Robert Kennedy

Evan Thomas

Finished Evan Thomas' definitive biography of RFK not long ago. I've been thinking about why Robert Kennedy was such an appealing character.

On a personal level I think anyone who ever grew up feeling uneasy or overshadowed in a large, confident, extended family can identify with Bobby. The Kennedys were ultra competitive. Evan Thomas says brother JFK always "worked hardest at being effortless". Bobby was more puritanical and priggish and perhaps more complex. It took a long time for him to emerge from behind the shadow cast by his two older brothers.

On a political level history has always judged the Cuban missile crisis as his finest hour. Up till that point RFK (who was too young for WWII and was bitter about missing out ) was a hotheaded anti-communist. Over the 13 days of the crisis he evolved into a calmer, wiser strategist and helped steer the United States away from war. For that, even at this distance in time, we can be grateful.

Reading this biography I was struck by how British-upper-middle-class the Irish American Kennedys were. there was the hero worship of Churchill and John Buchan and Ian Fleming. There was the love of wailing. Most of all there was sense that earnestness, candour and sincerity were not valued while humour and insouciance were highly prized. RFK was unimpressed by Martin Luther King after King showed fear during one of their early phone calls. The two personalities were utterly different.

Thomas wisely deals only briefly with the "what-ifs" of Robert Kennedy's political career in a brisk last couple of pages. We will never know, and it's terribly sad.