26 Hours

He lies next to his brother. He would have wanted that, I think. Robert Francis Kennedy carried a huge burden for almost five years after his brother John was assassinated. Bobby was up to it though.

It was an electric time in DC. I was interning on Capitol Hill and quietly (because my father was a military man at the Pentagon and it might have rubbed off on him) but avidly supporting Bobby candidacy for President. Those times were the greatest influence on my political beliefs throughout my life.

I stayed up late to watch the primary returns in California. It was such a rush to see Bobby win and non-stop television coverage was in vogue so the cameras followed him off the podium and into the kitchen. Chaos ensued and you could hear the pops of the gun.

It was a surreal sight and the thought of another assassination was mind-boggling. Yet there it was, right before our eyes.

Not much is said today about the next 26 hours, but Bobby hung on. There were brief moments of real hope that he would survive.  However, the reports from the doctors were increasingly discouraging. It was excruciating as we tried to occupy ourselves between hourly reports. Capitol Hill and the congressional offices there are normally alive with the hustle and bustle and constant chatter of lawmaking.  That day it was quiet as a church.

He died on the morning of June 6 and a day later, Bobby’s body arrived in New York.  The Requiem at St. Patrick’s Cathedral made you feel as though you were one of the mourners.  The television networks didn’t take a breather throughout the entire ordeal.  Teddy Kennedy stepped out the shadows that day and his eulogy for his brother gave me chills.

His body was moved by private train to DC with thousands lining the trackside to pay their respects. I  remember people placing coins on the tracks to be flattened into remembrances by the train. It had to move so slowly that they didn’t arrive to Arlington Cemetery until well after dark.  The service was brief and very understated.  The next morning the small white cross was all that remained when I took the photo above (with my Kodak Instamatic) and, to this day, only a small plaque has been placed on the burial spot.

Robert F. Kennedy and his brothers John and Teddy had great influence on our country.  They are all gone now. So much of what and who we are as a nation was reflected in the lives of those men.  There were other assassinations that have marred our history. JFK and Martin Luther King, both were stopped short of their goals. Other Presidents, Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley were shot by political idealists.  The details of their deaths are dwindling to postscripts in the history books. But for those of us alive in the 60’s, that 26 hours before Bobby died will not soon be forgotten. Nor will how those times shaped our lives.