There was an aura of Camelot in the Great Hall at Justice Department headquarters on Friday as relatives of Robert F. Kennedy and members of the DOJ community honored the 50th anniversary of the late Attorney General’s swearing-in.
Kathleen Kennedy Townsend addresses the crowd as Eric Holder and Ethel Kennedy look on. (photo by Andrew Ramonas / Main Justice)
Ethel Kennedy, Robert’s widow, and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, his eldest child, led a contingent of dozens of family members who came to the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building to pay tribute. Other Kennedys in attendance included Vicki Kennedy, the widow of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President John F. Kennedy.
Scores of past and present DOJ officials and staff members joined the Kennedys, lining the balcony of the Great Hall and packing the room, which was lined with photos of Robert Kennedy and accented with red, white and blue lights. About a dozen colleagues from his time as Attorney General and former Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti of the Jimmy Carter administration were there.
Townsend called on the DOJ to continue her father’s mission to fight injustice in the world and help the less fortunate.
“He was a great Attorney General because he saw injustice to others had been invisible, and he called on his team at the Department and then at the nation in large to see it and address it,” said Townsend. “All of you … are involved in important and critical questions in this day at this time. As you make your climb up that hill towards a just, peaceful and equitable America, thank you for remembering my father’s crusade.”
At first, Robert Kennedy was not a popular choice to head the DOJ, as Nicholas Katzenbach, Deputy Attorney General from 1962 to 1965 and Attorney General from 1965 to 1966, acknowledged in a film tribute. Only 35 years old in January 1961, Kennedy was viewed as having one outstanding qualification: he was the president’s brother. But he brought to his office an unquenchable desire to advance the cause of civil rights, and he helped persuade President Kennedy to declare civil rights “a moral issue” in what is now seen as a landmark speech in June 1963.
Townsend also urged DOJ officials to “do a better job on gun regulation and on gun control and making our citizens safe,” citing the Tucson, Ariz., shooting spree this month that severely injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and killed six. Kennedy’s daughter worked in the DOJ Office of Justice Programs under former Attorney General Janet Reno on the 1994 federal assault-weapons ban, which prohibited the manufacturing of certain semi-automatic guns for civilian use. The ban expired in 2004.
She said that, if the ban still existed, Jared Lee Loughner, who is accused of the shooting, would have had a difficult time getting his gun and committing his crimes.
“As my father said, we glorify killing on movie and television screens and we call it entertainment,” Townsend said. “We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire weapons and violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation. And only a cleaning of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.”
Townsend then recalled that her father’s “heart was broken” after President Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. He resigned as Attorney General less than a year after his death, having served a little more than three years. Elected to the Senate from New York State in 1964, he was assassinated in 1968 while running for president.
But Townsend also shared some of the good times she had with her father. She and her siblings would often eat dinner at the DOJ with their dad and play in his fifth-floor office with a football or their dog, Brumus.
Attorney General Eric Holder, who has a portrait of Kennedy hung in his office suite, said he has often heard stories about the personal side of Kennedy. Holder said Kennedy would sometimes walk around the halls at DOJ and pop into offices, surprising the employees. He said the Attorney General would also pull those walking by his office inside to involve them with his work.
“From this very chair, which sat at his desk throughout his time here,” Holder said, standing next to a red leather chair, “Attorney General Kennedy called on his team to reinvigorate the Department’s mission – and to approach the great challenges of the day, not as problems to be contained or kicked down the road, but as crises to be solved.”
President Barack Obama said in a pre-recorded video played at the tribute that Kennedy’s “memory still burns brightly.”
“For me, for so many Americans, Bobby Kennedy embodies an idea he spoke of so often that each of us can make a difference and all of us ought to try,” Obama said.
