The Day Hope Died: Remembering Robert Kennedy

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2018

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Why did Bobby Kennedy leave such a lasting impression on US politics and society? Revered equally across the political spectrum today, his rise to prominence was controversial. He became Attorney General at just 35 and gained a reputation as a tough operator during his brother JFK’s time in the White House. But when he was gunned down in 1968, America was riven by racial and class division as well as doubts over the country’s involvement in the Vietnam War. Senator Robert Kennedy came to embody the hopes and dreams of a generation seeking a fairer and more peaceful country. Fifty years after becoming the target of an assassin in the Ambassador’s Hotel in Los Angeles, Stephen Sackur speaks to some of the people whose lives were changed forever that day. Close aide Paul Schrade, who was himself hit in the skull by one of the assassin’s bullets and Vincent Di Pierro who found himself covered in the senator’s blood as he slumped to the ground give the closest accounts of RFK’s final moments. Others painting a picture of Kennedy, the man include Peter Edleman, the policy director for his presidential campaign and speechwriters Adam Walinsky and Jeff Greenfield. Meanwhile RFK’s daughter Kerry Kennedy who was eight when her father died, gives us a rare insight into their home life and his role as a husband and father Legendary British interviewer David Frost (famed for his interrogation of Richard Nixon after Watergate) talks about the impact RFK had on him. And contributors speculate if another Kennedy may soon run for the White House with all eyes on RFK’s charismatic grandson, congressman Joe Kennedy who represents Massachusetts.

Transcript

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0:00.0	50 years ago a young Robert Kennedy seemed destined to follow in his
0:09.3	brother's footsteps and make a run for the White House.
0:13.0	I do not run for the presidency merely to oppose any man.
0:16.0	I run because I am convinced that this country is on a perilous course.
0:21.0	R.F.K. had become the man of the moment as he sought to unite a nation which was
0:27.3	deeply divided over race, class, and the war in Vietnam.
0:32.2	I want the Democratic Party and the United States of America to stand for hope instead of despair,
0:38.0	for reconciliation of men instead of the growing risk of world war. He offered hope in a country that appeared
0:45.8	to be tearing itself apart. My thanks to all of you and now it's on to Chicago and
0:51.1	let's win there. Thank you. But as he and his supporters celebrated making progress in the race to be
0:57.8	crowned Democratic candidate in the presidential campaign of 1968, he was gunned down, shot in the head at close range.
1:07.0	He had indeed followed in his brother's footsteps, but in the bleakest, darkest way, because 24
1:19.5	hours later he was dead, another victim of an assassin's bullet. As collective cries of
1:26.6	not again rang out all around the world a generation in America was left devastated. The sense of leadership
1:35.9	potential unfulfilled was painfully sharp. I'm Stephen Sacker and this is the day hope died, remembering Robert Kennedy on the BBC World Service. It's May 2018.
1:57.0	May 2018.
1:59.0	More than 4,000 students tread these campus grounds, the sons and daughters of Los Angeles's
2:06.9	working poor. Six schools now occupy the site of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. The official title is the Robert
2:16.6	F Kennedy Community Schools.
2:19.4	What I know about Robert F Kennedy is that he was the New York Senate and he was running for office
2:25.8	But also that he fought for a lot of people and he fought for people to have same rights as others and although yes he was flawed
2:32.2	But he always tried to find the best
	...

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