President John F Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, 60 years ago. I do not remember that fateful day on 22 November 1963, as I was just four years old.
But I do remember the summer day, five years later in 1968, when his brother – former US attorney general and would be president, Robert F “Bobby” Kennedy – was shot dead in that tumultuous election year.
Over the decades since their deaths the two brothers, often referred to just by their initials – JFK and RFK, have never been forgotten.
In the United States, and much of the Western democratic world, they have assumed iconic status in death. Their family members left behind, have tried to pick up their political legacies.
The Kennedy name has been the biggest brand in American politics, public interest in its members sharpened by numerous tragedies and scandals.
Image: RFK with his wife and their seven children, including Robert F Kennedy Jr (back, far left). Pic AP
Some likened them to America’s royal family complete with symbolic castles at the “family compounds” in Massachusetts and Florida. Clan members seemed to occupy political office, almost as if by divine right.
But the dynastic vision has been fading at last. The myths, personalities and untimely deaths associated with the Kennedys are inevitably resonating less and less with contemporary electorates. There are currently none of the dynasty in elected state or national office.
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In this election year, a maverick Kennedy is hoping to reverse all that. RFK’s 69-year-old son, who shares his father’s name, is running for president.
Whether Bobby Junior revives or further tarnishes the Kennedy brand is an open question. At least four of his 10 siblings say he is “an embarrassment”.
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He has abandoned his family’s traditional allegiance to the Democratic party. He pulled out of the Democratic nomination contest to run as an independent candidate against both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, declaring “my intention is to spoil it for both of them”.
Image: John F Kennedy (centre) surrounded by his family, including his brothers and father, Joseph. Pic AP
RFK junior is a self-styled environmentalist, an anti-vaxxer, and a supporter of the right to bear arms. He has embraced numerous conspiracy theories – even suggesting the CIA was involved in the assassinations of his father and uncle.
He marked the 60th anniversary of the death of President Kennedy by launching a petition to release the last of the government’s records relating to the shooting.
The National Archives says 99% of the material is already in the public domain, following orders from Presidents Trump and Biden. RFK junior retorted, “what is so embarrassing that they’re afraid to show the American public 60 years later?”.
Political dynasty
The Kennedys came to America as immigrants from Ireland. JFK was the first Roman Catholic US president. A grandfather of Joseph Kennedy was mayor of Boston in the 1890s.
Joe Kennedy was the patriarch of the clan and founder of the family fortune. His businesses flourished through the great depression and the prohibition of alcohol.
Image: JFK reaching toward his head seconds before being fatally shot in 1963. Pic AP
President Franklin Roosevelt gave Joseph P Kennedy I his highest rank in politics by appointing him a controversial ambassador to the UK.
He resigned during the Battle of Britain in 1940, suspected of Nazi sympathies, after commenting “democracy is finished in England”.
He was subsequently a major supporter of the anti-communist senator Joe McCarthy.
Today Joseph’s fortune is shared by several generations of direct descendants, who have mostly chosen to go into public service rather than business. Their net worth is put at several billion dollars.
Joe and his ambitious wife, Rose, had nine children, all now dead. The eldest son, Joe junior, a US Navy bomber pilot was killed above the English Channel in 1944. Their youngest daughter, Jean Kennedy Smith, was US ambassador to Ireland and died in 2020.
Rose and Joseph put their ambitions and their money behind their surviving sons – Jack, Bobby and Ted. All three became US senators and presidential candidates. Their siblings and descendants have often followed in their political footsteps – to a lesser and dwindling degree.
JFK was elected the US’s youngest-ever president. Young, rich, and beautiful, the Kennedys carefully curated their glamourous image in the White House.
Image: President John F Kennedy
Most famously Marilyn Monroe sang a seductive “Happy Birthday, Mr President” at the Madison Square Garden for his 45th birthday.
He and his stylish wife Jackie had three children. Patrick died in infancy. John junior and Caroline were still small when their father was killed.
Neil Diamond has said Caroline was the inspiration for his song “Sweet Caroline”. More recently Biden appointed Caroline Kennedy US ambassador to Japan, she was previously Obama’s ambassador to Australia.
John junior and his wife Carolyn Bessette were killed when a plane he was piloting crashed off Martha’s Vineyard in 1999.
The last powerful, world-famous Kennedy died in 2009. Edward Kennedy was the younger brother of JFK and RFK.
“Ted” died while still a US senator. Many viewed the liberal Democrat’s 47 years’ of continuous service as an attempt to expiate for what happened at Chappaquiddick in 1969.
Image: Caroline Kennedy, who has been a US ambassador to Japan and Australia, with her father JFK
A 29-year-old aide, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned in his car when Kennedy drove it off a bridge in Martha’s Vineyard. He survived but was later linked to a further scandal.
After a night partying with his son and nephew, his nephew, William Kennedy Smith, was charged and subsequently acquitted, of rape. Dr Smith went on to found the charity Physicians Against Land Mines (PALM).
Ted had three children, including Patrick who served eight terms as a congressman from Rhode Island before retiring with mental and addiction issues.
Of RFK’s 11 children, Joseph P Kennedy II was a six-term congressman for Massachusetts, Kathleen was a two-term lieutenant governor in Maryland and then there is RFK jnr.
Jack, Ted and Bobby’s sister Eunice married Sargent Shriver, who ran unsuccessfully in 1974 on the Democratic ticket as George McGovern’s vice-presidential candidate.
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Their daughter Maria Shriver was married to the bodybuilder and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was twice elected Republican governor of California.
‘Challenger’
Joe Biden has always enjoyed a close relationship with his fellow Irish Americans. As well as sending Caroline Kennedy to Tokyo, he made Ted’s second wife, Victoria, ambassador to Austria.
President Biden also appointed Ted’s 23-year-old grandson, Joseph P Kennedy III, US special envoy to Northern Ireland.
Now Bobby is challenging Biden. In a favourability opinion poll this month by Harris, he topped the candidates list with a net rating of +27, ahead of Trump on +7 and Biden on -2.
That does not make him a likely winner in the US’s fundamentally two-party system, but third-party candidates matter because they often affect who becomes president.
In 2000, when Democrats won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College, the activist Ralph Nader scored 97,488 votes in Florida. If Al Gore had picked up just 537 of those votes he would have become president instead of George W Bush.
In 2016 Democrats again won the popular vote and lost the Electoral College.
In the swing states of Wisconsin and Michigan the Libertarian, Gary Johnson, and Green Party’s Jill Stein, each took multiples of the margin of votes by which Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump.
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Kennedy’s current ratings around 20% are on a par with the businessman Ross Perot, the strongest third force of modern times.
Perot won 19% and 8% of the popular vote respectively in 1992 and 1996, arguably assisting Bill Clinton’s election.
With typical entitlement, Kennedy says he is confident he will win the battle against Trump and Biden’s lawyer to “get on the ballot of every state”.
If he succeeds, polls suggest he takes slightly more votes from Trump than from Biden. That could be enough to change who wins in closely fought key states.
Trump has called Bobby a Biden “plant”. The Biden campaign is worried that the Kennedy name could cost Democratic votes.
They note Bobby’s visit to Trump’s White House and the encouragement he has received from Steve Bannon and alternative media outlets such as Fox News, Joe Rogan and Jordan Petersen.
Plugging into the mood of populist discontent, Bobby is appealing for votes from “people who are willing to question orthodoxy”.
As embodied by JFK and RFK, the Kennedy name is one of the most revered in American politics. Now yet another descendant is attempting simultaneously both to exploit and to escape from being a Kennedy.
The Democrat senator who flew to meet the man wrongly deported to El Salvador has said photos of them with margaritas were staged by officials working for the country’s president.
Chris Van Hollen added that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported from the US last month, told him he has been moved from a notorious high-security prison in El Salvador to a detention centre with better conditions.
The deportation of Mr Garcia has become a flashpoint in the US, with Democrats casting it as a cruel consequence of Donald Trump’s disregard for the courts, while Republicans have criticised Democrats for defending him and argued his deportation is part of a larger effort to reduce crime.
Mr Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who was living in Maryland, is being detained in the Central American country despite the US Supreme Court calling on the White House to facilitate his return home.
Trump officials have said Mr Garcia has ties to the violent MS-13 gang. However, Mr Garcia’s attorneys say the government has provided no evidence, and he has never been charged with any crime related to such activity.
Mr Van Hollen flew to El Salvador and met with Mr Garcia this week in an effort to help secure his return to America.
Image: Chris Van Hollen and Kilmar Abrego Garcia, seen in a photo shared by El Salvador’s president. Pic: Nayib Bukele on X
Image: Van Hollen (right) says margaritas were later brought to the table. Pic: Press Office Senator Van Hollen/AP
Speaking to reporters at Washington Dulles International airport after returning to the US on Friday, Mr Van Hollen said: “As the federal courts have said, we need to bring Mr Abrego Garcia home to protect his constitutional rights to due process. And it’s also important that people understand this case is not just about one man.
“It’s about protecting the constitutional rights of everybody who resides in the United States of America.”
Mr Van Hollen added the Trump administration is “asserting a right to stash away residents of this country” in foreign prisons “without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order”.
Don’t let the PR battle cloud the real human story
What began as the plight of a Salvadoran man wrongly deported from the US to a notorious high-security prison in El Salvador has become a much broader debate.
The case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia now ranges from the extremely serious – questions over the rule of law, due process and a potential constitutional crisis – to the more curious matter of tequila-based cocktails.
There is a public relations battle going on over the images which emerged of Mr Abrego Garcia meeting Maryland Senator Chris van Hollen at a hotel in San Salvador.
In the first photos which were made public, on the social media account of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, an ally of Donald Trump, the two men had cocktail glasses in front of them which he said were margaritas.
But when Senator van Hollen posted his account of the meeting, those glasses had vanished. So what’s this all about, and why does it matter?
The senator has now given his version of events, saying the glasses were placed there by an El Salvador government official to mock concerns about the conditions in the country’s prison – a photo op aimed at shifting the narrative around Mr Abrego Garcia’s detention in El Salvador.
Mr van Hollen also revealed El Salvador officials initially wanted the meeting to take place next to a swimming pool, to give an even more tropical backdrop to the encounter.
But at the end of the day, it’s not just about images, it’s not about public relations, it’s not even about margaritas. It’s about a 29-year-old father of three, detained in El Salvador, despite having never gone through due process in the US.
The senator also revealed Mr Garcia was brought from a detention centre to his hotel after initial requests to meet or speak with him were denied.
Mr Van Hollen said Mr Garcia told him he was “traumatised” after being detained at El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison, but he had been moved to a “different facility” with better conditions nine days ago.
The senator said Mr Garcia told him he was worried about his family and that thinking about them was giving him “the strength to persevere” and to “keep going” under awful circumstances.
Mr Garcia’s wife, Jennifer, was at the news conference and wiped away tears as Mr Van Hollen spoke of her husband’s desire to speak to her.
Earlier, Mr Van Hollen had posted photos of himself meeting with Mr Garcia.
Image: Chris Van Hollen speaks at Washington Dulles International Airport. Pic: AP
It came before El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele shared his own images of the meeting, which he claimed showed the pair “sipping margaritas” in the “tropical paradise of El Salvador”.
In an apparent sarcastic remark, Mr Bukele wrote that Mr Garcia had “miraculously risen” from the “death camps”.
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Giving an account of what he says happened when the photos were taken, Mr Van Hollen said: “We just had glasses of water on the table. I think maybe some coffee.
“And as we were talking, one of the government people came over and deposited two other glasses on the table with ice. And I don’t know if it was salt or sugar round the top, but they looked like margaritas.
“If you look at the one they put in front of Kilmer, it actually had a little less liquid than the one in me in front of me to try to make it look, I assume like he drank out of it.
“Let me just be very clear. Neither of us touched the drinks that were in front of us.”
He added that people can tell he is telling the truth because if someone had sipped from one of the glass there would be a “gap” where the “salt or sugar” had disappeared.
Mr Van Hollen said the image shows the “lengths” the El Salvadorian president will go to “deceive people about what’s going on”.
“It also shows the lengths that the Trump administration and [President Trump] will go to, because when he was asked by a reporter about this, he just went along for the ride.”
Donald Trump has threatened to “take a pass” on attempts to secure a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia, as he denied the Kremlin was playing him.
The US president’s past confidence he could do a quick deal to end the conflict has proved to be misplaced, and now his administration has floated the prospect of abandoning its efforts to broker one.
Mr Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has said the White House is prepared to “move on”, with little sign of fighting coming to an end some two months after talks began with Vladimir Putin.
Negotiations have since taken place with both Kyiv and Moscow, the latter of which Mr Trump has been accused of being soft on, but the war has continued well beyond its three-year anniversary.
Asked what it will take to secure a deal, Mr Trump told reporters at the White House he needed to see “enthusiasm” from both sides.
“I think I see it,” he added.
“It’s coming to a head right now.”
Image: Donald Trump spoke about the war during a White House event on Friday. Pic: Reuters
‘I know when people are playing us’
Mr Trump dismissed the idea he was being played by Mr Putin, saying: “Nobody is playing me. I’m trying to help.”
“My whole life has been one big negotiation and I know when people are playing us and when they’re not,” he added.
Before winning last November’s presidential election, he infamously claimed he could end the war in a day.
Echoing Mr Rubio, he’s now said “we’re just going to take a pass” if Russia or Ukraine “makes it very difficult”.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov insisted progress towards a deal had been made, but acknowledged the “complicated” situation was “not an easy one” to solve.
A 30-day moratorium on striking energy infrastructure targets was previously agreed, but both sides have since accused one another of breaching it.
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‘No military solution to Ukraine war’
Looking ahead, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy has indicated a “memorandum of intent” on a much vaunted US minerals deal could soon be signed.
Mr Trump wants to profit from the country’s natural resources in what he says is repayment for military aid.
It’s hoped America having a stake in the country could also help maintain any truce.
The deal was due to be done weeks ago but was derailed by his falling out with Mr Trump at the White House.
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More meetings are also expected among the so-called coalition of the willing, assembled by Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron to help police any peace deal.
Sir Keir spoke with Mr Trump on the phone on Saturday, with ending the Ukraine war a topic of conversation.
Hip hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs has lost a bid to delay his upcoming sex-trafficking trial by two months.
US district judge Arun Subramanian said the 55-year-old rapper made his request too close to his trial, which is due to start next month.
Jury selection is currently scheduled for 5 May with opening statements set to be heard seven days later.
Combs has pleaded not guilty to five criminal counts including racketeering and sex trafficking.
Prosecutors with the Manhattan US attorney’s office accuse Combs of using his business empire to sexually abuse women between 2004 and 2024.
Combs’s lawyers say the sexual activity described by prosecutors was consensual.
In a court filing on Wednesday, Combs’s lawyer Marc Agnifilo asked Mr Subramanian to delay the trial because he needed more time to prepare his defence to two new charges which were brought on 4 April.
The charges were of sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.
Mr Agnifilo also said his team needs extra time to review emails it wants an alleged victim to turn over.
The new allegations brought the total number of criminal charges against the rap mogul to five – following the three original counts, which also included racketeering conspiracy, filed in September.
Federal prosecutors were opposed to any delay, writing in a Thursday court filing that the additional charges brought earlier this month did not amount to substantially new conduct.
They also said Combs was not entitled to the alleged victim’s communications.
Image: A sketch of Combs during one of his court appearances. Pic: Reuters
Meanwhile, Mr Subramanian is weighing other evidentiary issues, such as whether to allow alleged victims to testify under pseudonyms.
Also known during his career as Puff Daddy and P Diddy, Combs founded Bad Boy Records and is credited with helping turn rappers and R&B singers such as Notorious B.I.G, Mary J. Blige, Faith Evans and Usher into stars in the 1990s and 2000s.
But prosecutors have said his success concealed a dark side.
They say his alleged abuse included having women take part in recorded sexual performances called “freak-offs” with male sex workers, who were sometimes transported across state lines.
Combs has been in jail in Brooklyn since September, having been denied bail.
He also faces dozens of civil lawsuits by women and men who have accused him of sexual abuse.
Combs has strenuously denied all allegations of wrongdoing.