Nov. 4, 1964 - Senator‐elect Robert F. Kennedy of New York made good on a couple of election promises today.
Leaving a celebration at Delmonico’s where the guests included Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy and the British Ambassador, the victorious candidate made a sentimental early‐morning pilgrimage to the Fulton Fish Market in lower Manhattan.
It was there, amid heaps of shimmering mackerel, that Kennedy launched his Senatorial campaign last September.
Fishmongers recalled him with glad cries this morning and gave him a halibut to hold.
“It smells better here than it did two months ago,” Kennedy said.
The workers cheered. The one who had given Kennedy the fish was chided by the rest for having voted for Kennedy’s Republican opponent, Senator Kenneth Keating. Kennedy was jostled good-naturedly until someone cried: “For God’s sake, don’t kill him now, we need him.”
Kennedy returned to his hotel, the Carlyle, and after only three hours’ sleep was off and running as though it was still election eve.
He flew to Glens Falls, a small city in upstate New York, where a crowd of 4,000 had stayed up late one balmy September evening to cheer his first appearance in the region. Many had waited in pajamas for four hours, and Kennedy, touched, had promised to return the day after election and thank the people.
Today, the crowd was nearly as big and just as enthusiastic as it was in September. It had delivered Glens Falls to the candidate by 555 votes, although Kennedy lost the county, Warren, by more than 2,000.
“I want to tell you how touched I am, again,” Mr. Kennedy said as hundreds of girls screamed and cheered.
The Senator‐elect and his wife, Ethel, rode in an open convertible, soliciting handshakes as though the campaign were still in doubt.
“Bobby said you looked nice in your pajamas,” Mrs. Kennedy told the crowd. “But you look nice dressed too.”
From Glens Falls, the Kennedys flew to Boston, where they spent nearly two hours in New England Baptist Hospital, chatting with another victorious Kennedy, Senator Edward M. (Ted) Kennedy, who was reelected by a 900,000-vote plurality.
Ted Kennedy, recuperating from a broken back suffered in an airplane crash last June, lay on an orthopedic frame.
The brothers kidded each other about the size of their pluralities.
A photographer complained that Robert Kennedy was standing too close to the bed and casting a shadow on his brother.
“It’ll be the same way in Washington,” Ted said.
“He only says that because he got a bigger vote than I did,” his brother replied.
Reporters were not present during the initial exchange, but they heard laughter through the walls.
The brothers were asked what the laughter had been about.
“I think I asked him if he was ‘ruthless,’” Ted said.
There was more laughter, and Robert gave Ted a playful slap on the left arm and said: “He’s been getting pretty fresh since he’s been in the hospital and has had to have his wife campaign for him.”
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