Remembering RFK: Inspiration, Flaws : Politics: Nearly 25 years after Robert Kennedy’s death, his family and comrades gather to put his career in perspective.

“My brother need not be idealized in death, beyond what he was in life,” Edward M. Kennedy said 25 years ago in a eulogy to his slain brother, Robert.

Yet with the passage of time, a generation that knows Robert F. Kennedy only by the tragic legend of his star-crossed family has come to view him with something close to reverence.

So it seemed only fitting that family members and a contingent of old comrades and young admirers from the Washington political Establishment gathered Friday on Capitol Hill to try to put Robert Kennedy’s image in perspective.

And even though the theme of the day was “Politics: An Honorable Profession,” references to Kennedy’s reputation for “ruthlessness” did not seem out of place.

Everyone knew that Robert Kennedy was no plaster saint. Indeed, Sen. Harris Wofford (D-Pa.), an old Kennedy hand who was among the 100 faithful who gathered Friday, once wrote that in his early days in politics, Robert Kennedy was commonly viewed as “an arrogant, narrow, rude young man.”

But as the morning wore on, the picture that emerged of Robert Kennedy was of a man whose achievement lay in his ability to surmount both his shortcomings and the flaws of the political system to become a symbol of hope for an anxious citizenry.

“As the years pile up since his terrible premature death, there is a tendency to polish the sharp edges of the man,” said his son, Joseph Kennedy, now the Democratic congressman from the same district that sent his uncle John F. Kennedy to the House of Representatives.

“He did not lead by giving smooth and soothing assurances,” Joseph Kennedy said. “He made us feel uncomfortable and he was prickly and impatient and told us we would have to change and sacrifice.”

If recollections of Kennedy are blurred, it is easy to see why. His career reached its climax and untimely end in 1968, one of the most turbulent years in American history.

First came the Communist Tet offensive in Vietnam, which proved to be the undoing of Lyndon B. Johnson’s policy in Indochina. And that spring saw the assassination not only of Kennedy but also of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose death triggered a wave of urban violence.

Kennedy’s presidential candidacy in 1968 was viewed as too late and too opportunistic by many youthful opponents of the war. They rallied instead to the candidacy of another Democrat, Sen. Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, who had entered the race earlier in the year.

Yet once he had taken the plunge, Kennedy’s impassioned rhetoric against the war and on behalf of the disadvantaged in American society made his candidacy “a call to arms that moved millions, not just the young and not just the old but the great mass of Middle America,” a Republican admirer, former New Hampshire Sen. Warren B. Rudman, recalled.

Rudman likened Kennedy to Abraham Lincoln, quoting poet Carl Sandburg to describe him as a man “made of both steel and velvet . . . hard as rocks and soft as drifting fog.”

It was also clear from the remarks Friday that while Robert Kennedy’s chosen profession has now fallen in stature, practicing it successfully was a task in which he took pride and satisfaction.

“He thought there was no greater calling than politics,” said his daughter, Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, executive director of the Robert F. Kennedy Center of Human Rights.

Billed as a symposium by its sponsor, the Center for National Policy, a Democratic think tank, the event at times resembled an Irish wake, stirring deep feelings.

Midway through his brief tribute, Edward Kennedy lost control of his emotions. As he started to say how his nephew Joseph Kennedy was carrying on his father’s legacy, the Massachusetts senator’s voice choked and he had difficulty continuing.

And at other times, the event was like a Democratic campaign rally, with references to the common bonds of youth and high expectations linking John and Robert Kennedy to President Clinton. The point was reinforced by the appearance of Vice President Al Gore, a volunteer in Kennedy’s presidential campaign, who said he and Clinton often spoke of how much John and Robert Kennedy meant to them.

Robert Kennedy’s widow, Ethel, took in the two hours of reminiscences from a front row seat, warmly greeting each speaker. The stated purpose of the event was to improve the public’s perception of politicians. Asked afterward if she thought the tribute had fulfilled its mission, she told a reporter: “I think President Clinton is changing that.”

The score of speakers brought with them a myriad of memories. Many had difficulty separating the triumphs and travails of his candidacy from its grim ending inside Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel after his victory in the California primary.

Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio), who campaigned with Kennedy during the California primary, remembered bringing five of the Kennedy children back from Los Angeles to their home at Hickory Hill in suburban Virginia after their father’s assassination. In “one of the worst moments of my life,” he had told them of their father’s death.

Rep. Esteban F. Torres (D-La Puente) said the shock of Robert Kennedy’s death moved him to leave a comfortable staff job with the United Auto Workers in Washington to head an anti-poverty program in his native East Los Angeles.

Others remembered what Kennedy had done meant to them in life. Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.), then a young Justice Department lawyer, spoke of his first encounter with Robert Kennedy, “an informal but powerful and aloof presence.” Kennedy’s message, he said, set a lofty tone for shaping political strategy: “One man with courage makes a majority.”