'I knew we were going to take a lot of flack,' says Frank Mankiewicz, Kennedy's press secretary. Democratic Party heavyweights were livid at Kennedy for dividing the party. McCarthy supporters blasted Kennedy as a ruthless opportunist who waited until their man made it safe to challenge Johnson before jumping into the race. That included trying to unseat his own party's president. Kennedy declared that America was on a 'perilous course' - especially regarding the Vietnam War - and that he felt 'obliged' to do all that he could to change that course. It was four days after Senator Eugene McCarthy's surprisingly successful challenge of incumbent President Lyndon Johnson in the New Hampshire primary. Kennedy jumped into the race for the Democratic nomination on March 16, 1968.

But Kennedy's focus soon turned to domestic issues he'd long been concerned about: Poverty and racial inequality. Kennedy entered the contest primarily to challenge Lyndon Johnson's handling of the Vietnam War.

In that brief time, his campaign reflected the passion and the peril of the 1968 race. Kennedy was a presidential candidate for just 82 days. The images are published in his new book, Schapiro's Heroes. In 1967 and 68, Schapiro photographed Kennedy at his home in suburban Washington DC and on the presidential campaign trail. Kennedy in 1964, when Kennedy ran for the U.S. Contributing Photographer Steve Schapiro first covered Robert F.

The Last Campaign by Thurston Clarke