Fifty-seven years ago today, on June 5, 1968 (May 10, 1968), the first presidential candidate in American history was assassinated while campaigning. Robert Kennedy was shot twice and died on the spot. "An assassination never changes the course of history," Robert Kennedy said after his brother's death in Dallas, but that was not true. His brother's death, and his own, changed the course of history. He defeated Eugene McCarthy in the Indiana caucuses, 42 percent to 27 percent; in Nebraska, 51 percent to 31 percent. On the day of his death, Tuesday, June 4, 1968, he defeated Humphrey in his home state of South Dakota and McCarthy in the largest California caucuses. On that day, Kennedy spent the morning on the beach near Los Angeles with six of his 10 children and his wife, Ethel, who was pregnant with their 11th child. Then he listened to the election news in Suite 512 of the Ambassador Hotel in the city. In the middle of the night, he took the elevator down to his own headquarters in the hotel's embassy hall and talked for a while with the jubilant volunteers who came to help. At the end, he said, "I thank you all. The next step is to go to Chicago. Let's win there." Friends and his closest entourage picked up his tune and said: "The next step is to go to the'factory '." It was a lively nightclub, and they planned to go with him to celebrate the victory. But he had to go to the press room first to say a few words. There was so much crowding from the podium to the gate of the embassy hall that one of the party attendees suggested they go out the back passage. Bill Barry, Kennedy's bodyguard and a former F.B.I. agent, objected, disapproving of the idea. But the senator said: "It doesn't matter." So they stepped into a stuffy, smelly corridor. Kennedy paused to shake hands with a 17-year-old waiter, Jesse Perez, and answered a question about Humphrey: "It goes back to that fight, because..." He could no longer finish his sentence. A reporter in Pasadena saw an arm and a pistol poking out of a crowd of onlookers. The assassin shot Kennedy with his right elbow on the counter, only four feet away. He fired all eight bullets from a slumped-nose Iver-Johnson revolver before Kennedy's friend, Olympic champion Leif Johnson, knocked the gun out of his hand. Ethel knelt beside him. Bob asked for a drink of water. He then asked, "Is everyone safe?" The waiter gave him a cross, Bob pinched the rosary with his finger, and Ethel prayed. At this moment, Roosevelt Greer, a 300-pound forward for the Los Angeles Rams, hugged the skinny, dark-haired assassin. "Why are you doing this?" someone yelled at him. The assassin screamed: "I have a reason, let me explain why!" Jesse Unruh, the leader of the California Democratic Party, asked him loudly: "Why kill him? Why kill him!" The assassin replied: "I did it for my country." This sounded ridiculous, but then slowly figured out the truth. Judging by his insane thoughts, he did believe he was patriotic. Senator Robert Kennedy celebrates his victory in the California primary for the Democratic presidential nomination