Youth of Robert Kennedy

Robert Francis Kennedy was born on November 20, 1925, in Brookline, Massachusetts, the seventh child in the closely knit and competitive family of Rose and Joseph P. Kennedy. "I was the seventh of nine children," he later recalled, "and when you come from that far down you have to struggle to survive." He attended Milton Academy and, after wartime service in the Navy, received his degree in government from Harvard University in 1948.

He earned his law degree from the University of Virginia Law School three years later. Perhaps more important for his education was the Kennedy family dinner table, where his parents involved their children in discussions of history and current affairs. "I can hardly remember a mealtime," Robert Kennedy said, "when the conversation was not dominated by what Franklin D. Roosevelt was doing or what was happening in the world."

During the war he joined the United States Navy. From Harvard University he started at the law school at University of Virginia, from which he graduated in 1951. Later that year he became an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice.

In 1950, Robert Kennedy married Ethel Skakel of Greenwich, Connecticut, daughter of Ann Brannack Skakel and George Skakel, founder of Great Lakes Carbon Corporation. In 1952, he made his political debut as manager of his older brother John's successful campaign for the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts.

source: website of the RFK Memorial