Robert F. Kennedy's Foreign Policy regarding Soviet Union

Robert F. Kennedy's Foreign Policy regarding Soviet Union

Introduction

Robert, “Bobby", F. Kennedy, brother of President John F. Kennedy, played an important role in American government from the early 1950s until he was assassinated in 1968.

The Soviet Union, as the world's preeminent communist power, constituted the primary focus of American foreign policy during the cold war that unfolded in the decades after World War II. As the war ended, the Soviet Union, an American ally during the conflict, was one of the two remaining world superpowers. The alliance soon fragmented. Americans had long been suspicious of the Soviets, refusing to extend formal diplomatic recognition after the Bolshevik Revolution. Recognition came in the 1930s, but suspicions remained. During the wartime alliance, the Soviet Union played down rhetoric predicting the inevitable triumph of communism over capitalism, but, after the war, the rhetoric resumed. The paper is an attempt to understand and discuss Robert F. Kennedy's foreign policy views on the Soviet Union change from his tenure as attorney general to his death in 1968.

Thesis Statement

Robert F. Kennedy played an integral and defining role in the development of foreign policy of United States towards the Soviet Bloc.

Discussion

Robert Francis Kennedy was born on November 20, 1925, in Brookline, Massachusetts. Raised in wealthy surroundings as the third son of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., he attended Milton Academy and Harvard College, from which he graduated in 1948. After graduating from the University of Virginia Law School in 1951, he began his legal career in the Department of Justice's Brooklyn office.

After only brief service, he left to manage the campaign for his brother John F. Kennedy in his successful 1952 race for the Senate. In 1953, Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy, a friend of Joseph P. Kennedy and chairman of the Senate Permanent Investigations Subcommittee, offered Robert Kennedy a position as council for the committee. His brother John advised Robert not to work for McCarthy, thinking that the association would damage Robert's reputation. Robert accepted the post, nonetheless, but resigned after several months because of McCarthy's ruthless tactics against suspected communists. He returned to the subcommittee later in 1954 as counsel to the Democratic minority and wrote the minority report condemning McCarthy's investigation of the army.

When the 1954 congressional elections gave the Democrats a majority in the Senate, Kennedy became the chief counsel, and the committee began to focus on white-collar crime in the federal government. Kennedy developed a reputation as a diligent hard-nosed prosecutor, especially after he became the lead counsel for the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field in 1957 and began to focus on labor union racketeering. His pursuit of the Teamsters lead to convictions of two Teamster presidents in a row: Dave Beck and Jimmy Hoffa. The Labor Reform Act of 1959 also resulted from the Kennedy investigations.

Robert Kennedy managed John Kennedy's 1960 campaign for the presidency, and after the election his brother offered him the post of attorney ...