JFK+50: Volume 6, No. 1772
RFK WOULD HAVE BEEN 90 YEARS OLD TODAYBrookline, Massachusetts (JFK+50) The seventh child of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., Robert Francis Kennedy was born ninety years ago today, on November 20, 1925 in here Brookline, Massachusetts.
Like his older brothers Joe Jr. and Jack, Bobby Kennedy served in the United States Navy in WWII. He earned a degree in government from Harvard in 1948. In 1950, Robert F. Kennedy married Ethel Skakel of Greenwich, Connecticut.
A year later, RFK received a law degree from the University of Virginia Law School and in 1952 served as manager for John F. Kennedy's successful campaign for the Senate.
In 1953, Bob was on the staff of Joseph McCarthy's subcommittee on investigations and later was Chief Counsel for the Senate Rackets Committee.
In 1960, RFK managed Jack's successful presidential campaign and in 1961 became President Kennedy's attorney general. In that position, the JFK Library says that Bobby became JFK's "closest adviser and confidant."
After JFK's death, RFK was elected as a United States senator from the state of New York. In 1968, after having won the California primary in a bid to win the Democratic nomination for President, Robert F. Kennedy was shot in Los Angeles.
RFK died on June 6, 1968 and was laid to rest in the Kennedy plot at Arlington National Cemetery. During his presidential campaign, RFK spoke out against the war in Vietnam and championed the cause of the poor and downtrodden. In most of his speeches he paraphrased the words of George Bernard Shaw by saying....
'Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say, why not?'
J. Edgar Hoover RFK
May 7, 1963
Photo by Cecil Stoughton
JFK Library Image
