RIP Adam Walinsky: RFK Aide Who Investigated JFK's Assassination
Trusted speechwriter privately pursued leads about Dallas.
David Talbot writes:
I just heard that Adam Walinsky, a speechwriter and aide to Senator Robert F. Kennedy, died in November at age 87. The news came as a shock to me because the Adam I knew was forceful and sharp-witted and blunt-spoken and also full of feeling. I thought he would go on and on.
I guess the New York Times obituary writers thought so too, because they STILL haven't published anything about Walinsky's passing.
Adam is known, among many other things, for writing the famous “ripples of hope” speech with Dick Goodwin that Senator Kennedy delivered in June 1966 to students in apartheid South Africa. “It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice,” Kennedy said. “He sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest wall of oppression and resistance.”
Walinsky played a key role in RFK’s private investigation into who was responsible for the murder of his brother. Talbot explains his story here.
The producers of the “Four Died Trying” have posted excerpts of their interview with Walinsky where he talks about Robert F. Kennedy’s campaign for president in 1968.
Watch it here.
What a terrific picture. Ted Sorensen, Bob Kennedy, Peter Edelman(?), and Walinsky.
Talk about intellectual firepower.
One of the architects of the "New Bobby" who repackaged RFK from Joe McCarthy's assistant and JFK's hit-man into the lovable liberal savior of the Sixties.