Kennedy, Robert F(rancis)

Kennedy, Robert F(rancis) (1925-1968), United States political leader and legislator, brother of President John F. Kennedy, born in Brookline, Massachusetts. Kennedy interrupted his undergraduate studies at Harvard University to serve in the US Navy during World War II. After the war he returned to Harvard and in 1948 received a B.A. degree. He was awarded an LL.B. degree from the University of Virginia in 1951. Later that year he became an attorney in the US Department of Justice, leaving that post the following year to manage the senatorial campaign of his older brother, John. Following the campaign, Robert Kennedy returned to government service as counsel to several Senate subcommittees. He first gained national prominence as chief counsel (1955-1957) of the Senate Permanent Investigations Subcommittee in its investigation of Teamster Union executives David Beck and James Hoffa.

In 1960, following the election of his brother to the presidency, Robert Kennedy was appointed US Attorney-General. His tenure in that office was marked by active enforcement of civil rights laws and the first serious crackdown on mafia activities. He resigned his Cabinet post in 1964 following his brother's assassintation, and in the same year was elected US senator from New York. As senator, Kennedy showed himself to be particularly concerned with the problems of urban ghettos and of the poor and disadvantaged.

In the spring of 1968 Kennedy, who sharply differed with some of the policies of President Lyndon B. Johnson (notably his opposition to the Vietnam War), campaigned for the Democratic party nomination. By June 1968, he had won major primary elections in Indiana, Nebraska, and California. Upon leaving a celebration in Los Angeles after his victory in the California primary was assured, Kennedy was shot by the Jerusalem-born Jordanian Sirhan Bishara Sirhan. Careful sifting of the evidence has since revealed the possibility that Kennedy's assassination was, like his brother's, a conspiracy involving more than one gunman. Kennedy died the following day, June 6, 1968. His gravesite in Arlington National Cemetery is near that of President Kennedy. His death, just two months after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., was felt by many to be the final blow to the project of liberal idealism which had briefly flourished in the 1960s.