Stephen Schlesinger — son of Arthur Schlesinger Jr., JFK’s court historian — tells a memorable story about Bobby Kennedy. Visiting Bobby at his Hickory Hill family compound in the early Sixties, Schlesinger got sucked into one of those classic Kennedy touch football games. RFK threw him a bullet pass. Schlesinger — about 20 or 21, hadn’t played football in years — fumbled it, and Bobby gave him a withering look. The next time Bobby threw the football, Schlesinger “damn well caught it” because the young man was desperate for Bobby’s approval. It’s a small story, but it captures both sides of Bobby — the toughness everyone talks about, and the way he made you want to rise to his expectations.
There’s a later story that captures another side of Bobby’s emotional complexity. In 1967, as Bobby was contemplating a presidential run, Schlesinger attended one of his star-studded dinners. “He went around the table asking us: do you still believe in God?” Schlesinger remembers. “Why would a man of this intensity and ambition be talking about these issues?”
Why indeed. As Schlesinger remembers the Kennedys, it’s hard not to be nostalgic for a seemingly bygone era of great progressive leaders — from Teddy Roosevelt and FDR to JFK and RFK. That said, as Schlesinger notes in this conversation we had in his NYC apartment across the street from Columbia University, there’s still much that these men — particularly Bobby — can teach America about its increasingly precarious democratic Republic.
