Born on November 20, 1925 in what a family that became America’s
First Family and political dynasty, Robert F. Kennedy was the 7th of 9
children of Joseph P. Kennedy, who was the 44th US Ambassador to the UK.
Robert rose to powerful positions in Washington, D.C. along with his
brothers be being bolstered from the wealth of their fathers. However,
he had always been a different person for his principled approach that
surpassed even that of his father and brothers. He evolved quickly from a
backstage manager of John F. Kennedy’s rise to power into a frontline
man in the limelight to take up the good fight against the establishment
to convey and do what the wishes of the majority of the Americans had
been. The following are 10 charges thrown on his personal and
professional character over the years, which all have no factual bases:
1. Misused the Position of Chief Counsel:
He is alleged to have misused his power as an assistant counsel of
the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, where he
worked under the Republican Senator, Joseph McCarthy from Wisconsin. The
charges are against his personal and professional conduct. He resigned
from the committee after six months only because he did not like the red
baiting of McCarthy and Roy Marcus Cohn, the chief counsel, which was
going on and wrote a commission report on Army-McCarthy Hearing for the
Senate. The allegations are that he was very much into red-baiting
himself and liked Joseph McCarthy as he considered communists as evil
men. He worked with the Hoover Commission as his father’s assistant, but
was called back to the committee staff but this time as chief counsel
for the Democratic minority. Then he became the chief counsel (1957-59)
of the Senate Labor Rackets Committee under Chairman John L. McClellan,
during which he fought against Jimmy Hoffa to bring him down and was
successful in doing so. In this position as well, his critics say that
he was trying to show-off his position by being ruthless in his approach
against the labor union leader. However, he was right in judging the
crimes that Hoffa was committing under the guise of being a union
leader, which could be compared to an organized crime set-up under him.
2. Inexperienced to Be the US Attorney General:
Robert F. Kennedy has not tried a case in either state or federal
court before in his life and worked only as a chief counsel of the
Senate Labor Rackets Committee. Hence, when President Kennedy appointed
his campaign manager as the US Attorney General, it was not only taken
as pure nepotism, but was generally conceded to be a folly to give an
inexperienced man such a responsible post. The President joked saying,
“I can’t see that it’s wrong to give him a little legal experience
before he goes out to practice law.” But when he became the Attorney
General he helped to highlight the menace of organized crime which was
being denied by the FBI and he forwarded the efforts of the Civil Rights
leaders. No one could say that he was inexperienced at what he did. The
press that initially termed him nepotistic began to praise him within a
few weeks.
3. Wiretapped Dr. King and His Associates:
Robert F. Kennedy was very passionate about the civil rights cause
and wanted to help all he can to give equality in status to the African
Americans and other communities. The FBI director, Hoover, was not on
the same line of thought and wanted to do everything in his evil power
to stop the Civil Rights Movement from succeeding. He asked for
wiretapping Dr. King and his close friends in order to get evidence of
their involvement with the communists. Robert F. Kennedy had been
denying him this permission, but finally had to give up when Hoover
threatened to leak out personal information of President Kennedy’s
womanizing to the press. Under the pressure of saving his brother from
impeachment and more so for the matters of the Civil Rights Movement
going out of his hands, he allowed the wiretap only for a month, but
Hoover extended the period much longer on his own as he wanted to more
dirt on Dr. King’s misconduct. Many people dislike Robert for such a
step, but they lose sight of the fact about how he diverted the whole
movement from being hijacked by Hoover and other racist power-mongers.
4. Planned to Invade Cuba and Assassinate Fidel Castro:
The Kennedy administration had inherited the military plans of not
just the invasion and attacks on Cuba, but also to get militarily
involved in Vietnam. Being the superpower, the foreign policy directives
are made almost a decade earlier about what has to be done as the prime
mover in world politics. Often this role of the US has been in the
negative with its involvement in various conflicts rather than in
humanitarian activities. Being the President’s advisor, Robert oversaw
the CIA’s anti-Castro activities when the Bay of Pigs invasion did not
succeed. But his involvement was about to oust Castro out of power and
not to murder him. In fact, he had been specific along with President
Kennedy that it should be made sure that Castro should not die, because
it will be a political blunder. Being a pacifist in nature, Robert never
advised such assassination measures, which are not only against his
personal moral ethics, but also against his political approach. The
historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. had said that Robert was unaware of
such death plans earlier and later when he judged by the unbound
freedoms that CIA covert operatives enjoyed, he asked them to stop with
such politically fatalistic plans that placed the whole country under
direct threat from the USSR. He spearheaded Operation Mongoose that was
meant to create revolution in Cuba by supporting anti-Castro men and not
to murder him. The entire information is now available in 2007
declassified documents “Family Jewels”.
5. Rumours of Affairs with Marilyn Monroe and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis:
Even though there was a lot of hush-hush talk about President Kennedy
rumours of affairs with Marilyn Monroe, but none of them had an inkling
of truth in them. The exaggeration of the rumours took Robert F.
Kennedy into their fold and people made all kinds of stories that suited
their fancies. The fact is Robert F. Kennedy met Marilyn Monroe to ask
her to stop calling the President and that meeting took place in his
Hollywood-star brother-in-law Peter Lawford. But since the FBI director
wanted nothing short of a career threatening scandal against the
Attorney General to end his chances of having any political ascension,
he went to the extent of forging reports of calls made by Marilyn Monroe
to the Justice Department where he worked. The bizarre rumours of his
extra-marital affairs do not end here, but end with his death. It is
still rumoured that he had an affair that might have begun when
President Kennedy was still alive, with his sister-in-law Jacqueline
Kennedy Onassis. Again it is contrary to the truth of the matter. Both
Robert and Jacqueline had a respectable close relationship and after
their mutual loss, Robert took care of his brother’s children as any
acting family patriarch would. Jacqueline Kennedy said of his
brother-in-law that he was least like his father amongst his brothers
and that comment was made in a complimentary way.
6. Plotted Marilyn Monroe’s Murder:
The outrageous of all the rumours about Robert F. Kennedy is that of
him being involved in the murder of Marilyn Monroe. It is rumoured that
he was present at her house when she died along with two other FBI
agents who went there to give her the lethal injection of death and then
made it appear as if she committed suicide with an overdose of drugs.
The reason for killing her is that he wanted to protect his brother’s
presidency as Marilyn Monroe was threatening to go public and call a
press conference to tell everything about her affairs with both the
brothers supposedly. Now, no one should doubt the integrity of a man
like Robert F. Kennedy on whose credentials there is no fault. The
problem in defending him amidst much philandering from his father and
brothers is that his own character is his only line of defense. The
dilemma is very much there. Ethel Kennedy however is testament to her
husband’s loyalty over the matter. Regarding the murder of Marilyn
Monroe, she might have been murdered, but not by Robert or for the
alleged reason, but may be by the mafia or the FBI or even by Hollywood
star-makers who thought that she was better dead than alive. Robert F.
Kennedy was at a friend’s house on the day she died and there were
witnesses to his presence there with his family. Who is guilty or not is
very much clear from the whole situation.
7. Being a Carpetbagger:
This is now a confirmed fact that Joseph P. Kennedy, the father of
Robert F. Kennedy, bribed the mafia leaders to rig the elections in
favour of John F. Kennedy. In return he offered they would not face such
a hard time during his son’s presidency. But what happened actually was
on the contrary to Joseph’s words as both the President as well as the
Attorney General, and more so the latter, went against the organized
crime big time in a hard way. People said that Robert is showing off his
power as an Attorney General, a position which he got through shear
nepotism. However, his performance got much praise from the press and
the public alike, but when President Kennedy was assassinated, the same
hard hand of his became powerless as none of the cases against these
mobsters were tried and they were released of any charges. Robert lost
his power against crime and injustice and lost his interest because of
which he decided to run for New York Senate seat. For this, a lot of the
people called him a carpetbagger because they had never seen him in the
fore front and now that he came out in the open, they said that he is
riding on the dead shoulders of his assassinated brother. But he quieted
all voices criticizing him when he delivered more than expected from
him in all of his positions.
8. Became New York State Senator Through Political Maneuvering:
With his performance as a New Senator, despite having not lived in
the state for more than 13 years and being registered as a voter from
Massachusetts, his birth state, he became famous and favoured amongst
the people. When he was asked why had he chosen to run from New York as a
senator, instead of Massachusetts, where he was born, or from Virginia,
where he lived, or from Florida, where he had also spent a considerable
time of his life, he simply replied that he wants to serve in the
United States Senate and the voters should not judge him by his accent
or age or where he had lived a large part of his life, but should choose
him for his record of performance and what he could do regarding the
issues of importance for the state of New York. When he was asked
questions about his knowledge of the issues facing the state, he
answered them all efficiently and shared ideas about how he would
resolve the problems. Seeing all this, there is no doubt that him
serving the state of New York as a senator, in his own words “New York
does not lose anything by”, but of course rather gained during his
tenure. He also mentioned the fact that he does not plan to “jump off”
to any place, not at least to the presidency, and said that possibility
will take place only in 1972 from where he stood in 1964.
9. Was Late to Speak Against the Vietnam War:
His critics say that he spoke against Vietnam War much later and that
he waited for someone else to make the stand. When Dr. King publically
went against the Vietnam War condemning America’s military involvement,
straight away the other day Robert came out with his views about the war
in opposition to it. For the elections of 1968, people were urging him
to join in the race to the presidency, but he said that he had no such
plans. Just when Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy came out against the
Vietnam War as his main campaign strategy, Robert joined in with the
same agenda within few weeks declaring his candidacy for the presidency
on March 16, 1968. The reason he said he delayed declaring his
presidency was to establish the fact that he is running not just merely
to oppose any man, but to propose new policies. He was convinced that
the US was on a perilous course and that he strongly felt he should do
all that he can and all that must be done.
10. Was a Talker Rather Than a Doer:
Those who still continue to dislike Robert F. Kennedy say that he was
a merely a sweet-talker and had no intentions of doing whatever he
promised. They say so especially about stopping war in Vietnam. Since
his main stand in the election campaign of 1968 was against war, though a
fellow democrat was running along the same line, he had promised strong
and immediate actions to deescalate the war. Not only that, but he
promised that he will create a budget that would support issues of
better education, healthcare, reducing pollution and making other
environmental efforts, alleviating poverty, providing equal employment
opportunities for all the workers, and to seek a newer world for the
next generation. All this was of course a huge task to accomplish, but
the kind of passion that Robert F. Kennedy is known to have, it does not
seem impossible for him to have had achieved these things. Not only did
he believe, but those who supported him, and there was a majority that
did, he would have won the Archimedean position he was looking for,
which was the presidency of the United States. His presidency would have
not only been a hope for a better world for America, but for the rest
of countries too, that then came to suffer under President Nixon,
especially Vietnam. Besides, Watergate would have never come to pass had
his life been saved that fatal night.
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