Robert Kennedy [Hardcover]

James Hilty (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2, 1997

For most of his life, Robert Kennedy stood in the shadow cast by his older brother, John; only after President Kennedy's assassination did the public gain a complete sense of Robert ('Bobby', we called him) as a committed advocate for social justice and a savvy politician in his own right. In this comprehensive biography, James W. Hilty offers a detailed and nuanced account of how Robert was transformed from a seemingly unpromising youngster, unlikely to match the accomplishments of his older brothers, to the forceful man who ran 'the family business', orchestrating the Kennedy quest for political power. The centerpiece of this book is the remarkable political partnership that formed between Robert and John.As the manager of John's political campaigns, Robert proved himself 'hard as nails' (in his father's admiring words), relentless in securing his brother's victory and unforgiving in overseeing his brother's presidency. Hilty marshals a great deal of evidence to show that while they did not always see eye to eye Lyndon Johnson's selection as John's running mate being a notable disagreement they discussed virtually every issue, gauging the likely political effects of every position. Robert was so close to the President that insiders called him 'number one and a-half'; their consultations were so intimate that they spoke in a kind of code, barely intelligible to those around them.In Hilty's evocative but unsentimental recounting of the politcal crises of the Kennedy Administration, Robert and John prove to have been more calculating and astute leaders than today's pundits allow. Theirs was a partnership that was unprecedented and, thanks to an act signed into law by Lyndon Johnson, is never to be equaled. Author note: James W. Hilty, Professor of History at Temple University, has written extensively about the Kennedys including "John F. Kennedy: An Idealist Without Illusion". He has also provided political commentaries for various publications including the Philadelphia Inquirer and served as historical consultant for an NBC News syndicated documentary, "Robert F.Kennedy: The Man, The Myth and the Memories", narrated by Tom Brokaw.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Hilty (history, Temple Univ.) offers an important new study of RFK as lifelong defender and promoter of his brother, President John Kennedy. This fascinating, perceptive biography reveals a man struggling in his brother's shadow as he strives to confirm his own individuality as campaign manager, attorney general, and younger brother/confidant. A concluding volume about RFK's second act, his remarkable own political career, is eagerly anticipated.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

A fine study of the assassinated senator's contribution to national politics. That we speak at all of a Kennedy legacy is because of Robert Kennedy, writes historian Hilty (Temple Univ.), who has also written a study of John F. Kennedy. That we connect the Kennedy name to issues of social justice and equity, he continues, is also the result of RFK's work after John's murder. It is fair that we think of the younger Kennedy as a good man, Hilty suggests; but, he reminds us, the Kennedy brothers were above all else politicians who often got credit for more than they achieved. It is as a politician that RFK most engages Hilty, who dissects his role as a political bulldog, crusading attorney, and, above all else, fierce champion and protector of his older brother throughout his political career. In that role, RFK may have committed a few improprieties--including allegedly accepting campaign contributions from the Mafia, delivered by Frank Sinatra. The brothers were, the author continues (disputing the claims of tell-all memoirist Judith Campbell), far too savvy to get too close personally to such transactions; in any event, John Kennedy even joked about such things, telling an audience that he had received a telegram from his father instructing him not to buy one more vote than necessary with the words, ``I'll be damned if I'll pay for a landslide.'' Elsewhere Hilty writes that as attorney general RFK was nonchalant about illegal wiretaps and smear campaigns, favorite tactics of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. But for all his contradictions, ethical shortcomings, and personal demons, which Hilty explores with care and sympathy, Robert Kennedy found his true calling at the end of his life, using his spiritual intensity and sense of invincibility to effect meaningful social change. This well-written book is timely, coming just as the 30th anniversary of RFK's assassination approaches, and just as the current crop of Kennedy scions is making news for all the wrong reasons. (29 b&w photos) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 642 pages
• Publisher: Temple University Press (October 2, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566395666
• ISBN-13: 978-1566395663
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #819,747 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #62 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( K ) > Kennedy, Robert

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A GOOD, OBJECTIVE OVERVIEW, August 3, 2000

By 

BeatleBangs1964 (United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Robert Kennedy (Hardcover)

It is impossible to write about Robert Kennedy in adult life without writing about his brother, John Kennedy. Hilty does a very thorough job of portraying Robert Kennedy, the dedicated, hard working, determined brother, warts in all in a fair and impartial way. Throughout this book, one sees the "metamorphosis" of Robert Kennedy. He is the man who works behind the scenes, protecting his brother's interests to his maximum extent. He is the man who pushes his brother forward while sublimating his own interests, needs and identity. It is only in the tragic aftermath of the President's death does Robert Kennedy, in full adult form emerge -- the man who immersed himself in classical literature, the man who became a personal crusader for civil rights related issues, the man who made it his business to know minorities and persons living in poverty. It is during the last nearly half-decade of his life that the full face of Robert Kennedy is shown to his constituents -- the man who doggedly pursued Teamsters and Mafiosi in the 1950s takes that same dogged persistence to the political arena where he runs on his own right. He is a voice for the disenfranchised, a voice for those who share his vision. He was a man who provided hope during a very turbulent period in history marked by war and national violence. It is the opinion of this reviewer that Robert Kennedy is certainly the more interesting of the brothers. His personal, political and personality development is very interesting to watch and track. He was certainly a man who came across as very sincere in his efforts and one cannot help wondering what the outcome today would be had this man lived.

This is a book well worth reading.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great American, great book., January 21, 2000

By 

Michael J. Berquist - See all my reviews

This review is from: Robert Kennedy (Hardcover)

Robert F. Kennedy was an extraordinary man: former investigator, campaign manager for his brother, Attorney General, United States Senator. His speech to the 1964 Democratic Convention was one the most eloquent speeches ever given. His campaign for the Presidency in 1968 ended with one of the most heartbreaking tragedies in American history when an assassin killed him after winning the California primary.

For myself, RFK represents the better part of politics- the noble spirit and the sense of purpose than the American way of life seems to have lost since his death. People can and should be better to one another, Bobby argued. Government should help the people, he said, but only if those people could help themselves. As a Democrat, I admire Bobby's argument for help, partnership and responsibility between the people and their government.

Professor Hilty has done an excellent job. There are things about Bobby that are difficult to reconcile- why he worked for McCarthy is a good question -and Professor Hilty does a wonderful job writing about them and explaining them. He should be congradulated. I, for one, cannot wait for his next volume about RFK's life.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars James Hilty Takes Bobby Kennedy's Life To An Exciting Pause, September 10, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Seattle, Washington) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Robert Kennedy (Hardcover)

Life's A Stage - In Two Acts

Act One: The Seventh Child, Campaign Manger And Attorney General

James Hilty has written a fine and thought-provoking study of one of America's most vivid politicians. What surprised me was how much I had remembered since the days when I first read about Bobby Kennedy at University some 14 years or so ago. I thought of him then as someone who might have offered a better hope for American politics than JFK had been able to in his few years in power, and Hilty's study does little to diminish that view.

As Hilty says, Brother Protector is essentially the first Part or Act of what will become a two-volume study of Bobby Kennedy and concentrates on the years up to JFK's assassination in 1963. In other words, it focuses primarily on the years in which Robert Kennedy first struggled to find his identity and voice in a large and demanding family. What shines throughout is the intensity with which he developed that identity and the ends to which he pushed it. At times, I felt that Bobby would have liked to have been his elder brother, John, and I lost count of the number of decisions that he made to help further JFK's re-election chances in 1964. In fact, whether intentionally or otherwise, James Hilty emerges as somewhat cynical about this aspect of Bobby's years as first JFK's campaign manager and then as Attorney General. Adherents of the Camelot myth therefore will be readily disappointed by this study. Then again, so to will those who adhere to the flip side of a tawdry administration in which RFK is assumed to have been as much of a 'womanizer' as they believe JFK to have been. Hilty is strongly unconvinced by any RFK/Marilyn Monroe rumors and depicts Bobby instead as intensely loyal and loving to his wife, Ethel and to his many children. At one point he refers to Ethel as Bobby's 'Best Friend' and certainly the surviving family anecdotes and pictures reinforce that.

Yet, having said that, the Bobby Kennedy who was both his elder Brother's Protector and the young debutante of Act One of his own life, was clearly no saint and nothing that Hilty reveals of Bobby could have convinced either Hilty or us, the reader, that he was anything but a frequently tough operator awash in a transitional climate of political conservatism versus needed change. In terms of style, I have read few books where what happens in the future becomes such a willing participant in and observer of its own difficult and hard to unravel past. Hilty uses the historian's faculty of omniscient hindsight to full effect - particularly in his fascinating and vivid accounts of the struggle to impress the quest for Civil Rights upon an often reluctant and conservative-minded Kennedy administration, the lunacies of that administration's provocative policies towards Cuba and their responsibility for building up the US presence in Vietnam.

Yet, somehow, Bobby Kennedy emerges with credit even if at times, he comes across as too embroiled in keeping one eye on his brother's re-election chances in 1964. This is especially so on Civil Rights however much one might have ached to push him towards a faster and more productive use of his obvious morality, ethical sense and exciting ability to 'see' when he was looking. Bobby even in the 1000 days of JFK's administration still manages to use his deep and aggressive passions to sometimes good effect.

It is also hard to escape the conclusion that beyond the 'darkness' that came upon RFK after his brother's assassination, lay the hope of light and if JFK's untimely death switched off one proverbially vital lamp in Bobby's life, the remarkable thing is that he was yet able to find in the years ahead the means to allow his own inner spiritual and ethical lamps to burn more fiercely, openly and productively. The result was for all to see as he stepped forth from the darker and sometimes murky shadows of Act One of his life into a more open realm as a new Brother Unprotected, the Brother Beyond, and, as Hilty says in the last pages of his work, perhaps the most 'vulnerable man in America'. In looking back at those years ahead, I can't wait for Hilty's completion of Act Two of Bobby Kennedy's life. I guess it has to be unusual to read a book that leads the reader to a pause in the life of a Kennedy rather than the violent full stops that most take you to. At least, however, here is one book of Bobby Kennedy in which I can preserve the illusion that he is still alive and on the threshold of the hope he became to millions across America. Maybe then Act Two shouldn't be written, but yet it has to be if this fascinating study is to reach its inevitable and still tragic conclusion.