Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Today's Baseball Practice Assassination Attempt Reminds a Longtime Observer of an Earlier Political Assassination

 

Robert F. Kennedy campaigning for the Democrat nomination for president in Detroit, on May 15, 1968. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated in Memphis on April 4 of that year.
 

By David in TN
Wednesday, June 14, 2017 at 4:21:00 P.M. EDT

This might be as obvious an attempt at a political assassination in my lifetime. When Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Robert Kennedy in 1968, he apparently did so because RFK promised to sell jet fighters to Israel.

By the way, I was for Kennedy, having graduated from high school that spring. And it would have been nice if Bobby had employed professional bodyguards who had walked in front of him, not behind like Rafer Johnson and Rosey Grier.

N.S.: Bobby had decided that he was the black candidate, and apparently that bodyguards were for purely symbolic purposes.

When blacks rioted in over 100 cities, following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Kennedy made a point of campaigning in riot-torn, black areas. He seems to have felt that using bodyguards in a professional manner would have offended his constituents.
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2 comments:

  1. David In TNWednesday, June 14, 2017 at 9:01:00 PM EDT

    Absolutely. Bobby went all in as the black candidate. He wanted to be seen accompanied by Grier and Johnson. Circa 1968 we thought Bobby could make things better regarding race.

    But I wasn't surprised when it happened. Nobody following Bobby's race closely was. There was obvious danger hanging over his campaign.

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  2. AnonymousThursday, June 15, 2017 at 10:26:00 AM EDT

    The entire Kennedy famblee thought they walked n water. The Kennedy famblee had a rather perverse manner of making enemies too.

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