In March 1968, Robert Francis Kennedy visited Utah for the last time.
A few months later, on June 5, shortly after winning the Democratic presidential primary in California, Kennedy was shot. He died the next day.
Kennedy visited Utah several times, but only once on the campaign trail, when he joked before a crowd in Provo that he, too, knew what it was to face "Johnson's Army," a reference to his political differences with President Lyndon B. Johnson. The Utah connotation was the federal troops led by Sydney Albert Johnston who marched to Utah Territory in the mid-1850s to investigate allegations that Mormon settlers were bent on seceding from the Union.
Deseret News photographers captured hundreds of images of Robert F. Kennedy during his Utah visits, many of which have been culled from the newspaper's archives by photo researcher Ron Fox. Over the course of the next three days many of these photos will be posted at www.deseretnews.com to commemorate the 41st anniversary of RFK's assassination.
Kennedy first visited the state in July 1950, when he was 24, with his bride of two weeks, the former Ethel Skakel. The couple spent severaldays on a ranch near Moab and then visited Salt Lake City.
The Kennedys returned for a family vacation over the Fourth of July weekend in 1965, when Kennedy, then a senator from New York, his wife and five of their nine children ran the Yampa and Green rivers in western Colorado and eastern Utah.
In the July 5, 1965 Deseret News, political editor DeMar Teuscher reported that Kennedy showed off his athletic prowess during the river trip:
"He handled himself like a master," declared Denver ski coach Willie Shaeffler, a kayak enthusiast.
Some 200 people were on hand to see the group leave the river. Then the senator and his wife visited the Dinosaur National Monument visitor center before the family flew to Salt Lake City.
In Salt Lake City, the family attended Mass in the Cathedral of the Madeleine and then were hosted by Gov. and Mrs. Calvin Rampton at a "patio party" at the governor's residence before heading home to McLean, Va.
Kennedy returned in June 1967 to speak at a Democratic fundraising rally marking the 175th anniversary of the Democratic Party. The next day he and some family members took off down the Colorado on another river run.
That visit also included a stop at Blanding with Sen. Frank E. Moss, where Kennedy visited the Navajo reservation.
Kennedy returned the following year only 10 days after declaring his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.
On March 26, Kennedy spoke to a group of 7,500-plus in Weber State College, Ogden.
In a June 6, 1968 Deseret News article, Teuscher wrote:
"When Robert Kennedy paused for emphasis during a speech on Vietnam, a baby wailed lustily in the rear of the packed gymnasium.
"That sounds like church," quipped the senator. "If not your church, mine. And in my church, it would probably be a Kennedy."
That night in Salt Lake City, 2,000 Utahns, most of them young, were turned away from the Terrace, where Kennedy spoke to a capacity crowd of 5,000.The crowd came despite urging of local police to stay away. They had fielded a bomb threat for the gathering.
Oscar McConkie introduced Kennedy to an overflowing BYU audience the next day in the Smith Fieldhouse, BYU's largest arena.
"He got a very good response down at BYU," Oscar McConkie said. "I was really surprised."
Kennedy also packed several photo ops into that final visit, including a meeting with LDS Church President David O. McKay and some ski runs at Alta, where he was photographed with Utah's ski legend Alf Engen.
"It's more fun to ski at Alta than it is to run for the presidency of the United States," Kennedy told Tuescher. "I'll be back to try this again."
He was scheduled to return to Utah July 26-27 to seek support at the Democratic state convention. Those plans ended at the hands ofassassin Sirhan Sirhan.
E-mail: mhaddock@desnews.com
Additional photos of Utah visits by Robert F. Kennedy will appear in online presentations beginning Saturday and continuing on Sunday and Monday.