The last time former Ohio Gov. John Gilligan saw Robert F. Kennedy alive, he helped pull him from a crowd of admirers that had swarmed their car in Columbus.
"I never saw anyone who was generating the kind of excitement as he was at that time," said Mr. Gilligan, a friend and political associate of Mr. Kennedy's. "My feeling is he would have won the (1968 Democratic) nomination, and I think would have been elected president."
Mr. Gilligan, 77, of East Walnut Hills, talked about Mr. Kennedy on Thursday. Today is the 30th anniversary of his fatal shooting. "He ran the kind of campaign and made the kind of speeches you don't hear anymore. These were about justice and compassion and the obligation we have to help other people," Mr. Gilligan said. "He just had a lot of energy, both physically and intellectually." Mr. Kennedy often had famous people around him, but, Mr. Gilligan said, "he could be just as comfortable going into a working-man's bar and shooting the breeze."
What happened in Columbus, he said, was just one example of how Mr. Kennedy drew people to him. He had arrived there in May 1968 to talk to Ohio's delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Mr. Gilligan was among those who picked up Mr. Kennedy at the airport. The group rode in a convertible with Mr. Kennedy and his wife, Ethel, in the back seat.
When the car turned off a main road into a predominantly African-American neighborhood, people surrounded and blocked it. Mr. Kennedy, he said, got on the trunk and shook hands.
To fight the momentum of the crowd and keep Mr. Kennedy in the car, a security guard held on to his waist, while Mr. Gilligan held on to the security guard.
But Mr. Kennedy went out over the top of the crowd. The security guard grabbed one of his ankles and Mr. Gilligan the other. The two pulled him back.
"I just never saw a crowd that behaved like that," Mr. Gilligan said. "He was literally in shreds. . . . He looked like he had come out of a barroom brawl.
"He was obviously a rising star in the party and in the nation. People really responded to him, more so, I think, than to Jack." Mr. Gilligan first met Robert Kennedy when he was in town campaigning during the presidential run of his brother John F. Kennedy.
After Mr. Gilligan was elected to Congress in 1964, the two met for business. Then Robert Kennedy invited Mr. Gilligan to his home several times.
1968 campaign poster with Gilligan and RFK.
| ZOOM |
|
"He and Ethel entertained a lot of people. They had a big family. There was a lot of activity around the place," he said. "It was very much a family setup. It wasn't a case where the kids were chased off into the corner . . . it was very, very relaxed, (a) very warm family setting."
In September 1966, Mr. Kennedy made his last visit to Cincinnati. He spoke at a rally -- "A Day on Gilligan's Island" at the Cincinnati Zoo for Mr. Gilligan's unsuccessful congressional re-election campaign. Some 8,000 attended, including youngsters who crowded the speaker's platform.
According to an Enquirer story at the time, a teen-age girl burst through the crowd to her friend's side, exclaiming: "He shook my hand twice."
"It was a big mob. He was the drawing card," Mr. Gilligan said. "He was a cross between the admiration for a rock star and a political leader, which is one of the reasons he might very well have been elected president."
A photo taken of the two at the rally would be used in 1968 campaign flier that touted: "Kennedy for President and Gilligan for Senate." Part of Mr. Kennedy's appeal, Mr. Gilligan said, was his honesty. "He came at you and there was no blinking or ducking around about where he stood on some very contentious issues."
Mr. Gilligan recalled the night Mr. Kennedy was shot.
Mr. Gilligan was sleeping when the phone rang around 1:30 or 2 a.m. He groggily answered.
It was an Associated Press reporter wanting his reaction. Robert Kennedy, the reporter said, had been shot down.
Mr. Gilligan thought he meant Mr. Kennedy had lost California's primary held earlier that day. The reporter explained Kennedy really had been shot. That was five years ago, Mr. Gilligan replied. They shot Bobby, the reporter said.
Mr. Gilligan couldn't recall his response. "It was just a shock. I was so bewildered."
He was invited to the high Requiem Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York and to ride the funeral train from New York to Washington.
The train ride was to take three to 3 1/2 hours. Instead it took nearly nine hours. Crowds jammed the route. People lined the tracks and filled highway overpasses, and the train was forced to creep along. "It was kind of an unreal experience," he said. "It was just an extraordinary exhibition of public sympathy."
