Robert Kennedy walks beside Charles Evers in MLK's funeral procession on April 9, 1968
He came back and he seemed remarkably unaffected by it [MLK's assassination]. I almost don‘t think he realized what a tremendous impact it was going to have. He said something which at first struck me, until I realized what he meant, as being totally out of character. He said, “You know, the death of Martin Luther King isn‘t the worst thing that ever happened in the world.” I could not for the life of me understand that until, of course, I realized he had been thinking of the death of his brother... I was really struck, I mean, I was genuinely startled in a very negative way to hear Kennedy say that. It sounded like a very cold thing... But, it was quite clear that the whole thing he was ruminating on, what led him in the first place to say the death of King wasn‘t the worst thing in the world, was that this was part of a link. He was thinking of the [Medgar] Evers, and obviously very clearly thinking of the death of his brother. I guess what else happened was he came back in around two-thirty in the morning. I had passed out on the bed, and he tucked me in, which was why I said to him, “You aren‘t so ruthless after all.” He said, “Don‘t tell anybody.”
─ Jeff Greenfield
