Newspaper Page Text
recalls RFK 40 after assassination
Football, family
brought Smith and
Kennedys together
By Harris Blackwood
FCN regional staff
On the morning of June 5,
1968, Sidney O. Smith Jr., then
a U.S. District Court Judge for
the Northern District of Georgia,
was at home in Gainesville.
His family had left for a
beach trip. Shaving in front of
the bathroom mirror, Smith had
turned on the radio for the
morning news, not expecting
what he heard.
While Smith was sleeping,
Robert F. Kennedy had been
shot in the head in the
Ambassador Hotel in Los
Angeles. Early the next morn¬
ing, Kennedy was dead.
For Smith, it was a moment
of profound sadness.
‘‘I couldn't help but burst out
crying,” Smith said.
There was an interesting
connection between Sid Smith
and Bobby Kennedy that began
22 years earlier.
Smith, a Gainesville native,
went to Harvard in 1941. In his
freshman year, World War II
began. Smith played on the
Sidney O.
Smith is at
the far left of
the first row
in this
undated
Harvard
team photo.
Robert F.
Kennedy
stands at
the left in
the top row.
Photo/
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1942 football team and left the
following spring to serve in the
military.
He returned from the war in
1946. Back at Harvard, he
decided to try football one more
time.
“On that team was a fellow
named Bobby Kennedy, who
was probably two or three years
younger than I,” Smith said. “I
have never seen a tougher guy,
pound for pound, than Bobby
Kennedy, physically and men¬
tally. I was fairly small at 180 to
185 pounds. But he was much
smaller, like 160 pounds.”
Smith said he believed
Kennedy, as a defensive end,
would “stick his head in the
front of a steam roller. H
Kennedy was the leader of a
group of Catholic players who
traveled in the same circles and
went to Mass together.
“I didn’t socialize with
them,” Smith said. “I had mar¬
ried during the war and he and
his pals were single.”
About the same time,
Kennedy’s older brother John,
also a war veteran, was making
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his first bid for the U.S. House
from the Cambridge area.
Smith had little contact with
Robert Kennedy after that until
November 1963, following the
assassination of President John
F. Kennedy.
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“I wrote him (Bobby) a let¬
ter and I got back an elaborate
printed acknowledgment of
sympathy and he wrote a hand¬
written note on it,” Smith said.
A few years later, Bobby
Kennedy was the keynote
speaker at the University of
Georgia’s annual Law Day.
“After his speech, I went up
to his motel room and we visit¬
ed for 20 or 30 minutes,” he
said. “It was interesting.
Kennedy thought there would
be a great outcry against him.
.. He had just arranged for
Martin Luthpr King to be
released from jail in DeKalb
County and he expected these
redneck Southerners to be out¬
raged. He was overcome by the
courtesy with which the group
accepted him.
Smith, who was then a Hall
County Superior Court Judge,
mentioned to Kennedy that he
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FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS — Friday, June 6,2008
Gainesville
judge Sidney
O. Smith, 84,
poses for a
portrait in his
home. Smith,
a Harvard
graduate, went
to school with
the late Bobby
Kennedy.
Photo/Sara
Guevara/FCN
regional staff
was interested in the federal
bench. He later visited with
Kennedy, who was attorney
general at the time, in his office
at the Justice Department.
“He told me to get our two
senators down in Georgia to
support me and there wouldn’t
be any problem from his
office,” Smith said.
Smith served from 1965 to
1974 on the federal bench
before returning to private prac¬
tice in the prestigious Atlanta
law firm of Alston & Bird.
Smith would never see his
football teammate again. His
connections to the Kennedys,
however, would not end there.
In February 1972, a group
of Palestinian hijackers took
over a Lufthansa jet in the skies
over India.
Among the passengers
taken hostage was Joseph P.
Kennedy II, the eldest son of
PAGE 3A
Robert Kennedy. Also on board
was Smith’s nephew, who was
returning to Milwaukee from a
Peace Corps assignment in
Nepal. The two were seatmates.
Joseph Kennedy would later
serve 10 years in the U.S.
House from Massachusetts.
My sister became ill and
the government had arranged
for my nephew to come home,”
Smith said.
He went to Wisconsin to be
near his sister and to find out
any information about the
hijacking during the multi-day
ordeal.
“The undersecretary of state
would call every morning and I
would relay the information to
my brother-in-law,” Smith said.
“But Ethel Kennedy would also
call every morning and she
knew more about it than the
State Department.”
After their release, the U.S.
government made arrange¬
ments for them to be flown to
New York.
“The Kennedy family sent
their private plane to fly my
nephew to Milwaukee to be
with his dying mother,” Smith
said.
Now 84, Smith said he
occasionally thinks about how
things would have turned out if
his teammate had not been
killed 40 years ago.
“I guess it was my brush
with history,” Smith said. “I’ve
never thought the Kennedys
were as evil as some people
do. *•
He said that while he dis¬
agrees with Sen. Edward
Kennedy, D-Mass., “about 90
percent of the time,” he was
encouraged this week by news
that the senator was having suc¬
cess in his treatment for a
malignant brain tumor.
But he clearly treasures his
relationship with the senator's
older brother, who he remem
bers best as a “fellow scrub” on
th# 1946 Crimson team.
“I certainly counted him as
a friend,” Smith said. “He was
a really nice guy.’