St Patrick’s Day Parade, March 16, 1968:

10:30 am: The streets on both sides of Fifth Avenue in the 40s are clogged with bands, shivering majorettes in white boots; policemen; students; tubas; bass drums pounding. The din is even louder inside a nearby wannabe Irish bar decorated with shamrocks. Here, members of the press who have been invited to an “Irish breakfast” shout their insights to one another as they wait for Sen Robert F Kennedy to appear. He is flying up from Washington, where he has just announced his decision to run for president. “I want the Democratic Party and the United States of America to stand for hope instead of despair, for the reconciliation of men instead of the growing risk of world war,” he said.

12:30 pm: Kennedy arrives and vanishes in the crowd.

1 pm: The bar has emptied; the parade is under way. Heading toward Fifth Avenue, Kennedy picks up a woman’s lost shoe and returns it to its owner. In the parade, nine police officers hold hands and precede Kennedy.

Undaunted, teenage girls break through the line and attempt to embrace the candidate. Some in the crowd are less enthusiastic, shouting, “Go back to Boston!” and “Get a haircut!”

A reporter says: “None of the other politicians will march in this thing. Lindsay got booed last year; this year he’s in the reviewing stand.”

Kennedy acknowledges the crowd with a minimal chest-level wave. Jacqueline Kennedy and her son, John, wave to the senator from their balcony on Fifth. By the time Kennedy gets to 86th Street, he has to kick his way through empty beer cans. He escapes from the crowd, ducks into a waiting car and drives off.

4 pm: Wandering around the city, I encounter hostility toward Kennedy. When people refer to him, they call him “Bobby” — contemptuously.

6 pm: In Kennedy’s apartment above the East River, next to the United Nations, he finishes a list of phone calls. His sleeves are rolled up and he has a drink in his hand. I have interviewed Kennedy several times over the years, so we have a slight acquaintance. He settles into an armchair and talks about his decision to run; he muses about Vietnam, about President Lyndon Johnson and Sen Eugene McCarthy, his opponents for the nomination. He is aware of the anger directed at him.

I tell him that I’m planning to write an article about his campaign.

“We’re going to California next week,” he says. “Want to come along?”

“I certainly do,” I say. We shake hands and then Kennedy is gone.

(The writer covered Robert F Kennedy’s presidential campaign for The New Yorker)

The New York Times