jackie thought in part she was to blame. she said, i thought that first sound was the backfire of a motorcycle. if i had turned at the first sound, i could have pulled him into my lap and i would have saved him. she goes into stunning detail. and bobby would later say i didn t think about whether i wanted to hear it or not. he just listened because that was part of his role. he was the only one who felt the losses deeply as she had, and he was the one that she knew despite his reputation as being the ruthless kennedy he was the one with the biggest heart and the broadest shoulders for her to lean on. while comforting jackie, bobby struggles with his own guilt. there s no doubt in my mind that bobby kennedy felt at some level that he was responsible. bobby s afraid that his various attempts to prosecute
conveyed utter shock and grief. meanwhile, bobby goes into some emotional netherworld because he realizes that everybody else may be falling apart but he s got to hold it together. he calls sister eunice and says start planning the funeral. he calls brother ted and he says, you will tell our parents what s just happened. and so it comes to ted to have the most onerous duty possible in that family, to tell the father that president kennedy is dead. ted and eunice didn t want him to hear this from anybody else. they called rose who had heard about it immediately. and they told rose to unplug every television in the house. and they arrive, and they told them. and he started to cry.
the aircraft carrier uss john f. kennedy. jackie is devoting herself to her late husband s legacy, one to which bobby seems permanently tied. jack and bobby kennedy had a relationship like no other that we ve seen in the american presidency. they knew each other backwards and forwards. they could finish each other s sentences. and he sounds like his brother. and it reminds everyone of jack. but bobby had to decide what he believed, not what his brother believed, and what was best for him. he was looking for a new constituency. he believed that if we took minorities, poor people, black people, women, and embraced them, that we would have a new majority in our country based on their needs and their
power is too high. i just don t know what my future will be. i m going to decide that sometime in the future. but i haven t decided that yet. he kind of immersed himself in trying to rearrange his cosmogony and try to figure out what to do with his life. i just don t know what i ll do. as bobby considers his future, his family is a source of support. his brother teddy is seven years younger than bobby, and the two kennedys had relatively little to do with each other growing up. it s only with the death of jack in 1963 the two brothers become extremely close. ted is establishing himself in the world of politics. in 1962 he was elected senator of massachusetts, filling jack s old seat. teddy is much more outgoing than bobby.
bobby kennedy is at home with his family and close colleagues. attorney general kennedy is in his back yard, having lunch with robert morgenthau, the district attorney for the southern district of new york. we were having lunch by the pool with ethel, having clam chowder and tuna sandwiches. and bobby had a quick swim in the pool. he s just getting out, changing into dry clothes. suddenly the phone rang. and this is not just any phone. it is one of the hotlines to the white house. ethel picked the phone up and said, very unhappily, it s j. edgar hoover. and bobby s stomach starts to sink because he knows that j. edgar hoover doesn t call him unless it s bad news. and he claps his hand to his mouth, and then he said, jack has been shot.