Kennedy, Robert F

Kennedy, Robert F(rancis)

(born Nov. 20, 1925, Brookline, Mass., U.S.—died June 6, 1968, Los Angeles, Calif.) U.S. politician. The son of Joseph P. Kennedy, he interrupted his education at Harvard University to serve in World War II; he was graduated from Harvard in 1948 and received a law degree from the University of Virginia in 1951. He managed the U.S. Senate campaign of his brother John F. Kennedy in 1952. In 1957 he became chief counsel to the Senate committee investigating labour racketeering; he resigned the post in 1960 to manage his brother's presidential campaign. As U.S. attorney general (1961–64), he led a drive against organized crime that resulted in the conviction of labour leader Jimmy Hoffa. In 1964 he was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York. He became a spokesman for liberal Democrats and a critic of the Vietnam policy of Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1968, while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination in Los Angeles, he was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian immigrant.