The Last Campaign

After John Kennedy's assassination, Robert—formerly his brother's no-holds-barred political warrior—was left stunned and grieving. He was haunted by his brother’s murder and by the nation's failure to address its most pressing challenges—race, poverty, and the war in Vietnam. When he announced that he was running for president, much of the country was thrilled to hear his message of healing and hope. Although fearing that there were, as he told one confident, "guns between me and the White House," he risked his life to ask Americans to help him reclaim "the generous impulses that are the soul of this nation."

Kennedy stirred huge crowds, who would often tear his clothes, and moved even the most hard-bitten of journalists and other intimate observers. After spending most of the campaign at Kennedy’s side, reporter Richard Harwood, a former marine who had initially been suspicious of Kennedy, asked his editors at the Washington Post to replace him, telling them, “I’m falling in love with the guy.”

Four days after Robert Kennedy was assassinated, two million grieving Americans lined the tracks to watch his funeral train carry his body from New York to Washington. In The Last Campaign, Thurston Clarke explains how one man could have this effect on so many people.