Robert F.
Kennedy
BackGround
Robert F. Kennedy, born in 1965, was the seventh child of Joseph P. Kennedy. As a boy, he was frequently overlooked by teachers, classmates, and his father as a result of his stoic and frequently depressed attitude. He was often trying to make up for his unathletic and lower grades, but even as the “runt of the liter” as his father called him, he still had a childhood of privilege. In Judie Mills book Robert Kennedy, RFK was shown to have taken up a paper route to impress his parents but actually had the family chauffeur drive him in their Rolls-Royce through the route. He bounced between numerous boarding schools in his youth, never doing exceptionally well at any of them, be it in sports or academics. This distant relationship with his father and siblings helped RFK define himself in the earlier parts of his life without constant interaction and support from the Kennedy family as a whole. As his life continued, however, this began to change as the divides between RFK and his family thinned.
Around his eighteenth birthday, Kennedy signed up for the Navy Reserves
where he attended training programs in Maine and Boston. RFK found a new respect from his father as he worked on the USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. which was named after his late brother who died in a plane crash in the English Channel. Following the end of the war, Kennedy returned to college and got heavily involved in his brother JFK’s run for the House of Representatives. As this started his political career, he would soon graduate from his family’s frequent school, Harvard University.
Politics
As JFK climbed the political ladder, so too did Robert. Now, with the acceptance of his father, Kennedy found himself with more opportunities. At Joseph Sr.’s request, RFK began working with Senator McCarthy, and although he remained only shortly at the controversial position, it thrust him more into the public eye. Following the publishing of his successful 1960 work The Enemy Within, Robert decided to put his own career aside to assist in the pursuit of the overarching family goal: JFK for president.
The presidency of JFK provided an open White House for Robert Kennedy. Although officially the Attorney
General, his job encompassed an advisor to the president on many different fronts, giving the young politician significant experience and political connections. Utilizing these skills and developments, Kennedy tried for his own presidential bid following his brother’s assassination and Johnson’s presidency, but he too was assassinated before the end of the primaries.