It was 53 years ago yesterday that Robert F. Kennedy was shot at a California hotel just moments after giving a speech on his winning the Democratic primary there.
Hard to imagine what it would have been like to see this happen live.
He died the next day, after struggling to hang on. Today marks the 53rd anniversary of him dying.
Who knows what would have happened had he not been assassinated on that night, and perhaps gone on to win the Democratic nomination. Would he have defeated Nixon in the general election? And if so, how differently would this country's history have gone?
These are the unanswerable questions, of course. But one cannot help but think about how the Vietnam War might have gone differently, if we would have withdrawn sooner. For that matter, it seems likely that there would have been no Watergate, and that the impact of the Pentagon Papers would have been lessened, which might have led to less suspicion, and even perhaps downright hatred, of all things government. One wonders if the rise of Reagan might not have happened in that case. And if that does not happen, frankly, I doubt that George W. Bush, much less Donald Trump, ascend to the nation's highest office, either.
Of course, that is all mere speculation. There is simply no way of knowing for sure what would have happened, and how the nation's history (and present, as a result) might have been very different.
But on this day, the 53rd anniversary of the death of Robert F. Kennedy, it seemed right to honor this man and his legacy, at the very least.
50 years after shots rang out at the Ambassador Hotel, controversy still surrounds RFK's assassination Fifty years after Robert F. Kennedy's assassination, questions are unanswered. By Bill Hutchinson June 5, 2018:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/50-years-shots-rang-ambassador-hotel-controversy-surrounds/story?id=55504645&fbclid=IwAR3XGr7vyhmsXXIVSVxeswwYyZXf1nogM9Sg2rml5gFazUuZHyt0YFOlnPA
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