Editor's Note: Following are excerpts from a telephone interview in July with John Seigenthaler, who served in the U.S. Justice Department as administrative assistant to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. His work in the field of civil rights led to his service as chief negotiator with the governor of Alabama during the Freedom Rides.

New York Teacher: You were a renowned newspaper reporter covering racial injustice and civil rights and you left journalism to serve as Robert Kennedy's administrative assistant. What drew you to the Kennedy administration?

Seigenthaler: I had worked with Robert Kennedy helping edit his book, "The Enemy Within." We lived together in Hickory Hill for about 6 months and worked on the book. So I knew him and admired him and liked him and had great respect for him and felt that the relationship was mutual. When the campaign came on in 1960, Bob had been asking me to come to work for the campaign as his assistant. I did that immediately after the convention. I worked for the campaign and he asked me if I would stay on with him in the Justice Department and I agreed to do that.

New York Teacher: You certainly had a baptism by fire. You served as the chief negotiator with the governor of Alabama over the safe passage of the Freedom Riders. Tell us about those times.

Siegenthaler: The first wave of the Freedom Riders came from Baltimore across the south on a Sunday. After they were on the greyhound bus and at Anniston there was a roadblock put up by the Klan to stop the bus. They burned it, bombed it and mauled the Freedom Riders and just beat the hell out of them. It was brutal. Most of them were taken back to Birmingham, spent some time in the hospital with some of them there was beatings. A number of them were hospitalized with smoke inhalation. Some of them were really damaged, were wounded, were hurt so badly as young men. So they went back to Birmingham and voted. Really, they were not in any physical position cause it was so bad to continue the ride and they voted to go by air. And they get to the airport in Birmingham and there is a series of bomb threats so they can't take off and they're being harassed at the airport. They called the Attorney General, he and the President consulted about the President was getting ready to go to Europe to meet with Khrushchev and of course the riot in Anniston, the violence was international news. So, Robert sent me down to Birmingham to get them to New Orleans. The next morning Robert Kennedy called me before dawn at the motel in New Orleans and said there's another wave of Freedom Riders coming down from Nashville. The person that the attorney general knew was the leader of this group, a young woman named Diane Nash. I think she was a junior at Fisk. I called her and asked her not to dispatch a school of young people to Alabama because I said it's inevitable that one of them could be killed. I related to her what I had seen and the danger involved and she was not very impressed by that. I thought many times what courage she had. Here I was officially from the Department of Justice dispatched by the president and attorney general and directed by the attorney general to ask her to desist and not to go forward with continuing the rides because she was endangering human life. As she blunted my really insistent, humble demands -almost commands - I found my voice level up a decibel and up a decibel and finally I sort of exploded and said, "Young woman don't you understand you're going to get people you love killed? It was as strong as I could make it and there was a pause and she said, "Sir, do you not understand, we signed our wills last night; we know and expect some of us may be killed but they're on their way, and they were. She was not about to ask them to come back or to direct them to come back. So the attorney general said, "Get back up there. By the time I got there they were in jail and there were negotiations going on with Eugene Connor, the famous bull of Birmingham, Commissioner Bull Connor, who called me sonny boy and treated me as if I were a juvenile delinquent. Subsequently John Patterson, the governor of Alabama, went down to Montgomery and I met with him and that was a very tense, heated meeting. Patterson had supported Kennedy in 1960 and knew him and knew Robert Kennedy. It was his position that the Freedom Rides had occurred because of John and Robert Kennedy's sympathy for the Freedom Rides. And I tried to explain to him the last thing the president and the attorney general wanted was racial violence because it was as devastating politically to the Kennedy administration as the violence at Little Rock had been to the Eisenhower administration. But at any rate for a while we were at an impasse I listened to a rather angry lecture at times, a table-slapping lecture. Basically my position was: "Governor please provide protection. All they want is to go to Jackson, Mississippi. If you'll just provide them protection this can be Mississippi's problem and we'll deal with it from there. He resisted that. I had thought through with Bob in advance the efforts we would make to try to develop a strategy for changing his mind. Finally I said to him "Well, governor, if you won't protect them …" and he would interrupt and say "they can't be protected. You can't protect people who are determined that they're going to create violence." I spoke up and said "if you can't protect them, they're interstate commerce. They have a right to be on those carriers. If you can't protect them, you know what that means. We will have to send in U.S. marshals or troops." Again, he banged the table again and said "If you do that there will be blood in the streets of Alabama" and I said "Governor, there was blood in the streets." That was really the first moment I had to make a positive point. At that point he turned to this man that was sitting across the way - his safety commissioner, Floyd Mann - and said "Floyd, would you please tell this man that it is impossible to protect these people." Floyd Mann, in a remarkable response, said, "Governor, I've been in law enforcement all my life and if you tell me to protect them then I will do that." And I must say it sucked the air out of that room. You could almost sense the reaction of the members of the cabinet. You could tell nobody had challenged their governor in just that way. It was clear Patterson was not angry at Floyd Mann, for whom he obviously had respect. He said, "Floyd, how would you do that? Mann pointed out that he would put officers on the bus, a couple of cars in the front and in back, a plane overhead. At that point, the attitude of the governor changed; his commissioner of safety had put him in a bit of a box.He began to think immediately as a politican would of the political implications. He then instructed Mann to protect on the highway and to arrange with Bull Connor and with Commissioner Southerland in Montgomery to provide local protection. Bull Connor wanted to get them out of Birmingham; he was fed up with them. They had created a great difficulty in the jail by singing and praying all night, keeping up other prisoners. Mann got commitment from them and of course in Montgomery Commissioner Southerland simply went back on his word and there was no police protection. There were hundreds of people waiting. When we arrived at the federal court house, which adjoined the bus station, we immediately heard screams and shouts. You could see luggage being thrown into the air over the little bus terminal building. I proceeded to drive around the parking lot, where it was really a teaming ant hill of violence. I've never seen anything like it and screams were terrible. As I circled that parking lot and came down the street on the far side, this assault on these young people was under way. The focal point of it was right at the entrance to the bus, so as the young men got off they began to be beaten. Floyd Mann finally arrived on the scene I did not know this but he fired a shot in the air and said that he would shoot if they didn't desist. I had circled the lot as I had said and had come down the street on the far side from the terminal and the young women among the riders were the last to get off. There was a cab and a half dozen of them went to this cab. The driver who was black was scared out of his wits, really sort of trapped, couldn't get away but these young women tried to crowd into his cab and he said I can't take those white ladies. Two of the young women were white and one of the young women Catherine Burks says to him, she was black, she says "Look, you move over and I'll drive." But he would not - which shows the sort of stuff those kids were made of but he would not do that. These two young white students walked on their own and immediately there was a satellite piece of the mob that surrounded them again to beat them. As I came down the street the two were on the sidewalk, they were being punched and shoved and threatened and the one young woman who was in front was bleeding from the nose and the mouth. I just thought there was a way to get them out of there, I blew the horn and I bumped the car up on the curb and got out and screamed to one of them to get in the back seat and she did but I had trouble getting to the other one. The crowd had moved in again to the far door in the front side and I just pushed around the front of the hood of the car and grabbed her by the arm and brought her around to the drivers side. I almost had her in the car to get away from there and she resisted she put her hands on the top of the car and I was trying to push her in. She said "Mister please don't get hurt I am trained to take this, I expected it and I'm dead." I said "Get your ass in the car sister," and at that moment these men they wheeled me around and said, "Who are you? What do you think your doing?" Magic words I said "Get back I'm from the federal government." And one of them hit me with a pipe. I had never in my life been knocked unconscious but I was down and never felt it but 25 minutes of my life went away and they left me there. And the police did not come for 25 minutes. Finally when I woke up the lieutenant had taken me from beneath the car and I was sitting in the driver's side and he then got me to the hospital. There I stayed until a few days later.

New York Teacher: What was RFK's reaction?

Seigenthaler: First of all he was horrified by it. He went over to our house and made sure my wife and son knew about it and then when I talked to him on the phone I was heavily sedated but he thanked me for what I had done. The trip to New Orleans with the first wave of Freedom Riders had gone so well. I guess I felt quite proud of myself and now I felt quite the opposite. I was dejected I felt I had failed in the assignment. He cheered me up and thanked me for the courage. I tried to explain really it hadn't taken any courage. I just thought I had an opportunity to out-slick the mob and if they had gotten in the car we would have been out of there. I never would have made it in the history books. But at any rate he was first of all very consoling and very appreciative and I expressed disappointment that it had been necessary to send in the Marshals, 400 of them had been dispatched to Montgomery and were there by nightfall. At the end of the conversation as he had this great ability at the time to change the subject in times of pressure he said, "By the way how's my popularity down there?" I said, "Bob, if you're ever going to run for public office, use another state - don't come here."

New York Teacher: You were one of the few figures to actually witness the meeting between Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, how do you remember that meeting?

Seigenthaler: I think from the onset both Robert and John Kennedy looked upon Little Rock as some symbol of the sort of events, the sort of tragedy they'd like to avoid. Robert Kennedy was hopeful that during that first four years that most of the civil rights controversy could be handled through the courts. It was difficult because the Director of the FBI, J Edgar Hoover simply would not acknowledge that the violence that attended a nonviolent movement was a federal matter, when there were assaults and even death. The truth was that FBI agents, there were one or two in most Southern cities but no more. In many instances those agents were compromised because they had to work with local police. The local police were infiltrated by the Klan so it was his position that he really had no jurisdiction except - as Robert Kennedy explained to Dr. King that day - in the area of voting rights. It was Robert F. Kennedy's efforts to tell him that if the movement focused its efforts on voting rights, and it was his thought that he could do that exclusively that he, the attorney general could bring cases, that those cases because of the Supreme Court's attitude and the attitude in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals where there were judges with courage, that he could win those cases and he spent some time explaining that the result of that would be if there was massive voter registration in the south it would change the attitudes and, indeed, the personalities in some of those Southern states, in a rather meaningful way. He was in that meeting, I have described him as I thought back on it as the ultimate pragmatist and you just have to think of Martin L. King as sitting on the other side of the desk and I was taking notes and you just have to think of Dr. King as listening to this and Bob's earnestness and his understanding of what he was proposing was clear: a pragmatic approach to a solution to a problem. Dr. King, an ultimate idealist, said that he understood and that he knew there was not a federal police force to give protection to the movement and he appreciated the Attorney General's concern. He understood the position of Hoover but he said I have to tell you that for me (and I'm paraphrasing now but it's very close to quoting what he said) for me I really must confront the evil and the corruption of racism and segregation where it is and it involves much of the life in the South beyond politics and he said I must confront it in a way that dramatizes it. These two men were very well informed and each read the other very well. When King said "I have to dramatize it." he was saying he has to do it in a way that will give the nation a sense of the evil of the corruption. Which was to say there's going to be media coverage of what I do, where I do it. He said we have a voter education project that will be part of what we do but my commitment is to take the movement in a nonviolent loving way to places where we know there will be violence and no love in response. So they parted that day friends, with mutual respect, it was a warm parting and friendly. As I've looked back on it and remembered it, I really think that Bob said to himself, "Well, there goes the South." As the weeks went by we talked about that and we talked about what the meeting meant. It meant the civil rights division was going to have to gear up to take as many cases as quickly as they could. He (RFK) understood clearly that they would pursue the cases they knew they could win and his pressure on Hoover accelerated pretty early on. Bob sought to require Hoover to move agents to the civil rights division. That was the first confrontation really between the director of the FBI and the attorney general.

New York Teacher: How would you describe Robert Kennedy to students today?

Seigenthaler: He was, I think, someone who had his hand on a rudder and his interest in life was committed to serving the government. He had no interest in a career that did not put him in a role in which he thought he could make a difference. I think politics was in his genes but he saw politics as an honorable profession, a positive way to address problems in society. Later he addressed the war in Vietnam. He had been the architect of that with the President in sending in 30,000 advisors during the Kennedy Administration now in 1968 he sees the war had not just divided the country but had a terribly negative effect on the work of the government. In that last campaign he saw it was necessary to act and speak and try to change the character and the policy of the government. In that same way he addressed the civil rights movement with his hand on the rudder and a determination to use the government in ways that corrected the evil. As Ted Kennedy said in his eulogy, he saw wrong and tried to right it, he saw war and tried to stop it.

Throughout all the years I knew him most of the conversations we had, aside from personal matters, had to do with problems that existed in society and what could be done to correct them. I found someone I admired and respected because he knew injustice existed and he literally wanted his life to make a difference in that. I know that sounds idealistic but it is the way he was. It was as much a commitment to government that was deeply ingrained in his being as was his love of his family. I mean he loved his country and wanted to be part of it. That was his life. That is what he wanted his life to be about.

New York Teacher: How was RFK affected by his brother's death?

Seigenthaler: After his brother's death he underwent a profound period in which he was wounded so badly, that was a time I think that he was almost immobilized for a period of weeks and months. Then the opportunity to run for public office in New York state really gave him new hope and another opportunity to relate back to that core sense of using the government as a means to help people. So it was almost a rebirth, that campaign in New York.

• Seigenthaler descibes how RFK was affected by his brother's death
  

New York Teacher: How do you think Bobby Kennedy would have viewed the current immigration issues?

Seigenthaler: I think knowing what we know about him, his first concern would have been those who are most adversely affected by it. While that may involve many different sorts of people, first of all he would be thinking of the immigrants themselves and their children. Certainly he would understand the burden that press millions of people who are undocumented he would understand the burden that places on the government and I think he would understand the negative reactions in some states. In some places, I'll tell you it strikes me and I think it'd strike him as not a different reaction that was felt in many Southern states about the presence of African-Americans. If you look at the way he spoke throughout his life, in particular in the 1968 campaign, if you look at how he responded he would talk candidly about the need to decide to take care of the people who were here and he would of said in a very candid way and it would have offended some people as his directness and candor quite often did. The logic of what he would have said about the need for compassion and caring and concern it would have been strong and straight and I think in the final analysis his own solution would have been directed toward meaningful action to protect both society and the victims of a system that has put the country in a divided and at times confrontational position over this issue. I think he would have said everybody has to come to an understanding, the first concern has to be for the victims and to the extent that the society is a victim, you can't ignore that. You have to deal with it but there has to be understanding on the part of the people of the country. I think that he would have understood that part of the problem had to be dealt with in countries beyond ours. I think of his understanding as early as 1960 that Hispanics were in some cases a discriminated against group. He reached out to people on the reservations, so what I'm really saying I think his first concern would have been to look at how this country's allowed itself to be caught in this trap by ignoring it and turning its back on it. It would have been a response that was direct and I think a compassionate solution with more than rhetoric you often hear.

New York Teacher: Do you see any parallels or connections that teachers could make between 1968 and now?

Seigenthaler: He understood that through the media there was an opportunity to help change minds. I remember a number of times he would meet with reporters whose work had reflected negative point of views about what he was about. I think he would have understood as Dr. King understood that the media had a role to play. The unwillingness for the media to address the intersection between race and poverty in this country I believe if he'd been alive during these last 40 years we would've not been allowed to forget that intersection and it would not have taken a hurricane blowing a roof off a building in New Orleans to expose to the media the brutality of that intersection. I think you would have heard from him in meaningful ways through the media and at times he would've chastised the unwillingness of the media to confront its responsibility to point to those problems. Having said that about the intersection of poverty and race, I would say exactly the same thing about the problems of immigration. You turn your back on an issue until 12 million people have come across the border and then you look back and where was the media while all this was happening. If the answer was to build a wall… one of the poems he loved to quote was Frost's poem that said before I build a wall I'd want to know what I was walling in and walling out something there is that doesn't love a wall, and wants it down. He said it with regard to Berlin but I think his response to this would have been "yes, you have to seal the border" but you know there are two sides to the border and there are other ways to deal with this besides trying to build a wall that somebody's going to knock down or climb over or dig under. That's another way of saying that I think his approach would be compassionate first and punitive second and maybe never.

New York Teacher: Many people today are comparing Barack Obama to Robert Kennedy, with his ability to attract young people, his personality, his speech-making. Do you agree?

Seigenthaler: I think the parallels between Robert Kennedy and Barack are there. I think rhetorically there is a sort of understated eloquence on part of both of them. There are echoes and I feel them, I think many people do and again and again I've heard people say, "Not since Robert Kennedy have I felt so inspired."

New York Teacher: Do you feel that Obama has the same sense of what political office is about?

Seigenthaler: Yes, I do. There is a sense of dedication and commitment that rings through. Robert Kennedy was a politician as Barack Obama is. He understood the exigencies of political life, but I think if there is a difference at all it's in Robert Kennedy's effort to most often understand that he can change minds. In 1968 he was in a campaign that until Lyndon Johnson withdrew he did not expect to win. He was in that campaign to change minds and to give alternative arguments and to challenge the administration. He said the war's an important issue, but there is a deeper issue that confronts the country and it has to do with the underclass. Times have changed and politics have changed but yes, I do see startling similarities between the approach of Barack Obama to politics and his expression of it and Robert Kennedy.

New York Teacher: If you could play one clip or show an inspirational quote to a class of students that would capture the spirit of RFK, what would it be?

Seigenthaler: It would be the comments on the night of Dr. King's death in Indianapolis, which conclude with "the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world." There is no question in my mind that that is the message that young people need to hear. That speech was unprepared. They say it was off the cuff, but it was from the heart. It reflects, I think, much of what I've been saying about his approach to politics in the country. He knew violence was brewing in response to the outrage of Martin Luther King's death. There are many speeches that were powerful and passionate and moving but none with more power and none with more meaning that what he said that night.

New York Teacher: How can teachers inspire a new generation of students to carry on Robert Kennedy's vision?

Seigenthaler: I would say that his attitude about giving back to a country that needs you. Everybody can't be Robert Kennedy and everybody doesn't have the luxury of the education he had. His family was privileged and he had a privileged rearing and everybody doesn't have the room to move as he moved. Everybody can't be in politics. I think he truly believed that it was not a cliché to say that everyone can make a difference and everyone should try. Making a difference is a different answer for students in different situations. Everybody's calling is not politics or government, but in a unique way, if society itself means anything, it means reaching out across differences to embrace matters that serve the common good. Again that sounds awfully clichéd but it was reality for him. That's what his life was about. Too often we let hostility and differences drive us apart and his effort to reach out across those differences made a difference then and can still make a difference for all of us today.