For the first three weeks of April, Kennedy crisscrossed the country,
drawing huge throngs, trying to prove his popularity to the bosses who controlled the Democratic convention. “The crowds were savage,” recalled John Bartlow Martin, who was traveling with him as an adviser. “They pulled his cufflinks off, tore his clothes, tore ours. In bigger towns, with bigger crowds, it was frightening.” In Kalamazoo, Michigan, a housewife reached in the car and calmly removed Kennedy’s right shoe, which she displayed to reporters as a trophy of war. Kneeling on the seat of the car, his arms around Kennedy’s waist as the convertible inched along, Bill Barry desperately clung to the candidate as the crowds grabbed at him. “Not so tight,” Kennedy was heard to cry. “You’re going to break my back.” Barry’s knees were bloody; Ethel gave him a rubber kneepad. One over-heated woman yanked Kennedy’s head down by his tie; another pulled him out of the car altogether, breaking his tooth on the curb. Kennedy’s shyness would seize him at the beginning of a motorcade or mass rally. He would grimace, tight lipped, before plunging into a crowd—the same grim face he wore before diving into icy rapids. As the crowd closed in around him, he would just let his body go limp. “It was like he wasn’t there,” observed Peter Fishbein, a young aide who traveled with the candidate. “His stare was vacant.” Once, when their car was nearly rolled by a wildly impassioned crowd in California, Fishbein looked at Kennedy, who was limply waving and looking far away. “Even for him, it could be scary,” said Fishbein.
-Evan Thomas, 'Robert Kennedy: His Life"
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