Robert Kennedy

I first photographed Bobby Kennedy at the Democratic National Convention in 1964, where a film on the life of his brother John F. Kennedy was screened. The picture I took was of Bobby at the podium with a tear in his eye. Pat Carbine, then the editor of Look magazine, took that photo and put it in her desk drawer.

When Bobby campaigned for office, everywhere he went, people mobbed him, just wanting to touch him and shake his hand.

Thomas Hoving was running for a post in New York; he had been seen in the daily papers throwing a football in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. Bobby had me deliver a personal message to Hoving: "Tell him he is making some very important enemies. He should quickly learn football is a Kennedy thing."

During his presidential bid, I photographed Bobby for his campaign posters. He was an easy subject. His commitment to making the world a better place shone through his eyes. There is no doubt in my mind that the country would have changed for the better if Bobby had become president. He seemed to have an unsaid mandate to accomplish the changes his brother Jack had set out to do.

When Bobby was shot in Los Angeles, Pat Carbine took out my photo of Bobby shedding a tear, and used it as the cover of the Look memorial issue dedicated to him.

I have yet to meet a person in politics whom I could respect more than Robert Kennedy.