Rocket Men: The Daring Odysset of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man's First Journet to the Moon by Robert Kurson

Author:Robert Kurson [Kurson, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi
Published: 2018-04-03T00:00:00+00:00

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To win the Democratic nomination for president, Robert Kennedy had to win the California primary. A week earlier, he’d lost Oregon to McCarthy, and was trailing new entrant Vice President Hubert Humphrey in delegates. For RFK, the Golden State was the crossroads. If he lost there, he’d likely drop out.

As the California returns rolled in, it was clear Kennedy would win. Just before midnight, the candidate went to the sweltering ballroom at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles and addressed a packed house of supporters. Looking more boyish than his forty-two years, Kennedy spoke of his belief that America could be healed and come together. In closing, he made a V with his raised fingers—which in 1968 stood for both peace and victory.

Followed by his entourage and a string of reporters, Kennedy made his way to the hotel’s pantry, where he reached out to shake hands with Juan Romero, a seventeen-year-old busboy who’d delivered food to his room earlier that week. As the two moved close, a man with a pistol lunged forward, pointed the gun just inches from Kennedy, and began firing, hitting the senator once in the head and twice in the right armpit. As Kennedy collapsed, Romero cradled his head to protect it from the cold concrete and tried to comfort the senator, who had been kind to him a few days earlier and had treated him as an equal.

Photographers snapped photos of Romero holding Kennedy. The images would become among the most memorable of the twentieth century.

Pandemonium erupted throughout the hotel; supporters held their heads, sobbed, and screamed “No! No!” and “Not again!” Police seized the shooter, a twenty-four-year-old Jordanian American named Sirhan Bishara Sirhan. In his pocket they found a newspaper story noting Kennedy’s support for Israel.

Kennedy was rushed to the hospital, where he clung to life. In England, the British Broadcasting Corporation told its audience, “We pray for the American people that they may come to their senses.”

Early the next morning, on June 6, Kennedy died of his wounds. Across the country, people walked around dazed. In New York City, WPIX-TV broadcast the image of a single word—SHAME—and let it run for two and a half hours. People of all colors and classes and ages gathered spontaneously at railroad tracks to glimpse the train that carried Kennedy’s body from New York City to Washington. When it passed, mothers holding babies waved, children saluted, the elderly tried to stand. Black and white Americans chased the train, running on the tracks together until the last car disappeared.

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