I guess all things happen for a reason, including the unfortunate quote from Hillary, just in the nick of time for a terrific cover story about Robert Kennedy in Vanity Fair. Here is an excerpt........on the day that Kennedy announced his candidacy, it was by no means obvious that 1968 would become a watershed year. Most of the year’s momentous events would occur after Kennedy’s March 16 announcement, with many of the most shocking ones unfolding during his campaign. Had you told anyone in the Senate caucus room that morning that during the next 82 days President Johnson would decline to seek a second term, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy would both be assassinated, and America would suffer its worst racial disturbances since the Civil War, they might have believed that one or two of those things might happen, but not all, nor in such quick succession.
After concluding his announcement, Kennedy took questions ranging from skeptical to hostile. But as he left the Capitol, supporters screaming his name grabbed at his clothes and leapt in the air to see him, much as his brother’s supporters had in 1960. Anyone witnessing this and hearing the New Frontier echoes in his announcement would have been justified in assuming that his campaign would indeed be an extended tribute to his brother. Instead, March 16 would be the end rather than the beginning of such a tribute, and during the next three months he would run on issues his brother had seldom raised and in a manner, at times, his brother would have found undignified.
Richard Nixon, who had lost the presidency to J.F.K. in 1960, watched Kennedy’s announcement from a hotel room in Portland, Oregon. John Ehrlichman, one of several aides in the room with Nixon, later wrote, “When it was over and the hotel-room TV was turned off, Nixon sat and looked at the blank screen for a long time, saying nothing. Finally, he shook his head slowly. ‘We’ve just seen some very terrible forces unleashed,’ he said. ‘Something bad is going to come of this.’ He pointed at the screen, ‘God knows where this is going to lead.’ ” Meanwhile, by one account, Kennedy was telling Nicole Salinger, the wife of J.F.K.’s press secretary Pierre Salinger, “I’m sleeping well for the first time in months. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but at least I’m at peace with myself.”
After concluding his announcement, Kennedy took questions ranging from skeptical to hostile. But as he left the Capitol, supporters screaming his name grabbed at his clothes and leapt in the air to see him, much as his brother’s supporters had in 1960. Anyone witnessing this and hearing the New Frontier echoes in his announcement would have been justified in assuming that his campaign would indeed be an extended tribute to his brother. Instead, March 16 would be the end rather than the beginning of such a tribute, and during the next three months he would run on issues his brother had seldom raised and in a manner, at times, his brother would have found undignified.Richard Nixon, who had lost the presidency to J.F.K. in 1960, watched Kennedy’s announcement from a hotel room in Portland, Oregon. John Ehrlichman, one of several aides in the room with Nixon, later wrote, “When it was over and the hotel-room TV was turned off, Nixon sat and looked at the blank screen for a long time, saying nothing. Finally, he shook his head slowly. ‘We’ve just seen some very terrible forces unleashed,’ he said. ‘Something bad is going to come of this.’ He pointed at the screen, ‘God knows where this is going to lead.’ ” Meanwhile, by one account, Kennedy was telling Nicole Salinger, the wife of J.F.K.’s press secretary Pierre Salinger, “I’m sleeping well for the first time in months. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but at least I’m at peace with myself.”
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