More to This Photo

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We had a notable death last week that you may
not have noticed. You didn't know him, but you recognized him.
Had his picture taken with a famous person. Turn around
and look back. Study an image back in the news
today from nearly sixty years ago. A photograph of two men,
one a symbol of what America is, the other of

(00:20):
what it could be. This picture was both inspirational and dreadful.
One of the two is Juan Romero at seventeen years old,
a poor immigrant from Mexico, his first seventeen years held
mostly deprivation, fled the barrios of Mazitlan, Mexico with his family,
seeking a better life in southern California. He came of

(00:41):
age in the most tumultuous decade in US history, the
nineteen sixties. Assassinations, wars, violent riots, destruction, jack booted crackdowns
on peaceabul protesters, all before our very eyes. As television
grew up too, Like so many, the Romeros found the
American dream elusive to many. Hoi polloi. There were two Americas,

(01:04):
one for the privileged and one for the rest. Fearing
young Wan might fall into the clutches of East LA's
street gangs, insuring one of two outcomes, death or incarceration.
His father found him a job as a busboy at
the Tony Ambassador Hotel for measley wages. After the school
day and on weekends, Wan would clear the dinner plates

(01:26):
of Hollywood's A listers, movie stars, rich and beautiful, mostly white.
At home, in his parents' voices, he heard despair, worry.
But that year he also overheard them speak of a
man who offered hope, A candidate for president who didn't
look or sound like the Romeros. He was rich and white,
lived in a big house with his loving wife and

(01:48):
seven children. But he'd known Paine. His beloved older brother
was murdered in broad daylight, another lost at war. One
sister died in a plane crash, another of victim of
a botched a lobotomy that left her a mental invalid.
And yet on the campaign trail that year, he only
spoke of forgiveness, love, tolerance, compassion, of how literacy and

(02:11):
poverty were immoral. He was uncommonly decent, and if he
were president, he would dream things that never were and
asked why not. He came to Wan's work to celebrate
a win in the California primary election, a hard fought
political battlefield from which the winner would assuredly be the
next president. The night before, in his hotel suite, Juan

(02:33):
delivered dinner. Used to being ignored, he rolled in the
card and turned to leave when the man stopped him,
smiled in appreciation, threw out his hand, gripped Wan's hard,
shook it like a best friend's. Wan's hand would be
famous little more than twenty four hours later. Well by
now you must know the man was Senator Robert Kennedy.

(02:54):
The date June fiveth, nineteen sixty eight, just after midnight.
For from the hotel ballroom, Kennedy and his legions gave
him a rousing victory send off. As Kennedy retreated through
the kitchen pantry, Juan pushed his way through the crowd
to congratulate him, hoping he'd remember the bus boy. Lunging

(03:15):
to touch Kennedy's fingers. The candidate paused, shots rang out,
Bullets struck him behind his right ear. As he collapsed
to the floor. The onlookers scattered seeking cover. Just then
it was only Juan Romero who knelt beside the fallen hero,
cradled his bleeding skull with the very hand Kennedy had

(03:35):
squeezed so tightly not a day before his last words
is everybody okay, We're spoken to Juan Romero. The photograph
of the slain scion a kneeling bus boy, splashed across
every newspaper front page in the world. Though that act
of kindness made him famous, he was haunted by it
for most of the next fifty years. Somehow, Wan felt

(03:58):
if Kennedy hadn't stopped to shake his hand a second time,
the assassin's bullets would have missed. Through the years, he
tearfully prayed the dead Kennedy, begging for forgiveness, finally, in
the last five years of his life, giving it to himself.
Now both of them are gone. Romero passed away last week.

(04:18):
Since rfk's death, the Kennedy's personal and professional failures have surfaced.
Theirs remains the great American story without an ending. But
that photo moved us. Reminds us today of a time
when we all have the same hope