In a country where it is possible to order bazookas by mail and where the psychology of violence is fostered through the use of every conceivable means of mass communication the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy cannot come as a complete surprise. The original nationality of the killer and his stated motive cannot mitigate the fact that violence simmers fairly close to the surface in American society.
This point is fairly well recognised both inside and outside the United States. Four Presidents – Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and John F Kennedy have fallen to the assassin’s knife or bullet. The list of other political figures who have died in similar circumstances is longer still. In recent years the tendency to use the bullet to settle political controversies appears to have been aggravated. In the last 12 months alone Malcolm X was murdered and the Rev. Martin Luther King was shot dead. No special commission is required to investigate the causes of this endemic violence in Americans.
Possible Motive
The assassin in this case is a former Jordanian national who has presumably killed Senator Kennedy because he advocated the sale of aircraft to Israel. Though this does not detract from the tragedy, the shame and guilt felt by American society this time may not be as overwhelming as at the time of President John F Kennedy’s assassination. It is safe to assume therefore that the issues raised by Senator Kennedy would not be shoved under the carpet in the name of national unity.
During the nomination campaign for the presidency, Senator Kennedy assiduously wooed racially and economically under-privileged communities like the Negroes, the Red Indians, the Mexicans and the Puerto Ricans and attracted their intense loyalty. Though he did not propose a more radical programme for the amelioration of their lot than the other presidential candidates, including the most conservative among them, Mr. Nixon, they came to regard him as a redeemer. It was partly a tribute to his style, to his capacity to evoke response, to the great name he bore, to the professional expertise that went into his campaign and similar other factors. But the more relevant point is that he showed the necessary courage in identifying his future with the cause of the depressed sections of the American community. This fact by itself should set at rest the charge that he was ruthlessly ambitious.
Senator Kennedy showed the perspicacity long ago to realise that President Johnson’s Viet Nam policy was a total failure. If he hesitated to offer himself as a presidential candidate even after the Tet offensive by the Viet Cong had exposed the hollowness of official American claims regarding the success of the military and the pacification campaign it was mainly because he did not wish to split the party. He waited till Senator McCarthy’s victory in the New Hampshire primaries showed that the split was unavoidable and that it had in fact already taken place.
This fact was held against Senator Kennedy. It has also been said that even after he had entered the race he was far less willing to make a definite commitment to pull out of Viet Nam than Senator McCarthy and that the latter has in fact adopted a far more radical posture on the whole range of foreign and domestic policy issues. This is in a sense true. Senator McCarthy has advocated the admission of China to the United Nations, emphasised the need for a national minimum guaranteed wage and has spoken of the possibility that private enterprise may not be able to solve the problem of the ghettos.
Senator Kennedy paid the price of undue caution. He was not able to swing to his side the mass of students and intellectuals who had declared themselves for Senator McCarthy before he announced his candidature. He had calculated that the liberals, the students, the intellectuals and other radicals would soon desert Senator McCarthy and flock to his banner. This did not take place. Senator McCarthy in fact defeated him in the Oregon primary and deprived him of runaway victories in other States including California.
The chances were that Senator Kennedy would not have succeeded in securing the Democratic Party’s nomination next August. The party establishment, as is well known, had switched over to the Vice-President when President Johnson announced his decision to opt out of the race on March 31. It could have been compelled to move away from Mr. Humphrey only if Senator Kennedy could have proved in a most convincing manner that he was the people’s choice. This he clearly failed to do. Even in the final California primary he obtained only 45 per cent votes, against 42 per cent, of Senator McCarthy.
Symbol Of Hope
A discerning British commentator, Mr. Anthony Howard, has noted: “For the first time in American politics, at least in the internal power struggle of a single party, class lines are now in danger of being rigorously drawn. The ‘have-nots’ are virtually all for Kennedy, the ‘haves’ are for the most part divided between Humphrey and McCarthy. It is certainly not a question of policy: McCarthy can plausibly claim to be easily the most radical candidate the Democratic Party has seen emerge since the days of Estes Kefauver and his coonskin cap.”
It is this symbol of hope for the racially and economically depressed communities that has been destroyed with Senator Kennedy’s assassination. That even his improbable election to the presidency would not have transformed their lives is an altogether different issue. Symbols are valuable in themselves. To put it at its lowest, the death of Senator Kennedy would add to the despair of the weaker sections of American society. The consequences would have been terrible if the assassin was not a former Jordanian unable to overcome his original loyalty but a White supremacist opposed to Senator Kennedy’s espousal of the cause of the Negro.
The circumstances of Senator Kennedy’s assassination apart, there is the larger issue of growing violence in America. This is at least partly the result of the terrible sense of insecurity and fear among the white American society. This is surprising in view of America’s phenomenal and ever increasing prosperity and power. In the ‘fifties the threat was said to come from a handful of communist subversives allegedly operating on behalf of the Soviet Union. The witch-hunt led by the notorious Senator Joseph McCarthy was an expression of this deep-rooted fear.
The Main Threat
The witch-hunt finally ended but only after elements in favour of change and social justice had been demoralised and morally disarmed. With the thaw in relations with the Soviet Union the Negro and the dissenting intellectual have come to be regarded as the main threat to the status quo. The police force in America has been equipped with deadly weapons to cope with the menace. Even that does not give a sufficient sense of security to a large section of the White population which is not reconciled to the concept of equality for the Negro. Any move to license arms is therefore bound to be strongly resisted.
The connection between this fear psychosis and the American foreign policy has been deep and abiding. This explains why the United States chose to embark on the Viet Nam misadventure when its anticommunist crusade had lost almost all of its credibility in view of the Sino-Soviet split and the reassertion of nationalism all over the communist world. The attempt has been to outlaw change except under Americas own auspices and in accordance with its blueprints.
Senator Kennedy in office could have been depended upon to break the link between the forces of the status quo at home and abroad. That was the larger significance of his identification with the cause of the depressed sections of society at home.
It is clearly premature to speculate whether his assassination would help Senator McCarthy in winning the Democratic nomination. It can because the supporters of the two Senators are in a majority in the party and they share a more or less common programme and commitment to change. But it need not because a realignment of forces can be expected to take place in the organisation and because Mr. Humphrey is not a dyed-in-the-wool conservative. But whether the Democrats finally opt for Mr. Humphrey or Senator McCarthy, the nominee will have to reckon with the fact of a strong White backlash which is likely to favour Mr. Nixon not because he is a racialist but because his conservatism is less in doubt. If Senator Kennedy had been killed by a White Supremacist, the shock would have helped the forces of change. But it is a different affair now.
It is a liberal fallacy to believe that the task of the uplift of the Negro and his integration into American society can effectively be taken in hand only if the war can be ended in Viet Nam and the necessary resources be released. The issue is far more complex The American people have been conditioned to think in terms of Pax Americana and White supremacy. The admission of defeat in Viet Nam can produce totally unexpected consequences at home and can in fact stiffen resistance against the Negro demand for justice and equality.
The Times of India 7 June 1968