Robert F. Kennedy Shot
At 12:50 a.m. PDT, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, a presidential
candidate, is shot three times in a hail of gunfire in the Ambassador Hotel in
Los Angeles. Five others were wounded. The senator had just completed a speech
celebrating his victory in the California presidential primary. The shooter,
Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan, had a smoking .22 revolver wrested from his grip and
was promptly arrested. Kennedy, critically wounded, was rushed to the hospital,
where he fought for his life for the next 24 hours. On the morning of June 6,
he died. He was 42 years old. On June 8, Kennedy was buried at Arlington
National Cemetery, also the final resting place of his assassinated older
brother, President John F. Kennedy.
Robert Kennedy, born in Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1925, interrupted
his studies at Harvard University to serve in the U.S. Navy during World War
II. He was legal counsel for various Senate subcommittees during the 1950s and
in 1960 served as the manager of his brother’s successful presidential
campaign. Appointed attorney general by President Kennedy, he proved a vigorous
member of the cabinet, zealously prosecuting cases relating to civil rights
while closely advising the president on domestic and foreign issues. After
Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, he joined President Lyndon B. Johnson’s
administration but resigned in 1964 to run successfully in New York for a
Senate seat. Known in Congress as an advocate of social reform and defender of
the rights of minorities, he also voiced criticism of the war in Vietnam.
In 1968, he was urged by many of his supporters to run for
president as an anti-war and socially progressive Democratic. Hesitant until he
saw positive primary returns for fellow anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy, he
announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination on March 16,
1968. Fifteen days later, President Johnson announced that he would not seek
reelection, and Vice President Hubert Humphrey became the key Democratic
hopeful, with McCarthy and Kennedy trailing closely behind. Kennedy conducted
an energetic campaign and on June 4, 1968, won a major victory in the
California primary. He had won five out of six primaries and seemed a shoo-in
for the Democratic nomination and, some thought, the presidency.
Shortly after midnight, he gave a victory speech to his
supporters in the Ambassador Hotel and then, while making his way to a press
conference by a side exit, was fatally wounded by Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan.
Sirhan was arrested at the scene and indicted for first-degree murder. A mentally
unstable drifter, his motives in killing Kennedy have never been clear. Some
journalists have alleged that Sirhan was part of a larger assassination
conspiracy, supposedly brought on by Kennedy’s promise to end the Vietnam War
if elected president. These conspiracists cite forensic evidence and witness
testimony that they say proves the existence of additional shooters who were
not detained.
In 1969, Sirhan Sirhan was convicted and sentenced to die. In
1972, his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment when the California
Supreme Court abolished the death penalty. Since 1983, he has repeatedly been
denied parole by prison officials who consider him a serious threat to public
safety.
Bonus Story
2004
Ronald Reagan dies
On this day in 2004, Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th president of
the United States, dies, after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.
Reagan, who was also a well-known actor and served as governor of California,
was a popular president known for restoring American confidence after the
problems of the 1970s and helping to defeat communism.
Born on February 6, 1911, Reagan, who was nicknamed Dutch as a
youngster, was born and raised in several small towns in Illinois. Despite a
disadvantaged upbringing—his father abused alcohol and had trouble holding
jobs—Reagan was a popular and outgoing student. He served as president of his
high school’s student council and stood out at football, basketball, and track,
as well as acting in several plays. During the summer, he worked as a lifeguard,
reportedly saving 77 people over six years.
After high school, Reagan enrolled at Eureka College, a small,
Christian, liberal-arts school in Eureka, Illinois, from which he received a
scholarship. There, he continued to show athletic prowess, playing football and
swimming, as well as honing his skills in his two future pursuits: acting and
politics. Reagan—then a Democrat—served as Eureka’s student-body president and
acted in the college’s theater productions.
In 1932, Reagan graduated from Eureka with a degree in sociology
and economics and found a job as a radio sports announcer. He worked in radio
for five years, before going for a screen test in Los Angeles while in
California to cover the Chicago Cubs’ spring-training camp. Warner Brothers offered
the future president a seven-year contract, but asked him to use his given name
Ronald instead of Dutch in the movies.
Although he never became an A-list star, Reagan spent 20 years
in Hollywood and appeared in more than 50 films and several television
programs. His oft-used nickname as president, The Gipper, came from his turn
playing Notre Dame football star George The Gipper Gipp in the 1940 film Knute
Rockne: All American. In 1940, Reagan married actress Jane Wyman. The
couple had two children: Maureen, in 1941, and Michael, whom they adopted in
1945. Reagan and Wyman divorced in 1949.
Although Reagan did not serve combat duty in World War II
because of his poor eyesight, he began active duty in 1942 and made training
films for the military until his discharge in 1945. Politically, it was during
the 1940s that Reagan gradually became more conservative and also became
involved in the country’s burgeoning anti-communist movement. In 1947, he
testified to the controversial House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC),
naming elements in Hollywood that he felt were allied with communist causes.
Later that year, he was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), a
position he held from 1947 to 1952 and again from 1959 to 1960.
Through the course of his work with SAG, Reagan met Nancy Davis,
an actress who looked to Reagan for help when she was incorrectly labeled a
communist sympathizer. As he had done for others, Reagan assisted her in
clearing her name. The couple also began a lifelong romance and was married in
1952. Their two children, Patricia and Ronald, were born in 1953 and 1959
respectively.
After registering as a Republican in 1962 and campaigning for
Barry Goldwater in his failed 1964 presidential campaign, Reagan decided to run
for governor of California in 1966. He won handily, despite his lack of
experience. His plan for California foreshadowed the one he ultimately brought
with him to the national stage: lower taxes, cuts in spending, and an end to
big government. Despite the student protests and forced tax hikes that occurred
during his first term, he ran again and was easily re-elected in 1970. Just 18
months later, he announced his unsuccessful candidacy for president at the
Republican National Convention. In 1975, he left office in California and ran
again for the Republican presidential nomination, losing in a close race to
Gerald Ford.
In 1980, Reagan ran yet again and won the nomination easily,
choosing George H.W. Bush as his running mate. Running on a platform of a
return to American values, smaller government, a stronger military, and tax
cuts, Reagan appealed to an American public frustrated with inflation and
foreign policy problems, like the Iranian hostage crisis. He won, and at age
69, became the oldest man to be elected to the office. A talented and practiced
public speaker, Reagan’s personal charm, warm manner, and optimistic message
endeared him to many Americans. He was re-elected by a landslide in 1984.
Just 69 days after taking office, Ronald Reagan was shot by John
Hinckley after giving a speech at a hotel about one mile from the White House.
After surgery to remove the bullet, which had lodged near his heart, he
recovered quickly, which added to his image as a strong leader. Throughout his
two terms in office, Reagan pursued his trademark economic program,
Reaganomics—a supply-side economics theory that involved drastic cuts to both
taxes and spending. At the time, and increasingly in the intervening years
since his presidency, Reagan drew criticism for ruthlessly slashing social
programs while building up a huge deficit with massive military expenditures.
He is also criticized for his partiality to business interests, removing many
regulations on big business that he felt were impeding growth, as well as
authorizing the firing of striking air-traffic controllers in 1981.
It was his campaign to end the Cold War, though, that defined
the Reagan presidency for many Americans. His plan was to use an unprecedented
military buildup to negotiate arms-reduction treaties from a position of
strength. During a visit to Germany, he famously urged then-Soviet Premier
Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down that wall. By 1991, the Berlin Wall was torn
down and the Soviet Union Reagan had once referred to as an evil empire was no
more. While many credit Reagan for this historic turn of events, and it is
certain he played a significant role, others point to internal problems in the
Soviet Union for its ultimate demise.
Reagan’s foreign policy included military interventions in
Lebanon, Grenada and Libya, which had mixed results. He is also known for
backing anti-communist rebels in Nicaragua and authorizing a secret CIA
military operation there in the early 1980s. This led to the Iran-Contra
scandal, in which it was found that illegal arms sales to Iran were used to
fund the administration’s support of Nicaragua’s Contra rebels. No evidence was
ever found to suggest that Reagan himself or Vice President Bush broke the
law.Despite the scandal, George H.W. Bush succeeded Reagan to the presidency in
1988.
Known as the Great Communicator, Reagan left the Oval Office as
one of the most popular presidents in history, retiring to his much-loved
California ranch, Rancho del Cielo. His announcement in 1994 that he had been
diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease was greeted with great sadness by many
across the country. He wrote, in an open letter to the American people, I now
begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for
America there will always be a bright dawn ahead.
He lived out the rest of his days on the ranch, with his wife
Nancy, who remained devoted to him to the end, by his side. He was buried at
the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.