Quote:

vanessa, RFK was not a president.




Wankus, nice to see you are back! Hope you are doing all right...

Did I get busted on this one? You wish... he was going to be president, but "they" decided not to wait that long this time.

"Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy (November 20, 1925 – June 6, 1968), also called RFK, was one of two younger brothers of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and served as United States Attorney General from 1961 to 1964. He was one of President Kennedy's most trusted advisors and worked closely with the president during the Cuban Missile Crisis. His contribution to the African-American Civil Rights Movement is sometimes considered his greatest legacy. After his brother's assassination in late 1963, Kennedy continued as Attorney General under President Johnson for nine months. He resigned in September 1964 and was elected to the United States Senate from New York that November. He broke with Johnson over the Vietnam War and after Eugene McCarthy nearly upset Johnson in the New Hampshire Primary in early 1968 Kennedy announced his own campaign for president.

Kennedy declared his candidacy on March 16, 1968 stating, "I do not run for the Presidency merely to oppose any man, but to propose new policies. I run because I am convinced that this country is on a perilous course and because I have such strong feelings about what must be done, and I feel that I'm obliged to do all I can." McCarthy supporters angrily denounced Kennedy as an opportunist, and thus the anti-war movement was split between McCarthy (whose base was among intellectuals, students and the upper middle class) and Kennedy (whose base was among working class Catholics and blacks).

On April 4, 1968, Kennedy learned of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and gave a heartfelt, impromptu speech in Indianapolis' inner city, in which Kennedy called for a reconciliation between the races. Riots broke out in 60 cities in the wake of King's death, but not Indianapolis, a fact many attribute to the effect of this speech. Kennedy openly challenged young people who supported the war while benefiting from draft deferments, visited numerous small towns, and made himself available to the masses by participating in long motorcades and street-corner stump speeches (often in troubled inner-cities). Kennedy made urban poverty a chief concern of his campaign, which in part led to enormous crowds that would attend his events in poor urban areas or rural parts of Appalachia."

"Kennedy defeated McCarthy in the critical California primary, but was assassinated moments after claiming victory."

"On June 4, 1968, Kennedy scored a major victory when he won the California primary. He addressed his supporters in the early morning hours of June 5, 1968 in a ballroom at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He left the ballroom through a service area to greet supporters working in the hotel's kitchen. In a crowded kitchen passageway, Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian, opened fire with a .22 caliber revolver and shot Kennedy in the head at close range. Following the shooting, Kennedy was rushed to The Good Samaritan Hospital where he died the next day."

"After the assassination, the mandate of the Secret Service was altered to include protection of presidential candidates."