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Born November 20, 1925
Brookline, Massachusetts
Died June 6, 1968
Los Angeles, California

U.S. attorney general, 1961–1964; U.S. senator from Washington, D.C., 1964–1968

Robert F. Kennedy was a close advisor to President John F. Kennedy (his older brother; see entry) in the early 1960s, and he emerged as a powerful force in American politics in his own right as the decade unfolded. By 1968 Kennedy's strong criticism of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and America's high regard for his family established him as a leading presidential candidate. But his bid for the Democratic nomination for the presidency ended in June 1968, when he fell to an assassin's bullet, just as his brother had five years earlier.

Part of a famous family

Robert Francis Kennedy was born November 20, 1925, in Brookline,...