RFK at Archives

It is impossible for a 60s girl to watch the 30-minute film, ‘Robert Kennedy Remembered’ without shedding tears.

He was a man so different from most of the “leaders” today, especially when contrasted with the greedy so and sos on Wall Street and their representatives.

To hear him beckon his listeners at a impressionable age to stand up and be counted in the public servant’s world is to suddenly realize some of the emotion, history and perhaps, reasoning and understanding behind the urgency and willingness to try and make a difference somewhere, like he did.

At the National Archives recently about 200 gathered to see the film originally created as a tribute to Kennedy for the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, only two months after his assassination in June, 1968.

Part of the evening included a panel discussion about Kennedy led by his close
friend and confidant,John Seigenthaler, le pere, who was joined on stage by Jules Witcover, the columnist, Peter Vogt, the producer and director, and Robert Wykes, the composer for the film.

Like a 60s girl Mr. Seigenthaler was emotional throughout the evening as he said he is whenever viewing the film.

Mr. Witcover called the 1968 Chicago tragedy a “police riot.” Mr. Seigenthaler said there was “war in the streets, stink bombs in every hotel. The convention was disorderly from the first day to the last.”

One panelist said President Lyndon Baines Johnson wanted screening of the film to be withheld until the convention’s end, fearing the adulation and fawning which did indeed happen. A 17 or 18 minute non-stop ovation greeted Teddy Kennedy when he stood at the podium.

Eventual nominee Hubert Humphrey played no role in the film or its screening, a panelist noted.

The occasion at Archives was the Second Annual Charles Guggenheim Tribute Program, named after the famous documentary film creator who was represented at Archives by his business partner and daughter, Grace Guggenheim. According to the program, Mr. Guggenheim, who died in 2002, made more than 100 documentaries and won four Academy Awards, the George Peabody Award and three Emmys and created the RFK tribute film.

Introducing the panel was the U.S. archivist, Allen Weinstein. Has anyone ever attended an event at Archives where Mr. Weinstein did not perfectly capture the moment with his personal anecdotes, of which there are so many, and his brilliant beginning of any presentation? He is another of the thousand thousand Archives' treasures.

Preceding the film were five of RFK’s political advertisements created by Guggenheim for the 1968 campaign, so honest, simple, and poignant, they become poetry compared to the slash and burn content of today’s messages. A viewer could not escape the sincerity and genuineness of Robert Kennedy, a person who sincerely cared about those less fortunate than he. His mission leaped across the stage.

Consider it:

Excluding the calamity wrought by Katrina, when was the last time you saw a picture in a magazine, in a newspaper, on a news channel, on the Internet of poverty-stricken people? In Appalachia? In slums of any large city? Or heard or participated in a conversation about the same? They are the forgotten people whose existence is brought to life by films and words of Robert Francis Kennedy. He lives!