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Dewey Decimal Number: 973.922092 EAN: 9780805077926 ISBN: 0805077928 Label: Henry Holt and Co. Manufacturer: Henry Holt and Co. Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 336 Publication Date: May 27, 2008 Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. Release Date: May 27, 2008 Studio: Henry Holt and Co. Editorial Review: Product Description: The definitive account of Robert Kennedy’s exhilarating and tragic 1968 campaign for president—a revelatory history that is especially resonant now After John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Robert Kennedy—formerly Jack’s no-holds-barred political warrior—almost lost hope. He was haunted by his brother’s murder, and by the nation’s seeming inabilities to solve its problems of race, poverty, and the war in Vietnam. Bobby sensed the country’s pain, and when he announced that he was running for president, the country united behind his hopes. Over the action-packed eighty-two days of his campaign, Americans were inspired by Kennedy’s promise to lead them toward a better time. And after an assassin’s bullet stopped this last great stirring public figure of the 1960s, crowds lined up along the country’s railroad tracks to say goodbye to Bobby. With new research, interviews, and an intimate sense of Kennedy, Thurston Clarke provides an absorbing historical narrative that goes right to the heart of America’s deepest despairs—and most fiercely held dreams—and tells us more than we had understood before about this complicated man and the heightened personal, racial, political, and national dramas of his times. Amazon.com Review: Amazon Best of the Month, June 2008: When Senator Robert F. Kennedy entered the presidential race during the chaotic year of 1968, anarchy appeared to be gathering on the horizon. America was coming to grips with an unwinnable war in Vietnam and unacceptable social policies at home. Exclusive Q&A with Author Thurston Clarke
Clarke: The fact that he was the brother of a beloved and martyred president, and that he was also assassinated are of course important factors. But I think Bobby Kennedy continues to be relevant because he tackled issues such as race, poverty, and an ill-advised and unpopular war that remain relevant. And not only did he address these issues but he addressed them with an honesty and passion that no other president or politician has equaled since 1968. Amazon.com: Despite his own fears, Kennedy made himself dangerously accessible to crowds. Was this an act of defiance or conviction? Clarke: It was both defiance and conviction. Speaking of President Johnson’s bubble-topped, bulletproof limousine, he told a reporter, 'I’ll tell you one thing: if I’m elected President, you won’t find me riding around in any of those God-damned cars. We can’t have that kind of country, where the President is afraid to go among the people.' When his aides (who were worried about his safety throughout the campaign) urged him to spend more time campaigning from television studios and less time plunging into crowds, he told them, 'There are so many people who hate me that I’ve got to let the people who love me see me.' Kennedy also knew that crowds revived him–'like a couple of drinks,' according to aide Fred Dutton–and that letting people see him in person was the best way to prove that his reputation for being 'ruthless' was unmerited. Amazon.com: Hypothetical questions achingly surround Bobby Kennedy and his legacy. Did any single 'What if?' occupy your thoughts as you researched this book? Kennedy campaigning in Los Angeles during 1968 Clarke: Several 'What ifs' haunted me. Kennedy had wanted to avoid going to the Ambassador Hotel on the evening of June 4, 1968 and instead watch the returns at the home of John Frankenheimer. The networks, however, protested that they needed him at the hotel for interviews and wanted to cover the victory celebration live if he won. Kennedy caved in and went to the hotel. Kennedy always went through the crowd in a ballroom or auditorium after speaking, and became angry with aides who tried to hustle him out a back door. But on the night of his assassination, he broke his own rule and went through the hotel pantry where Sirhan Sirhan was waiting. And what if he had won the nomination and become president? I doubt that there would have been riots at the Democratic convention in Chicago that year -- riots that helped elect Richard Nixon to the presidency and that have proven to be an albatross around the neck of Democrats for forty years. A President Robert Kennedy would have withdrawn America from Vietnam soon and there would be fewer names on the Vietnam wall. There would have been no bombing of Cambodia, Kent State, or Watergate, and so on, and so on. Amazon.com: Kennedy's campaign strategy was fraught with risk, as one observer remarked that 'he kept hammering away at the plight of the poor when there was more chance for political loss than gain.' Had Bobby simply had enough with politics as usual? Clarke: Kennedy’s obsession with the plight of America’s poor was more the result of his own personal experiences than any rejection of politics as usual. He had held a starving child in his arms in Mississippi. He had visited the appalling schools on Indian reservations where students learned nothing about their own culture and history. He had tramped through tenements in Brooklyn and come upon a girl whose face had been disfigured by rat bites. He believed that he had a responsibility to educate the American people about these conditions. During a flight on his chartered campaign plane he told Sylvia Wright of Life magazine, '. . . for every two or three days that you waste time making speeches at rallies full of noise and balloons, there’s usually a chance every two or three days . . . where you get a chance to teach people something; and to tell them something that they don’t know because they don’t have the chance to get around like I do, to take them some place vicariously that they haven’t been, to show them a ghetto, or an Indian reservation.' And it was moments like these, Kennedy told Wright, that made a political campaign, despite all its banalities and indignities, 'worth it.' Amazon.com: In your opinion, will we ever see another Bobby Kennedy? Have we become too jaded to embrace a candidate like RFK or has campaigning simply become political theater? Clarke: One of the aides who scheduled many of Kennedy’s appearances that spring, told me, 'What he did was not really that mystical. All it requires is someone who knows himself, and has some courage.' Related Items:      see moreAverage Rating:
 Rating:  - A Story of AmericaOne of my earliest memories, at about age 4, is looking over a sea of people at a 1968 Hubert Humphrey rally. My folks were good establishment democrats. They'd also been huge King followers, and had been to the March on Washington. His death was the seminal political event I heard as a young child. They'd been a fan of JFK, of course, but I curiously had heard little of RFK from them. I suspect his death, as it did for so many, sunk them into cynicism and resignation. This book, then, was a revelation to me. Clarke's narrative moves along at breakneck pace mirroring RKF's ferocious but brief campaign. He brings the campaign to life, and what a ride it was. Though RFK is the central figure, the real story is America itself. He writes of RFK's ability to transcend multiple segments of the American populace----------minorities, liberals, rural folk, blue-collar workers, and big business republicans. The campaign was like a religious revival weekend, and the folks at his rallys seem hungry for spiritual redemption. And that seems to me the larger message of Clarke's book. As American's we so deeply want to feel good about ourselves and our country. RFK connected with this. I read this book to understand the social and political climate of the late 60s. But I came away with a deeper understanding of the American identity. Reading it in the middle of the Obama campaign was particulary gratifying. Rating: - Great Listening!"Presidential campaigning at its best. Clarke gives all the inside scoop on why Bobby Kennedy ran against an incumbent president, Lyndon Johnson, and took away the momentum from Eugene McCarthy. Great listening." Rating:  - Common Presidential Goals!The author does a good job of sharing the essence of Bobby Kennedy; particularly while he was running for the nomination to be president. I had forgotten his focus on the poor and minority; "The least of these" so to speak. I felt that the opening chapter or Forward was a good summary of his attitude and focus. I was reminded of Barak Obama when he first began his campaign. Obama needs to get back to that, to inspiring us! I am a veteran of the Korean Police Action from 1950 to 1954. Two of my sons were in the service during the Vietnam fiasco, so much of this book was very familiar to me as a father. Two other sons were planning to go to Canada when the war was stopped. I compare the Iraq involvement with our involvement in Vietnam. This book is a good review for all of us. Rating: - Valuabe insight on Kennedy's campaignI'm not American, nor was I alive when RFK was murdured, but this book made me travel along with all the Kennedy entourage during those 82 days of campaign (the part that described the death, and aftermath, of Martin Luther King made me feel all the emotion people must have felt), and more that that, gave me the precise picture of what RFK wanted to America, in one word, his philosophy. Even if you have already read more about RFK will not be disapointed. Rating: - Great book!This is one of the best books I have read in a long time! It is very personal and inspiring. It is like being on the campaign trial with Robert Kennedy. I would strongly reccomend this book to anyone interested in american politcs. |
