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Robert F. Kennedy, 1925-1968
Robert ("Bobby") Kennedy, running for the Democratic presidential nomination, was fatally shot by assassin Sirhan Sirhan on June 5, 1968, after winning the California primary. This tragically ended one of the most interesting political careers in modern American history and further draped the legacy of the Kennedy family in mourning.
Coming only months after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Kennedy's killing plunged an already dismal year of violence and confronta- tion into further darkness. The younger brother of President John F. Kennedy, he had served as attorney general in the thirty-fifth president's cabinet (1961–63), after which he was elected senator from New York in 1964. He entered the 1968 presidential race in opposition to the Johnson administration's Vietnam War policies and as a progressive voice on urban and racial issues.
This somber portrait, by artist Louis Glanzman, appeared on the cover of Time magazine following Kennedy's internment at Arlington Cemetery on June 8, 1968.
Louis S. Glanzman, 1968
Time cover, June 14, 1968 |