Here is something I wrote on the anniversary of RFK's death

Bobby Kennedy was shot in Los Angeles 40 years ago today.  On March 27, 1968, just six weeks before he was killed, he gave a speech at BYU.  I was there. There were at least two noteworthy things that happened during his speech.

First, the speech was given in a large field house.  In this forum, the speakers stood at one end of the basketball court and spoke facing the other end.  The entire floor of the court was covered with chairs and the seats surrounding the court were all filled, with maybe 25,000 people.  When RFK came in, he stood behind and to the side of the podium while he was being introduced.  An aid handed him his speech.  Bobby scanned it in the "Evelyn Woods Reading Dynamics" manner, that is, waving his hand along each page and quickly turning to the next page.  Bobby then handed the speech back to the Aid and gave the speech entirely from memory. The speech was custom-written for that audience as it compared the Kennedy family to a Utah family.  I have often wondered about the ability of a person to speed-read a speech and then give it without notes.  What kind of a President would he have been?

Second, at the end of the speech, he asked for questions.  This was somewhat brave as the audience was overwhelmingly Republican and some carried signs critical of Kennedy's wealth, and his liberal, and anti-war positions.  One of the questions was about his opposition to the Viet Nam war.  In response, Bobby asked those who supported the war to raise their hands.  A lot of hands went up.  He then asked those with their hands up to keep them up if they had volunteered for the military.  I realized my hypocrisy on that issue at that moment.

He had been the Attorney General under his brother.  I have talked to several employees at Justice who said that he was the best Attorney General in their memory (the worst being Ramsey Clark).  Here is the type of AG he was:  when an employee worked on the weekend that employee could park inside the building.  A staffer would take down the license plate numbers of those who had parked there and, on Monday morning, a letter would be on that employee's desk thanking him or her for working the weekend.  Bobby met with the employees of the Department in small groups and sought advice and suggestions from them.  I wonder today if the situation with the "unlawful combatants" at Guantanamo Bay could have happened if the Attorney General listened to his people.

We miss you Bobby.