Opinion: Through a Brother's Eyes

In various editions, John Kennedy's Profiles in Courage went through 65 printings, sold more than 3,000,000 copies, and hit the bestseller list during three distinct periods: right after it was written, when he was a Senator; after he was elected President; and after his assassination. Now a memorial edition seems likely to keep the book in the No. 1 spot for quite a while, and not least of all because of a brother's-eye-view foreword by Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Excerpts:

"President Kennedy would be 47 in May. At least one-half of the days that he spent on this earth were days of intense physical pain. When we were growing up together, we used to laugh about the great risk a mosquito took in biting Jack Kennedy—with some of his blood the mosquito was almost sure to die.

"I never heard him complain. I never heard him say anything which would indicate that he felt that God had dealt with him unjustly. Those who knew him well would know he was suffering only because his face was a little whiter, the lines around his eyes a little deeper, his words a little sharper.

"When he battled against illness, when he fought in the war, when he ran for the Senate, when he stood up against powerful interests in Massachusetts to fight for the St. Lawrence Seaway, when he fought for a labor reform act in 1959, when he entered the West Virginia primary in 1960, when he debated Lyndon Johnson at the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles with no preparation, when he took the blame completely on himself for the failure at the Bay of Pigs, when he fought the steel companies, when he stood up at

Berlin in 1961 and then again in 1962 for the freedom of that city, when he forced the withdrawal of the Soviet missiles from Cuba, when he spoke and fought for equal rights for all our citizens, and hundreds of other things both big and small, he was reflecting what is the best in the human being. He was demonstrating conviction, courage, a desire to help others who needed help, and true and genuine love for his country.

"If there is a lesson from his life and from his death, it is that in this world of ours none of us can afford to be lookers-on, the critics standing on the sidelines."