I’m a Bobby Kennedy fan.
I even have his picture in a nice, silver frame on my window sill, so it’s not unusual for me to be reading about him still again, as in, Robert Kennedy, a Memoir, by Jack Newfield, written in 1969, a year after his death.
Newfield, who at the time, was writing an authorized biography of Bobby, was traveling alongside him during his 82 day presidential campaign which sadly included June 5, 1968, the day he was shot in the Ambassador Hotel’s kitchen in Los Angeles, California.
I had eight pages left, but put the book down before going to bed, unusual for me not to finish, when I was so near the end.
This made me think of Ken Burns, the documentary filmmaker, who, while finishing the soundtrack for his film, The Civil War, when it came down to putting in the gunshot that killed Abraham Lincoln, hesitated, he said, because he could then keep Lincoln alive, just a little longer.
It made me see why I didn’t finish those last pages.
If I could keep Bobby talking, laughing, smiling up on that podium giving his acceptance speech for winning the California primary, I too, could keep him alive.
I wrote to my friend Ed who happens to be in California, not far from where the Ambassador Hotel once stood, asking, what’s wrong with me Ed, that I could still weep this way, after finally reading those last few pages?
I unpacked, and then, with the lights out, I sat in a chair and tried to adjust to the reality of Robert Kennedy dying. Why did it happen? What did it mean? What did I think about violence? My thoughts were not clear: they were not strong enough to support my feelings. I finally wrote down just three words on a lined yellow pad. He is irreplaceable….then I went to sleep remembering, he was only 42 years old.
Jack Newfield 
SB
How could you not?
LikeLiked by 1 person
How could you not. 🙂
LikeLike
Jack and Bobby’s deaths were such tragedies. It makes us wonder where we might be had they each survived to continue serving our country.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s the whole point. A new bio just came out by Chris Mathews that is interesting. Reading it now. How different he was even at a young age but to please his father, draped himself with layers of toughness that really wasn’t him.
LikeLike
Hi Susannah – you probably know this already – Chris Matthews has just come out with a new book on RFK
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m reading it. Thanks. Still think the Newfield is the best, but never tire of new bios since they confirm most of what I know. Mathews is a pleasant writer…spare, respectful. Thanks
LikeLike
Assassination is terrible blight on the face of democracy. Of course, it is tempting to consider what the victims might otherwise have achieved. Where might we be if Salvador Allende or Mohandas K Gandhi or Benazir Bhutto or Martin Luther King or Franz Ferdinand ducked the bullet?
LikeLike
Yeah, this is so true and they say it aobut Bobby, over and over again. It will be 50 years in June, 2018…and they’re still saying it…sigh
LikeLiked by 1 person
I felt similar when I read The Last Campaign, wishing it could turn out differently than I knew it would, wishing I could warn him somehow. 😦
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love that book…next to the Newfield, as sad as it is, it’s my favorite.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Only 42, but remember by most for a very very long time.
Scott
LikeLike