Beschloss tweet: Bringing RFK home

[Dennis Donovan]

Link to tweet

Michael Beschloss ✔ @BeschlossDC
Along route of Robert Kennedy’s funeral train, tomorrow 1968:

10:14 AM - Jun 7, 2019

[hlthe2b]

1. Love, love, love Beschloss.

We needed you, Bobby. We still do.

[Dennis Donovan]

2. My favorite PH, with Doris Kearns Goodwin and Robert Caro tied for second

Had he lived, won the nom in '68 and the Presidency, how many lives would have been saved by ending the war in 1969 (which raged on until 1973)?

[FakeNoose]

15. Yes he would have ended the Vietnam War immediately

... and also ... Watergate would have NEVER HAPPENED! The Repukes turning to the dark side would have never happened either. Probably even Ronald Reagan would have stayed in California instead of f*cking up the country. Oh my God our lives would have been completely different. If only!

[TruckFump]

3. I vividly remember this entire epic

I was in college and got home from a movie and turned on the tube and there it was -- the vigil to see if RFK would live.

[Dennis Donovan]

4. I don't remember this (I was 2 1/2), however, I remember what happened 2 weeks later...

My father drowned in front of all of us at our camp on Cayuga Lake.

I tend to associate the two deaths together due to their proximity in time.

[TruckFump]

5. OMG!

How sad. I am so sorry this happened to you and your family.

[Dennis Donovan]

6. Dad was a Bobby supporter...

...and was likely saddened by his death, I assume. The day he died (6/23/68), he had to put my Grandmother (his mother) in a nursing home because of dementia. He was really sad about it, so he took us all out to lunch. Afterwards, we went to camp and took a boat ride. My sister fell out of the boat; he jumped in and saved her, but was then caught in lake weeds that pulled him down.

[Bayard]

11. Jeez

No words for that loss, Dennis. I'm so sorry.

I was still a kid when Bobby was killed, but like John, remember as a time of great sadness. History could have been so different.....

[hlthe2b]

17. Oh, how horrible. I am truly very sorry.

Tragedy upon tragedy.

[Wounded Bear]

7. 1968 set progressivism back 50 years...

[mountain grammy]

9. 1963, Medgar Evers, and of course,

JFK!

[Roy Rolling]

8. Sad Times

I was a kid and my family was "on vacation" at a relative's house. Because he was shot and died a few days later there was around-the-clock coverage on TV. As kids, we sat and watched the terrible spectacle play out during the longest week of our lives.

Worst vacation ever, though the Astrodome was great!

[nevergiveup]

14. I had just graduated from college

and was finishing my first year of teaching. There really are no adequate words. As terrible as things are today they don't begin to match the sadness and hopelessness that so many of us felt during those days. I don't tear up easily but seeing the pictures of that train and the people lining the tracks automatically triggers the spigot for me. May Bobby, John and Martin forever rest in peace and may we as a nation never have to go through anything like that again.

[B Stieg]

10. I was a little kid in 1968...

but I built my own Bobby cortege with my blocks and a toy train...
I still have a framed copy of a Kennedy for President campaign poster hanging on the wall.
From Martin through Bobby through the DNC and Kent State and all the way to Tet, '68 was one hellish year...

[kimbutgar]

12. A week before he died he was in San Francisco

My Dad took my sister and I down to the area where he was and my Dad held me up and I got to shake his hand. A week later I was in bed asleep when I heard my Dad scream out loud when he saw on TV that Bobby was shot. We all got up and watched on TV the scene in the kitchen with the guy holding Bobby’s head and the ambulance taking him away. The next day at school this mean girl said she hoped he dies because he was a Democrat. I never liked her ever after that. A couple of years ago I went to a reunion of that class and the girl was there. She was the only fat donnie in the group.

[Thunderbeast]

13. I met RFK two weeks before he was murdered

In high school, I worked on his campaign and dragged my parents to a rally at a Portland high school.

His words were inspiring. He lost his Oregon primary contest to Gene McCarthy, but went on to win California on the night he was shot.

I talked to several Nixon voters who confided that they would have voted for Kennedy. The stain of Johnson's war and the palpable civil unrest could not be overcome by Hubert Humphrey. Nixon barely won in 1968. It was recently confirmed that prior to the election, Nixon convinced North Vietnam NOT to pursue peace talks in order to secure his win.

1968 was a scary time for America.

[MarcoZandrini]

16. When the train....

....carrying Bobby’s body passed through a NYC station the people on the platform spontaneously started singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Sends shivers down my back just thinking about that.