throughout his Washington ca- reer, was, as Newfield says, "always in a state of becoming." The two-Bobbys theory Beyond that, Newfield argues, with insight but some exaggera- ROBERT KENNEDY: A Memoir. tion, that Kennedy "was con- By Jack Newfield. Dutton. 318 pp. stantly at war with himself . . 16.95. his pragmatic, goal-oriented in- tellect . . . in opposition to his By David S. Broder emotional, romantic instincts." The clash between instinct Even more than most politi- and prudence is not so rare cians, Robert F. Kennedy en- among politicians as Newfield joyed traveling with an entour- seems to think, but it provides age of admirers, a diverse band a reasonable way of viewing of socialites, astronauts, athletes Kennedy's waverings on the war and aesthetes, united only by and his 1968 candidacy. Indeed, their fondness for their leader. the best part of the book, I think, One of the journalists in the is Newfield's description of Ken- group, Jack Newfield, the young nedy in the anguish of indecision assistant editor of The Village Robert Kennedy over running for the presidency. and Jack New field Voice, has published this affec- But Newfield is unwilling to ac- tionate memoir of the late Sena- cept that prudence and passion tor, or, as he calls it, "a chronicle John Lindsay "combined a total can coexist in a man of talent and analysis of Robert Ken- vision . . . as avant-garde as and sensitivity such as Kennedy. nedy's politics and character Kennedy's," whatever that may In the existentialist vogue, he is between the gunshots of Dallas mean, there is little measure- all-out for passion. and Los Angeles." ment of the Senator's accom- "Kennedy," he says, "was at As a chronicle, it is not half his best whenever he suspended plishments and failures in the bad, but it is not in a class with his reason" — a fine recom- 85 Days as a world of politics. Jules Witcover's mendation for a presidential But the more serious fault history of the last Kennedy cam- candidate, one might say arises from Newfield's view of paign. Newfield, who can be "and trusted his instincts. . . . stridently self-indulgent in some the relationship between person- He was better — more authen- of his journalism, has brought ality and politics. He says some tic — when he followed his own a degree of discipline to his things about Kennedy that are passions." In fact, Kennedy's writing in this book, indulging astoundingly naive: "Kennedy passions often got him into po- himself in only a few reckless litical hot water, as Newfield David S. Broder is national po- sentences. admits now and then. One rea- Nonetheless, as an analysis of litical correspondent for The Kennedy's politics and charac- Washington Post. ter, the book is less than satis- factory. Newfield is right, I think, in saying that in the last son he was able to do so little years of his life, "Kennedy's always hated Evil [Newfield's as a party leader in New York, thinking was pushing beyond capital El with a certain and Newfield concedes, was that liberalism," but he makes an in- principled passion." And he says "Kennedy's violent emotions adequate effort to define the some things that will make even were sometimes too much for origins and principles of Ken- Kennedy's close friends choke: him to handle. . . . His reputa- nedy's philosophy or to explore "Kennedy preferred the small tion for ruthlessness made him its relationship to the constitu- town to the big city, the factory gun shy, and he frequently tried ency Kennedy was seeking. worker to the agency undersec- to overcompensate for it ..." Instead, by his deadpan treat- retary." Again, he notes that Ken- ment of speech-text generali- More serious, he distorts his nedy's instincts "exploded ties, Newfield leads the unwary portrait of the Senator to fit the abruptly" in his announcement to think that rhetoric is equiv- "Good Bobby and Bad Bobby" the day after McCarthy's New alent to a genuine political image so popular in the New Hampshire victory that he was program — an error that is Left. The distortion starts from "reassessing" his own possible compounded by his failure to the observation, which I think candidacy, and Newfield admits assess Kennedy's standing most of us who covered Kennedy that "his impulsive airport com- among his political peers. Ex- would share, that the Senator ment was a classic political cept for a footnote comment that was a late-bloomer, a man who, blooper." neither Eugene McCarthy nor No matter; Newfield likes in- 11 stincts. He revels in the recollec- tion of the last two weeks of March, when Kennedy, newly announced, poured out "his pri- vate hate" of President Johnson, to the delight of screaming col- lege crowds. He grinds his teeth at the memory of Kennedy's subsequent "gross lapse of be- havior," i.e., his 90-minute for- mal "harmony" meeting with the President after Johnson's withdrawal from the race. All the fun went out of it, Newfield says, when Johnson quit. "It drained Kennedy of much of his driving desire; it made the campaign a campaign, rather than an emotional cru- sade. . . . Kennedy had felt nat- ural and right running against Johnson and the war. But in Indiana he was running against McCarthy . . . and indirectly against Vice President Hum- phrey, whom he genuinely liked." "Good Bobby" disap- peared except for scattered mo- ments when he was "becoming engaged, at new and deeper lev- els, with the cause of the black and white poor." "Bad Bobby" went on driving for the nomina- tion. What can we learn from this nonsense? Newfield, I guess, speaks for those who want to reduce the complexities of per- sonality and politics to the level of Good Guys and Bad Guys. That Kennedy could compete with a man "he genuinely liked" just because they had basic pol- icy differences and conflicting ambitions is more than Newfield can accept. Without hate, it is not Authentic. Without Evil, the campaign is just a campaign, not an emotional crusade. Robert Kennedy understood that politics involves the inter- action of personality, policy and power. Newfield tries to boil it all down to a form of psycho- logical therapy. It won't do. BOOK WORLD July I: