Robert F. Kennedy Jr: A controversial figure with a ‘cursed’ family history

1960s: The decade of assasinations

The current Kennedy was only nine when his uncle was assassinated, and 14 when his own father was gunned down at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles by Palestinian emigrant Sirhan Sirhan — who is still alive as of 2023, languishing in a San Diego jail.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is far older than his father "Bobby" when he ran for presidential office at the age of 43. He had just won the California primaries when Sirhan apprehended him at the hotel kitchen, shooting him four times at point blank.

The declared reason for Sirhan's crime — then a young man of 25 —was Bobby's support for Israel. He was killed just five months before elections on 5 November 1968. Sirhan chose 5 June 1968 to strike, on the first anniversary of the Six Day War that led to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The Kennedy brothers had ruled America in the 1960s, with John at the White House and Robert as his Attorney General until 1964, when he was elected senator for New York. Robert knows that history only too well, both from family and after studying US history at Harvard, before going to law school at the University of Virginia.

That decade had witnessed four deadly assassinations that left a permanent scar on the collective psyche of the American nation: JFK in November 1963, Malcolm X in February 1965, Martin Luther King in April 1968, followed by Bobby in June.

Sirhan's lawyers have frequently tried releasing him on bail, with no luck, citing his clean prison record since 1968. If released, he would be automatically deported to Jordan, the country from which he came to the US back in the 1950s, given that when the crime occurred, he hadn't obtained US citizenship. 

In 2017, Robert Kennedy visited Sirhan in his prison cell, saying: "I went there because I was curious and disturbed by what I had seen in the evidence. I was disturbed that the wrong person might have been convicted of killing my father."

"My father was the chief law enforcement officer in this country. I think it would have disturbed him if somebody was put in jail for a crime they didn't commit."

A controversial figure

Family lineage aside, Americans know the current Kennedy for his anti-vaccine rhetoric during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, where he sharply criticised then-president Donald Trump's lockdown, comparing forced lockdowns to the dictatorship of Nazi Germany. 

He made pretty sure to touch on that topic during his first campaigning speech on 19 April, which lasted for nearly two hours, also criticising Biden's support for the war in Ukraine. The New York Times described his presidential bid as a "long-shot," although it did acknowledge that according to polls, 50% of Democrats want to see a president other than Joe Biden.

Very noteworthy was the absence of any senior member of the Kennedy family to support Robert's speech at the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston — a city that was once stronghold of the Kennedy family. That comes as little surprise given that Victoria Reggie Kennedy, wife of his late uncle Teddy, is President Biden's ambassador to Austria while Caroline, daughter of President Kennedy, holds the same job in Australia.

Many see his sudden bid as an embarrassment, both for their standing within the Democratic Party and the Biden Administration. The Kennedys have previously criticised Robert, first for his stance on vaccines and then, for his support for Sirhan's release.

Fifty-five years ago, Bobby campaigned for ending the war in Vietnam while his son will probably make ending American support for Ukraine a benchmark of his presidential platform. If that happens, it would further scare the Kennedys away, creating more friction with Biden who has announced that he will be seeking re-election in 2024.

"My mission over the next 18 months of this campaign and throughout my presidency…will be to end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that is threatening to impose a new kind of corporate feudalism in our country," Kennedy said.

He continued: "To commoditise our children…to poison our children and our people with chemicals and pharmaceutical drugs; to strip-mine our assets; to hollow out the middle class and keep us in a constant state of war."

The Kennedy Curse

For years, many have spoken of a so-called "curse" that has befallen both male and female members of the Kennedy family. Many were killed, died young, and some died in mysterious circumstances — the most famous of which were the Kennedy brothers John and Robert in 1963 and 1968 respectively.

Their younger brother Ted nearly died in an airplane crash in an apple orchard near Southampton, Massachusetts in 1964. Bobby's son David died of a drug overdose in 1984, and so did his granddaughter Saoirse in 2019, at the young age of 22.

In April 2020, another granddaughter, Maeve Kennedy McKean (senior adviser for human rights under the Obama Administration) went missing with her eight-year-old son after embarking on a canoe. Her body was recovered the following week, and that of her son, two days later. Robert F. Kennedy's sixth son Michael died from injuries sustained in a skiing accident in 1997 while President Kennedy's son John Jr died in an airplane crash in 1999.

So far, the current presidential hopeful has lived what can be described a safe life. That can change, however, if he decides to become a full-life politician, walking in the footsteps of his slain father and uncle.