RFK: Legacy

-I am announcing today my candidacy

for the presidency of the United States.

I run to seek new policies,

policies to close the gaps

that now exist between black and white,

between rich and poor,

between young and old.

I run for the presidency

because I want the United States of America

to stand for hope instead of despair.

I have traveled and I have listened to the young people

of our nation and felt their anger

about the war that they are sent to fight

and about the world that they are about to inherit.

- Last week he criticized the Vietnam policy.

This week he focused attention on the plight of the poor.

These are not ordinary times

and this is not an ordinary election.

The fight is just beginning.

- Campaign '68, the Indiana primary.

This primary would offer the first toe to toe meeting

between Senators Kennedy and McCarthy.

- There's more that we have to accomplish.

I think the deep divisions

within our country are unacceptable.

I think that we can heal them.

I think that we can do better.

Senator Robert Kennedy has won

the first primary test.

- He apparently will have all 23 votes

at the Democratic National Convention.

- And I intend to go on trying to do that

in the state of Nebraska and the state of Oregon

and the state of California.

- Well, it's a real horse race out in Oregon.

Senator Eugene McCarthy by a 6% victory margin

over Senator Robert Kennedy.

- Good luck to you, Mr. Kennedy.

Thank you very much.

- Get 'em, Bob-- good luck to you.

Thank you.

That war still goes on.

Of all of the presidential candidates,

I was the first one to speak out against

the way the war was being conducted.

I'm not going to be satisfied until that war is over

and American Soldiers are brought back here.

- An hour and a half after the polls have closed

in California,

the biggest primary of them all,

a slate of delegates pledged to Senator Eugene McCarthy.

It's a very tight race now.

McCarthy has 43%.

That small gain, Kennedy is pulling ahead.

The votes are all in now.

Senator Robert Kennedy claiming victory in California.

He's entering the ballroom

and you can hear the cheers from the supporters.

My thanks to all of you,

and now it's on to Chicago and let's win there.

Kennedy has been shot.

- Robert, do you think there's a Kennedy curse?

I don't know if there's a curse

or whether there might be a gene

that disposes people in my family toward risk.

In the summertime during the Camelot years,

I was raised on Cape Cod and we lived almost communally

in a compound where each family had a house

that was next to each other.

All the kids, there were 29 cousins

and we ate together every night and we ate at a different house.

And then all the kids played together during the day.

We had a regimen.

We had to take tennis lessons, sailing lessons, boxing lessons.

- It's like summer camp. - Like summer camp.

We played baseball every day and we played football every day

and we all did that together.

So it was really like being raised

in one really massive family.

Did your mother ever hug you

or father ever hug you?

Oh yeah.

There was affection.

-Yeah, there was lots of affection in our family,

lots of fights and lots of affection.

- I want to ask you now about your father.

Attorney General Robert Kennedy

paints a grim picture of the rise of lawlessness

under the Cosa Nostra or mafia.

This he describes as the government of organized

gambling, narcotics peddling, extortion, racketeering

and controlling of certain trade unions.

He says the income runs into billions.

Bobby Kennedy,

I mean, he was a born investigator.

He was a fantastic investigator, senate investigator.

What did you do then Mr. Hoffa?

Did you say, "That SOB, I'll break his back."

- Who? - You.

You can't remember what you talked about

and you can't remember whether he was in your--

-Wouldn't have been anything of any importance, Mr. Kennedy

and I can't recall it.

- Tell me, does Bob ever strike you

as a seemingly mild-mannered man for a rackets investigator?

-Well, I'm awfully surprised most of the time

when he really keeps his temper,

when witnesses aren't telling the truth

and being quite frank

or when they take the Fifth Amendment so often.

-You knew this was going on for all this period of time.

Mr. Hoffa, it's just beyond the powers of comprehension

that you can't recall that.

- Just a matter of great self-control.

Is that right?

I think so.

- Robert Kenny was definitely more conservative

than his brother initially

and saw the world in a little more black and white terms

than JFK did.

Bobby really didn't like politicians

and didn't want to have anything to do with politics

and was kind of dragged kicking

and screaming into supporting his brother

when he first ran for senator.

- My brother Bobby, who managed the campaign,

perhaps he could give us some idea more up to date

of what the final figures were.

-I think that what we got up to about 20 minutes ago,

you were winning by about 70,000.

- Well, I'm guess you're glad it's over,

aren't you Bobby?

- I am at that. - Okay.

It was not his choice.

Bobby had a nice job with the Department of Justice then

investigating communists and subversives

and he enjoyed that.

He was good at that.

He didn't want to get involved in politics.

-I am today announcing my candidacy

for the presidency of the United States.

- But he really came to believe in his brother

and his vision for the world

and what a really good leader could do for the world.

Now my wife and I prepare

for a new administration and for a new baby.

In the appointments I have made,

I have sought the most qualified men,

men of ability and a desire to serve their country.

It is with great pleasure that I announce the appointment

of Robert F. Kennedy as Attorney General.

- That building across the street

there is the US 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.

Then Attorney General Kennedy

declared his major mission--

hunting organized crime.

Some of these big time gangsters

corrupt the very system under which we live

and something has to be done about it

and the only thing that's going to be done

is by the American people

and those charged with authority,

taking some major steps and doing them now.

The Attorney General, Bobby,

is a very attractive human being,

but his greatest weakness,

the thing that 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.

- Mr. Hoffa, Robert Kennedy called

for a broader wiretap law.

-I say that if he can push through a wiretap,

he can have a greater police state

than he already has in this country.

-Have a couple of words with you, sir?

- An attorney general like Bobby Kennedy,

he has a personal desire

to destroy those who may oppose him.

And was true.

He was a pretty ruthless guy.

He was taken on these, he was taken on mob figures.

- Would you tell us if you have opposition

from anybody that you dispose of them

by having them stuffed in a trunk?

Is that what you do, Mr. Giancana?

-I decline to answer because I honestly believe

my answer might tend incriminate me.

Can you tell us anything

about any of your operations

or you just giggle every time I ask you a question?

I thought only a little girls giggled, Mr. Giancana.

He was a crusader

that really didn't care who he stepped on.

- As the Kennedy presidency went on,