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Log inMemories of RFK assassination still bring sense of loss
Memories of RFK assassination still bring sense of loss
by Outspoken on Thu Jun 05, 2008 4:36 am
Memories of RFK assassination still bring sense of loss
Those who were inspired by Robert Kennedy's presidential run in 1968 are left to wonder 'what might have been.'
By ANN S. KIM
Staff Writer Portland Press Herald
Forty years ago, Mary Lou Dyer and her friends were savoring the days between the end of their exams and their high school graduation ceremonies. She was sitting on the white sand of a beach in southern Rhode Island when word of Robert F. Kennedy's death came over the transistor radio.
In that idyllic spot, Dyer and her girlfriends cried as they tried to absorb the news. With the war in Vietnam raging and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. just a couple months past, times were tumultuous even before Kennedy was shot to death. This tragedy filled Dyer with a deep sadness and fear for the future.
"It was just so scary. We really worried about what was going to happen to our country and what was going to happen to life as we knew it," said Dyer, who now lives in Hallowell and works as the managing director of the Maine Association for Community Service Providers.
Four decades after Kennedy was felled by a gunman, his admirers remember him for the hope and excitement he generated in those charged days.
Kennedy had just won the California primary in his pursuit of the Democratic presidential nomination when he was shot in the kitchen of a Los Angeles hotel on June 5, 1968, less than five years after his brother's assassination. Kennedy died the next day, and left behind a stunned and mourning nation.
"It was a time, frankly, where there was great despair. I think the assassination of Robert Kennedy made people feel that America was permanently changed," said Harold Pachios, a prominent Maine Democrat who was director of advance operations for Sen. Edmund Muskie, who was picked as the running mate for the Democratic Party's eventual nominee, Hubert Humphrey.
That year was a time of rage on the streets and chaos at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, later that summer, he said.
To Robert Dunfey, the New York senator was the candidate with the "clearest devotion to all the people" and more. Kennedy was a personal friend of Dunfey, who was director of the candidate's Maine campaign in 1968.
Dunfey also worked with the campaign in other states, including California, Washington, Oregon and South Dakota. He recalls the exhilaration of the campaign and how huge crowds turned out to see Kennedy.
"He was showing the leadership qualities of his brother, or even better," said Dunfey, who is now 80 and living in Portsmouth, N.H. "He was a world figure in his own right and he was welcome everywhere."
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=192253&ac=PHnws
Press Herald file photos
Those who were inspired by Robert Kennedy's presidential run in 1968 are left to wonder 'what might have been.'
By ANN S. KIM
Staff Writer Portland Press Herald
Forty years ago, Mary Lou Dyer and her friends were savoring the days between the end of their exams and their high school graduation ceremonies. She was sitting on the white sand of a beach in southern Rhode Island when word of Robert F. Kennedy's death came over the transistor radio.
In that idyllic spot, Dyer and her girlfriends cried as they tried to absorb the news. With the war in Vietnam raging and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. just a couple months past, times were tumultuous even before Kennedy was shot to death. This tragedy filled Dyer with a deep sadness and fear for the future.
"It was just so scary. We really worried about what was going to happen to our country and what was going to happen to life as we knew it," said Dyer, who now lives in Hallowell and works as the managing director of the Maine Association for Community Service Providers.
Four decades after Kennedy was felled by a gunman, his admirers remember him for the hope and excitement he generated in those charged days.
Kennedy had just won the California primary in his pursuit of the Democratic presidential nomination when he was shot in the kitchen of a Los Angeles hotel on June 5, 1968, less than five years after his brother's assassination. Kennedy died the next day, and left behind a stunned and mourning nation.
"It was a time, frankly, where there was great despair. I think the assassination of Robert Kennedy made people feel that America was permanently changed," said Harold Pachios, a prominent Maine Democrat who was director of advance operations for Sen. Edmund Muskie, who was picked as the running mate for the Democratic Party's eventual nominee, Hubert Humphrey.
That year was a time of rage on the streets and chaos at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, later that summer, he said.
To Robert Dunfey, the New York senator was the candidate with the "clearest devotion to all the people" and more. Kennedy was a personal friend of Dunfey, who was director of the candidate's Maine campaign in 1968.
Dunfey also worked with the campaign in other states, including California, Washington, Oregon and South Dakota. He recalls the exhilaration of the campaign and how huge crowds turned out to see Kennedy.
"He was showing the leadership qualities of his brother, or even better," said Dunfey, who is now 80 and living in Portsmouth, N.H. "He was a world figure in his own right and he was welcome everywhere."
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=192253&ac=PHnws
Press Herald file photos
"Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything."
Plato (427-347 BC)
Plato (427-347 BC)
