Bend History
Character List
US Senator Robert Kennedy: Man of small stature who comes from a family of wealth and privilege. Was rather conservative and anti-Communist in the 1950s. We are seeing throughout the play Kennedy Being challenged many people from diverse backgrounds for good and for bad.
Walter Cronkite: Was seen as the “most trusted man in America” presenting breaking news to Americans over several decades. Reported the breaking news of both John and Robert Kennedy
Gore Vidal: Icon of the American Left with a sharp wit and intellectual presence. He was a controversial figure of his time being a advocate for the acceptance of the queer community and other social issues whilst being a closeted bisexual. After being ousted from the Kennedy Circle for reasons he believed were unfair he spent much of his life trying to break the myth of the Kennedy’s.
James Baldwin: Black Civil rights intellectual who engaged with much of the United States high class white society sparring with the greatest minds of American academia. He too was isolated by homophobic elements of the civil rights movement as he was openly queer.
Lorraine Hansberry: She was the first African American woman author to have a play performed on Broadway. Her best-known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, highlights the lives of Black Americans living under racial segregation in Chicago.
Jerome Smith: A young black Freedom Rider associated with the Congress of Racial Equality who had been beaten and jailed in Mississippi. When he gets angry he gets an awful stutter that makes him even more frustrated.
Yuzo Tachiya: Japanese communist and student activist who is enraged by the continued occupation of Japan by the United States and the control they have over their nation.
Chilean Coal miner: Working in awful conditions in a Coal mine who he and his fellow workers have become communists to unite against their exploitation.
Kennedy Aide: Kennedy was accompanied by his a key team of speech writers and media advisors who guided him from situation to situation.
South African Students: Apartheid supporting white South African Students who are enraged Kennedy has come to their country to criticize their system.
Saul Alinksky: Progressive organiser who tried to bring together different groups across America together on grassroots issues with varying levels of success but was seen as a key figure of the American Left and anti- Christ to the American right.
Cast Size
The cast will hope to be as diverse as possible to fit all the roles accordingly. The cast will consist of 7 people with more if possible. The roles if working on the minimum number of 7 should be grouped as such.
Walter Cronkite and Robert Kennedy being played by the same person. Gore Vidal, Saul Alinsky and Kennedy Aide will be played by the same person. James Baldwin, Jerome Smith and Lorraine Hansberry will all have to be people all played by 3 different people of colour. Yuzo Tachiya must be played by a person Japanese descent. Chilean Coal miner would also ideally be played by someone of South American descent. The white South African Students can be played by the actors who played Gore Vidal with them changing character between questions.
Disclaimer: Most of what described in this script are the recorded words from those events. There have been some minor edits due to format changes and one or two small additions to add extra context or breadth to the scene for the audience’s sake. None of which change the original intention or defame any of the real persons depicted. Sources have been provided at the bottom of where these accounts have been sourced.
Preface: This play hopes to address the image, memory, and future of Robert Francis Kennedy as an idea in the American and Global Psyche. This is to be done by showing his many heated interactions with people who disagreed with him and how he never stopped willing to learn.
Part 1
Walter Cronkite
Much is discussed at the lost potential of the death of President John F Kennedy and how his administration could have been different to his successor Lyndon Baines Johnson. Whether this is dealing with the Great Society, Civil rights and of course the war in Vietnam. Less is spoken but still, much is wondered about potential of his younger brother Robert who whilst never held the high office the loss of which plunged the nation into a deep depression.
Robert was not the Kennedy Brother who was expected to climb the ladder and achieve greatness like his two older brothers John and Joseph who were pushed into the limelight by Joseph Kennedy Senior.
Bobby as he was affectionately known was seen as the runt of the litter in his large Irish catholic family, but this is not to say he or his family struggled or were in touch with the daily struggles of most Americans.
Now we have two of his biggest detractors Mr James Baldwin and Gore Vidal to comment on the short comings of the younger Kennedy. (Gore and James walk onto the set to applause and sit down)
Mr Baldwin what do you recall of the late Senator Kennedy?”
James Baldwin
Well, I had just written a Letter from a Region in My Mind in the New Yorker and the Senator had called me and many of colleagues to a meeting in a New York apartment.
( Transition James Baldwin stays in place with Gore and Cronkite leave and are replaced by RFK and another member from the meeting depending on availability in the cast)
Baldwin
Hello Mr Kennedy here is the group I was able to gather together for this meeting
Kennedy
So, uh who do we have here?
Baldwin
Well, we have my brother David, Lena Horne and Harry Belafonte who you may have heard on the radio, Lorraine Hansberry who wrote that play that was turned into a film a raisin in the sun, Dr. assistant professor in psychology Kenneth Clark, executive director of the Chicago Urban League Edwin C. Berry, Clarence Jones who is Reverend Martin Luther King’s Personal Counsel and speech writer, Jerome Smith who is a Congress of Racial Equality Freedom Rider and Actor Rip Torn.
Kennedy
Well, I have brought you all here today to discuss the several issues that I would like to have your input on. As attorney general I feel we have made immense progress in the field of civil rights, but I deeply concerned with the growing popularity of the nation of Islam, figures like Malcolm X and their predilection for trouble and….
Jerome Smith
(stuttering) “You have no idea what trouble is! Because I’m close to the moment when I’m ready to take up a gun! You don’t have no idea what trouble is…when I pull the trigger, kiss it goodbye.
(Kennedy Shocked, feeling threatened and taken aback)
I’m not sure I understand your meaning
Baldwin
I think you will find young Jerome believes the real problem is that whites would have to deal with was not the Black Muslims, but the African American youth who have seen the kind of brutal treatment by southern whites.
Kennedy
Oh of course well my office the Justice Department and the White House have made great strides in that area
Smith
I’ve seen you guys stand around and do nothing more than take notes while we’re being beaten. Where is the Civil Rights legislation? Where is the real action on these issues? You haven’t done anything! Mr. Attorney General, you make me want to puke. I don’t care what you think, and I don’t care what your brother thinks either.” (still stammering)
Kennedy
I will not have this, we have done great work in protecting civil rights with the force of the law!
(Kennedy begins to try and redirect the conversation to the rest of the group besides Smith)
Baldwin
The law as it stands now Mr attorney General
Kennedy
Sorry?
Baldwin
The law as it stands now is clearly insufficient and so the law must be amended
Kennedy
(awkward pause) That may well be the case by I think you can see that our work in Birmingham and Mississippi has been good… (cut off)
Lorraine Hansberry
Mr. Kennedy, Smith is the voice of 20 million Americans and he is the most important man in this room. Look, if you can’t understand what this young man is saying, then we are without any hope at all because you and your brother are representatives of the best that a white America can offer; and if you are insensitive to this, then there’s no alternative except our going in the streets … and chaos
Baldwin
Quite right Lorraine and so Jerome would you fight for this country if we say went to war with Cuba?
Smith
Never! Never! Never!
Kennedy
Now look here, do you have no loyalty to this country?
All (Besides Kennedy)
NO!
Kennedy
My grandparents were Irish and had to overcome much of the same obstacles
Baldwin
Your family has been here for three generations and your brother ‘s on top. My family has been here a lot longer than that and we’re on the bottom. That is the heart of the problem.
Kennedy
Look I understand but you must understand our lawyers in the justice department are doing good work that is helping people.
All (Besides Kennedy)
(Laughing desperately)
(Time lapse)
(Flustered Kennedy and others coming to the end of the discussion)
Lorraine Hansberry
I would like to finish things here and say that the work of those young black men in the movement are doing a fantastic job, However Mr. Attorney General, I am very worried about the state of a civilization which produces that white cop standing on that Negro woman ‘s neck in Birmingham
(Hansberry shakes Kennedy’s hand and leaves along with Smith)
(Scene goes dark to just Kennedy)
Kennedy
They started sort of competing with each other in attacking us, the President, the federal government…People got madder and madder when they thought about the treatment of Negroes…The way to show that they hadn‘t forgotten where they came from was to berate me and berate the United States government that had made this position a condition…They didn‘t really know, with a few exceptions, any of the facts.
(Light shines on Baldwin)
Baldwin
Mr Kennedy does not understand the full extent of the growing
racial strife in the North. There is a ―gulf that divided Harlem
and McLean, saying, He just didn’t get the point. He was naïve, he doesn’t know
pain. He just doesn’t know.
(Light shines back to Kennedy)
Kennedy
(like he heard what Baldwin had said and sighs)
if he had grown up ‘a Negro’(may change to black), he would feel as strongly as the Baldwin group.
(Returning to Cronkite, Baldwin, and Vidal)
Baldwin
The Senator at that time was not particularly enlightened but that was not the same man who died in 68. He had evolved.
Cronkite
Mr Vidal you have always had much to say about the Kennedy’s and their short comings do you have any stories of your own to help paint a picture of the senator?
Vidal
Well I think the story people most want to hear is that one Truman Capote lied about in play girl magazine, Which I am suing him for libel over.
Cronkite
And what story is that?
Vidal
Just some hogwash about me being not able to handle my alcohol and the senator removing my hand that had been around my stepsister Jackie and receiving some coarse words from the then attorney general before getting escorted from the white house. The most amusing piece of this pathological story however is that this is the very thing Truman would have done if he had indeed been invited to the white house which of course he had never been.
Cronkite
But it would be untrue to suggest you had a unfriendly relationship with Bobby before his passing
Vidal
Well, let’s be clear I was not a fan of Jack Kennedy before his passing either of course the lesser Kennedy saw himself as a white knight and great moraliser. It would be no secret as Irish catholic he was not greatest fan of me or my exploits.
Cronkite
Is there something wrong with wanting to be hero or help others if comes from this deep self-belief in your morals?
Vidal
No of course not but I think what makes it different is whether you believe your own lies and what kind of ambition comes along with your objectives. Jack Kennedy believed many of his own lies like his ability to win a hot war. Bobby Kennedy too I’m sure whilst softening as he aged, I’m sure would have had much the same problem. Ambition is all very well but where does it go?
Cronkite
And this is why you opposed his bid for the senate in New York?
Vidal
Well not just me but many people were opposed to this man gaining from the death of his brother and continuing Camelot past it’s sell by date. So, I and other ran a campaign for democrats for Kenneth Keating who was the republican against Robert.
Cronkite
But you were unsuccessful.
Vidal
It should not be surprising to that the Kennedy name opens a lot of doors. Then again that one in the senate seems to have removed himself from the competition with that incident with that poor woman. So, you could say they close doors as much as they open them. Otherwise, rather than New York you may have to see me in Massachusetts or around the country opposing another Kennedy on the campaign trail.
Cronkite
Thank you, Mr Vidal, and Mr Baldwin. We will have some more guests after our break discussing the life and story of Senator Robert Kennedy
End of Part 1
Part 2
Cronkite
Throughout his time Senator Kennedy had reputation that found him many allies and enemies. He was called ruthless and stand offish amongst his detractors but known also for his warmness and compassion when listening to the plight of those struggling.
We will present to you now three situations for Kennedy in which we can show these sides of his character. The comes when Kennedy travelled as Attorney General to help build relations for the Kennedy Administration. He travelled across the world but an incident occurred whilst in Japan that would be representative of the fearlessness and combative nature Kennedy had with his detractors but also a desire to ensure he dominated the conversation.
We have that footage for you now.
(Japanese University with flags draped on the walls with sign of the university present.)
Kennedy with his entourage walks down the aisle towards the stage before approaching a microphone. He begins to speak with a translator by his side, staying with him line-by-line.
Kennedy
Now I would like to thank the organisers of this event for giving
(Disruptors, located strategically in twos and threes throughout the hall, many of them cantered just in front of the stage, began to shout and jeer)
Communist disruptors
“Go home, Kennedy!”
(Teachers try to shush them)
(Kennedy not rattled and waits for calm)
Yuzo Tachiya (Student communist University Leader),
“Kennedy go home! We don’t want you here! Japan needs freedom from America!”
Kennedy
(Over boos, shh, and other disruptions) So if we can proceed in an orderly fashion, with you asking questions and me answering them, I am confident I will gain and that perhaps all you will understand a little better the positions of my country and its people)
Yuzo Tachiya
Get out of here Kennedy we don’t want you and you Americans here to tell us what do! Japan deserves freedom and won’t be your puppet!
Kennedy
(The Disruptors and teachers begin to all quiet down as Kennedy speaks this time) ”There is a gentleman down in the front who evidently disagrees with me. If he will ask a single question, I will try to give an answer. That is the democratic way and the way we should proceed. He is asking a question and he is entitled to courtesy.”
(Tachiya shocked comes up on staged, Kennedy Holds the microphone for him as he speaks)
Tachiya
(Tachiya stumbles a bit at first)
The illegal occupation of Okinawa Island is a violation of Japanese sovereignty and self-determination of the Japanese people. Japan should not be an occupied state now or in the future or we will never be a true modern nation station. This occupation not just in Okinawa but in the many other American bases across Japan is unjust and ensure Japan will be puppet of the United States until the end of days. Article 9 which has been forced upon us has ensure Japan will be dominated if not by Americans, but by the new Chinese state and we will have to constantly rely on others for our own safety. It seems however the United States is not satisfied with one new imperial position but has deployed further military personnel and equipment into Vietnam. They are not satisfied until they and their capitalist masters control all nations. This cannot be allowed and is just the latest in their awful plans for Asia, the pacific and the world.
(Just as Kennedy had secured the microphone and was set to give his reply, immediately every light in the house went out as the power failed)
(The crowd begins to erupt in chaos with screams and others sounds until it is broken as we hear Kennedy’s thoughts in the dark.)
Kennedy
“He was tough, intelligent, intense and articulate. His frame was slight but his lungs were completely sound. He was filled with the Communist fire of dedication. He had accepted the party line, word for word, and he expressed it well and without question.”
(The sound of chaos returns as he finishes, Kennedy Begins shouting into the crowd, Kennedy is then handed a bull horn but gives it his one of his entourages who begins to speak Japanese to the crowd which brings order back to the room)
Kennedy
“Let me just say this to you. Let me tell you a little bit about what the United States stands for. Let me tell you a little bit about what we are trying to do in the United States. We were born and raised in revolution. We had many years in which to develop. We have been most fortunate. We believe in the principle that the government exists for the individual, and that the individual is not a tool of the state.”
[Applause…and “Kennedy, go home!”]
“…We in America believe that we should have divergencies of views. We believe that everyone has the right to express himself. We believe that young people have the right to speak out and give their views and ideas. We believe that opposition is important. It’s only through a discussion of issues and questions that my country can determine in what direction it should go.
The future of Japan and the Japanese people should be decided by Japan and the Japanese people. Different viewpoints are expressed at this university and in our universities in my country.
We are the heirs of the true Revolution. We are committed to progress while maintaining the rights and freedom of the individual.
This is not true in many other countries. For instance, would it be possible for somebody in a Communist nation to get up and oppose the government of that country?
It wasn’t necessary, for instance, for the United States to erect a wall to keep our people within our society as was done in East Berlin. If it’s a workers’ paradise on the other side, it is strange that it has finally come to this.
I am visiting Japan to learn and find out from young people such as yourselves what your views are as far as Japan is concerned and as far as the future of the world is concerned.
This world is in the hands of people like us. Are we going to move forward or are we going to stand still? Are we going to accept what is the status quo or do we feel we can make progress? Are we going to improve the lives of our citizens and those in other countries that are less fortunate than we are? Are we? That is what the great struggle in the world is all about?”
[Applause]
President Kennedy believes there is an age of greatness before us. With all the perils that are facing us as young people, these challenges transform our life from a routine into a great adventure. We have ahead the new frontiers of science and technology and education. We want to move forward into these new frontiers. That is our philosophy.
(Lights flash off and then return to Cronkite)
Cronkite
This next incident occurred in Chile as Kennedy travelled through South America. This came just after the coup conducted by the Johnson administration against the government of the Dominican Republic. The Kennedy party decamped for Chile. After meeting with government leaders, Kennedy travelled to Concepcion, Chile’s third-largest city and home to a university with a large body of Marxist students, who threatened to disrupt his scheduled campus speech. Kennedy debated with them privately for two hours, and he offered to continue to do so publicly at the evening’s event, but the students refused. The university’s rector, fearing violence (particularly against Kennedy), asked him to withdraw, but moderate student leaders told him that to do so would be judged a Communist triumph and could ensure that no other democratic spokesman would be able to appear on campus. Kennedy decided to deliver the speech as scheduled. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. described the scene that followed
(Kennedy enters to a gymnasium packed with students screaming)
Chilean Students
“Kennedy — paredon!” (translation to the wall) along with throwing rubbish at Kennedy)
(Eggs splatter over his companions . . . but Kennedy
walked along, never looking back, and was untouched.)
Kennedy
“If these kids are going to be
young revolutionaries . . . they’re going to have to improve their aim.”
(Kennedy tries to talk over the commotion but cannot be heard, Kennedy then points to one of the members of the crowds yelling at him)
Kennedy
“Will you test your ideas before the students of this university?”
(One of the students calls Kennedy close to shake his hand and Kennedy obliges to be spat in the face and for one the of the other students to pull the assailant away.)
(A Clock hits midnight and the scene goes black to the audience. In the dark a Kennedy companion can be heard)
Kennedy Companion
“Come on, the
senator wants to go to the coal mines.”
(Scene opens to a coal mine with armed guards and Kennedy with his crew approaching)
Kennedy
So who are these miners?
Kennedy aide
The Coal miners in the area are predominantly Communists and earn $1.50 a day for backbreaking, dangerous work in tunnels stretching out for miles under the ocean floor.
KA
The government security isn’t happy with our visit to this place and our own lack of security
(Kennedy acknowledges this but says nothing in response)
Kennedy with his troop descend by a small open elevator into the earth and pass by several coal miners and their awful conditions.
Kennedy
(Kennedy pulls one of the miners aside)
You sir would you describe yourself as a communist?
(An aide translates the question into Spanish)
Chilean miner
Si señor todos somos comunistas aquí es nuestra única esperanza de mejorar las cosas aquí en las minas y en nuestro país. (Translation: Yes, sir we are all communists here it is our only hope of improving things here in the mines and our country.)
(The same aide gives Kennedy the English response)
Kennedy
“have you read the communist manifesto?”
(Kennedy aide translates)
CM
No, no he leído el manifiesto, la mayoría de los hombres aquí abajo no saben leer ni escribir, así que darnos eso no nos ayudaría en nuestra lucha. Sólo sabemos que nuestro sufrimiento no está bien. (No I haven’t read the manifesto most of the men down here cannot read or write so giving us that would not help us in our struggle. We just know our suffering isn’t right.)
(Kennedy upon getting the response sighs)
“If I worked in this mine,” Kennedy told a companion, “I’d be a
Communist too.”
(fade to dark for transition to Kennedy who is now on stage in South Africa)
End of part 2
Part 3
“If we — all of us — are to conquer anew the freedom for which our forebears gave so much, we must begin with a dialogue both full and free.
In the world of 1966, no nation is an island unto itself. Global systems of transportation and communications and economics have transformed our sense of geography and outmoded all the old concepts of self-sufficiency. Whether we wish it or not, a pattern of unity is woven into every aspect of the society of man. We are protected from tetanus by the work of a Japanese scientist, and from typhoid by the work of a Russian. An Austrian taught us to transfuse blood, and an Italian to protect ourselves from malaria. An Indian and the grandson of a Negro slave taught us to achieve major social change without violence. Our children are protected from diphtheria by the work of a Japanese and a German, from rabies by the work of a Frenchman, and cured of pellagra by the work of an Austrian.
We all owe our very existence to the knowledge and talent and effort of those who have gone before us. We have a solemn obligation to repay that debt in the coin in which it was given: to work to meet our responsibilities to that greater part of mankind which needs our assistance, to the deprived and the downtrodden, the insulted and the injured. Those men who gave us so much did not ask whether we, their heirs, would be American or South African, white or black. And we must in the same way meet our obligations to all those who need our help, whatever their nationality or the colour of their skin. No longer can a spectator be certain that the blood and mud of the arena will not someday engulf him as well. No longer can any people be oblivious to the fate and future of any other. And no longer can any nation, no matter how wealthy or well armed, be as free as it once might have been to ignore a far-off war or warning, to shrug off another nation’s crisis or criticism, or to defy the concerns or the contempt of mankind . .
At times in our history, we have reacted too hastily and harshly to the fear of threats from within and without. But any times of suppression have been times of fear and stagnation, the years when the locust has eaten. We do not intend to repeat those years — even now, in the midst of a war in Vietnam. For we will not abolish the substance of freedom in order to save its shadow.
No nation would have so little confidence in the wisdom of its policies and its citizens that they dare not be tested in the free marketplace of ideas. Societies concerned with the importation of ideas are those which fear what Jefferson called “the disease of liberty.” But those with confidence in their own future, in their citizens, and in the durability of their ideals, will welcome the exchange of views. I am here in South Africa to listen as well as talk, less to lecture than to learn. Whatever our disagreements, neither your country nor mine is under any illusion that there is only one side to any issue or that either of us can coerce or quickly convert the other to share our point of view. But asserting disagreement without debates is as meaningless as asserting unanimity without discussion. Let us find out where we disagree, and why we disagree, and on what we can agree . . .
Ours is a world of change — unparalleled, unsettling, dizzying change. The certainties of yesterday are the doubts of today, and the folly and mockery of tomorrow. Every problem we solve only reveals a dozen more of increasing complexity. Your country and mine have created wealth unmatched in the history of man; but we have not yet learned to turn that wealth to the service of all our people. Your country and mine gained freedom from colonial domination and set an example for seventy nations around the world; but we have not yet learned how to help those new nations to achieve the economic, social, and political progress which their people demand and deserve . . .In your country and mine, we fought for and achieved freedom for some of our people; but we have not yet learned, as Thomas Paine said, that “no man or country can be really free unless all men and all countries are free.”
(Student applause and the banging of soup spoons on the long wooden dining-hall tables drowned out Kennedy from continuing).
South African Student
(One of students went to ask Kennedy a question defending apartheid)
Mr Kennedy, surely separate development is a solution to this problem that would ultimately lead to separate nations, as India had been split to allow Hindu and Muslim autonomy.
Kennedy
“Shouldn’t the coloured man’s voice be heard? The areas you have designated for Non whites are strictly within the bounds you are going to give them. Are you really facing up to the situation in an honest, candid way? Somewhere in the future you are going to give them a separate country and you are going to keep 80 percent of South Africa’s land, including all of its arable portions for the white people. We must face the fact that the white people are the minority group throughout the world.
(The first student sat down shocked by his response whilst another stood up to take their place)
Second SA student
But Mr Kennedy could you really make a worthwhile assessment of a country, especially one as complex as South Africa, on such a short visit?
Kennedy
I don’t say I am going to leave here as an expert on South Africa, any more than I left South America an expert, But I have been here in good faith and have, as much as is possible under these rather difficult restrictions made a conscientious effort to know as much about South Africa as I can.
3rd Questioner
An African majority, with a history of centuries of tribal warfare and no experience with self-government, could lead only to chaos and violence?
Kennedy
No race or people are without fault or cruelty. Was Stalin black? Was Hitler black? Who killed forty million people just twenty-five years ago? It wasn’t black people, it was white.
4th Questioner
The Bible clearly states that black people cannot be trusted like in the story of Kane and Abel and have to guided by us if they are to be truly moral.
Kennedy
But suppose God is black? What if we go to heaven and we, all our lives, have treated the Negro as inferior, and God is there, and we look up and He is not white? What then is our response? (Found put and return to Panel with Walter Cronkite, Gore Vidal and James Baldwin)
Cronkite
So Gentlemen we have now traversed over several key moments of Senator Kennedy’s life. I think the what the audience would like to hear before we close off this evening is your thoughts on what potential Robert Kennedy Administration would have looked like? Would it follow a similar path to his brother? Would it reach the heights many hoped it would or would nothing remarkable?
Vidal
Well, this was not a big chance of him winning in the first place. So many seem to think that if not for his death he was more or less guaranteed the presidency. California was a big win, but the democratic party is hardly a democratic entity. So, one could very well see them do exactly what they did ignore the base of their party and put in a party apparatchik.
Baldwin
There is no secret here that I am no great admirer of the senator and do not see him in saintly fashion. I however could imagine the Senator being more productive than the current President on the issues close to my heart. I could see however that with the death of Martin in 68 I also see that those who could have pushed him whilst in office to act on those issues. So, like so many before him maybe he does not prioritize those issues.
Vidal
Well as a writer first and foremost I would narratively I could see poor Ethel facing the assassin’s bullet rather than her husband, the if the attempt on him didn’t go to plan. Would this cripple his administration if he were to sink into a deep depression whilst in office or would be onto another lady fast like his brother.
Baldwin
I don’t have much else to contribute then saying he was at the tail end of the political violence enacted in this country. That is primarily used against black people has hit a white person. It is sad but for us this is just another day.
Cronkite
Well thank you gentleman and thank you audience for staying with us tonight in having this critical look at the life and legacy of Senator Robert F Kennedy.
(Lights go dark and turn on again to reveal Robert Kennedy at a podium surrounded by supporters)
Kennedy
And I would hope I would hope now that the California primary is finished, now that the primary is over, that we can now concentrate on having a dialogue or a debate I hope between the Vice President and, perhaps, myself on what direction we want to go in the United States. What we’re going to do in the rural areas of this country, what we’re going to do for these who still suffer in the United States ‘from ger. What we’re going to do around the rest of the globe and whether we’re going to continue the policies which have been so unsuccessful in Vietnam, of American troops and American marines carrying the major burden of that conflict. I do want to end I think we should move in a different direction. Thank you. So, I thank all of you who made all this possible. All the effort that you made and all of the people whose names I haven’t mentioned but who made all the work at the precinct level, who got out to vote, who did all of the efforts that’s required I was a campaign manager eight years ago, I know what a difference that kind of effort and that kind of commitment made. I thank all of you. Mayor Yorty has just sent me a message that we’ve been here too long already. So, my thinks to all of you and on to Chicago and let’s win there.
(Scenes fades as Kennedy walks off stage)
(The several Loud gunshots are heard along with screams and other commotion like the line “Senator Kennedy has been shot” repeated several times)
(This continues for 20 seconds until it too fades out and fades in Saul Alinsky walking onstage)
Saul Alinsky
Hello fellow Radicals and know who I am as one of the agents of fear or so say the William F Buckley’s of the world. This agent of fear wants to read you a section from his book “Rules for Radicals”
“In the midst of the gassing and violence by the Chicago Police and National Guard during the 1968 Democratic Convention many students asked me, “Do you still believe we should try to work inside our system? “These were students who had been with Eugene McCarthy in New Hampshire and followed him across the country. Some had been with Robert Kennedy when he was killed in Los Angeles. Many of the tears that were shed in Chicago were not from gas. “Mr. Alinsky, we fought in primary after primary and the people voted No on Vietnam. Look at that convention. They’re not paying any attention to the vote. Look at your police and the army. You still want us to work in the system?” It hurt me to see the American army with drawn bayonets advancing on American boys and girls. But the answer I gave the young radicals seemed to me the only realistic one: Do one of three things. One, go find a wailing wall and feel sorry for yourselves. Two, go psycho and start bombing — but this will only swing people to the right. Three, learn a lesson. Go home, organize, build power and at the next convention, you be the delegates.”
THE END
Sources
https://www.nola.com/opinions/article_dd518507-ee3b-5a0a-9adc-a9fdadc020d0.html
RFK: His Words for Our Times by C. Richard Allen and Edwin O Guthman
Alinsky, S. D. (1971). Rules for radicals: A practical primer for realistic radicals (Vintage books.). Vintage Books.
