the most important thing in his life was having his dad realize that he had value. He was somebody who didn't seem to stand out, and yet. He was what his dad at one point called - I think, jokingly, and not exactly kindly - 'the runt of the litter.' He was smaller than his brothers. Kennedy was assassinated on June 5, 1968, the night of the California Democratic primary.

'I think it was a really deep change, a real change.' 'Today we would dismiss maybe as a flip-flop, because we're cynical,' Tye says. It was only later that Kennedy shifted from 'a Cold Warrior to America's most hot-blooded liberal,' Tye says. and supported American intervention in Vietnam. Joe McCarthy, authorized the wiretapping of Martin Luther King Jr. Early in Kennedy's career, Tye notes, he was a hard-edged anti-communist who worked for Red-baiting Sen. Tye chronicles Kennedy's political turnaround in his new book, Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon. 'He grew by actually seeing things up close he took things to heart in ways that few politicians do.' 'Throughout his life, paid attention to what went right and wrong,' Tye tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies. But biographer Larry Tye says the New York senator was actually a political operative whose views changed over time.

Kennedy is often remembered as a liberal icon who worked to heal racial strife, decrease poverty and end the war in Vietnam. Kennedy is remembered as a liberal icon, but biographer Larry Tye says his views changed over the course of his career.

Bobby kennedy by larry tye