Frank Mankiewicz
Inside Media: Robert F. Kennedy
Watch video:
- Frank Mankiewicz recalls the dilemma he faced with Sen. Robert F. Kennedy on the tarmac in Panama at 3 a.m.
- Frank Mankiewicz discusses Sen. Robert F. Kennedy's decision to go through with a scheduled appearance in Indianapolis on the night Martin Luther King was assassinated.
- Frank Mankiewicz says it was not completely certain that Sen. Robert F. Kennedy would have secured the Democratic nomination 40 years ago.
Guest: Frank Mankiewicz
Forty years ago, Frank Mankiewicz , Sen. Robert F. Kennedy's press secretary, expected Kennedy's presidential campaign to continue through the summer of 1968. Instead, the senator was shot by an assassin the night of the California primary. He died the next day, June 6.
"I think Robert Kennedy would have won the nomination," Mankiewicz said, "but I think it would have been a tough fight."
Kennedy, said Mankiewicz, planned on "forcing the issues of the war, poverty and urban unrest" in speeches and campaign appearances during the summer.
Mankiewicz recalled the intense hours of dealing with reporters and doctors after Kennedy was shot.
"It was probably the busiest day of my life," he said.
Mankiewicz also contrasted the media's current campaign coverage to that of 1968. Back then, the news cycle consisted of the morning newspaper and the evening news on TV, he explained. Today, "there's a story breaking every five or ten minutes."
"Inside Media," produced by the Newseum, is open to the public. Seating is on a space-available basis.
