Original subtitles

No American in this century has ever been so likely to be president as Robert

Francis Kennedy.

Ladies and gentlemen, please move back to the sidewalk.

Allow the motorcade to pass.

Please move back to the sidewalk.

Here in California, the caravan provided the love feast Kennedy has come to

expect.

It happened again, as in city after city, a mob scene and a traffic jam

much of downtown.

In California, it was unreal.

They had to hold him in the car because people were pulling all sides.

He was touched, trapped, and at one point torn from his car, wrenching the

of the man who usually holds him erect.

He was seen as a young, revolutionary, radical figure who represents change.

He has spoken out often on the three issues which inflame most Americans most

the time.

Vietnam, civil rights, and poverty.

I think we can make a major difference in the United States for all of our

people and for peace all over the rest of the world.

And yet no politician engenders such extremes of devotion and distrust.

I did not really support Robert Kennedy early on because I thought he was just a

young rich kid, you know, trying to make it in politics.

I think he's trying to ride on his father's fortune and his brother's fame.

The John Kennedy haters of the early 60s, some Southerners, businessmen, and

conservative suburbanites, have now become the Bobby haters of the late 60s.

My image of him was not very strong.

I had remembered him from the Justice Department and the taping of Martin

King. In certain cases, wiretapping, listening in on a telephone conversation

can be most helpful.

In the early days, President Kennedy and his brother, Robert Kennedy, did not

want to appear to be moving too fast for civil rights.

As far as Martin Luther King is concerned, we called for a cooling off

People have gone into the streets and created disorders without any purpose.

But he saw people suffering that have changed him.

He fell in love with people.

He turned into one of the most sincere persons involved in human values and

trying to do the right thing, trying to do justice.

The campaign in California was really wonderful. The vote count was beginning

look very good.

Then on the last day of the campaign, we lost him.

This photograph shows Robert Kennedy and me lying on the floor.

It also shows a friend of mine, Cap Hardy,

leaning over me and putting one of the Kennedy campaign hats over my face

because he thought I was dead.

There were five people besides Bob shot that night. I was the first one hit in

the center of my forehead.

Losing Robert Kennedy was just difficult to live with because he provided so

much hope for us.

I first got involved with Bob Kennedy in the early 60s.

I was working at the time for the United Oil Workers Union on civil rights, on

workers' rights, and so forth.

I've got major files in the storeroom over here to deal with the labor

peace movements, and farm workers' movements, but mostly dealing with the

Kennedy case.

This is a great event. Robert Kennedy flew in for the end of Cesar Chavez's 23

-day fast.

There I am.

In 1968, I became a part of Bob's campaign for president. I was vice

for labor in the late 60s. A lot of forces were coming together through the

anti -war movement, through the labor movement, the student movement, the war

poverty.

It was just a very lively...

dynamic period and and fortunately we had bob kennedy help lead us

robert francis kennedy was born on november 20 1925

in brookline massachusetts one of a family of four boys and five girls born

rose and joseph patrick kennedy his father a second generation immigrant

had become boston's youngest bank president and went on to amass a fortune

become the american ambassador to great britain

You grew up knowing that you would never have to worry too much about money. Did

that mean you could put emphasis upon something else? I think so. Of course,

it's a great advantage. I mean, obviously, it was stressed in our family

because we had these tremendous advantages, which other people do not

in turn, we had a responsibility to others.

You have a reputation for toughness, for being a fighter, that your father

offered a bit of competition in the family.

Yes, family life is competitive.

Well, I was number seven, so that was quite far down. And we were just trying

survive.

I first met Robert Kennedy when he came to Milton Academy.

He loved playing football.

Winning was important to him. You win or you're nobody.

He fought hard, but he was very fair -minded.

Any time there was bullying, he would take the side of the underdog.

Well, I think part of this sense of right and wrong came from being

was very religious.

Bobby was the runt of the litter, so he had a lot to prove to himself and to his

father. At Harvard, playing with a fractured right leg in a cast, Bob

letter against Yale, something none of his brothers had done before him.

Grab your partner, grab your gal, and rock.

Rock, rock, rock, rock, everybody.

Rock, rock, rock, rock, everybody. Rock, rock, rock, rock, everybody.

You rock it and you rock it and you rock it around.

Interrupting his college education to serve in the Navy during World War II,

returned to earn a law degree from the University of Virginia.

Bob Kennedy was once asked what was the most important decision of his life. His

answer? Marrying Ethel.

Rock, everybody.

You rock it and you rock it and you rock it around.

Senator, yours is a quite exceptionally political famine. Was it inevitable that

you would enter some form of politics?

I think I would have eventually ended up somewhere in politics or government. We

were brought up in that kind of an atmosphere.

My grandfather was mayor of Boston and he was a congressman from Boston. And

then, of course, my father was involved in politics and government.

And my oldest brother, Joe, before he was killed, was in government.

And then, of course, after the war, my brother Jack was in.

Politics and government, and I was involved in running his campaign.

The American people have spoken with a resounding voice at the polls.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower is elected.

The Republican Party is back in power.

In Massachusetts' Senate race, Representative John F. Kennedy scores

few major Democratic victories.

The Kennedy magic worked. Kennedy put on a blistering campaign which produced a

major political upset.

My brother Bobby, who managed the campaign, perhaps he could give us some

more up -to -date, of what the final figures were.

I think that from what we got up to about 20 minutes ago, we were winning by

about 70 ,000.

Well, I'm sure glad it's over, aren't you, Bobby? I am glad.

Okay.

had great admiration for Jack Kennedy. He was a hero in World War II, and we

became friends.

But I was always ambivalent about Bobby.

I liked him very much as a person. In fact, I played tennis over at his house.

We got to laugh together.

He had a great family. His wife, Ethel, a wonderful woman.

But it seemed to me that Bobby Kennedy, he was two people.

The other side of Bobby was a very determined young man.

He was very ambitious, aggressive, very sharp elbows for anybody in his way.

He was a young man.

Bobby got the job as a lawyer in facing communists with that terrible man, Joe

McCarthy. He has traveled far, interviewed many, terrorized some.

There are communists working in our defense plants.

There are communists being left unmolested in our government.

The question is, will you give the FBI any information that you may have about

members of the communist conspiracy?

On that question, I am going to refuse to answer your question. Bobby was nuts

on the communists. There was an insanity about communists in those days.

Then he got the job with the McClellan Committee going after union leaders and

their connection with organized crime.

Here's the committee's attorney questioning Teamster union leader Jim

Did you say?

At SOB, I'll break his back.

Who? You.

I'll break it to who? To anyone.

Did you make that statement?

You can't remember three months ago whether Johnny Deal was in your room?

man who's under indictment for throwing acid in Victor Rizal's eye? You can't

remember what you talked about, and you can't remember whether he was in your

room? It wasn't a event of anything of any importance, Mr. Kennedy, and I can't

recall it.

And he saw the power and publicity in going after people that the McClellan

Committee had.

Bob, tell me this.

Do you think the television coverage of the hearings has some real value? I

think it's been terrific, tremendous.

Mrs. Kennedy, are the youngsters aware of the fact that their father has been

quite a television personality this summer?

Well, they are, Mr. Murrow. I think this is never more true than when one day

the hearings ran over 15 minutes into Mickey Mouse.

The children were very displeased with their father that night.

The people who watched the...

Jimmy Hoffa hearings since that time. People have written to us that they saw

them on television and have made suggestions to us as to what leads we

follow up.

I think that was a little scary part of Bobby.

Jack Kennedy jokingly said, you know, Neil, I love Bobby. He's my brother and

great guy.

He said, but he's a cop at heart.

And at the end of the day, if he didn't have somebody to arrest, I think he'd

arrest Rose.

That was a joke, but it really summed it up, too.

These are the people of Wisconsin, where there's going to be a presidential

primary next Tuesday.

Here into Wisconsin have come Jack Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey. From a

well -staffed headquarters in downtown Milwaukee,

Bobby Kennedy directs the most skillful team of political operators.

They are trying for a knockout, a victory that will entirely eliminate

Bobby was at his best as a campaign manager.

His father taught him never to come in second.

And he loved his brother dearly.

He wanted this for him.

I think he's got a considerable amount of strength around the country, starting

in New England, but also in the Midwest and in the Rocky Mountain states.

But I think that a lot of it's going to depend on how well he does in the

primaries.

To me, the Kennedys represented a new generation and a great change in the

American scene.

There is a new generation.

going to take over here in the United States, and this country is going to

ahead. I think that we're going to have to be strong enough here in the United

States if we're going to preserve the peace.

We're not going to stand still.

We're going to face up to our problems and reestablish our prestige and our

position in the world. And that's what Senator Kennedy is going to do when he's

elected President of the United States.

The self -confidence of the Kennedys came from many sources, but certainly a

primary source was the family. I mean, they were very close at every level and

always sustaining one another.

The Kennedy women arrived, first Ethel, then the Senator's sisters.

I sort of feel like an independent merchant competing against a chain store

I compete with the Kennedy family.

People often ask me, now which Kennedy are you?

My brother Jack.

People have not...

even sure about which Kennedy he is. He was coming up here about three months

ago to decide whether he'd go in the Wisconsin primary.

And he sat on an airplane next to a little old lady. It was her first

And she looked up at him and she said, you're one of the Kennedy boys, aren't

you? And he said, yes. I think you've done a wonderful job as counsel for the

Senate Rackets Committee.

And Jack said, well, that's not me. That's my brother.

So then the lady said, but I think those seven beautiful children you have, it's

just wonderful.

And Jack said, well, that's not me, that's my brother.

So finally she said, well, then tell your brother I wish him all the luck in

world in his bid for the presidential nominee.

He said, no, no, no, that's me, that's me.

We will be pleased to have the privilege of seeing Bob Kennedy,

Senator Kennedy's son.

Thank you very much. I'm sorry that my mother couldn't be here tonight.

And my sister Eunice, and my sister Jean, my

brother -in -law Peter Lawford, or my brother Teddy, or my cousin Joe Gargan,

cousin... So you're going to have to settle with me. Thank you very much.

Great appreciation to my brother Bobby, who has directed all our primary

campaigns and the organization in all of them.

as he did in my campaign for the Senate in 1952.

And, of course, he has been the most essential figure.

We've just arrived in Los Angeles, the city seething with convention

There seems to be no doubt Senator John Kennedy of Massachusetts is far and away

in the lead.

for the Democratic nomination.

However, there are many supporters of Stevenson and Johnson who still are

convinced that he will be stopped.

That was at the 1960 convention.

We felt that there was the opportunity to create a world where democracy would

prevail and where social justice would be an objective.

is the great senator from the state of Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy.

I worked with Bob Kennedy in the 1960 convention to help shift Stevenson

delegates over to Jack Kennedy.

I really connected with Bob. I could see how effective he was.

Bobby Kennedy and Abe Ribicoff, the Kennedy floor leaders, please urge

for individual votes.

Nevertheless, some of the bosses of the Democratic Party thought there was no

doubt Lenny Johnson was going to win this nomination.

Johnson was a major figure in the U .S. Senate and the Democratic Party, which

was in large measure still controlled by Southern political forces.

Senator, would you agree with Senator Kennedy who said that he thought you

his chief opposition because you had more delegates than anybody else?

Well, I have great respect for Senator Kennedy.

And maybe he has more information on the delegates I have than I do.

During four hours of nominations and demonstrations, the final struggle for

votes goes on.

Senator Kennedy, 104 and a half.

Wyoming vote will make majority to Senator Kennedy.

Governors, mayors, senators, bosses gather to form a protective escort for

young new leader.

Tomorrow, in an all -day tussle, he must choose a vice president.

John Kennedy offered the vice presidency to Wendy Johnson.

It was a stunning blow to everybody.

He has met with Senator Johnson for about 15, 20 minutes in Senator

suite. Bobby was surprised, too.

Bobby certainly was not for Johnson's nomination as vice president.

If you could think of two different personalities in the context of politics

public life,

They were, I mean, Johnson, the glad -hander, the bully, the pusher, getting

down, whispering in your ear, calling you up at all hours of the day or night.

They just didn't like each other.

So Bobby went to see him and say, you know, did you really mean it? Are you

really accepting it?

It's got a lot of dangers to it. Aren't you better off staying in the Senate and

all of that?

But Johnson knew Bobby didn't like him.

Johnson never forgave that.

There's Senator Kennedy now, Senator Johnson next to him, being photographed

together for the first time. This is the ticket.

We will carry the fight to the people in the fall, and we shall win.

Things are starting to pop as the candidates hit the presidential trail.

I think that we have a great deal of work. I think that the work on

will be extremely helpful.

Getting out the vote might very well be the key to victory here on November 8th.

Approximately 3 ,600 ,000 people in the state of New York were unregistered.

Most of these people would vote Democratic if they were put on the

I believe there's a real trend on now for Senator Kennedy and the Democratic

Party. We are extremely encouraged.

While Nixon slugs it out with Kennedy...

His vice -presidential mate, Henry Cabot Lodge, makes headlines with an appeal

for the Negro votes, critical in carrying big northern status.

My opinion is that there ought to be a Negro on the cabinet, and I'll go

further. I'll make this prediction that if Nixon was elected, there will be a

qualified Negro on the cabinet.

The country's dance with race has been very difficult.

The Kennedys were in the middle of a transitional moment for America.

The most important black icon, Jackie Robinson, had turned against the

Democratic Party and became committed to the Republican cause.

So the Democrats looked for black public figures, and I was targeted.

My career was on the ascendancy.

Well, to have his family needed money, said he didn't have but a dime.

If you wait till the red sun goes down, I'll get it from the men in the mine,

Lord, Lord, get it from the men in the mine.

I'll get it from the men in the mine, Lord, Lord, I'll get it from the men in

the mine.

I did not get the sense that the Kennedys were as deeply caught up in the

conversation of civil rights and black rights as they should have been.

Also, my first knowledge of Bobby Kennedy was when he had spent time with

McCarthy.

And those of us who were very much involved in the movement were constantly

being accused of being communist sympathizers.

So in the beginning, Bobby looked at us rather suspiciously, and the

feelings were reciprocal.

When John came to me, I concluded that he didn't know very much, and I told him

so. And before I could endorse him, I would have to come to grips with how he

felt about this young new force on the horizon named Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King is arrested in Atlanta at a restaurant sit -in, then

sentenced to hard labor.

Negro leaders fear for his life.

King had been arrested, but John Kennedy, he didn't say much on the

Kennedy wanted to do something, to say something.

But he knew it might endanger his chance of holding the majority of the white

opinion in the South and carrying the South in the election.

And the idea came to me and others, why shouldn't he just call Mrs. King?

She was very anxious. Why can't Kennedy at least just call her and say, we're

working at it, we're going to get him out, you have my sympathy, a personal

direct act.

And Kennedy said, that's a wonderful idea.

Dialed her, talked to her.

Then later in the morning, he started telling his strategist, and Robert

gave us hell.

And I've never been chewed out by anybody as angrily as I was by Robert

He said, close down your civil rights section. You've probably lost the

election. We had three southern governors tell us that if you support

Khrushchev, Castro, or Martin Luther King, we're going to throw our votes to

Nixon.

And then that very night,

Robert Kennedy called the judge in Georgia to get King out of jail.

And we asked Bob Kennedy, you know, after you were so angry, why did you do

that? And he said, well, as I went up to New York on the plane and thought about

it and King in jail with that sentence and screwing up our politics in this

country and maybe losing the election for my brother, I got so mad that I got

that judge on the phone.

Then we woke up one day and found out that Bobby intervened.

with the Georgia officials.

Next day, the weight of Kennedy's opinion is felt in Georgia.

King is released safe on bail.

As word spreads, Negro votes shift to Kennedy.

I don't know the details of it, but naturally I'm very happy to know of

Kennedy's concern and all that he did to make this possible.

I might say that there are no political implications here. I'm sure that the

senator did it because of his real concern and his humanitarian

bent.

That finally won many of us over to the Democrats.

There are many Negroes in America who still do not have the right to vote.

There are many of us who do.

And I think that we should use that right.

I'm voting for Senator Jack Kennedy.

How about you?

A record number of Americans, upwards of 67 million, go to the polls to elect

the 35th president of the United States.

At his Hyannisport, Massachusetts residence, the Democratic candidate and

wife stoically waited out the return.

And now begins the time of waiting as dusk falls over Hyannisport.

The atmosphere at headquarters in Bobby Kennedy's cottage grows tense.

This will be no sweep.

This is to be touch and go.

Nixon leads by a shade in popular votes.

He also holds an early lead in states with 173 of the 269 electoral votes

to make a man president.

Minute after minute, hour after hour, the Kennedys wait for decision on these

hair -breadth races.

And none comes.

Shortly after 3 in the morning East Coast time, The networks bring the

the picture of the vice president.

While there are still some results still to come in, if the present trend

continues, Mr.

Kennedy, Senator Kennedy, will be the next president of the United States.

Now my wife and I prepare for a new administration and for a new baby. Thank

you.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the long campaign comes to an end, a successful

him, despite the fact that the popular vote is a very, very narrow affair.

Mr. Kennedy, would you have a place in a Kennedy administration?

Well, nothing's been said to me, and I don't think I would, because of the

reason I think that it's virtually impossible in view of our relationship.

Nepotism.

Look tough, believe it or not.

But Jack was calm.

And Jack said, I've got my

Bobby.

My Bobby.

Bobby played cool.

My father was strongly in favor of my being Attorney General.

I think it just eventually came down to just the fact that President Kennedy

felt that it might be nice to have somebody around that he could discuss

with. For that reason, I did it.

He has proven his ability.

in almost 10 years of public service.

I am pleased to accept the position of the Attorney's Generalship of the United

States. I understand and realize the great problems and difficulties that

be facing all of us in that position.

There was a lot of criticism of his appointment.

Robert Kennedy was 35 years old when his brother appointed him.

He had never practiced law in the private sector.

Many people questioned the nepotistic aspect of it, the lack of experience.

So there was a lot of people watching very, very closely.

That building across the street there is the U .S. Department of Justice.

You may be able to see lights burning in the fifth floor office of Attorney

General Robert Kennedy.

The late night work is a symbol of the vigor of the Kennedy administration.

Bobby was not necessarily satisfied.

with the way things were functioning.

So he sort of re -engineered the Department of Justice.

After the election, he invited me in, and we had a long interview, and I

his special assistant.

I knew that Robert Kennedy was a centerpiece of the new frontier of young

coming in and commanding and handling difficult problems.

I went to work in the Justice Department with Robert Kennedy, and he was a

terrific, terrific person to work for.

It was an office where, characteristically, his sleeves were all

think it connoted that we're working hard, but also that we're informal.

Hello?

I think you got the wrong number.

Okay, all right.

Nobody had to ask for loyalty.

Robert Kennedy invoked from everybody who worked for him a sense of loyalty

a sense that his invitation to participate and to lead was to invite

look to broader horizons.

I think he was...

so sincere in what he believed in those days, but he was crossing the line on

things that shouldn't happen in America.

Some of these big -time gangsters corrupt the very system under which we

and something has to be done about it and the only thing that's going to be

is by the American people and those charged with authority taking some major

steps and doing them now.

He brought in a lot of very, very smart people and said, hey, OK, we have a

constitution, but let's get that guy. Never mind what the law says. Just find

way around him. Let's get Hoffa. Let's get the mafia. Let's get anybody that

they want to bring the full force of the Justice Department against.

All of a sudden, everybody's being wiretapped, mail openings, garbage

collections, knocking on a door, raids, suppression of civil liberties.

General Kennedy, why do you disagree with the famous judge's statement,

wiretapping is dirty business?

I don't know what to do with what you're referring to. Robert Kennedy, he in

fact was the guy who did sign the bugging for the wiretapping of Dr.

King.

Hoover, head of the FBI, was convinced that all the black leaders were

communists. Bobby was his boss, and Bobby did sign it.

Lieutenant General Bobby is a very attractive human being, but his greatest

weakness, the thing I've worried about before he was appointed, is that when

he's bent on what he thinks is the right course, he's rather ruthless in action.

With the reengineering of the law enforcement apparatus, Bobby Kennedy's

Department displaced the state control of crime and law enforcement and

substituted that with the creation of a de facto federal police force.

Instead of having a local U .S. attorney, Bobby was a great guy for

strike force people from out of the state.

Now, applying it to the South, it had some great value down South where they

were oppressing the black people.

You can never whip these boys if you don't keep you and them separate.

You've got to keep the white and the black separate.

The people that wrote the Declaration of Independence kept slaves, and I know

that Abraham Lincoln never planned to allow general mixing of the races. In

fact, he said that the only solution was to send the Negroes back to Africa.

We're not used to them sitting down beside us because I wasn't raised with

I never have lived with them, and I'm not going to start now.

I'm sorry. Our management does not allow us to serve Negroes in here.

One of the most important components of the civil rights movement is to put the

pressure on and to maintain constant pressure to win the sympathy of the

government.

There was something deep down within me, moving me, that... I could no longer be

satisfied or go along with an evil sister.

I had a feeling that President Kennedy and his brother, the Attorney General,

Robert Kennedy, would not fully understand what was happening and what

happened in the South.

There are injustices that exist in some of these communities, and the white

leadership refuses to discuss, even discuss, even meet with Negroes to

those injustices.

They didn't want to do anything to offend the Democratic white

leadership in the South. On the other hand, I think that the Negroes once

agreed to sit down and try to remedy these problems. The Negroes have to show

some understanding and meet with them.

and not have demonstrations just to demonstrate, not to demonstrate just to

their political strength, just to create disorder without any purpose.

And the Freedom Ride of 1961 became the first real test for the administration.

From all over the country, mixed groups traveling by bus entered the South,

determined to challenge the practice.

of providing separate facilities for Negro and white travelers.

You will walk into a so -called white waiting room and maybe take seats at a

lunch counter.

You go into a restroom and you'll be arrested.

And Robert Kennedy was saying this is the role of the state and not the role

the Department of Justice to play.

I don't see that the freedom riders who are so -called freedom riders who are

making these trips accomplish a great deal.

I question their wisdom. I don't question their legal right to travel,

question their wisdom. I think that some people can get hurt.

Now the matter is in the courts.

It seems to me that that's the proper place for it to be.

Then the bus was burned in Anniston, Alabama.

I learned about it when I came to my office on a Monday morning that there

been a bus burning, and I was terribly concerned about that.

The situation was building up in rather an ugly fashion.

We arrived in downtown Montgomery the very moment that we started off the bus.

An angry mob of men, women, and children, teenagers, they

start... just beating people with anything they could use as a weapon.

We were pinned up against the wall, and we were beaten.

I was hit in the head by a man with a wooden crate.

We thought we were going to die on that day.

Why are you going on with the trip?

Well, I feel that it's got to be done now, and I might as well be willing to

sacrifice this ultimate gift, and that's my life, I guess.

Dr. King became directly involved in the new movement.

as chairman of the Freedom Rider Coordinating Committee.

Later that night, we met with him. We started planning a mass meeting at a

little church.

And a mob that evening tried to burn the church.

And now we've had an ugly mob outside.

They burned some automobiles.

But we are not, we are not giving in for what we are standing

for.

And maybe it takes something like this for the federal government to see that

Alabama is not going to place any limit upon itself. It must be imposed from

without.

And Dr. King went down into the basement and made a call to Robert Kennedy and

just said to him in so many words, we have a very dangerous situation here.

If we fail to intervene or do something, people will be killed.

And it was then, after we found that law and order couldn't be maintained, that

we sent in marshals to ensure that there was protection.

In this situation, I want to make this announcement that the city is now under

martial law and troops are on the way into Montana.

The U .S. Marshals remain in Alabama.

As soon as the federal government is shown by action that the state of

Alabama can deal with law enforcement on their own, the U .S. Marshals will be

out of there. I don't think there's any question that they saved a number of

lives and prevented widespread bloodshed.

As a result of the Freedom Rides, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued a

ruling, which went into effect on November 1st, ordering that all the

segregation signs must come down in the terminals and that in their place must

be posted desegregation signs.

In that period of time, Bobby Kennedy and I began to develop an appreciation

one another, and I soon found myself a guest at his home when I got to know

Ethel. and a lot of his children.

He was a great father from what I saw, and his children roamed all over him.

Unlike most guys that had his capacity and his power, he was not absent.

And I felt somewhere in him resided a moral center that was far

beyond what may have been expressed politically.

I'd gotten a call from James Baldwin, a great black writer who'd befriended the

Kennedys. He said, I'm coming to New York and I would like to bring a little

group of black people together to talk with Bobby.

Baldwin suspected that here was an opportunity for a very willing

know more about what's going on.

I think the one who's got to find some way

of putting The present administration of this country, on the spot,

one has got to force, somehow, from Washington, a

moral commitment, not to the Negro people, but to the life of this country.

Bobby offered his apartment that they had on Central Park South, and we got to

his apartment, we had a lovely meal, and he was a... gracious host, and

everything he said on a very light, drifting level.

And he turned the conversation to the war in Vietnam and what role were black

people expected to play to defend this nation.

And a young man by the name of Jerome Smith, who had been beaten near death as

civil rights activist, said to Bobby, I'm out of here. I want nothing to do

this.

What do you...

What's your game?

I mean, he just ripped it to the bone.

And it kind of shocked Bobby.

Jerome took the position that he, as a black man, he would never commit himself

to fighting for this country.

That triggered Kennedy's passion.

And Bobby got very angry.

He just felt that it was deeply unpatriotic.

That evening in the apartment shook him to the core.

It was a great shock to me.

The Attorney General, Mr. Robert Kennedy, did not know that I would have

convincing my nephew to go to Cuba, for example,

to liberate the Cubans in defense of a government which now says

it is doing everything it can do, which cannot

liberate me.

After that, A week or two may have gone by. I picked up with Bobby again. We

just talked about it.

I told him what I thought, that his experience was important for him to have

because what he heard that evening was the passionate side of black thought.

What white people have to do is try to find out in their own hearts why it was

necessary to have a nigger in the first place.

Because I'm not a nigger.

I'm a man.

But if you think I'm a nigger, it means you need it.

The question you've got to ask yourself, the white population of this country

has got to ask itself, have I met the nigger here?

And you invented him. You, the white people, invented him.

And you've got to find out why.

One of America's favorite indoor sports is rating our presidents.

What has that boy in the White House done to us?

Not since the days of FDR has the level of attack on a president seemed quite so

heated. The Kennedy administration, in our opinion, has made an error in not

requesting the Congress to pass civil rights bills.

The present United States Attorney General, with the approval of the

of the United States, is far more responsible for the unfortunate ratio of

violence and troubles we are having throughout this nation.

than even the ruthless leaders who are sponsoring and promoting racial unrest.

I don't know why President Kennedy thinks he has such a mandate.

He got elected by just a gnat's eyebrow.

There's large -scale unemployment.

There are the continuing upsets over desegregation.

Then there's Cuba, where Mr. Kennedy made his first radical foreign policy

decision and saw it fail.

The air and sea invasion of Cuba is crushed to the Bay of Pigs.

What, you're down to 70 %? Yeah.

Gallup -O. When was that?

Oh, about two days ago.

Oh, I didn't see it. Yeah.

It went 76 % to 70.

Yeah, I didn't see Gallup -O. Was this in the Post?

I don't know what paper. I read it going up on the plane Wednesday or Thursday.

We've dropped 6 % in a month, haven't we?

January. Boy, since that virus comes back.

Okay.

The question of whether the president is doing his job right is one of the most

difficult that we've had to get judgments on.

The changes in the times have made our political structure no longer viable,

made it unable to produce results unless there's some terrible crisis to force

action.

11 .45 a .m. The men whom the President has summoned begin to arrive at the

White House.

Secretary of State Russ.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Taylor, Vice President Johnson, Defense

Secretary McNamara, CIA Director McCone, Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

John and Robert Kennedy sat in that room with the armed forces of the United

States, the vice president, Lyndon Johnson, all of whom thought that we

invade Cuba.

This was the closest that the United States has ever come to nuclear

conflagration. And John and Robert Kennedy stood alone.

Talk about difficult negotiations.

There probably was never a more difficult negotiation than that one.

Robert Kennedy had a shrewd sense of diplomacy, something that I really

realize or understand until I saw it come out at that time.

It was he who brought together State, Defense, CIA, the UN mission, organized

them to work together to very quickly bring to his brother the alternatives

were open to him as president.

He offers this to you. I haven't refined it at all, but he offers this

arrangement that he will withdraw the base in Cuba for assurances that we

intend to leave the base.

The question of the Turkish base is something that has to be brought that

There should be disarmament of the Turkish base.

He's saying, if you get yours out of Turkey, we'll get out of it.

From the Kremlin comes the Soviet response.

A Russian leader says his country will halt shipments of offensive equipment to

Cuba and also will dismantle and take back all missiles in place or under

construction there. Across the world goes a long sigh of relief.

With it, the world's first nuclear showdown is over.

Robert Kennedy was the second most powerful person in the United States.

It wasn't just the Attorney General and the Justice Department.

It was Robert Kennedy, the brother of the president, and even more than that,

the brother of a president who trusted him totally and brought him into every

important question that had to be resolved.

I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny,

and I say segregation now.

segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.

Governor George Wallace made a campaign promise to stand in the doorway himself

to prevent two Negro students from registering at the University of

Kids carrying anti -Kennedy signs appeared in front of the Capitol before

Attorney General arrived. For a closed conference, the signs read Mississippi

murderer, Kennedy kosher and Khrushchev, Washington, D .C., a disgrace to white

people. All of this activity about 15 minutes before the Attorney General

arrived. Kennedy then went into the governor's office for a closed

I don't have no objection to our remarks being recorded here, do you? Whatever

you like.

You might save this conversation for posterity.

Do you think it would be so horrifying to have a Negro attend the University of

Alabama? I think it's horrifying for the federal courts and the central

government.

To rewrite all the law and force upon people that which they don't want.

The government, it's not the government. We're not rewriting the law. The

federal courts have made a decision. The federal courts rewrote the law on the

matter of integration and segregation. For a hundred years, they said we could

have segregated schools.

I think integration is bad. I don't think it's good. And you really don't

any bona fide integration anyplace in the country. You know that.

In fact, you don't have it in Washington.

Virginia. Why don't the government make all them officials come back to Virginia

and Maryland and go to school in Washington?

I've seen a lot of ditties throughout the world, Governor, that aren't

controlled by white people.

Not controlled by the white people, but they're not controlled by neighbors.

Oh, yeah. I've seen a lot of those.

I have nothing against people because of their color.

My children right now are being nursed by colored folks. I just don't believe

social and education mixing.

I will never myself submit voluntarily to any integration of any school system

in Alabama.

We knew

there was going to be a struggle with Governor Wallace, so we went to see

and asked if we could make a film about it.

We had made New Frontiers.

which was a film I did in the White House with the president, with Kennedy.

They were very nervous about Alabama because they had had a couple people

in Mississippi.

And I said, well, I want to film Alabama.

And Lovie said, okay.

And so we made Crisis.

The Attorney General is responsible for enforcing the federal court order for

the entrance of the two students in the University of Alabama.

The Attorney General, I'll call it to you.

Hey, General.

I thought we could try to develop a plan about what's going to happen when

General Graham gets there.

Now, I'm not very much in favor of picking the governor up and moving him

the way. I think it would be much better if we could develop some system. You

have enough people just to push him aside.

I just want you all to be sure that we're not going to let anybody who

desecrated this university.

Because you've got agitators.

The provocateurs who come from outside this state, who themselves want to stir

up some violence in order to hurt our cause.

And if he still refuses, then Nick Katzenbach will say that we got this

order and we have to go through on a legal basis. He's made the test. This

matter should be determined in courts. It shouldn't be determined out here.

He's had this...

and just let him go through, or otherwise we're going to have to take

steps because these students are going to attend the University of Alabama.

Then, if he still doesn't move, then we'll try to get by him.

Pushing? We'll be pushing a little bit.

Just having somebody stand in front of him and try to walk through the three

doors. We're going to try to have somebody inside who will open up one of

other doors.

Obviously. Let's cut this now.

To manage his strategy on the scene in Alabama, Robert Kennedy is sending his

deputy attorney general, Nicholas Katzenbach, to Tuscaloosa.

Well, I have every indication he's not going to step aside up there. And I have

every indication he will dramatize to that group of reporters and that crowd

fact that he has been forcibly removed.

Want to say hello to Kerry?

Yeah.

Hi, Carrie. How are you, dear?

How are you doing?

Are you at our house?

No, I'm not out at your house. I'm way down in the Southland.

Okay, say goodbye.

Say goodbye.

Goodbye.

Goodbye. Hello?

Listen, Nick, you're going to have to play it a little bit by ear, but I

wouldn't take it too... I mean, almost dismiss him as being...

rather a second -rate figure for you.

He's wasting your time, he's wasting the students' time, and he's caused a big

scene up there.

You know, I'd have that sort of tone of voice.

Don't you think?

Yeah. All right.

Good luck.

You'll do well.

The University of Alabama campus at Tuscaloosa.

is under a tight security guard of state police as Governor George Wallace

prepares to confront a deputy U .S. attorney.

I've come here to ask you now for an unequivocal assurance that you will not

entry to these students, to William Malone and to James Hood, and that you

step aside peacefully and do your constitutional duty as governor.

I do hereby denounce and forbid this illegal and unwarranted action by the

central government.

Governor Wallace, I take it from that statement that you are going to stand in

that door. Governor George Wallace of Alabama has stood in the schoolhouse

After the federal officers leave, there's a lull of several hours while

President Kennedy federalizes the Alabama National Guard.

Will you issue the proclamation now, Simon?

The executive order, yeah. Right now?

Okay, okay.

And they move to the campus.

Brigadier General Henry Graham arrives to tell the governor, it's my sad duty

ask you to step aside on orders of the President of the United States.

to federal authority, but promises to continue what he terms a constitutional

fight. Five minutes after the governor leaves, James Hood is the first of his

race to become a University of Alabama student.

He is followed into the registrar's office by Vivian Malone.

This nation was founded on the principle that all men are created equal.

It ought to be possible, therefore, for American students

of any color.

to attend any public institution they select without having to be backed up by

troops.

We face, therefore, a moral crisis as a country and a people.

A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that

revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all.

Those who do nothing are inviting shame as well as violence.

Those who act boldly... by recognizing right as well as reality.

Next week, I shall ask the Congress of the United States to act to make it

possible for American citizens of any color to register and to vote in a free

election without interference or fear of reprisal.

When I first met Robert Kennedy in 63, he said to me,

He said, John, I now understand.

The young people, the students have educated me.

And he went on to say, we're going to bring justice to this country.

The method that is being used most widely in the United States at the

time to deny an individual the right to vote, who happens to be a Negro, are

these literacy tests.

Well, I would say that if a person has completed the sixth grade and hasn't

learned to read and write, they're not to be allowed to vote.

Do you have a school system in North Carolina that you complete the sixth

and you can't read or write?

And I think that we should do something. The federal government has a

responsibility to all of our citizens to make sure that they have the right to

exercise their franchise when it's being denied to them because of the fact that

they happen to be of a Negro race.

He didn't mind getting into a battle where victory wasn't assured, but he was

prepared to fight.

I would hope that you would join with us in sponsoring this legislation to

remedy this situation, Mr. Chairman. I love the Constitution too much to do so.

Well, I love the Constitution also,

Mr. Chairman, but this doesn't violate the Constitution.

A march in Washington, D .C. It's America at its best.

It was a great day.

And out of it emerged a very devastating but magnificent speech that Dr.

King delivered.

I have a dream.

And the other speaker was a young man by the name of John Lewis.

He gave a hell of a speech.

revolution that is keeping this nation.

Get in and stay in the streets of every city, every village and helmet of this

nation until true freedom comes.

We must get in this revolution and complete the revolution.

On the Delta of Mississippi, in Southwest Georgia, in the Black Belt of

in Harlem, in Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, and all over this nation,

Black Mass is on the march for Darwin's freedom.

Robert Kennedy, along with his brother, President Kennedy, responded to

pressure.

They responded to the resistance.

He almost became a crusader for civil rights and social justice.

We knew that if there was ever going to be an opportunity for us to get the

Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, much of it was ignited by what the

Kennedys had done.

A flash from Dallas.

President Kennedy is dead. A bullet wound.

This is the latest information we have from Dallas.

Of course, standing by to give you all available information as it comes to us.

I will repeat with the greatest regret this flash.

Two priests who were with President Kennedy say he has died of bullet

President Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, Texas.

Lyndon Johnson is President of the United States.

He took the oath of office in a jet airplane as he was coming back to

Washington.

Here was the scene at Andrews Air Force Base a few minutes ago.

When I got to the airport and I looked over in the corner there by an old

there was somebody walking up and down.

I walked over. It was Bobby Kennedy by himself.

He was crying.

And I walked over, and I don't know what I said.

Everybody was saying, Bob, we're all crying. We're all crying.

The world is crying.

Behind the casket is Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy.

To her right is her brother -in -law, the Attorney General.

Robert Kennedy, they are helping her down.

This is a sad time for all people.

We have suffered a loss that cannot be weighed.

I know that the world shares the sorrow that Mrs. Kennedy and her

family bear.