Volume 18, Number 12 · June 29, 1972
Reconsidering RFK
By Madeleine R. Levy, Michael E. Tigar
Kennedy Justice
by Victor S. Navasky
Atheneum, 482 pp., $10.00
Liberal tradition requires neutral justice: prosecution with equal vigor, and by the same means, of gamblers, mayors on the take, racist governors, corrupt union bosses, and violent leftists. Radicals do not expect this kind of neutrality: they try to hold the State to its constitutional promises of free assembly, free expression, and equality. By both liberal and radical criteria, Robert Kennedy failed as Attorney General. The Kennedy Justice Department prosecuted selectively, by un-liberal and illegal means. It paid scant attention to the possibilities of federal power in aid of civil rights, and developed the array of legislative, judicial, and prosecutorial tools now turned against the left with such effect.
Review, 3614 words
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