Remembering Robert F. Kennedy and His Vision

Aileen Roberta Schlef

Today, June 6, 2020, it is 52 years since Robert F. Kennedy was killed. Two years ago, we celebrated his life and legacy at an Arlington National Cemetery program that attracted 4,000. I was proud to serve on the committee, working with Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and her daughter Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean on that event and several others. That 50 Anniversary year we held several events drawing large audiences still inspired by his words. This article is based on a June 1998,presentation when I was asked to share my intern experiences. The lessons learned resonate today.

Remembering Robert F. Kennedy An Intern's Memories - All Souls Unitarian Church, NYC, June 1998

I am going to dust off some memories to go back to a time when politics was a nobler, if not noble, profession. Today, 30 years after what we call The Last Campaign, I honor Senator Kennedy’s life because my internship and campaign experiences helped frame the person I am. 

My journey was unique from the beginning. It began in junior high school on President Kennedy's campaign. (My nonpolitical family was furious.) Over several years, I built my credentials on the Senator’s campaign and in the State legislature but was assured that I had no chance to be an intern. Capitol Hill internships were reserved for Ivy League schools with programs and those with family connections. I asked the Senator’s staff for a chance to compete and became a finalist. There was one additional challenge: to raise my salary because my college had no program. And I became one of 15 interns that Summer of '66! I remember entering the office knowing that day that nothing in my life would ever compare with this experience.

Sen. Kennedy often said that, "perhaps the clearest mirror of our performance, the truest measure of whether live up to our ideals, is our youth." Through the years, I have grown more aware that Sen. Kennedy's dedication to making sure that his interns received the appropriate foundation for their future was indeed unique. He did not know most of us personally, but he was very present in our lives as a group. 

Robert F. Kennedy expanded our world view. He was a great role model, someone who had turned tragedy into triumph to become a man of extraordinary vision and compassion. He became a champion of hope for those who were disenfranchised. He spoke out against the war in Vietnam irking those who believed we should always follow the President's lead. He wrote Suppose God is Black, grew close to Rev. Martin Luther King, and walked with Cesar Chávez, Dolores Huerta, and the United Farmworkers.  Not guided by polls, he believed that it was healthy for the nation to face its problems straight on and to support those who were taking incredible risks to make it better. We had staff working on environmental issues in 1966!

Ours was a multiracial world, unfortunately still unique in America today. The Senator reminded the nation that, "Our earthbound man still clings to the dark and poisoning superstition that his world is bounded by the nearest hill, his universe ended at the river shore, his common humanity enclosed in a tight circle of those who share his town and views and the color of his skin”.

My internship was in military casework during the Vietnam War.  Beyond our constituents, thousands of letters arrived from all over the world every week. Though we forwarded them to their appropriate Senators, we analyzed their issues and problems. Because of those letters, the Senator sponsored legislation expanding health coverage to children of those serving in the military stationed overseas.

The art of persistence was a wonderful lesson.  On my first day, Sen. Kennedy returned from a historic trip to South Africa. I memorized the engraved saying on the silver box he had been given: As I was walking up the stair, I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today. I do so wish he'd go away. Our unofficial challenge was to figure out how to accomplish any task we were assigned…not to ever say it was impossible. I can still hear him ask us “how can we do better?” That still guides my life.

We learned not to bluff. At meetings, his questions challenged us – and they came in rapid fire.  Planning a family rafting excursion in the Salmon River, he asked me where it was located. I still flinch when I remember the look of disappointment in his eyes when I guessed -- very wrongly. I have never tried to "get over" again. 

Athletics were central to our lives.  Scheduled for baseball, swimming and touch football at the house, the greatest fear was that bruises, those visible badges of honor, would heal too quickly. Even intern lives were never private. Our baseball team’s non-ending losing streak was covered by TIME Magazine. Called to a meeting, we could only humbly promise that the last game was worth playing. We were opposing Sen. Ted's staff. A Kennedy would win! 

We were prepared to overcome, to grieve with dignity and faith in the future.  In the pre-grief-counseling era of that time, my internship was an invaluable personal lesson that has carried throughout my life. At the very first intern meeting, I believe that it was Frank Mankiewicz who explained that we were to know that we worked in the shadow of assassination, but that for the Senator and all of us, life was to be lived normally. You could look through the first-floor window and see the Senator working at his desk.  I read As We Remember Joe, a family book of remembrances about the brother killed in World War II. Creating similar books of remembrance became my own way of grieving, of keeping a special place for a loved one while also continuing to build a full life that is called the “new normal” now.   

The 1966 South Africa visit was historic. Senator Kennedy spoke openly about the continuing struggles in the United States: "I am here because of my deep interest and affection for a land settled by the Dutch in the 17th century, then taken over by the British, and at last independent; a land in which the native inhabitants were at first subdued, but relations with whom remain a problem to this day; a land which defined itself on a hostile frontier; a land which has tamed rich natural resources through the energetic application of modern technology; a land which once imported slaves, and now must struggle to wipe out the last traces of that former bondage. I refer, of course, to the United States of America". 

We were concerned about firearms. “It is our responsibility to make the possession and use of firearms a matter undertaken only by serious people who will use them with the restraint and maturity that their dangerous nature deserves. It is past time that we wipe this stain of violence form our land." Jack Newfield wrote in the 1990s that in 1968 a gun cast a veto over democracy and history.  

During the 1968 campaign. I was substitute teaching on 15th and V, one-half block from where the riots broke out following Martin Luther King’s death. My young dreams, and training, for building a more just multi-racial society, were all but destroyed. When evacuated, there was only one place to go, to Peter Edelman’s office at campaign headquarters. The night before Sen. Kennedy had delivered a historic speech to an African-American community in Indianapolis; many had not heard that Dr. King had been assassinated. He found the words to soothe a terrible situation. The next day, I returned to school and continued my work. In 2020, we again turn to his respectful words, his vision, and empathy.

Over the years, thanks to the efforts of Provi Paredes, who became my surrogate mother, and the Senator's secretary Angie Novello, we weave in and out of each other's lives. (2020 they are now deceased.) When I moved to Los Angeles, I began to question my remembrances. Was it just a dream I needed to have? Validation came in 1988 when I headed press for a Paul Schrade-led Ford-funded retrospective, “RFK Remembered.” My press releases centered on the Senator's own words and caught fire attracting colleagues, staff, civic leaders and top media outlets throughout the country. Our event became the media center for all of the 1988 press coverage of the 20th anniversary of his last campaign.  Sue Vogelsinger and I managed a frenetic one-day press operation that resulted in expansive coverage of the Senator’s life and legacy.

Through the endless interviews and press conferences featuring friends and colleagues, I gained new appreciation of Sen. Kennedy's legacy...the best and the brightest still stretching beyond what is just easily attainable.  Almost without exception, each was still committed to social issues, still trying, as he would often say, to do better.  Each one had achieved quietly, most often without the spotlight shining, measuring success by social commitment over purchasing power. While it seemed that the world had become uncaring, so many still believed.

I close with a quote from the Cape Town speech in 1966: "Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice, it sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and injustice."  As we look to the future, maybe the past can be an inspiration. The message is still clear -- deeds not creeds. One person can make a difference. He reminded us that neighbor helps his neighbor…we must reach across the false barriers that divide us, that we will seek and find peace and reconciliation through participation in the life of our country." 

Now in 2020, young people must be involved. As the Senator told us then, “Yet this is the measure of the tasks of your generation and the road is strewn with major dangers: "expediency, timidity and futility.....the belief that there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's ills -- against misery, and ignorance, injustice and violence."

I have never forgotten those lessons. Today in 2020, I am still involved and proud of Dolores Huerta after 50+ years, Rep. John Lewis and other leaders who fearlessly speak truth to power.  And, I am still most proud, today, when someone takes a stand or makes a difference -- a Kennedy colleague will always make sure to say, "And so the RFK Legacy continues."