Link Between the New - - Politics and the Old
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Saturday Review 2 Aug 69 An essay review of "Robert Kennedy: A Memoir," by Jack Newfield (Dutton, 318 pp., $6.95) Link Between the New - - Politics and the Old by GLORIA STEINEM n that long bad day last summer lie, with a green cap from Havana when Robert Kennedy's body lay sticking out of his pants pocket"), Hay- SR: BOOKS 0 in state at St. Patrick's Cathedral den was mourning the death of a po- Book Reviesi, Editor: ROCHELLE GIRSO't in New York, one of the friends stand- litical leader he often disagreed with, ing honor guard beside the coffin was but one—perhaps the only one—he and Senator George McGovern. His turn others like him could talk to. over, McGovern stayed on to watch the So in Chicago, Tom Hayden, who had silent stream of mourners, and four been discussing with Kennedy ways to more Kennedy friends now taking keep blood from flowing in the streets, 19 "Robert Kennedy: A Memoir," by Jack Newfield their turn at vigil: Mayor Richard became the young leader most har- Daley and his sons. assed, followed, and threatened with 21 "The Warren Court: A Critical No one saw the irony then, two death by Daley's police. Since then his Analysis," edited by Richard H. Sayler. months before Chicago, that McGov- radical and compassionate philosophy Barry B. Boyer, and Robert E. ern, Senator Abraham Ribicoff, and has become more hospitable to vio- Gooding, Jr. two other dove Senators should be lence then it ever was before. As for 22 Book Forum: Letters from Readers replaced by a man soon to person- Daley, some of his worst enemies be- ify much they disliked and wanted lieve he would have called off his forces 23 European Literary Scene, to change. But McGovern remembers had someone he trusted told him (as by Robert J. Clements watching Daley stand, head bowed, Humphrey would not) about the real over the coffin; his face growing red police-rioting and head-crackings going 24 "Diary by E. B. B.: The Unpublished with emotion, the cords of his neck on in the street. ("He's a repressive Diary of Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, 1831-1832," edited by Philip Kelley and standing out uncontrollably just as politician," said an anguished McCar- Ronald Hudson they did again when he shook his fist thy delegate, "but he's not a monster.") and yelled obscenities at Ribicoff on Without a candidate who could and 25 "Mao Tse-tung" and "Chiang the convention floor. Only this time, would talk back, without that feisty Kai-shek," by Robert Payne Daley was crying. His big-hearted, fight- little Irishman who could win, Daley ing Irish friend was dead, and he was isolated himself more and more. Now 26 "Collected Essays," by Graham Greene; crying. his political future and personal pride "Beyond All This Fiddle: Essays 1935- 1967," by A. Alvarez; "Writing Against When I heard that story, I remem- depend on casting the Tom Haydens of Time: Reviews and Critical Essays," bered another that reporters told the world as The Enemy. by Howard Moss among themselves after the funeral: This is the loss Jack Newfield is writ- one that is documented in this book. ing about: the one potential President 27 "Going Places," by Leonard Michaels Late at night, when Kennedy's body both Tom Hayden and Dick Daley had just been brought back from Los would talk to and mourn for; the man 27 "Last Stop Camp 7," Angeles and only a handful of friends who, in the last year or so of his life. by Hans Hellmut Kirst and journalists were scattered around became an emotional, intellectual, and 28 "Anatomy of Europe," the shadowy pews of St. Patrick's, the activist link between the New Politics by Anthony Sampson tie-less, shaggy-haired figure of Tom and the Old. "Robert Kennedy was the Hayden was seen seated alone. And he one politician of his time," Newfield 29 "The Unredeemed: Anti-Semitism in was crying too. Revolutionary, founder writes, "who might have united the the Soviet Union," by Ronald I. Rubin of SDS, empathic visitor to Hanoi, or- black and white poor into a new ma- 30 "Franklin D. Roosevelt and Foreign ganizer in Newark's black ghetto (and. jority for change—and American lib- Affairs, Vols. II and HI." edited as described by Jack Newfield, who was eralism hardly noticed." by Edgar B. Nixon in the church, too, "an apostate Catho- The lack of notice, of understanding and recognition on the part of middle- GLORIA STEINEM, a free-lance writer and anumalA tosicasav contributing editor of New York Maga- class, educated, "liberal" Americans zine, worked in both the McCarthy and clearly frustrated and angered New- Robert Kennedy campaigns. field. The purpose of this memoir is to SR/AUGUST 2, 1969 19 delineate Kennedy's proper place in Of course, Kennedy won support with very much.' Then he squeezed the back history; to block out that "mistaken hope; Wallace, with fear. But those of the girl's neck, because he was bet- public image of Robert Kennedy cre- voters who switched from one to the ter expressing affection through action ated by the simplified and static re- other seemed to prefer a communica- than words." porting of mass media" and replace it tion of their real fears to no communi- Or his reply to Newfield's question with the flesh-and-blood man who was cation at all. on what he might have become had he his friend. "The Kennedy," advisor Newfield explores this Kennedy phe- not been born a Kennedy: "Perhaps a Fred Dutton once said, "with soul." nomenon in chapters on his politics juvenile delinquent or a revolution- Newfield does this very well, espe- ("Beyond Liberalism") and his primary ary." ("The young especially," Newfield cially when documenting Kennedy's victory- in—Indiana. "When Kennedy remarks, "saw in him, the qualities appeal to all the poor, from militant used the phrase, 'my people," New- they most easily identified with - black to backlash white. field explains, "he meant Negroes, or youth, dissent, authenticity, alienation, Unlike the issue-oriented intellectuals Catholics, or children, and not liberals even inarticulateness . the same in- who were confounded when McCarthy or intellectuals." Kennedy himself ex- congruous combination of toughness, voters switched to Nixon, or Kennedy plained his appeal to poor whites, in humor, and sensitivity they saw in voters to Wallace, Newfield perceived spite of his identification with the other generational cult figures like Bel- from the beginning the power of class much-feared blacks, by remarking that mondo, Dylan, and Bogart.") and character and heart. (Perhaps not he was "shanty Irish" and Eugene Mc- Newfield's forthright personal in- such a bad thing as the issue-oriented Carthy "lace-curtain Irish." volvement with Kennedy puts this book fear. "A candidate's speeches tell me "You know," Kennedy told Newfield more in the tradition of English mem- what he did yesterday, or today," ex- in Indiana, "I've come to the conclu- oirs, and less in that of American jour- plained a former Clean-for-Eugene med- sion that poverty is closer to the root nalistic biographies. Given the con- ical student who had switched to of the problem than color. I think there troversy surrounding this Kennedy, Nixon. "His character tells me what has to be a new kind of coalition to perhaps more than any other, the per- he'll do tomorrow:') keep the Democratic Party going, and sonal view is a good thing. So-called ob- Nixon and McCarthy, however far to keep the country together. ...We have jective journalists — even some very apart their political positions, came to write off the unions and the South good ones, like William Shannon in The across as cool, laissez-faire, middle- now, and replace them with Negroes, Heir Apparent—have seemed more pre- class men who valued reason, educa- blue-collar whites, and the kids. If we occupied with proving their objectivity tion, and a certain decorum. (McCar- can do that, we've -got a chance to do than with telling us who Robert Ken- thy's bridge-building to the young on the something. We have to convince the nedy was. Thus his early involvement issue of Vietnam was irreplaceable Negroes and poor whites that they have with Joe McCarthy is juxtaposed darkly but, as David Riesman pointed out, it common interests. If we can 'reconcile with his later civil rights activity as if led most effectively to the children of those two hostile groups, and then add to say, "See how I'm not being taken the white middle class.) Kennedy and the kids, we can really turn this coun- in by a glamorous Kennedy"; but we Wallace, on the other hand, shared a try around." are never told how he got from one to "hot" style that came across less well In that kind of revelatory quote lies the other. on the cool medium of television. They much of this book's value. Unlike most Jack, Newfield tries hard to convey valued experience, emotion, and ac- Kennedy biographers, Newfield has re- Kennedy's capacity for growth and tion; and seemed to be, if not presently lied very little on Popular Wisdom or change—not an easy thing, since his working class, at least aware of what secondhand research. He followed Ken- changes flowed from action, instinct, life among the working classes was all nedy for the last twenty months of his and experience: a non-theoretical mode about. life, copiously filled ten notebooks and, that Newfield has dubbed "sensual having come to criticize and stayed to politics"—but he is successful because find a remarkable kinship with his he was there.