Today marks the 39th anniversary of the death of Robert F. Kennedy. I often wonder how different history would be had he not been gunned down by Sirhan Sirhan on the previous evening. Ironically Sirhan claims he had to kill Kennedy for his support of Israel in the six day war of the previous year, which had begun exactly one year before he pulled the trigger. There is no record of RFK having made any support.

In his eulogy to his late brother Edward Kennedy said with a breaking voice, "My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it."

The eulogy was concluded with a quote from George Bernard Shaw, "Some men see things as they are and say 'Why?' I dream things that never were and say, 'Why not?'"

Robert Kennedy had declared his candidacy for president on March 16,1963. He was remembered during that election for calming the crowd in Indianapolis after learning that Martin Luther King had been assassinated. He had just won the California primary when he was shot making his way through the service area of the Ambassador hotel on June 5, 1968 just after midnight. He died the next day. He was 42. Had he been elected he would have broken his brother's record as the youngest person ever elected president.

Robert F. Kennedy 1925-1968