WHEN THE HEIGHT IS WON, THEN THERE IS EASE

THERE were two Robert Kennedys--the one who was loved and the one who was hated. To many, he was the relentless prosecutor, vindictive young aide to Joe McCarthy and pitiless interrogator of the racket-busting McClellan Committee, a cocksure combatant who was not too scrupulous about his methods. Many politicians and businessmen not only disliked him but also genuinely feared him for what he was and for what he might become. Not a few saw unprincipled ambition in every gesture he made and every step he took.

To many more, he came across as a man of infinite compassion, a leader with unique empathy for the poor, the hungry, the minorities, and all those whom he termed the "suffering children of the world." As Attorney General, his brusqueness often offended high-level politicians and bureaucrats--yet he was ever ready to stand on his desk for half an hour to explain the workings of the Justice Department to a swarm of schoolchildren, whom he always addressed as important, interesting people.

Liberal & Conservative

Unlike his brothers, Bobby never seemed at ease in the Senate. He was blunt where it pays to be euphemistic. He was an activist in a club dedicated to deliberation, and he was impatient with rules and tradition, both of which the Senate venerates. He was a loner. Yet he achieved a good deal simply because he worked longer and harder than most of his colleagues, assembled a better staff, sensed more deeply the nation's abiding problems. He knew that he was the only man in the country, save perhaps the President, who could make headlines with almost anything he said--and knew also that this did not always help him. He publicly questioned the war long before it became popular to do so, spoke in favor of the poor in affluent areas where it was clearly not to his advantage, and defended law and order in the ghettos, where such a statement by any other white man would have been interpreted as anti-Negro. A curious blend of liberal and conservative, he was concerned about poverty and the cities, yet convinced that the Government should not always take on their full burden.

His wife Ethel often said, "I think he's brilliant," but his assets lay more in a sharp intelligence, a fierce energy, and an ability to give and attract devotion and to surround himself with brilliance. Almost from the day of his brother's inauguration, Hickory Hill, the historic estate in Virginia that once belonged to President John, became an institution that the capital will sorely miss.

It was also a gay and lively home, which with ten children--three of whom, Kathleen, 16, Joseph, 15, and Robert Jr., 14, bear the names of Kennedys who died violently--and a bizarre menagerie was never dull. A Kennedy pet census once counted two horses, four ponies, one burro, two angora goats, three dogs, three geese, two cockatoos, one cat, one guinea pig, 40 rabbits, one turtle, one alligator turtle, 22 goldfish, 15 Hungarian pigeons and five chickens. A sea lion named "Sandy" was regretfully banished after it began chasing guests. Ethel, now 40, never quite lost her sense of wonder at being married to Bobby Kennedy. Their affection was tender, gay and companionable, and though she is terrified of airplanes, she went with him almost everywhere. For her, the supreme test of an individual's worth was simply whether her husband approved of him.

Some Faraway Disaster

After Dallas, she had the soothing hand, the understanding heart. "There was in those days," TIME Correspondent Hugh Sidey remembers, "a sense of urgency about him, almost as if he were sliding off some horrible precipice toward some faraway disaster. There was an irresistible compulsion to do everything and try everything. That is when he began to shoot rapids and climb mountains." This compulsion, an almost existential need to dare the elements, combined with a lifelong love of physical exertion, prompted him to lead the first ascent of the Yukon's 14,000-ft. Mount Kennedy, named for his brother, and plunge, during a 1965 canoe trip down the Amazon, into piranha-infested waters. A group of Indians cried anxiously that he was risking his life. "Have you ever heard of a United States Senator being eaten by a piranha?" he asked, and swam on.

The voice, the humor and the casual grace evoked memories of another man and a happier time. But Bobby was always his own person. Jack could get somewhere without really trying. Bobby ("the Runt") could not, or thought he could not, and thus tried all the harder. Perhaps this is what inspired in other men such unyielding loyalty and such unquenchable hatreds, neither of which Jack ever evoked to such intense degree. Because of the family tradition, it was inevitable that some day, if not in 1968, then 1972, Bobby would run for President. As a Senator, John Kennedy explained the family mystique: "Just as I went into politics because Joe died, if anything happened to me tomorrow, my brother would run for my seat in the Senate. And if Bobby died, Teddy would take over for him." In the end, Bobby, with his merry, energetic wife and his happy band of children, created a charisma of his own.

Pain Which Cannot Forget

Never an intellectual, Bobby nonetheless read a great deal, particularly after Dallas. While Jack would read simply for delight, Bobby would always choose a writer who had something practical to tell him. Aeschylus, who introduced the tragic hero to literature, was his "favorite poet." On the death of Martin Luther King Jr., he used the lines: "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God." Asked once why he strove so hard, Kennedy again quoted from Aeschylus: "When the height is won, then there is ease."

Bobby never reached the height, nor found the ease for which he quested. Rocking across Nebraska in a train, he mused on all the things that he wanted to do and all that he felt he could do: reconcile the races, summon the "good that's in America," end the war, get the best and most creative minds into government, broaden the basic idea of the Peace Corps so that people in all walks of life would try to help one another. He was ambitious, but not for himself. He ended his musing: "I don't know what I'll do if I'm not elected President." As his body lay in St. Patrick's Cathedral, there was agreement on one point. Whoever became President would always have known that Robert Kennedy was around. So would the nation. So would the world.

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