Imagining an America Shaped by RFK

What if Robert F. Kennedy had survived Sirhan Sirhan’s bullets in 1968 and journeyed on through American political history? That’s the tantalizing question pitched by author Mitchell Freedman, 46, in his debut novel, “A Disturbance of Fate” (Seven Locks Press). In it, Freedman, a lawyer and Thousand Oaks resident, fantasizes about that fateful June day and on through the year 2011. His parallel timeline is a bold though tendentious look at a vital era, when many roads seemed possible.

Why the 1968 assassination of senator and presidential candidate RFK and not the killing of his brother, president JFK, in 1963?

To me, Bobby Kennedy is a key figure in 1968, a year when the United States was at a crossroads, not only in terms of the Vietnam War, but race relations, civil rights legislation, what to do about American cities, crime and punishment, and the emergence of the women’s movement. Bobby Kennedy was important because of who he’d become before his death. He wanted not only [to] put a man on the moon but eradicate poverty [and] fight on behalf of oppressed minorities in the country.

Do you really believe Bobby Kennedy would have pulled us out of Vietnam as in your book?

Yes, because in 1968 he realized his brother’s gravest error was the [Vietnam] escalation. He knew very clearly that he could not get to the other issues without resolving Vietnam. He was a tough dove, a tough-minded dove. And that’s a very important attribute.

Yet you portray RFK as an I-feel-your-pain, Clintonesque figure. Why?

Well, he did, as a matter of fact, feel your pain, but in reality, not just in sound bites. Bobby Kennedy was a ruthless guy in a lot of ways, but when his brother got killed, he began to understand, maybe this is what people feel when they’re poor. Everybody likes to quote [RFK], “Some men see things as they are and ask why . . .” But what’s important is when he walks through a mine in Latin America and says to a New York Times reporter, “If I worked in that mine, I’d probably be a communist, too.” He says to white students in Johannesburg in 1966, “What would you feel if God were black?” His whole persona is about understanding your pain. Imagine a politician saying that today--well, Clinton tried--but this guy did because his brother was blown away, and at a time when that fact was still fresh and highly relevant.

Is the Kennedy family aware of the book?

I think they’ve been aware of it for two years. I think they tend to be raw emotionally about any book coming out about them because every foible, every joyous moment has been dutifully recorded by America. I’d say I’m sorry to the Kennedys that I’m adding one more book, but at the same time I didn’t write it for them.

Who did you write it for?

It may sound arrogant, but, initially, I wrote this book for 1% of the country; people in elite positions who need to see another world view in order to see their world clearly. The hardest thing to get away from is that old Margaret Thatcher phrase, the TINA principle, “there is no alternative,” which is ridiculous. This [the novel] is sci-fi on the ground. The book continues issues that haven’t been given credence for decades but continued to boil, unresolved and underneath the country for the past 35 years. I want to put these issues right back on the table.

How do you think RFK would have dealt with 9/11 and the world terrorism threat?

I suspect he’d believe we’d have more homeland security if we sent more Peace Corps people around the world.

Were there any surprises in your imagined future?

In my book, there’s no rap music in the RFK timeline. I think if we’d have developed cities along [the lines of] the Bedford-Stuyvesant restoration project in Brooklyn, the despair, the rage, the musical ignorance of rap would not have arisen. If you look at the 1950s, and even into the 1960s, some of the most amazing, intelligent musical creators were African American. How does one go from Clifford Brown and Miles Davis to Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg?

How have the terms liberal and conservative evolved since 1968?

If we’re just talking about the media, liberal and conservative have very different meanings now. Today, the difference is between a corporate conservative and a corporate liberal. A corporate liberal has a culturally liberal view on things like abortion, gay rights and gun control, but also believes in the power of money, the love of money and the love of corporate power. Fox News is the corporate conservative viewpoint. In 1968 the lines would not be drawn like this. It was much more an era of the underdog.

What is it about Bobby Kennedy and other ‘60s figures that needs another look today?

They took risks, big ones. When you’re dealing with troubled times or troubled relations with someone, you must confront things with confidence, humility and intelligence, and you’ll find maybe the other side was just operating more by fear. If everybody can get over their fear--yes, I take that from FDR--it’s amazing what can be done.