IntroductionWe may never know what actually happened to John F. Kennedy. Since his assassination there have been numerous conspiracy theories published, laying blame from the C.I.A. to organized crime. The majority of which have spent countless hours collecting data and researching, although none are more than speculation. Official Federal investigations have left more questions than answers. The Warren Commission has concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was acting alone when he assassinated John F. Kennedy, however they have been criticized for deliberately attempting to suppress or dismiss many of the questionable circumstances surrounding the murder. This paper aims to discuss how Robert ...view middle of the document...
Kennedy did not assist in the McCarthy committee's communist witch hunts in his short time on the committee, but some liberals remembered his association with McCarthy until his death (Goldfarb R., 1995). He served as counsel to the Senate Labor Rackets' Committee in the late 1950s where he gained a reputation as a confrontational and rough debater (Navasky, V., 1971).Kennedy's reputation for toughness and rigidity was cemented when he ran his brother's presidential campaign in 1960, and then served as the president's attorney general. Kennedy fully supported the demands of African Americans for equal civil rights, but urged African American leaders, often to their frustration, to embrace moderate strategies that focused on voter registration and working within the legal system (Schlesinger, A. M., 1978).After President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 23, 1963, Robert Kennedy won election to the U.S. Senate from the state of New York in 1964. As a senator Kennedy became a champion of the less privileged. He became a more vociferous supporter of the civil rights movement and became an advocate for the American Indian. Kennedy held hearings in California on the rights of migrant farmworkers and became a consistent supporter of Mexican American rights (Navasky, V., 1971).Kennedy became an increasingly vocal critic of Johnson's specific policy in Vietnam and the president's overall foreign policy strategy of containment. He championed democracy and economic justice on foreign policy trips to Poland, South Africa, Japan, and South America.Kennedy entered the 1968 presidential race to much criticism on March 16, 1968. After he defeated Senator Eugene McCarthy in the California primary on June 4, 1968, he appeared to be the one candidate with the ability to put together a broad coalition of working-class whites and blacks to challenge the Democratic front-runner, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey. After his victory speech in Los Angeles, the Jordanian-born Sirhan, angered by Kennedy's support for Israel, shot Kennedy. Kennedy never regained consciousness and died on June 6, 1968 (Schlesinger, A. M., 1978).Sociological PerspectiveDuring President John F. Kennedy's (John F. Kennedy) administration from 1961 to 1963 the fight against crime, especially organized crime and its associated white-collar crime, was waged by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (RFK), the president's brother (Heyman C. D., 1998). The Kennedy brothers waged a crusade against organized crime once they realized the extent of the power it wielded. The result was the Organized Crime Bill of 1962 (Fairlie H., 1973).Although the president's father, Joseph P. Kennedy, reputedly had mob connections in his business dealings and the president shared a mistress with a well-known mobster, and enjoyed social relations with some mob-related people, Robert F. Kennedy had long been a foe of the rampant corruption in unions, bribery of law officials, and the ever increasing hold...
