Walking the Gauntlet: Bobby Kennedy's Mission to Delano-REVISED (3:03)
Walking the Gauntlet: Bobby Kennedy's Mission to Delano-REVISEDpauldarwinlee|August 02, 2010Raw television outtakes of New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy arriving Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), where he was compelled to run a gauntlet of reporters before boarding a propeller aircraft for Delano, Calif., March 10, 1968.
WALKING THE GAUNTLET
No sooner had the senator deplaned than he was at the center of a swirling vortex of insistent print, radio and television reporters. In a walking news conference, they peppered Kennedy with questions about his presidential ambitions, if any; whether or not he would support liberal Minnesota Senator Eugene J. McCarthy, an insurgent anti-Vietnam war candidate, or endorse the increasingly unpopular President Lyndon B. Johnson in that year's Democratic party presidential contest; if he would support Los Angeles Mayor Samuel W. Yorty (who detested Kennedy and had his feelings returned in full measure) in his U. S. Senate bid; and other matters.
However, it was only after Kennedy mentioned his reason for traveling to the small, grape-growing town of Delano in the state's fertile Central Valley that reporters finally asked him about it.
MISSION TO DELANO
There Kennedy would join an estimated 6,000-10,000 persons, mostly Chicano, or Mexican American, migrant workers, gathered to hold a "Mass of Thanksgiving" at Memorial Park for Cesar E. Chavez, president of the United Farm Workers (UFW), a union seeking to organize migrant farm laborers to improve their wages, education, housing and legal protections, including recognition of the UFW. (For Kennedy's arrival, see the video "¡Si, Se Puede! (Yes, It Can Be Done!): Bobby Kennedy Supports Cesar Chavez" on this YouTube.com channel).
The diminutive Chavez, who was an admirer and friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and, like him, shared a profound commitment to Gandhian nonviolence, was breaking a 25-day "spiritual and penitential fast for nonviolence," as a UFW statement described the act of the devoutly Catholic Chavez (Associated Press report, Feb. 26, 1968).
"There was demoralization in the ranks, people were becoming desperate, and more and more talk about violence," Chavez later recalled. "...I thought that I had to ... do something that would force them and me to deal with the whole question of violence and ourselves" (Roger Bruns, "Cesar Chavez: A Biography" [Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2005], p. 60).
Peter B. Edelman, one of Kennedy's gifted young legislative aides and speechwriters, was the senator's point man on migrant worker issues. He could be seen, wearing glasses, beginning at 00:31,1:40 and 2:16.
DECISION TO RUN
In a letter to this channel's moderator, Edelman recalled that Kennedy "told me, [aides] Ed Guthman, and John Seigenthaler that day, on our way to Delano from Los Angeles, that he had decided to run for President. We had been in Des Moines on the evening of the 9th where Senator Kennedy addressed the Jefferson-Jackson day dinner for that year. I was with him in Iowa because I was the staffer who worked on issues related to Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers. John Seigenthaler met us there and flew on to Los Angeles with us. I thought that was a little odd but didn't dwell on it. Then Ed Guthman joined us in Los Angeles for the trip up to Delano in a small chartered plane. I thought again that this was a bit odd. On that plane ride RFK told the three of us that he had decided to run.
"This is very important because the impression persists that Kennedy did not decide to run until after the stunning results of the New Hampshire primary on March 12 [in which McCarthy made a strong showing against President Johnson], two days later. I and others have written that RFK told us of his decision two days before the New Hampshire primary (and he had obviously come to that decision sometime before that), but I still encounter accounts ... that are incorrect.
"Quite obviously, Kennedy was not about to share his decision with anyone but us on that day, but it is especially interesting to look at the footage in light of the knowledge that he had already decided to run for President.
With regards to the press gauntlets, Edelman added, "They were a bit silly but understandable and not inappropriate" (Peter Edelman email letter to Paul Lee, Sept. 5, 2010, 5:34 PM).
NOTE: The moderator would like to thank Peter Edelman, Peter Goldman and UFW spokesperson Marc Grossman for their kind and generous assistance in properly contextualizing this historic video.
