Robert F. Kennedy was a U.S. senator and attorney general. Robert Francis Kennedy, known as Bobby, was born on 20 November 1925 in Massachusetts. He was the son of Ambassador Joseph Kennedy and the brother of Pres. John F. Kennedy and U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy. Robert Kennedy graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in 1948 and received his legal education at the University of Virginia, earning an LL. B. degree in 1951. After graduation he worked briefly in the U.S. Department of Justice before becoming a counsel in 1953 with a Senate committee investigating internal security, chaired by Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin).
After the Democratic party secured the Senate majority in 1955, Kennedy became chief counsel of the Investigations Committee under the chairmanship of Sen. John McClellan (D-Arkansas). In 1957, the committee became known as the Rackets Committee as it focused its attention on organized crime and illegal activity in labor unions. The first target of the investigations was the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (often referred to as the Teamsters’ union). Union president Dave Beck was implicated in personal corruption; he was subsequently tried, convicted, removed from office, and imprisoned. Then Kennedy went after Beck’s replacement, James Riddle Hoffa. Kennedy was able to demonstrate Hoffa’s interactions with organized crime figures and illicit gambling activity. Kennedy’s work with the committee led eventually to the 1959 passage of the Landrum-Griffin Act, which regulated financial activities of labor unions. The committee action also established Robert Kennedy’s reputation as a fighter against organized crime. That reputation was enhanced when he authored the best-selling book The Enemy Within (Kennedy 1960).
In 1960 Kennedy demonstrated his political expertise as he managed John F. Kennedy’s successful campaign for the presidency of the United States. Bobby Kennedy’s reward was his appointment to the office of attorney general in January 1961. He held the office until September 1964. He concentrated the energies of his office and his Department of Justice on civil rights issues and on organized crime. He continued his quest to bring down James Hoffa; however, he was frustrated in these endeavors. It was left to his successors to finally guide the prosecutions that resulted in the imprisonment of Hoffa.
Attorney General Kennedy established an organized crime task force, and he pursued his objectives with prosecutions as well as with an agenda of new legislation. Three major bills dealing with illegal gambling were passed into law as a result of his efforts. These included the Federal Wire Act of 1961, the Travel Act of 1961, and the 1962 amendments to the Johnson Act (Gambling Devices Act), which expanded the prohibition of transportation of slot machines across state lines to include all gambling equipment. Congress also passed the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) in 1961.
Kennedy maintained his steady attacks on organized crime until late 1963 when his brother, Pres. John Kennedy, was assassinated. There has been more than one set of rumors suggesting an organized crime connection to the assassination. One account (Davis 1988) suggests that organized crime had been quite influential in the president’s election and that crime figures maintained close relationships with the president and his father (who had been involved in bootlegging businesses decades before). Some feel that the attorney general’s vigorous attacks on Mob activity somehow represented a double cross by the president.
After John Kennedy’s assassination, Robert Kennedy turned his energies toward passage of civil rights legislation. In 1964 he resigned the office of attorney general in order to successfully run for a U.S. Senate seat from New York State. In 1968, while he was running for the presidency, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles.
<
|
|