Attorney General: Robert F. Kennedy

Robert Francis Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on November 20, 1925. He served in the U.S. Naval Reserve from 1944–1946. He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from Harvard in 1948 and a law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1951. Kennedy was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1951 and joined the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice as an attorney the same year. In 1952, he served as campaign manager for his brother, Congressman John F. Kennedy’s, election to the U.S. Senate. In 1953, he was assistant counsel to the Hoover Commission and assistant counsel to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chief counsel to the minority in 1954, and chief counsel and staff director in 1955. From 1957 to 1960, Kennedy was chief counsel of the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field. He managed his brother’s successful presidential campaign in 1960. 

On January 21, 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed Robert Kennedy as Attorney General of the United States. He held that office until September 3, 1964. Kennedy was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York in 1964 and took his seat on January 3, 1965. On June 5, 1968, he was fatally shot in Los Angeles, California, while campaigning for the presidency of the United States and died early the following day.