"After John Kennedy's assassination," writes Thurston Clarke in The Last Campaign -- Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America, "Robert -- formerly his brother's no-holds-barred political warrior -- was left stunned and grieving. He was haunted by his brother's murder and by the nation's failure to address its most pressing challenges -- race, poverty, and the war in Vietnam."
Actually, after JFK's death, Bobby had no marked feelings about race or poverty. John F. Kennedy had delivered a speech in the summer of 1963, supporting a civil rights bill, but neither he nor his attorney general connected with the issues then on an emotional level. It was during a 1966 whistle-stop tour of America, during which Bobby hoped to build up some political IOU's for a possible presidential campaign two years later, that one began to see the scales fall from his eyes, as he saw poverty and race relations up close.
Unfortunately, it's beyond the scope of Clarke's book to chronicle the 1966 tour, which was lavishly covered by Life and Look, the leading photo/news magazines of the day. But that epiphany was every bit as fascinating as the 82-day campaign he describes here.
Clarke has written a misty-eyed, "What if?" account of that thrilling campaign. His prologue quotes leading politicians of the day, arguing how different the world would be today had RFK lived. Many of them are contemporaneous statements, made in the grief-stricken moments following his assassination at the hands of Sirhan Sirhan, so allowances must be made.
Four and a half decades of life beyond RFK's death has left us older and wiser, and most of us realize that many of our idols have clay feet and that unforeseen circumstances arise during a presidency which change the best of intentions campaigned on. Which is not to say that we all aren't due for a healthy infusion of hope. Voters' reaction to the candidacy of Barack Obama is proof positive of that.
In any event, it's strongly evocative to relive those heady days, from LBJ's March 31, 1968 decision not to seek a full term to the horrific end of RFK's life in Los Angeles on June 4. All the old media hands, some now living, some dead, parade by.
