I'm the brother of the late President John F. Kennedy, and was born in Brookline, Massachusetts. I interrupted my undergraduate studies at Harvard University to serve in the U.S. Navy during World War II. After the war I returned to Harvard and in 1948 received a B.A. degree. In 1951 I was awarded an LL.B. degree from the University of Virginia. Later that year I became an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice, leaving that post the following year to manage the senatorial campaign for John. Following the successful campaign, I returned to government service as counsel to several Senate subcommittees and first gained national prominence as chief counsel (1955-1957) of the Senate Permanent Investigations Subcommittee in its investigation of Teamster Union executives David Beck and Jimmy Hoffa.
In 1960, following my brother John's election to the presidency, of which I was the campaign manager, I was appointed U.S. Attorney General. I was hesitant to take the job at first, but dad and Jack talked me into it. My tenure in that office was marked by active enforcement of civil rights laws. I resigned my cabinet post in 1964, and ran successfully for the U.S. Senate in New York. As Senator, I was particularly concerned and disturbed with the problems of urban ghettos and of the poor and disadvantaged. I brought poor blacks and white businessmen together in turning around the Bedford Styvesant neighborhood.
In the spring of 1968 I campaigned for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency because I sharply differed with some of the policies of President Lyndon B. Johnson, particularly his escalation of the Vietnam war. By June 1968, I won major primaries in Indiana, Nebraska, and California. After realizing I had won California, I for the first time felt that I had earned my way out of the shadow of my brother Jack. I had come to represent hope to millions of suffering or troubled people: blacks, poor people, labor workers. Upon leaving a celebration in Los Angeles after a key victory in the California primary was assured, on my way to the celebration party I was shot and killed by Thane Eugene Cesar.
