'E&P' Editor on 'Witnessing' the RFK Assassination

[Robbien]

When Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, I must have been one of the few people on the East Coast -- or practically anywhere in the U.S. -- still awake to watch it unfold. I was such a diehard Eugene McCarthy supporter (head of my campus Clean for Gene outfit) that I simply had to stay up until the last votes were counted in the tight California primary, even though all of the TV anchors had assured us that Kennedy was headed for a crucial victory.

I was still watching, unhappily, when Kennedy gave his victory speech past 3 a.m. in New York.

Kennedy was my senator but I had backed McCarthy early on and was one of the millions who resented RFK for horning in on the antiwar crusade only after Lyndon Johnson announced he would not stand for re-election. The word "opportunist" to describe Kennedy gained wide currency, and there was little doubting it (even some of his supporters admitted). However, many of the McCarthyites also came to admire his appeal to blacks, Chicanos and the poor and recognized that he would be a far stronger candidate in the fall -- if he (in tandem with McCarthy) could deny Hubert Humphrey the nomination, still an uphill battle.

In any event, I was watching the vote count to the bitter end -- and what happened in the wee hours of the morning remains vivid in my skull even after 40 years.

You've all seen the footage of RFK beaming and waving to the crowd at the Ambassador ballroom and saying, "On to Chicago," and then disappearing from the stage. Probably nearly everyone beyond the West Coast (and even most people out there) still watching clicked off their sets then. CBS and NBC had already ended coverage, and ABC was about to sign off.

But I stayed tuned, and I'll never forget the first suggestions of something amiss.

As I recall, the first evidence wasn't a news flash but simply a visual image of an injured body on a table and people standing around in distress, some sobbing, others with eyes in wide-eyed shock. I recall sitting straight up on the couch and pressing closer to the TV. What the hell was this? Then came word of a shooting, and with a Kennedy nearby, there could be little doubt of the target.


much more . . .
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003808156

The whole article brings back that day so very clearly.

[williesgirl]

1. I too was watching on the East Coast but because I was supporting Kennedy. HRC's remarks brought

all the hurt right back yesterday. I'll never forgive her for that. rec'd

[enough]

2. Yes, this does bring it all back, especially the way the RFK murder seemed connected

to the murder of Martin Luther King. It all seemed to be part of one evil reality. Anyone who lived through that time cannot think of these murders entirely separately. So when Hillary invokes one, she brings them all to mind.

snip from the article>

You had to "be there" to understand the disgust and shock -- just weeks after the Martin Luther King killing and less than five years after Dallas.

snip>

[Robbien]

3. It brings back the song Abraham, Martin and John. Doesn't it?

Anybody here seen my old friend Abraham?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed lotta people but it seems the good they die young
You know I just looked around and he's gone

... closing verses

Didn't you love the things that they stood for?
Didn't they try to find some good for you and me?
And we'll be free
Some day soon, it's gonna be one day

Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up over the hill
With Abraham, Martin, and John

[1776Forever]

4. I turned 22 years old the day he won CA on June 4th 1968 - & Yes I was watching

in the early hours of June 5th to hear his victory speech when it happened. Just like I had seen the shooting on live TV of the Oswald shotting. I could not believe it! It was like a bad dream. I just kept thinking, "Why?"

I was 15 when JFK was running for President and was an ardent supporter of his. The Preacher in my families church had kicked me out of the church for wearing a Kennedy for President badge into the church and I never went back! I wore the badge into the church to protest the anti-Catholic material being handed out in our Bible Church in Ohio because I didn't think it was right for a church to do that. When President Kennedy was shot down it was so awful that I cannot tell you in words how much it hurt me and our Country to loose this wonderful dedicated man who truly loved this country!

Let me say here that Bobby Kennedy had been brilliant! Dare we all dream of another shinning light in the White House? All of his supporters, like me, were joyous about his chances as he won the CA Primary. So here I was a 22 year-old young mother looking at yet another of my hero's going down in the most horrific of ways. It had only been a few short months since the April 4th,1968 shotting of MLK. Those were very trying days!

May this country never have to go through a terrible time like this ever again! It tears your heart out!