21 Fascinating Robert Kennedy Facts that Will Make You Wonder

Welcome, little fact explorers, to take a look at the life and contribution of the 64^th United States attorney general of America and an icon of modern American liberalism, Robert Francis Kennedy😲!

From being a U.S. senator from New York to being the brother of John F. Kennedy, this famous person has several fascinating facts to offer!

This article will provide some wonderful facts about Robert Kennedy that will amaze you!

Let us start the amazing revelation!

Amazing Robert Kennedy Facts

Robert F. Kennedy: Explore the birth secrets of this famous person

Robert F. Kennedy took birth 🧒on November 20, 1925, outside Boston in Brookline, Massachusetts. 

He was the seventh of nine children to philanthropist and socialite Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy and politician and businessman Joseph P. Kennedy👨.

His parents were members of two significant Irish-American families in Boston.

Also, all four of his grandparents were offspring of Irish immigrants.

Robert’s eight siblings were Joseph Jr. John, Rosemary, Kathleen, Eunice, Patricia, Jean, and Ted. 

Education and early career of Robert Kennedy

Robert was born into a political, wealthy family. From the year 1944 to 1946, he served in the U.S. Naval Reserve.

Later, he returned to his studies👨‍🎓 at Harvard University. 

After that, he even received his law degree from the University of Virginia!

He started his career as a correspondent for The Boston Post and even at the Justice Department as a lawyer. 

However, he resigned from the job to handle his brother John Kennedy’s campaign for the U.S. Senate in the year 1952.

Robert worked for Senator Joe McCarthy

Robert’s father, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., the former U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, once asked Senator McCarthy to help him by appointing his son as chief counsel of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. 

McCarthy opted instead for Roy Cohn. Cohn had helped convict the atomic bomb 💣spies Ethel and Julius Rosenburg in 1951!

In December of 1952, Robert was named assistant counsel but resigned the following summer. 

In early 1954, he joined the committee after the Democrats appointed him minority counsel.

Robert wasn’t above a bar fight

Robert was quite well-known for his hot temper!

 “Shortly after his 21^st birthday, Kennedy celebrated the occasion by buying his first beer🍷. 

Soon he was buying drinks for everyone in the bar,” Even Thomas states this in his book Robert Kennedy: His Life. “Some of the patrons started singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to someone else. 

Kennedy, being inebriated for the first time in his life, became enraged at their ingratitude. 

So, he smashed a beer bottle over one man’s head and refused entreaties by (Kenneth) O’Donnell to apologize.”

Robert Kennedy: After Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed, he may have prevented a riot

On April 4, 1968, Robert was campaigning in Indianapolis, Indiana, when Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed in Tennessee’s Memphis!! 

Robert told 🗣️a largely African-American crowd at his campaign to immediately stop the news, and with his speech, he defused some of the tension that in other cities led to violent riots. 

He said, “For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling.” 

Robert Kennedy and his dog Brumus

Have you heard this unique fact about Robert F. Kennedy?

The New York Times 📰wrote about Attorney General Kennedy’s dog Brumus in August of 1962!! 

At that time, Brumus was a regular visitor to the Justice Department. The article even said he is a “Labrador dog,” but other sources said he was a Newfoundland.

Kennedy told the paper that “He usually stays at home with the children. But the children are away on vacation, and he gets very lonely. 

So I bring him here and get pretty girls to take him for walks.”

House of Kennedy: It was almost a zoo

I am really amazed to explore this interesting secret about Kennedy! Want to know?

According to The Times, the Kennedy family has many pets besides Brumus. 

Those are two other dogs🐕, horses, ponies, geese, a sea lion, a burro, 20 goldfish, Hungarian pigeons, turtles🐢, rabbits, and a salamander.”

Quite interesting, isn’t it?

Robert inspired the man Jerry Springer

Prior to Jerry Springer becoming a host of his famous eponymous show, he served as Cleveland’s mayor and even unsuccessfully ran for Congress! 

These were those vital events that might not occur if it weren’t for Robert Kennedy, who was then Senator from New York!

In 1968, during Kennedy’s campaign for president, Springer met the candidate in person at a dinner meeting and was quite impressed by his desire for social change.

Springer signed up for Kennedy’s campaign and, after Kennedy’s assassination, kept the dead candidate’s mission alive in his career in public service.

Robert F. Kennedy was the first to climb Mount Kennedy

In 1965, Robert and his team took part in an excursion sponsored by the National Geographic Society. 

They reached the summit of the 14000-foot mountain⛰️ in Canada. Robert had no previous climbing experience!

 Up to a point, Mount Kennedy was the highest peak that was unclimbed in North America. 

Months earlier, it had been named after President John F. Kennedy. 

Later, his brother Ted zinged him in a quote given to UPI, “I wish to point out for the record he isn’t the first Kennedy to climb a mountain.”

He also said that he even climbed a higher one, Matterhorn.

Robert in 1967: He debated Ronald Reagan 

On May 15, 1967, the great personalities of the right and left met on CBS News. The topic was “The Image of America and the Youth of the World.”

Many students from several British universities submitted the questions from London to a fascinating debate that took place between New York’s new Democratic Senator, Robert F. Kennedy, and California’s new Republican governor Ronald Regan. 

The subject was The Vietnam War. 

This interesting debate was witnessed by about 15 million Americans. 

According to Newsweek, “Political rookie Reagan…left old campaigner Kennedy blinking when the session ended.”

Robert tried to talk Johnson out of the VP job but already accepted

John F. Kennedy won the Democratic nomination for president with Robert as his campaign manager in 1960. 

John got enough votes, despite a last-ditch effort by Lyndon B. Johnson, Senate Majority Leader, to stop John! 

To smooth relations in the party, John asked Johnson to be his vice president, and Johnson shocked😮 the Kennedy campaign by accepting it. 

Shocked, JFK asked Robert, “Now, what do we do?” 

As per historians, Robert went to Johnson’s room to talk him out of it! 

However, the movement only deepened the animosity! 

Finally, John told Johnson that he really wanted to work with him.

 Kennedy repeated the third grade

Have you heard this amazing secret about Robert F. Kennedy?

An unauthorized biography of Robert Kennedy’s wife Ethel Kennedy relates an event, at which Ethel told about her husband’s elementary school shortcomings.  

According to author Jerry Oppenheimer, At the German-American community school, in Berlin, Ethel spoke before a group of third-graders.

She told them not to be discouraged if they cannot always do well at their exams. 

She even added brightly, “After all, Bobby had to repeat third grade.”

Robert was portrayed by both Martin Sheen and Andrew McCarthy

Andrew McCarthy, in the TV movie Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis and Martin Sheen, in The Missiles of October, are two of the many notable actors to play Robert F. Kennedy! 

Also, some lesser famous actors🎥 include Zeljko Ivanek (The Rat Pack), Stephen Culp (Thirteen Days and Norma Jean & Marilyn), Robert Knepper (The Women of Camelot), and John Shea (1983 miniseries Kennedy, and in this one, Martin Sheen played JFK).

At John F. Kennedy’s wedding: Robert and Ted embarrassed the family

I am quite amazed to learn this unique secret about Robert F. Kennedy! Want to know?

In ‘Robert Kennedy: His Life,’ Thomas writes that “At his brother Jack’s wedding to Jacqueline Bouvier in September 1953, Bobby had behaved like a naughty teenager, stealing a policeman’s hat.” 

Thomas further wrote, “Joe Kennedy was furious. He summoned Bobby and his co-conspirators, his brother Teddy and some younger cousins, and gave them a lecture about disgracing the family name.”

Robert F. Kennedy in 1954: One of the America’s 10 outstanding young men

Time offered a list of the honorees named by the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce. 

This started off with Robert Kennedy, and at that time he was only 29. 

His works were praised by the chamber as the minority counsel of Joe McCarthy’s Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, and specifically for the task like “assembling the facts which persuaded of 242 vessels not to trade with Iron Curtain countries.”

Some even say that Robert got around

Have to heard this interesting fact about Robert F. Kennedy? No? Let me explain.

Similar to Robert’s brother, some people even link Robert romantically to several notable figures!!

Some of those are, Candice Bergen, sister-in-law Jackie, Marilyn Monroe, and even ballet dancer💃 Rudolf Nureyev.

However, all these stories are debated, as many of the so-called witnesses either had a beef with the Kennedys or were second-hand storytellers! Isn’t it interesting??

With then-President Roosevelt, R. F. Kennedy shared an interest in stamp collecting

Eleven-year-old Robert was a budding philatelist. 

He even shared this interesting hobby with then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt!

On July 12, 1935, Roosevelt even told Robert that “Your dad has told me that you are a stamp collector and I thought you might like to have these stamps to add to your collection.” 

He even added, “I am enclosing a little album which you may find useful.”

Robert replied, “I liked the stamps you sent me very much and the little book is very useful.” 

These letters are now in the National archives.

Robert believed that everything had a purpose

Unlike his elder brothers, Robert always believed their mother Rose’s agenda that everything has a ‘purpose.’ 

That even included visits to church ⛪during morning walks, visiting historical sites during family outings, and even games that can be utilized to expand math skills and vocabulary!

Robert even described his position in the family hierarchy with the words, ‘When you come from that far down, you have to struggle to survive.” 

As the boys were growing up, Robert even tried many times to get the attention of his older brothers’; however, was seldom successful.

Robert and his father grew distant

As a child, Robert tried hard to meet his mother’s expectations to become the most affectionate, dutiful, religious, and obedient of the Kennedy children.

However, the son and father grew distant!

His mother found this gentle personality of Robert quite endearing, though this eventually made him ‘invisible to his father.’ 

Rose influenced Robert in practicing his religion throughout his lifetime more seriously than the family’s other boys.

Ethel Skakel: Meet Robert’s wife

Kennedy married Ethel Skakel, a socialite and the third daughter👩 of businessman George Skakel, on June 17, 1950.

The got married at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Greenwich, Connecticut.

They had eleven children together. 

The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy

I am really depressed to learn this sad fact about Robert Kennedy!

On June 5, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan. This happened at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. 

When Robert was shaking hands with Juan Romero, hotel busboy, Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian shot Robert with a .22-caliber revolver! 

Robert was hit three times, while dying he even asked Romero, “Is everybody OK?” and Romero answered him, “Yes, everybody’s O.”

After several minutes, when medical attendants tried to lift him, he whispered, “Don’t lift me,” which were his last words⚰️.

Summing up

So little fact lovers, now you have learnt a lot about Robert Francis Kennedy😲!!

We have given our best efforts to enrich your knowledge archive.

Looking to hear from you soon 😊!!