(See Cover)
The rain pelted a Chrysler sedan racing through the night toward Lincoln on U.S. 6, a straight and lonely stretch of Nebraska blacktop. The elephantine semitrailers, lumbering west, flung blobs of muddy film at the windshield as the car sped past them, slowing the metronome wipers to largo tempo. Inside, the three people huddled together in the front seat were as melancholy as the weather and the night. Bob Conrad, Nebraska's Democratic senatorial nominee, hunched over the wheel, peering grimly into the darkness. Beside him, pretty, black-haired Helen Abdouch, executive secretary of the
Nebraska Kennedy organization, listened silently to the complaints of the shock-headed young man on her right.
Why, asked Robert Francis Kennedy, the ubiquitous campaign manager for his brother Jack, couldn't the local Democratic faction get together behind the national campaign? Why weren't the volunteers working harder? What was wrong? Under Kennedy's crossexamination, Bob Conrad's temper suddenly snapped, and he jammed the accelerator in anger. "It's not as simple as that," he rasped. But before he could say much more, a Nebraska highway patrolman flashed him to a stop. Muttering his disgust, Conrad got out of the car to talk to the cop. Bobby Kennedy, his mind still zeroing in on politics, paid no attention. Slumping down in his seat, he turned his questions on Helen Abdouch. "Can't we do something to straighten it out?" he asked plaintively. "Won't the county organizations work with you? We'll put one person in charge . . ."
Farewell, Nebraska. By the time the unhappy threesome reached the Lincoln airport (with only a warning for speeding), Bobby had wrung a promise from his companions to try harder to weld the diffident organizations together and win the day for the Democrats. But as his plane headed for Kansas City, Bob Kennedy reached a glum conclusion: Nebraska, like much of the farm belt, was sticking with the Republican Party. Even in the Democratic tenderloin of South Omaha, only 35 of the faithful had turned out to-hear him speak that morning; at Lincoln's Cornhusker Hotel there were just 25 listeners. The state organization was badly fragmented and outclassed by the well-organized Republicans, and the voters were more concerned with world crises and religion than with the price of corn. "We're behind in Nebraska," Bobby mused, "but we're behind in Illinois too. We have to have Illinois, but we don't have to have Nebraska. We should spend our time and money in Illinois."
Such calculations and command decisions saturate Bobby's busy mind as he hurries restlessly around the country. For a year his thoughts, passions and supercharged energies have been directed toward one goal: to get his brother Jack elected President of the U.S. In Hyannisport this summer, he called his exhausted staff together for a meeting on the morning after their triumphant arrival from the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles. There was no time to savor the victory. "We can rest in November," Bobby announced sternly.
Sleep and food are secondary to Bobby in his relentless quest, and he has paid a price for his dedication. His nerves are frayed, deep circles rim his eyes, his slight shoulders are stooped with fatigue. Jack