Reply #61: Kennedy's staffwork for McCarthy produced the only good thing Tailgunner Joe did.

[Bucky]

Kennedy worked briefly for McCarthy, but quit as a committee staffer not long after Roy Cohn got a promotion that Kennedy wanted for himself (Cohn was younger). RFK's work for McCarthy's committee resulted in the only productive thing McCarthy ever produced in his 12 years in the senate. RFK's research yielded evidence of American businesses selling goods to mainland China during the Korean War, including some goods that could be used by the Chinese Red Army. The American businessmen got shamed by RFK and McCarthy into discontinuing sales to the people who were killing American soldiers.

Bob Kennedy was ruthless, but scrupulous. It's interesting to speculate what would have happened had he beaten out Roy Cohn for committee general counsel back in the 1950s. It may well have changed history, as most of the harm Tailgunner Joe McCarthy did and most of his delusional downspiral happened after Bobby quit working for him. Cohn's influence over the drunken senator--at one point a rising star in the party--was almost entirely negative, nudging the weak willed and paranoid McCarthy deeper into the bottle and into his delusions of Red cells hiding everywhere.

Kennedy's service to McCarthy was entirely honorable, however. You can critique RFK for excess and zealotry in a lot of points in his resume. But the work he did for McCarthy was truly doing the work of the angels.