What Might Have Been by wysiwig
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Some men see things as they are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not.
~ Robert Francis Kennedy
Nineteen sixty-eight was an exciting and tumultuous year. The year began on January 5 with the Prague Spring. It was an attempt by Czech leader Alexander Dubček to give more freedoms to the people and put a human face on Communism. On January 30 a coded message to North Vietnamese troops, "Crack the Sky, Shake the Earth", signaled an attack against American and South Vietnamese forces that became known as the Tet Offensive. It was one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War and would begin to change America’s perception of that war.
There were anti-war protests in the United States and throughout Europe.
On March 16, 1968 Robert Kennedy announced his run for president of the United States.
On April 4, 1968 Doctor Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Robert Kennedy addressed an angry crowd siting his own loss.
Nineteen sixty-eight was also the year of my political awakening. I spent hours arguing with people. The crowd I ran with was solidly for Kennedy. We handed out campaign flyers. We raised money. We neglected our studies while spending too much time at Kennedy headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard. And in November I would proudly cast my first vote for Bobby Kennedy.
And then he was here! In Los Angeles! Thousands came to hear him speak. People would line the streets as his motorcade passed by. They reached out to him, to shake his hand, to touch him. He was the closest thing to a rock star I had ever seen. My father worked for the aerospace company TRW and when Kennedy visited I was in the crowd.
The California primary was held on June 4, 1968 and there was to be a gathering at the Ambassador Hotel where Bobby would speak. Around midnight Kennedy appeared. Even though my friends and I were near the back of the crowd, to say we were excited would be an understatement.
He spoke of poverty and civil rights, renewing faith in America and peace in Vietnam. He thanked all of us and finished by saying, “Now it’s on to Chicago and let’s win there.” He walked off the stage and into history.
After he was shot, Bobby was rushed to Central Receiving Hospital and then transferred to The Good Samaritan where doctors desperately tried to save his life. All through June 5 many of us kept a vigil outside the hospital waiting for any word. A local print shop distributed bumper stickers to the crowd. But at 1:44 AM, June 6, 1968 Robert Francis Kennedy died and with him our dreams for a better future. Would he have really made a difference? I believe so. With Bobby Kennedy as president I believe we would have become a better, stronger and more compassionate country. We will never know.
By August Czechoslovakia was occupied by Soviet tanks, ending the Prague Spring. Alexander Dubček was arrested and held briefly. When asked about the suppression of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union he said,
“You can crush the flowers but you can not stop the spring.”
I did not vote that year. My candidate was no longer running.
We were exhausted. Many of us had been awake for forty-eight hours but were too grief-stricken to sleep. Not knowing what else to do I went down to Kennedy headquarters. All the lights were off and the few people there were standing around, some quietly weeping, others just staring off into space. A woman I knew to be the director came up to me and, with a sad smile, said,
“I’m sorry. We’re closed.”
Comments (9)
RodS
I remember all too well. All too well....... I too, was solidly for Bobby Kennedy.
May of 1968, I enlisted in the US Air Force. The next 4 years were an awakening, and changed my life. If I could go back in time, I wouldn't change a thing.
anahata.c
I'm back to leave some comments in the galleries (for a day or two), but I never thought I'd be starting with you! It's always special when you post, and what a post you gave us tonight---in your usual eye and heart for history; and your usual way with clarity, picking all the key events and details. Beautifully written, Mark, as always.
I was for RFK too. I thought he was so much more endowed than JFK, had more fire, more determination...and I was too young to realize that that fire may have been way too big for the forces he took on. (His confrontations with Hoffa alone were frightening, when one realizes how much old power Hoffa wielded. Pulling the tiger's whiskers...And imagine that Hoffa started out a champion for the working person too...something he forgot more and more, as power took him over. ((power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely---lord acton, right? I'm sure you know...) (sorry for the diversion, but 'lord acton' sounds like the name of an old comic! Lord buckley? right? am I close here?)
It's amazing to read how you were there, that night, and how you stood vigil with others---for an event most of us knew only via tv. And of course, you bring in Czechoslovakia and its being overrun by the S.Union. And King, who was so brilliant and so 'called'; and who took on the raging tiger over and over, and paid for it terribly in the end. A powerful piece, Mark (as always); and, given that you have to keep it a certain length---I mean, you can't summate everything that happened in that crazy fateful year---you managed to get at the whole with a few well chosen, well written specifics. And "I'm sorry. We're closed." summates a lot...I too think RFK could've made a difference; and boy would it be nice to have someone of his inner-power and conviction today. And see---you bring out things in others: Now I'm dying to know what Rod saw and discovered in the air force that changed him so. I want him to write a story about it. Terrific, sad upload, thanks once again...our resident cultural historian may not post often, but when he does, he brings a lot of wisdom with him, and leaves everyone else thinking, and better off for it...
kgb224
What might America have become if his life was not assassinated. We will never know. I still say politics is a dirty business and the majority of politicians is crroks even though they will deny that it is so. Thank you for sharing. God bless.
durleybeachbum
Thankyou, Mark, for making these appalling events personal. with your superb writing. I was at art school and preoccupied with that, and being a young mum, and whilst we were well aware of all this happening in the US it was on the other side of the world. I didn't have a TV, just newspaper and the radio. I think the Prague Spring had more impact on my peer group. How different today, The Blob farts and the world knows in an instant.
zaqxsw
Beautiful and touching tribute... to think of what could have been, and the nobility of such leaders... and to see what we have now... how could a country fall so far!?!
bmac62
Hi Mark. Superb! As the world turns, so do we all change. I knew 1968 well,...lived every moment of it and followed the news day by day. I grew up in a Republican household...my grandmother had been a Republican party volunteer in the same vain as you for the Democratic party. But she cut her teeth on getting out the vote and women's suffrage in the early years of the 20th century. I say all this because at the time, we didn't see what you saw in RFK. But the 50 years in between 1968 and now has absolutely altered my views. I didn't leave the Republican party...they left me.
Have you ever considered writing one of these impactful historical bits for each of the years of your life? It would be a big job but what a piece to leave for your family...and/or others.
wysiwig
Hi, Bill:
Interesting idea about the history project. I have heard many people say they didn't leave the Republican Party but it left them. As a historian I have often wondered about that. My belief is that Dwight Eisenhower was the last real Republican president. He was pro-union and believed in spending on infrastructure. He was also anti-war as only a career soldier can be. He had his faults but I would have voted for him if I had been old enough. The spirit of the man can be glimpsed in what came to be called the Cross of Iron speech. It was given before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16,1953.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9743.htm
My favorite quote from that speech is this:
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
Sounds a little like Bobby.
makennedy
I was a lad of 13 through all this, thanks for your story and the memories forgotten...
Glendaw
Living next door ( Canada ) our family had and still has some concern in your Country and its well being ~
My parents were keen Kennedy followers both John and Bobby !
Mark you have made the most awesome tribute and dedication to 1968, so well written from a excited and then wounded heart of a kid and deep scar from a adult.
Thanks for sharing, God Bless.
auntietk
I was ten in 1968, and learned about the events of that year in a vague, unsettled way. There was much general agitation at the time. In the world, in politics, in my family. At home we discussed religion endlessly, but politics was a no-fly zone. I asked questions that nobody would answer. Always, actually, for which they extracted far too high a price. What might have been is such a freedom, and such a trap. I would like to think we would be different had Bobby Kennedy lived. With all my heart ...
wysiwig
Mister Rogers produced a special episode of his show to deal with the trauma of the event seeking to answer children's questions and calm their fears.