Mar 16, 2021 · Robert Francis Kennedy. Sixty-Fourth Attorney General 1961-1964. Robert Francis Kennedy was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on November 20, 1925. He served with the United States Naval Reserve from 1944 to 1946. He earned a B.A. degree from Harvard University in 1948, was a correspondent on The Boston Post, and in 1951 graduated from the University of …
Throughout 1946, Kennedy became active in his brother John's campaign for the U.S. Representative seat that was vacated by James Curley; he joined the campaign full-time after his naval discharge. Biographer Schlesinger wrote that the election served as an entry into politics for both Robert and John. Robert graduated from Harvard in 1948 with a bachelor's degree in political science.
Kennedy, November 25, 1963. At the time that President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963, RFK was at home with aides from the Justice Department. J.
He was relentless in his pursuit of Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa, due to Hoffa's known corruption in financial and electoral matters, both personally and organizationally, creating a so-called "Get Hoffa" squad of prosecutors and investigators. The enmity between the two men was intense, with accusations of a personal vendetta—what Hoffa called a "blood feud"—exchanged between them. On July 7, 1961, after Hoffa was reelected to the Teamsters presidency, RFK told reporters the government's case against Hoffa had not been changed by what he called "a small group of teamsters" supporting him. The following year, it was leaked that Hoffa had claimed to a Teamster local that Kennedy had been "bodily" removed from his office, the statement being confirmed by a Teamster press agent and Hoffa saying Kennedy had only been ejected. On March 4, 1964, Hoffa was convicted in Chattanooga, Tennessee, of attempted bribery of a grand juror during his 1962 conspiracy trial in Nashville, Tennessee, and sentenced to eight years in prison and a $10,000 fine. After learning of Hoffa's conviction by telephone, Kennedy issued congratulatory messages to the three prosecutors. While on bail during his appeal, Hoffa was convicted in a second trial held in Chicago, on July 26, 1964, on one count of conspiracy and three counts of mail and wire fraud for improper use of the Teamsters' pension fund, and sentenced to five years in prison. Hoffa spent the next three years unsuccessfully appealing his 1964 convictions, and began serving his aggregate prison sentence of 13 years (eight years for bribery, five years for fraud) on March 7, 1967, at the Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary in Pennsylvania.
Concurrently, Kennedy served as the president's personal representative in Operation Mongoose, the post-Bay of Pigs covert operations program established in November 1961 by the president. Mongoose was meant to incite a revolution within Cuba that would result in the downfall of Castro, not Castro's assassination.
FBI file on the RFK assassination. "The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination Archives" – a collection within the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Archives and Special Collections established in 1984. Appearances on C-SPAN. v.
The bill forbade "mail order sale of guns to the very young, those with criminal records and the insane," according to The Oregonian ' s report. S.1592 and subsequent bills, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, paved the way for the eventual passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968.
The New York Times editorialized, "there is nothing illegal about the possible nomination of Robert F. Kennedy of Massachusetts as Senator from New York, but there is plenty of cynical about it, ... merely choosing the state as a convenient launching‐pad for the political ambitions of himself.".
After John F. Kennedy was elected president in November 1960, he named his brother Robert Kennedy as America’s 64th attorney general. In this role, Kennedy continued to battle corruption in labor unions, as well as mobsters and organized crime. In 1964, Jimmy Hoffa was convicted of jury tampering and fraud.
senator from New York from 1965 to 1968. A graduate of Harvard University and the University of Virginia School of Law, Kennedy was appointed attorney general after his brother John Kennedy was elected president in 1960. In this role, Robert Kennedy fought organized crime and worked for civil rights for African Americans. In the Senate, he was a committed advocate of the poor and racial minorities , and opposed escalation of the Vietnam War. On June 5, 1968, while in Los Angeles campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, Kennedy was shot. He died early the next day at age 42.
On June 17, 1950, Robert Kennedy married Ethel Skakel of Greenwich, Connecticut. The couple had 11 children: Kathleen, Joseph II, Robert Jr., David, Courtney, Michael, Kerry, Christopher, Max, Douglas and Rory, who was born six months after her father’s death. The family lived at an estate called Hickory Hill in McLean, Virginia.
Robert Francis Kennedy was born on November 20, 1925, in Brookline, Massachusetts, the seventh of nine children of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., a wealthy financier, and Rose Kennedy, the daughter of a Boston politician. Kennedy spent his childhood between his family’s homes in New York; Hyannis Port, Massachusetts; Palm Beach, Florida; and London, ...
In 1964, Jimmy Hoffa was convicted of jury tampering and fraud. As attorney general, Kennedy also supported the civil rights movement for African Americans.
President Kennedy's appointment of his 35-year-old brother Robert Francis Kennedy as the attorney general of the United States was controversial. According to many, Robert Kennedy, the youngest attorney general since 1814, lacked experience in practicing law. But he silenced the critics by assembling a skilled and dedicated staff, and by promoting innovative and aggressive programs to enforce civil rights, combat organized crime, improve legal access for the poor, and develop new approaches to juvenile delinquency. A display of film footage and personal items of Robert F. Kennedy provide a glimpse into the Attorney General's office. The centerpiece of the exhibit are documents and personal items of Robert Kennedy's placed atop a desk as they would have been on a September day in 1962. Among the items are the his glasses, pens and pencils, his original telephone, bookends, and drawings taped on the wall from his young children.
Robert Kennedy brought to the Justice Department a reputation as a relentless fighter against crime and corruption. As Chief Counsel for the U.S. Senate’s “Rackets” Committee he had direct experience of the influence of organized crime on America’s economy and government.
The dent in the helmet resulted from a blow by a lead pipe wielding rioter. Many of the U.S. Marshals sustained injuries in the rioting by those who sought to block Meredith's enrollment. Robert F. Kennedy kept this helmet on a table behind his desk in the Attorney General's office.
Kennedy provide a glimpse into the Attorney General's office. The centerpiece of the exhibit are documents and personal items of Robert Kennedy's placed atop a desk as they would have been on a September day in 1962.
Through speeches and writing, such as his book The Enemy Within, he alerted the country to the existence of a “private government of organized crime with an annual income of billions, resting on a base of human suffering and moral corrosion.” He established the first coordinated program involving all twenty-six federal law enforcement agencies to investigate organized crime, overcoming FBI indifference to the pursuit of racketeers. Robert Kennedy's anti-racketeering legislation, passed in 1961 and 1963, and the emphasis he placed on the investigation and prosecution of organized crime, led to dramatic increases in convictions.
After the Bay of Pigs debacle, Robert Kennedy became an intimate adviser in intelligence matters and major international negotiations. His efforts during the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962 were crucial in shaping a peaceful outcome.
After the Bay of Pigs debacle, Robert Kennedy became an intimate adviser in intelligence matters and major international negotiations.
In that capacity, Robert Kennedy exposed the racketeer control of labor unions. His work on behalf of civil rights led to passage of the Kennedy administration's civil rights bill in July of 1964 and to protections regarding the black American's right to vote . Kennedy also set his sights on antitrust prosecution and reducing the growth of crime.
He was included in the decision-making process for all major foreign and domestic policy issues. During the Cuban missile crisis, Robert was a member of the Excom , the specially assembled group organized to determine America's response to nuclear weapons in Cuba. The attorney general would eventually voice opposition to air strikes on the island, opting instead for a "quarantine." He played a crucial role in securing Excom support for a blockade of Cuba. Robert Kennedy also played a crucial role, through back-channel conversations with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin, in gaining the removal of the missiles. Robert Kennedy resigned the attorney general post in 1964, following his brother's assassination, and waged a successful campaign to become a U.S. Senator from New York.
After receiving a law degree from the University of Virginia Law School in 1951, he began his political career in Massachusetts the next year with the management of his brother John’s successful campaign for the U.S. Senate. Robert first came into national prominence in 1953, when he was an assistant counsel to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, headed by Joseph R. McCarthy (he resigned in mid-1953 but returned in 1954 as counsel to the Democratic minority). In 1957 he was chief counsel to the Senate select committee conducting investigations into labour racketeering, which led to his long-standing feud with James R. Hoffa of the Teamsters Union. Kennedy resigned from the committee staff in 1960 to conduct his brother’s campaign for the U.S. presidency. After John won the election, he appointed (1961) Robert attorney general in his cabinet.
Robert F. Kennedy, a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, was assassinated. President Johnson then secured the nomination of Vice Pres. Hubert H. Humphrey at the Democratic National Convention at Chicago, where violence again erupted as antiwar demonstrators were manhandled by local police. Humphrey…
One of his proudest achievements was assembling the evidence that convicted Hoffa. On Kennedy’s departure from the Department of Justice, The New York Times, which had criticized his appointment three years earlier, said editorially, Kennedy, John F.: funeral.
He was assassinated while campaigning for the Democratic Party ’s presidential nomination in 1968. Robert F. Kennedy, who expressed support for Israel while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968....
Robert F. Kennedy, who expressed support for Israel while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968. On June 4, Kennedy won the California primary, and shortly after midnight, he gave a speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. As he left through a…
William Manchester was an American historian who published three popular volumes about President John F. Kennedy: Portrait of a President: John F. Kennedy in Profile (1961), The Death of a...
Levi served as attorney general (President Bush) from Jan. 14, 1975 to Jan. 20, 1977. He was born in Chicago, IL (May 9, 1942) and attended the University of Chicago and Yale University. During WWII, he served in the DOJ Anti-Trust Division. Before being named AG, he was served in various leadership roles at the the Univeristy of Chicago, being named president in 1968. He was also a member of the White House Task Force on Education, 1966 to 1967. Died March 7, 2000.
Bell served as attorney general (President Carter) from Jan. 26, 1977 to Aug. 16, 1979. He was born in Americus, GA (Oct. 31, 1918) and attended Georgia Southwestern College and Mercer Univerity Law School. He was a major in the US Army in WWII. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed Bell to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Bell led the effort to pass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978. He served on President George H.W. Bush's Commission on Federal Ethics Law Reform and was counsel to President Bush during the Iran-Contra affair.
The US Attorney General (AG) is the head of the US Department of Justice and is the chief law enforcement officer of the US government. These are the Attorney Generals from 1960 to 1980.
Kleindienst served as attorney general (President Nixon) from Feb. 15, 1972 to May 25, 1973. He was born in Winslow, AZ (Aug. 5, 1923) and attended Harvard University. He served in the Army from 1943 to 1946. Kleindienst served in the Arizona House of Representatives from 1953 to 1954. He was in private practice before becoming Deputy AG in 1969. He resigned in the midst of the Watergate scandal, the same day (April 30, 1973) that John Dean was fired and H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman quit. He was convicted of a misdemeanor for perjury during his testimony in the Senate during his confirmation hearings. Died Feb. 3, 2000.
Richardson served as attorney general (President Nixon) from May 25, 1973 to Oct. 20, 1973. He was born in Boston, MA (July 20, 1920) and attended Harvard University. He served in the Army from 1942 to 1945. He was Assistant Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare for Legislation 1957 to 1959.
He was in private practice before becoming Deputy AG in 1969. He resigned in the midst of the Watergate scandal, the same day (April 30, 1973) that John Dean was fired and H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman quit.
He died at the Kennedy compound, on Cape Cod along Nantucket Sound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, on November 18, 1969, at the age of 81. Watch "Joseph Kennedy Sr.: The Father of an American Dynasty" on HISTORY Vault.
Political Career. In the 1932 presidential election, Kennedy supported Franklin D. Roosevelt, who, in turn, named Kennedy chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 1934. Shortly thereafter, he was appointed as chairman of the U.S. Maritime Commission.
After the loss of his first son, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., during WWII, Kennedy stepped back from public life and concentrated on grooming his three remaining sons for political office.
After winning the 1960 presidential election, President-elect John F. Kennedy appointed his younger brother attorney general. The choice was controversial, with publications including The New York Times and The New Republic calling him inexperienced and unqualified. He had no experience in any state or federal court, causing the president to joke, "I can't see that it's wrong to give him a littl…
Robert Francis Kennedy was born outside Boston in Brookline, Massachusetts, on November 20, 1925. He was the seventh of nine children to businessman/politician Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and philanthropist/socialite Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. His parents were members of two prominent Irish-American families in Boston. His eight siblings were Joseph Jr., John, Rosemary, Kathleen,
Six weeks before his 18th birthday in 1943, Kennedy enlisted in the United States Naval Reserve as a seaman apprentice. He was released from active duty in March 1944, when he left Milton Academy early to report to the V-12 Navy College Training Program at Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His V-12 training began at Harvard (March–November 1944) before he was relocate…
In September 1946, Kennedy entered Harvard as a junior, having received credit for his time in the V-12 program. He worked hard to make the varsity football team as an end; he was a starter and scored a touchdown in the first game of his senior year before breaking his leg in practice. He earned his varsity letter when his coach sent him in wearing a cast during the last minutes of a game against
In November 1951, Kennedy moved with his wife and daughter to a townhouse in the Georgetown, Washington, D.C., and started work as a lawyer in the Internal Security Section of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. He prosecuted a series of graft and income tax evasion cases. In February 1952, Kennedy was transferred to Brooklyn, and worked as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York to help prepare fraud cases against former officials …
In the wake of the assassination of his brother and Lyndon Johnson's ascension to the presidency, with the office of vice president now vacant, Kennedy was viewed favorably as a potential candidate for the position in the 1964 presidential election. Several Kennedy partisans called for him to be drafted in tribute to his brother; national polling showed that three of four Democrats wer…
Nine months after his brother's assassination, Kennedy left the cabinet to run for a seat in the U.S. Senate representing New York, announcing his candidacy on August 25, 1964, two days before the end of that year's Democratic National Convention. He had considered the possibility of running for the seat since early spring, but also giving consideration for governor of Massachusetts or, as he p…