Claudine Longet - Relationship With Robert F. and Ethel Kennedy

Relationship With Robert F. and Ethel Kennedy

See also: Robert F. Kennedy, Ethel Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy assassination

Longet and Andy Williams were close friends of Robert F. "Bobby" Kennedy and his wife, Ethel Kennedy. During the mid-1960s, they regularly socialized at Longet's and Williams's residences in Bel Air and Palm Springs and at the Kennedy residences at Hickory Hill and New York City. They also took summer cruises on the Salmon River in central Idaho and on the Colorado River.

On or before 4 June 1968, the day of the 1968 Democratic Party presidential primary in California, Kennedy — a contending Democratic presidential candidate — and his wife made tentative arrangements with Williams and Longet to visit a trendy local disco called The Factory. According to Williams, Robert Kennedy told them that he would make a hand signal at the conclusion of his televised speech at the Ambassador Hotel to confirm their get-together.

Shortly after midnight on 5 June, Longet and Williams were watching Senator Kennedy's televised primary victory speech in Kennedy's suite in his hotel and saw Kennedy make the "little hand gesture". When Williams rushed down to the hotel ballroom, he heard loud noises in the hallway and learned that Kennedy had been shot. Longet and Williams eventually joined Kennedy's family and friends at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, where doctors labored to save the Senator's life. They stayed at the hospital for about 24 hours. After Kennedy died during the early morning hours of 6 June, Longet and Williams went into his hospital room and saw Ethel Kennedy asleep near her husband.

Longet and Williams attended Senator Kennedy's funeral Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City on 8 June. A television camera captured Williams consoling a sobbing Longet during the Mass. After Kennedy's brother Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy delivered a brief and emotional eulogy, Williams and a choir sang "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" in what a Washington Post reporter described as a "hauntingly slow tempo". Outside the cathedral on the streets of New York, thousands of people were listening to the Mass over loudspeakers. When they heard Williams singing, they began singing with him.

After the funeral Mass, Longet and Williams boarded the 21-car funeral train that took Senator Kennedy's body to Washington, D.C. and Arlington National Cemetery for burial. Longet and Williams were with Senator Kennedy's body, Ethel Kennedy, Ted Kennedy, and other Kennedy family members in the end car of the train. The front page of the 9 June 1968 edition of the Washington Post has a large photograph that depicts Ted Kennedy and Longet standing together on the rear platform of the funeral train as it passed through North Philadelphia.

Longet and Williams named their son Bobby (who was born in August 1969) in remembrance of Robert Kennedy.