Article: JFK's Best Friend Saw A Future President in RFK Jr.

[RFKJrNews]

Our top story today is a delicious slice of history...

JFK's BEST FRIEND SAW A FUTURE PRESIDENT IN RFK JR.

(EXCERPT)

In Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Lem Billings saw a combination of both Jack and Robert Kennedy. Billings, best friend to President Kennedy, strongly felt that RFK Jr. had presidential potential, even when Bobby Jr. was only a young man of 14.

So writes author David Pitts in "Jack and Lem - The Untold Story of an Extraordinary Friendship". This new book explores the 30 year friendship between President John F. Kennedy and Kirk LeMoyne “Lem” Billings.

“Together, they really had everything,” says Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the book’s first chapter. “They loved each other and they got satisfaction out of the successes that each of them enjoyed.” For Billings, who had built his whole world around Jack Kennedy since they were both boys, the loss of his best friend was more devastating than most of us could ever imagine.

Billings was by all accounts never the same after that day in Dallas. And then just five years later, the assassination of Robert Kennedy drove Lem into a deepening state of depression, which he tried to combat by making himself a sort of surrogate father to the children Jack and Bobby had left behind.

“BOBBY JR. HAS IT IN HIM TO BE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES”

“He did an incredible amount for young Bobby,” recalls Sigrid Gassner-Roberts, Lem’s live-in caretaker and friend from 1969 to 1974. Interviewed for this book, she was particularly outspoken about his concern for Bobby Jr.’s welfare, especially in the year after his father’s death. “He (Lem) would say Bobby has it in him to be president of the United States. He wanted to groom him for the presidency.”

Lem transferred a lot of his feelings for President Kennedy to young Bobby, Sigrid said. He saw so much of Jack in him. She remembered on one occasion, “Bobby ran away from college and joined a commune. Lem searched all night for him…Eventually, he came back at ten the next morning and said, `He’s now back in school.’ He was totally, totally devoted to that kid.”

“He was overjoyed with, and totally devoted to, young Bobby, whom he expected to carry on the torch of the Kennedys,” Sigrid wrote in a letter to the author David Pitts.

At Lem’s funeral in 1981, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said of Lem: “He felt pain for every one of us - pain that no one else could have the courage to feel…I don’t know how we’ll carry on without him. In many ways Lem was a father to me and he was the best friend I will ever have.”


Read the full feature-length story here:
http://rfkin2008.wordpress.com/2007/07/31/jfks-best-friend-saw-a-future-president-in-rfk-jr/

If this story moved your heart, too, let's show `em Lem Billings was right and get Bobby Kennedy Jr. into the 2008 race!

Please SIGN THE PETITION to Draft RFK Jr. for President!
http://RFKin2008.com

[jgraz]

1. Gore/Kennedy?

Hell, <Anyone>/Kennedy. Since Gore would never accept the VP slot, this would be a great way to cement a candidate's commitment to the environment.

RFK Jr. would make a great running mate, if he'd accept. I've never heard him express even the slightest desire to run for the top spot.

[RFKJrNews]

2. Kennedy/Gore or Gore/Kennedy

Not a bad idea at all!

Only trouble I can see is that because Gore likely wouldn't accept the Veep slot again, it may be impossible for them to work together.

I doubt RFK Jr. would be anybody's running mate. When you've got the last name of a former president, you don't need to settle for second best. (Who could imagine G.W. Bush running 2nd to Dick Cheney?)

Unfortunately, this country has not (yet) had a President Gore. So Al does not have that advantage by birthright, if you will. He must stand or fall based upon his own merit of 8 years as Vice President. That is what he brings to the table.

Do you think Al will "answer the call" of the movement to draft him? Will he run?