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It is an essential virtue for those who seek to change the world. Kennedy’s world was America (Brown 1). His goal was to return government to the people, grant justices to the oppressed, and restore faith in Americans. From these actions, a new America would evolve. Kennedy believed, as Jefferson, that ‘We are the last and the best hope Of the world” (Pilfer 1).
The poor and the disemboweled were special to Kennedy. He would often offer to them as “my people” (Thomas “Ref’s Last Campaign” 3). Interest in the excluded and disemboweled entwined with Kennedy’s compassionate life style. So much of what Kennedy did was on instinct. His actions were with love, not for publicity (Brown 1-2). Kennedy was a multistory learner. What he saw, felt, and heard stirred his desire to act (“Kennedy, Robert Francis” 6).
In order to understand the conditions of the poor America, Kennedy traveled; in order to see things first hand. In his travels, Kennedy focused on the poverty that was frequently forgotten or unseen. However, Kennedy also made it clear that he wasn’t promising income he was promising jobs (Brown 2-3). Kennedy’s 1 967 discovery of nonirritating in Mississippi resulted in a desire to feed hungry Americans (“Kennedy, Robert Francis” 6). Although America was Kennedy’s “world”, he was not blind sighted to the poverty in other countries.
He spoke in Africa, India, Japan and Indonesia to promote the ideals of democracy. He interacted with the students, workers in intellectuals in Japan and they were won over by his understanding and knowledge of their concerns. The late 1965 trip to Latin America resulted in a campaign to reform U. S aid and his visit to South Africa in 1966 brought Kennedy to the head of the antipathetic cause (“Kennedy, Robert Francis” 2, 6). Trying to train the police forces of developing countries was an idea that Kennedy was fond of.
In 1961 Kennedy sent a memo to President JEFF encouraging him to “determine whether all necessary steps are being taken by the internal police to deal with communist infiltration and whether the military or police are prepared to deal with mob riot, or guerrilla bands that ay become active” he wanted these counties to be safe (Thomas, Even “Bobby: Good, Bad, And In Between” 4) War was a conflicting issue for Robert Kennedy. He was caught between his moral and critical qualms about war and his astute understanding of the political game.
In the end Kennedy’s moral courage conquered political caution (Brown 5). Kennedy wanted to end war not because he opposed it, but because it is “unnamable” (Pilfer 1). In October 1 962, confirmation came that Soviets were installing ballistic missiles in Cuba came. Robert Kennedy pushed for action; he was against the mobbing of the missile sites. He believed that a naval blockade around the island would be best. Kennedy’s next struggle with war would come with U. S involvement in Vietnam War (“Kennedy, Robert Francis” 5). Kennedy challenged the whole basis of the Vietnam War.
He questioned its morality and the accuracy of the domino theory. He didn’t follow the belief that the fall of Vietnam would cause the fall of Asia as a whole (Brown 6). In 1963 Kennedy pushed Vietnam off his concern list and focused on his structured belief in counterinsurgency (Kennedy, Robert Francis” 4). Helping Children and the Civil rights movement consumed Kennedy’s focus on domestic affairs. He argued that child poverty, inner-city racial and slum problems in the 1 ass’s could be solved only through a new philosophy of government (Brown 3).
Promoting funding for drug treatment and reform in financing of social security were two tasks Kennedy worked on in his first year as senator. Kennedy also succeeded in amending the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which protected the U. S from unfair impositions of English literacy tests (“Kennedy, Robert Francis” 5). Although Kennedy had reservations about Martin Luther King he gradually rooted his goals in the language and ideas of the Civil Rights movement (Brown 4).
During the beginning of the Civil Rights movement, Kennedy believed that America’s racial problems could be solved without confrontation. He focused on gradual change rather than the demonstration and confrontation tactics used by King. Kennedy’s support of J. Meredith in his conflict with the university of Mississippi demonstrated his new commitment to the Civil Rights movement (“Kennedy, Robert Francis” 2-3). Kennedy spoke restfully of the moral immediacy of civil rights saying “The whole history of the human race had been the history of community, and it was now disappearing”.
He urged programs of economic, and political social rights. He believed that those involved in ghetto violence were making a destructive and self-defeating attempt to assert their worth and dignity as humans (Brown 4). Kennedy’s love for children was well known, and they also loved him. Mary McGregor, a columnist who had befriended Kennedy, said “It was total immersion on both sides. Kennedy needed children as much as they needed IM”. When dealing with enhancing children’s lives Kennedy’s favored word was “unacceptable”; he wanted the best for them.
In Kansas during a speech in 1968, Kennedy, angered by what he was seeing shared with his audience “l have seen these other Americans I have seen children starving, their bodies crippled from hunger” (Brown 2-3). Kennedy became fascinated with the quote from Scams’ writing “Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children. And if you believers don’t help us, who else in the world an help us do this? It was often scrawled in his day book (Thomas “Bobby: Good, Bad, And In Between” 6). Robert Kennedy’s new direction for America was never completed. His premature death lead too many questions of what the compassionate and driven politician would have added to his list of accomplishments. Robert Kennedy, more so than any of his elected contemporaries, was seen by the low income and minority citizens of America and those he touched around the world as someone who was on their side.