6/6/2008 - Reflections on Robert F. Kennedy: 40 Years After His Death

June 5, 2008 marks the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. For many AFS students of the 1950s and 1960s meeting Robert Kennedy at the time when he was United States Attorney-General held special significance. Robert and Ethel Kennedy traveled to West Berlin, Germany in February of 1962. By 1961, Germany and the city of Berlin, was split into East and West Germany. The erection of the infamous Berlin Wall by East Germans cut the city in two. On February 22nd, Kennedy addressed a crowd of over 180.000 people gathered in Berlin’s City Hall Square:

“We are aware of the heartbreak and anguish this wall has caused to the people of Berlin. But I would also ask you to look at the other side and see what an impression it has made all across the rest of the globe. Because this wall is an admission of failure by communism, it is an attempt for the first time in the history of mankind to erect a wall, not to keep marauders or bandits out, but to keep their people in.

“If the purpose of the wall was to destroy Berlin, Herr Ulbricht and his cohorts have erred sadly. Berlin is not only going to continue to exist – it’s going to grow and grow and grow.

Its ties to West Germany will not be severed. Companies from America and other foreign countries will erect their plants here. Corporations from all over the globe are going to open outlets in this city. West Berlin’s brightest pages have yet to be written in the books of history.

We are your brothers and we stand by you.”

Next day, February 23, 1962, the younger brother of President John F. Kennedy met with AFS returnees at the Amerika Haus in Berlin. Willy Brandt, the Mayor of Berlin and later German Chancellor, accompanied Kennedy. Twenty four years later, in 2006, Hans-Jürgen Bartsch (Germany to USA 1955-56) remembered the visit:

“Robert Kennedy visited Berlin in February 1962 and on that occasion came to the Amerika Haus where I met him briefly, together with some other AFSers. I can’t remember whether we were invited to meet him or whether we happened to be there on that day: I was AFS chairman in Berlin at that time, and we occupied an office at the Amerika Haus.

According to my records, he came on the 23rd February, shortly after John Glenn had returned from his space journey (which explains the spaceship model in photograph below).

Right: Willy Brandt and Robert Kennedy. 2nd row: Hans-Jürgen Bartsch with AFS Returnees at the Amerika Haus, Berlin, February, 1962.

He was greeted everywhere as “the President’s brother”, but as a law student I was more interested in him as the Attorney-General. In the late 1950s, I had followed the Senate investigation into the criminal activities of Jimmy Hoffa and his union, where RFK acted as Chief Counsel for the McClellan Committee, and I had read his account of these events, published in 1960 (“The Enemy Within”). I mentioned the book to him and he was obviously pleased to learn that someone as far away as Berlin had read it (and didn’t ask him how his brother was). There is a photographic record of our brief chat, but in spite of a thorough search over the weekend I failed to unearth it.

That about sums up my “historic meeting with Bobby Kennedy”. Naturally we were all excited about seeing the man in the flesh. We were struck by his youthfulness (not surprising actually, as he was only 36) and his relaxed, almost casual, demeanor which did not tally at all with what we had read about his reputed abrupt and often standoffish manners.”

Nicolaus Höhne (Germany to USA 1959-60), President of the Berlin Returnee Group addressed Robert Kennedy at the Amerika Haus:

“As participants in various high school exchange programs we greet you as the representative of a nation which through the generosity and open hearts of its people has become a second home to us. Our experiences in your country have convinced us that the basis for good international relations is the sincere desire for mutual understanding on the part of every citizen.

The Berlin situation shows that more than anything else, how urgently we need moral and political support of other nations in the reconstruction of a free and democratic Germany. The task is even more difficult under the tremendous pressure coming from the East-West conflict. Moral co-operation between the nations is even more important.

The exchange of young and unprejudiced students furthers a “new frontier” movement, with new approaches, beyond national boundaries. Striving for this goal, we are certain to be in agreement with you, the government you represent, and the people of the United States of America.”

Alain Gillette (France to USA 1963-64) witnessed Robert Kennedy’s assassination in June of 1968 in Los Angeles, California. Gillette has been a journalist for “Les Informations Dieppoises” and he came to Los Angeles to cover the 1968 presidential election.

In 1969 Gillette published a book about this truly sad moment in American history, “Jusqu’a ce que je meure” (Until I Die), prefaced by Pierre Salinger, who was campaign manager for the RFK’s presidential campaign.

Eleanora Golobic interviewed Alain Gillette for the AFS Legacy Project at the Court of Auditors in Paris in March of 2008. Mr. Gillette recalled Bobby Kennedy’s assassination in June of 1968. Senator Kennedy was assassinated on June 5, 1968, after winning the California primary race for the upcoming Presidential election. Only moments before he gave a victory speech to his jubilant campaign supporters in the Embassy ballroom. When asked if he had heard the first shot being fired, Gillette said that he did not hear it as there were balloons popping and it was very noisy. He learned that Kennedy had been shot from the cries and commotion that ensued. The audience of Europe No. 1 radio network learned about the assassination from the direct report flashed by Gillette to the European press only fifteen minutes after Kennedy was gunned down.

The Kennedy assassination on June 5, 1968. had a ring of tragic familiarity for Alain Gillette – almost five years earlier on November 22, 1963 – he sent an instant report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to “Les Informations Dieppoises ”. He met President Kennedy a few weeks before in Salt Lake City, Utah where he was hosted by the Miller family.

Forty years after his death Robert F. Kennedy’s legacy as a champion of social, racial and economic justice for those who do not have power in this political system remains strong.