conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide a description for a book titled Robert F. Kennedy about York, Steven, Public with the genre: New, Used & Rental Textbooks, Humanities.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Steven the author teaches reading and writing at Public School 85 in the Bronx, New York. He has published several "how-to" teacher articles for various journals as well as publishing teacher resource guides and student workbooks. He currently lives in New City, New York with his wife, Sherry, his daughter Erica, and his son Jeremy.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the first four paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Robert F. Kennedy
  In addition to the full confessions that Michael allegedly made to Geranne Ridge, Higgins, and Coleman, prosecutors produced a category of characters to whom Michael allegedly made limited inculpatory statements that didn't rise to the level of confession. One of these was the Skakels' occasional handyman and driver Larry Zicarelli.
  Long before Michael's indictment, I was already familiar with the tale told by the pistol-packing mechanic with the Italian-horn necklace. Zicarelli worked for the Skakels for a short period in the late 1970s. Stephen recalls Zicarelli as a cocky, cologne-soaked hood with rolled up T-shirt sleeves and an ill-tempered German shepherd. "He reminded me of a skinny Joe Pesci—but shorter and angrier," says Stephen. Zicarelli's wife worked in the pizza parlor on Greenwich Avenue. Stephen says Zicarelli drove and ran errands for the family. "Mostly he polished his white Corvette in the driveway and tinkered with the engine—especially when Dad was away." Zicarelli also had a dark pickup truck. He kept baseball bats in both vehicles. On Zicarelli's first day of work, he spotted a parked vintage Corvette while driving Michael to school. He asked Michael to help him steal the hubcaps. Michael declined.
  Many years ago Michael told me a story with his customary honesty and humor. At age 16 he had fallen asleep in his room, clutching a dress belonging to his late mother. Michael, who had prayed for their mother's death as a way of ending her suffering, felt he had helped his mother die. He had fallen asleep clutching her dress to remember her, feel close to her, and beg for her forgiveness. A maid discovered him and reported him to Rucky. His father, who considered Anne's artifacts sacred, went wild, beating Michael ferociously. Michael called Zicarelli and asked for a ride to his psychiatrist's office in New York City. He did not have an appointment, but he was wracked with guilt, self-loathing, and anxiety, and needed to talk. The psychiatrist was unable to see him. Zicarelli testified that during the ride to the city, Michael said "he had done something very bad and he had to either kill himself or get out of the country." On the way back to Belle Haven, Zicarelli testified, Michael tried to jump off the Triborough Bridge. Shortly after that incident, Rucky fired Zicarelli. Among other sins, Zicarelli pulled a gun on the Ixes' shepherd, Zock, when he caught the dog relieving itself on his newly washed Corvette's tire.
  The prosecution offered Zicarelli's story as a confession to the Moxley murder. In fact, despite widespread press reports to the contrary, Michael never said he was the murderer—to the driver or to anyone else. After Zicarelli went to work for the Skakels, Lunney was regularly in touch with the handyman, encouraging him to report anything suspicious about the family. Zicarelli professed to be eager to help, yet he never recounted his Triborough Bridge tale to Lunney or any other police officer. The handyman never intended to come forward with the story. But in 1993, he offhandedly reported the story to his bank manager, Edwin Jones, who repeated the yarn to Garr, who pressured Zicarelli to appear against Michael at trial.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the first sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Kennedy
  In addition to the full confessions that Michael allegedly made to Geranne Ridge, Higgins, and Coleman, prosecutors produced a category of characters to whom Michael allegedly made limited inculpatory statements that didn't rise to the level of confession. One of these was the Skakels' occasional handyman and driver Larry Zicarelli.
  Long before Michael's indictment, I was already familiar with the tale told by the pistol-packing mechanic with the Italian-horn necklace. Zicarelli worked for the Skakels for a short period in the late 1970s. Stephen recalls Zicarelli as a cocky, cologne-soaked hood with rolled up T-shirt sleeves and an ill-tempered German shepherd. "He reminded me of a skinny Joe Pesci—but shorter and angrier," says Stephen. Zicarelli's wife worked in the pizza parlor on Greenwich Avenue. Stephen says Zicarelli drove and ran errands for the family. "Mostly he polished his white Corvette in the driveway and tinkered with the engine—especially when Dad was away." Zicarelli also had a dark pickup truck. He kept baseball bats in both vehicles. On Zicarelli's first day of work, he spotted a parked vintage Corvette while driving Michael to school. He asked Michael to help him steal the hubcaps. Michael declined.
  Many years ago Michael told me a story with his customary honesty and humor. At age 16 he had fallen asleep in his room, clutching a dress belonging to his late mother. Michael, who had prayed for their mother's death as a way of ending her suffering, felt he had helped his mother die. He had fallen asleep clutching her dress to remember her, feel close to her, and beg for her forgiveness. A maid discovered him and reported him to Rucky. His father, who considered Anne's artifacts sacred, went wild, beating Michael ferociously. Michael called Zicarelli and asked for a ride to his psychiatrist's office in New York City. He did not have an appointment, but he was wracked with guilt, self-loathing, and anxiety, and needed to talk. The psychiatrist was unable to see him. Zicarelli testified that during the ride to the city, Michael said "he had done something very bad and he had to either kill himself or get out of the country." On the way back to Belle Haven, Zicarelli testified, Michael tried to jump off the Triborough Bridge. Shortly after that incident, Rucky fired Zicarelli. Among other sins, Zicarelli pulled a gun on the Ixes' shepherd, Zock, when he caught the dog relieving itself on his newly washed Corvette's tire.
  The prosecution offered Zicarelli's story as a confession to the Moxley murder. In fact, despite widespread press reports to the contrary, Michael never said he was the murderer—to the driver or to anyone else. After Zicarelli went to work for the Skakels, Lunney was regularly in touch with the handyman, encouraging him to report anything suspicious about the family. Zicarelli professed to be eager to help, yet he never recounted his Triborough Bridge tale to Lunney or any other police officer. The handyman never intended to come forward with the story. But in 1993, he offhandedly reported the story to his bank manager, Edwin Jones, who repeated the yarn to Garr, who pressured Zicarelli to appear against Michael at trial.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide another paragraph.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: He described Charles Evans Hughes as a "tough school." Unlike Brunswick, it was not an academic stronghold. "This was a city school in New York. We are not talking about Greenwich.... There's no Boy Scouts at this school." Adolph, Tony said "developed a reputation not to be someone to mess with." Tony told Colucci, "Oh, you could tell. You could say a lot of kids were afraid of him, because he was big and he was explosive." And while Burr did not share Adolph's volatile temperament, he often served as the "gasoline" that fueled Adolph's "engine." Burr goaded Adolph to do things such as throwing bricks at moving cars, burglarizing buildings, and similar acts of vandal. "It was always the dare between them. They were always trying to outdo each other. And they would just push each other." Tony described Adolph as dangerously reckless, "Anything you dared Adolph to do, he would do." Then added, "There was something wrong with him. All you had to do was look at him to know it." Tony recalled that when the Charles Evans Hughes athletic coach began developing a wrestling team, Adolph was the guy he "really had pegged as being aggressive enough, having the demeanor, and having the killer instinct to be a good wrestler." Although Tony was unusually big and tall for his age and a champion athlete, Adolph, he said, "could pin me with no problem."
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: He described Charles Evans Hughes as a "tough school." Unlike Brunswick, it was not an academic stronghold. "This was a city school in New York. We are not talking about Greenwich.... There's no Boy Scouts at this school." Adolph, Tony said "developed a reputation not to be someone to mess with." Tony told Colucci, "Oh, you could tell. You could say a lot of kids were afraid of him, because he was big and he was explosive." And while Burr did not share Adolph's volatile temperament, he often served as the "gasoline" that fueled Adolph's "engine." Burr goaded Adolph to do things such as throwing bricks at moving cars, burglarizing buildings, and similar acts of vandal. "It was always the dare between them. They were always trying to outdo each other. And they would just push each other." Tony described Adolph as dangerously reckless, "Anything you dared Adolph to do, he would do." Then added, "There was something wrong with him. All you had to do was look at him to know it." Tony recalled that when the Charles Evans Hughes athletic coach began developing a wrestling team, Adolph was the guy he "really had pegged as being aggressive enough, having the demeanor, and having the killer instinct to be a good wrestler." Although Tony was unusually big and tall for his age and a champion athlete, Adolph, he said, "could pin me with no problem.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Michael scrawled a note back to me, "I'm familiar with the sorrow. Having someone to shoulder the burden with me has cut its weight in half. Thanks for your friendship—and for all the laughs."
  As I write this, six Connecticut Supreme Court justices are deciding whether to uphold or strike down Judge Bishop's decision. If they strike it down, Michael will go directly back to jail to complete his 20-years-to-life sentence. If, in the best scenario, the justices uphold Judge Bishop's decision, State prosecutors will decide whether to retry Michael Skakel for Martha Moxley's murder. John Smriga, the Fairfield County State's Attorney who succeeded Benedict in 2009, will choose how to proceed.
  With his new lawyers and the exculpatory evidence now in hand, and the evidence of Adolph Hasbrouck's and Burton Tinsley's likely culpability already judged admissible, prosecutors would have almost no chance of convicting Michael in a new jury trial.
  They also have enough evidence to prosecute Frank Garr and Jonathan Benedict for suborning perjury and illegally concealing evidence. Benedict committed overt acts of prosecutorial misconduct of the kind that got North Carolina prosecutor Mike Nifong removed from office, disbarred, and imprisoned in the Duke Lacrosse case.
  Garr suborned perjury, a felony. In addition, he has admitted to obeying Benedict's illegal orders to actively conceal police reports and witnesses that would have demonstrated Michael's innocence. Together the pair illegally conjured a conviction out of smoke and mirrors. Because of their crimes, my cousin lost over a decade of his life—and his son's entire childhood. It's time for Garr and Benedict to pay for their crimes and for Martha Moxley's murderers to finally face justice. We shall see how committed the Constitution State is to the rule of law.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Add another sentence about Benedict, Garr, Connecticut, retired, bring.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Michael scrawled a note back to me, "I'm familiar with the sorrow. Having someone to shoulder the burden with me has cut its weight in half. Thanks for your friendship—and for all the laughs. "
  As I write this, six Connecticut Supreme Court justices are deciding whether to uphold or strike down Judge Bishop's decision. If they strike it down, Michael will go directly back to jail to complete his 20-years-to-life sentence. If, in the best scenario, the justices uphold Judge Bishop's decision, State prosecutors will decide whether to retry Michael Skakel for Martha Moxley's murder. John Smriga, the Fairfield County State's Attorney who succeeded Benedict in 2009, will choose how to proceed. 
  With his new lawyers and the exculpatory evidence now in hand, and the evidence of Adolph Hasbrouck's and Burton Tinsley's likely culpability already judged admissible, prosecutors would have almost no chance of convicting Michael in a new jury trial. With Benedict retired and Garr disgraced, perhaps the Connecticut State's Attorney will decide to prosecute the likely perpetrators of the Moxley murder and finally bring Martha's killers to justice. 
  They also have enough evidence to prosecute Frank Garr and Jonathan Benedict for suborning perjury and illegally concealing evidence. Benedict committed overt acts of prosecutorial misconduct of the kind that got North Carolina prosecutor Mike Nifong removed from office, disbarred, and imprisoned in the Duke Lacrosse case. 
  Garr suborned perjury, a felony. In addition, he has admitted to obeying Benedict's illegal orders to actively conceal police reports and witnesses that would have demonstrated Michael's innocence. Together the pair illegally conjured a conviction out of smoke and mirrors. Because of their crimes, my cousin lost over a decade of his life—and his son's entire childhood. It's time for Garr and Benedict to pay for their crimes and for Martha Moxley's murderers to finally face justice. We shall see how committed the Constitution State is to the rule of law.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the first five paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Robert F. Kennedy
  Khrushchev, whose gambler's throw precipitated the crisis, proved an equal partner in resolving it. As the American military objected to the rejection of an invasion, the Soviet military objected to the withdrawal of the missiles. When Khrushchev asked whether his brass hats would guarantee that keeping the missiles in Cuba would not bring about nuclear war, they looked at him, he later told Norman Cousins of the Saturday Review, an informal emissary between Kennedy and Khrushchev, "as though I were out of my mind or, what was worse, a traitor. So I said to myself, 'To hell with these maniacs.'"6
  Recent scholarship confirms the portrait of John F. Kennedy sketched by his brother in Thirteen Days: a remarkably cool, thoughtful, nonhysterical, self-possessed leader, aware of the weight of decision, incisive in his questions, firm in his judgment, always in charge, steering his advisers perseveringly in the direction he wanted to go. "We are only now coming to understand the role he played in it," writes John Lewis Gaddis, the premier historian of the Cold War. Far from opposing a compromise, he pushed for one more strongly than anyone else in his administration. Far from relying on the Ex Comm he bypassed it at the most critical moments, and may have seen it as more useful for consensus-building than for decision-making. Far from placing the nation and the world at risk to protect his own reputation for toughness, he probably would have backed down, in public if necessary, whatever the domestic political damage might have been. There may be, in short, room here for a new profile in courage—but it would be courage of a different kind from what many people presumed that term to mean throughout much of the Cold War.7
  Had the Soviet missiles remained in Cuba, the 1960s would have been a most dangerous decade. Instead, so long as Kennedy lived and Khrushchev stayed in power, there was steady movement toward the relaxation of tension—the American University speech, the Limited Test Ban Treaty, the establishment of the "hotline" between the White House and the Kremlin.
  Having stared down the nuclear abyss together, the two leaders were determined that the world would never again suffer such a crisis. As for the alleged Kennedy obsession with Fidel Castro, a year after the missile crisis Kennedy was exploring the possibility of normalizing relations with Castro's Cuba.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Add another sentence about Far, neglecting.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Robert F. Kennedy
  Khrushchev, whose gambler's throw precipitated the crisis, proved an equal partner in resolving it. As the American military objected to the rejection of an invasion, the Soviet military objected to the withdrawal of the missiles. When Khrushchev asked whether his brass hats would guarantee that keeping the missiles in Cuba would not bring about nuclear war, they looked at him, he later told Norman Cousins of the Saturday Review, an informal emissary between Kennedy and Khrushchev, "as though I were out of my mind or, what was worse, a traitor. So I said to myself, 'To hell with these maniacs. '"6
  Recent scholarship confirms the portrait of John F. Kennedy sketched by his brother in Thirteen Days: a remarkably cool, thoughtful, nonhysterical, self-possessed leader, aware of the weight of decision, incisive in his questions, firm in his judgment, always in charge, steering his advisers perseveringly in the direction he wanted to go. "We are only now coming to understand the role he played in it," writes John Lewis Gaddis, the premier historian of the Cold War. 
  Far from neglecting the dangers of nuclear war, he had a keen sense of what they were. Far from opposing a compromise, he pushed for one more strongly than anyone else in his administration. Far from relying on the Ex Comm he bypassed it at the most critical moments, and may have seen it as more useful for consensus-building than for decision-making. Far from placing the nation and the world at risk to protect his own reputation for toughness, he probably would have backed down, in public if necessary, whatever the domestic political damage might have been. There may be, in short, room here for a new profile in courage—but it would be courage of a different kind from what many people presumed that term to mean throughout much of the Cold War. 7
  Had the Soviet missiles remained in Cuba, the 1960s would have been a most dangerous decade. Instead, so long as Kennedy lived and Khrushchev stayed in power, there was steady movement toward the relaxation of tension—the American University speech, the Limited Test Ban Treaty, the establishment of the "hotline" between the White House and the Kremlin. 
  Having stared down the nuclear abyss together, the two leaders were determined that the world would never again suffer such a crisis. As for the alleged Kennedy obsession with Fidel Castro, a year after the missile crisis Kennedy was exploring the possibility of normalizing relations with Castro's Cuba.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide four more paragraphs.. Start with the sentence 'Sekou Touré of Guinea had been the subject of great criticism in the United States because of his friendship with the Communist nations; but he also admired President Kennedy'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Sekou Touré of Guinea had been the subject of great criticism in the United States because of his friendship with the Communist nations; but he also admired President Kennedy. When our Ambassador visited him, he immediately accepted as true President Kennedy's description of what was happening in Cuba; said Guinea was not going to assist any country in constructing a military base on foreign soil; and announced that Russian planes would not be permitted to refuel in Conakry.
  In Dakar, Ambassador Philip M. Kaiser had a close personal relationship with President Leopold Senghor, who a short time before had had a very successful visit to Washington. He, too, quickly perceived the danger and agreed not to permit Russian planes to land or refuel in Dakar.
  In short, our friends, our allies, and, as Thomas Jefferson said, a respect for the opinions of mankind, are all vitally important. We cannot be an island even if we wished; nor can we successfully separate ourselves from the rest of the world.
  Exasperation over our struggle in Vietnam should not close our eyes to the fact that we could have other missile crises in the future—different kinds, no doubt, and under different circumstances. But if we are to be successful then, if we are going to preserve our own national security, we will need friends, we will need supporters, we will need countries that believe and respect us and will follow our leadership.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the last two paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Students interested in the Korean analogue may wish to read Glenn D. Paige's The Korean Decision (New York: Free Press, 1968).
  See also Congress, war making as prime example of incompatibility between presidency and; Nuclear war; specific wars