemetery for the only night-time burial in
the cemetery's history.
history.com/tdih.do
632 : Founder of Islam dies
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5075
1967 : Israel attacks USS Liberty
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5076
1968 : King assassination suspect arrested
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5077
1986 : Waldheim elected Austrian president
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5078
##########################################
Three days after falling prey to an assassin in California, Senator
Robert F. Kennedy is laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in
Virginia, just 30 yards from the grave of his assassinated older
brother, President John F. Kennedy.
Robert Kennedy, born in Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1925, interrupted
his studies at Harvard University to serve in the U.S. Navy during
World War II. He was legal counsel for various Senate subcommittees
during the 1950s and in 1960 served as the manager of his brother's
successful presidential campaign. Appointed attorney general by
President Kennedy, he proved a vigorous member of the cabinet,
zealously prosecuting cases relating to civil rights while closely
advising the president on domestic and foreign issues. After John F.
Kennedy's assassination in 1963, Robert joined President Lyndon B.
Johnson's administration but resigned in 1964 to run successfully in
New York for a Senate seat. He became a leader of liberal Democrats in
Congress and voiced criticism of the war in Vietnam.
In 1968, he was urged by many of his supporters to run for president
as an anti-war and socially progressive Democratic. Hesitant until he
saw positive primary returns for fellow anti-war candidate Eugene
McCarthy, he announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential
nomination on March 16, 1968. Fifteen days later, President Johnson
announced that he would not seek reelection, and Vice President Hubert
Humphrey became the key Democratic hopeful, with McCarthy and Kennedy
trailing closely behind. Kennedy conducted an energetic campaign and
on June 4, 1968, won a major victory in the California primary. He had
won five out of six primaries and seemed a shoo-in for the Democratic
nomination and, some thought, the presidency.
Shortly after midnight, Kennedy gave a victory speech to his
supporters in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. At 12:50 a.m.,
while making his way to a press conference by a side exit, he was shot
three times in a hail of gunfire that wounded five others. One bullet
entered Kennedy's brain. The shooter, a Palestinian drifter named
Sirhan Sirhan, had a .22 revolver wrested from his grip and was
promptly arrested. Kennedy was rushed to the hospital, where he fought
for his life for the next 24 hours. At 1:44 a.m. on the morning of
June 6, he died. He was 42 years old.
His assassination came only two months after civil rights leader
Martin Luther King, Jr., was shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee.
Like King, Robert Kennedy had advocated social reform, defended the
rights of minorities, and called for an end to the Vietnam War. The
loss was devastating to many Americans and was made only more tragic
by memories of his older brother's assassination five years earlier.
On the evening of June 6, Kennedy's body was brought to St. Patrick's
Cathedral in New York City, and the next day a line of mourners 25
blocks long waited to pass by his coffin. On Saturday morning, June 8,
thousands attended a funeral Mass at St. Patrick's. The diverse
collection of mourners listened to Leonard Bernstein conduct a Mahler
symphony and Andy Williams sing Kennedy's favorite anthem, "The Battle
Hymn of the Republic." Edward M. Kennedy, Robert's younger brother and
a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, delivered a eulogy:
"My brother need not be idolized or enlarged in death beyond what he
was in life. [He should] be remembered simply as a good and decent
man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to
heal it, saw war and tried to stop it. Those of us who loved him, and
who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us, and what
he wished for others, will someday come to pass for all the world. As
he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched
and who sought to touch him: "Some men see things as they are and say,
'Why?' I dream of things that never were and say, 'Why not?'"
On Saturday afternoon, Kennedy's coffin was taken by funeral train
from New York to Washington. Hundreds of thousands of mourners,
perhaps more than a million, lined the tracks. In New Jersey, two
bystanders who jumped the tracks were killed by a train passing in the
other direction. The funeral train arrived at Washington's Union
Station shortly after 9 p.m. A motorcade then took Robert F. Kennedy's
body to Arlington National Cemetery for the only night-time burial in
the cemetery's history.
history.com/tdih.do
632 : Founder of Islam dies
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5075
1967 : Israel attacks USS Liberty
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5076
1968 : King assassination suspect arrested
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5077
1986 : Waldheim elected Austrian president
history.com/tdih.do?action=tdihArticleCategory&id=5078
##########################################
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