The American public has long been fascinated by the Kennedy family and its meteoric rise to “Camelot”. Certainly, patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy is a controversial, shadowy figure, contrasted with President John F. Kennedy, the dashing, playboy-like first Catholic President of the United States who would go on to be assassinated in Dallas in 1963 at the beginning of his re-election campaign. Edward M. Kennedy and his long tenure as a leader in the Senate, as, well, casts a long shadow. But for some, the most interesting of the lot is Robert F. Kennedy. Bobby, as he was known, became a leader of the left and a martyr of his cause in the period after his brother’s death until his assassination in Los Angeles in 1968 as he campaigned for his own Presidential bid. But prior to his brother’s death or at least his tenure as his brother’s Attorney General, many saw him as an entirely different person. In the 1950s, for example, he was well known as an aide to Joseph McCarthy during the heyday of the House Un-American Activities Committee, a position it would be almost unthinkable to picture him in post-1965 at the latest. What, then, in the roots of his personality lead him to become the symbol of liberalism that he ultimately would?
Robert F. Kennedy was born on November 20th, 1922, in Brookline, Massachusetts. He was the 7th child of Rose and Joseph P. Kennedy, out of what would become a total of nine. His father had already accumulated a great deal of wealth by the time of his birth, and would go on to accumulate even more. His father was, however, frequently absent, and was a distant figure. His mother, Rose, would be the primary caregiver in the family in his formative years.
Male influence in his early years was perhaps less than ordinary. His relationship with his male siblings, and indeed all his siblings, as typical for a Kennedy, was competitive; however, Robert could not hope to compete with the older and more athletic sons, Joseph and John. Little pressure was put on him to do so. His father’s hopes for success in the next generation were pinned on Joseph, who was groomed to become a politician. John, often sick, was still more dashing and personable than Bobby on the whole. He was perhaps put into something of a “middle child” role among the boys, as Edward (Teddy) was the baby and he was left to blend into the woodwork surrounding the glamour of his older brothers and the “baby” role Teddy filled. Joseph seemed to lack an interest in him comparatively; for example, while the older two boys were sent to the WASPish boarding school Choate, he was allowed briefly to attend a Catholic boarding school, the Portsmouth Priory School, instead, before going to the Milton School for his last years of High School. Influenced heavily by his older brothers’ service in World War II (both were considered war heroes before the end of the war, Joseph dying in a top-secret flying mission off the coast of France in 1944 and John having famously saved members of his crew in the PT-109 incident in 1943), he enlisted in the Naval Reserve in 1940, shortly before his 18th birthday. Ironically, he would serve on the USS Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. in 1945 and 1946. Surely, serving on a boat bearing the name of his deceased brother would impact one psychologically, particularly as he was still in his formative years.
In 1950 he would marry Ethel Skakel, also a devout Catholic. The devoutness of their Catholicism is underscored by the fact that they would go on to have eleven children. As the ‘50s progressed, he would serve in a variety of positions, including as an aide to Joseph McCarthy, Campaign Manager for his brother’s Senate bid in 1952, an aide to Adlai Stevenson (even though he voted for his competitor, Eisenhower), and finally became famous as the Chief Council of the Senate Labor Rackets Committee in the late 1950s, where he would aggressively go after Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters. He ran his brother’s successful campaign for the Presidency (unorthodox in that they actively pursued the nomination by means of winning primaries instead of the standard back-door dealings of the day) and went on to be appointed Attorney General under his brother. Many cried nepotism, but he executed the job effectively while also serving in an unofficial capacity as his brother’s closest advisor on basically everything and also as his go-to man for unpleasant dealings (his 11th hour meeting at the Russian Embassy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example). Bob Dylan, for example, called him “’the shadowy son” in his song “Only a Pawn in Their Game” (1963). He used his position as Attorney General to push forward many agendas, one of which was a crusade against the Teamsters, and another was legal backing of the Freedom Riders movement. Indeed, almost all of the major accomplishments of the Kennedy Administration were the results of Bobby’s personal commitment to them. His brother seemed content to serve largely as a figurehead and moderator, and let Bobby come up with the actual initiatives pursued by the administration.
His brother’s assassination in 1963 led to a dramatically changed Bobby. After a period of resounding depression, he emerged with a new will to change the world and a changed vision. He would be elected to the United States Senate in 1965. He took historic tours of South Africa and South America. He would become fully committed to the Civil Rights movement, going so far as to stand up against apartheid in South Africa. He became an icon of the left and a known idealist. He was assassinated in 1968 at the height of his career. He had notably been fearless about riding in an open limousine despite this being the cause of his brother’s death. He no longer appeared to fear it, or indeed, much of anything.
Psychological Behaviorism is one theory of personality which could explain a great deal of this. This view holds that personality is formed on the basis of positive and negative enforcement (Stats 93). There was certainly enough of both in the early years of Bobby’s life; for example, the example of the success of his brothers and father compared to the indifference of his brothers and father toward him in childhood. Indeed, his abrupt personality change after John’s assassination could also be attributed to this- he learned from the negative reinforcement of the assassination that life is fleeting, and did his best to live according to principle for his remaining few years.
The Cognitive-Effective theory of personality development could also be applied. This school does not believe in any sort of all-encompassing personality that applies in every situation, rather looks at things on the basis of what a person perceives themselves as in a particular situation (Mischel & Shoda 247). Given the wide variety of ‘personalities’ Bobby displayed throughout his life (the ignored teenager, for instance, the sailor trying to fill in the shoes of his hero older brothers, the emerging talent in the 1950s, the go-to man in the Kennedy Administration, and the principled prophet after John’s death), he clearly was always influenced by changing situations, roles, and statuses. It is the author’s belief that this theory best fits the seemingly ever-changing personality of Robert F. Kennedy.
In any event, Robert F. Kennedy presents an interesting and dynamic personality that never seemed static. While one could attribute some of his behavior to genetics (the Kennedys undeniably all had drive), it would seem that his personality is so distinct from those of his siblings and father that his environmental experiences had to have been a crucial factor.
Resources:
Thomas, Evan (2002). Robert F. Kennedy: His Life. New York, London, Toronto,
Sydney: Simon & Schuster.
Mischel W., Shoda Y. (April 1995) “A Cognitive-Effective System Theory of Personality:
Reconceptualizing Situations, Dispositions, Dynamics, and Invariance in Personality Structure.” Psychology Review. 102(2):246-68.
Stats, Arthur W. (Spring 1994). “Psychological Behaviorism and Behaviorizing
Psychology.” The Behavior Analyst. 17(1): 93-114.
