Despite all the hype and euphoria at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago at which Kamala Harris officially became the Democrats’ nominee for the U.S. presidential election in November, the majority of American political analysts are predicting a very close race.

That is why the announcement, the day after Kamala’s nomination, by Robert Kennedy, Jr. that he was withdrawing from the race for the presidency and at the same time endorsing the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, was a major event.

Prominent members of the Kennedy family almost immediately denounced Kennedy, Jr.’s decision to endorse Trump, and themselves publicly declared their support for the Kamala Harris/Tim Walz ticket.

But Kennedy, Jr’s move to endorse Trump may carry more weight than his relatives’ Kamala endorsement, because he had been campaigning as a third-party candidate for a long time. American third-party candidates will never get out of the single digit category, but in a close election the Kennedy, Jr. vote, say 3 to 5 per cent, could put Trump over the top. 

The presidency of the United States is not decided by a simple majority of individual votes from the 50 states which comprise the so-called Union. There is a creature called the “electoral college,” where the president-to-be has to receive 270 votes from the body of 50 states, each state having a certain amount of such votes.

America is a divided country in that the Southern (Confederate) states will vote for a conservative candidate, in this case Trump, whereas the liberal Northeastern states (and California) will vote for a liberal ticket.

I am not an expert on all this, but I know that there are three states which the experts consider “key” states for a candidate to win if he or she is to accumulate the vital 270 votes. These are Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, states where the voting is always close. (I think Ohio is also considered a very, very important state.) These states are where Kennedy Jr.’s voters could affect the race in November.

The Kennedy family is highly prominent in American politics. The family is Irish Catholic in background, and the patriarch was the late Joseph Kennedy, Sr. Joe Kennedy, Sr., is believed to have consorted with the bootlegging underworld during the Prohibition era, but he was the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain when World War II broke out in 1939. He and his wife had ten children, I believe. Joe, Sr. had wanted for his eldest son, Joe Kennedy, Jr., to become the President of the United States. But Joe, Jr. was killed in World War II combat.

Three other Kennedy sons became powerful senators in America; these were John Fitzgerald, Bobby Kennedy, Sr., and Edward Kennedy. John Fitzgerald became the first Catholic president of the U.S. when he narrowly defeated the Republican candidate, Richard Nixon, in the 1960 presidential race.

Two of Joe Kennedy, Sr.’s sons were assassinated. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas, Texas, in November of 1963, while Bobby, Sr., who was running for the Democratic presidential nomination at the time, was shot dead in California in June of 1968. 

The Kennedy family is absolutely iconic in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, so that Bobby Kennedy, Jr.’s decision to endorse the right-wing Republican Trump is extremely unusual, and to repeat, potentially decisive in a close November race. 

In both the presidencies of Republican Donald Trump (2016-2020) and that of Democrat Joe Biden (2020-2024), documents relating to the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 were supposed to have been declassified for public consumption, but they were not. The facts surrounding that assassination are too controversial, to my mind, and would undermine America’s posture as a full-fledged democracy.

In the headline article of this newspaper in the issue published on Tuesday, November 5, 2017, there is mention of a reference to Belize’s Hon. Philip Goldson that was made in a document “released under the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992.” An FBI paper dated January 5, 1968 (three or four months before Bethuel Webster’s Seventeen Proposals) claimed that a then confidential source, one William George Gaudet, stated that he was in Belize during the Christmas holidays of 1967 and that “he heard several comments from acquaintances that Philip Goldson … was giving every indication of working with the Cuban Government. Goldson, it was rumored, was conducting a siege of agitation to create continued friction between Belize and Guatemala.”

I include this excerpt from the FBI paper on Goldson, which is more extended, because what it means is that Mr. Philip was a greater nationalist and Belizean hero than we have recognized. 

In exposing the Webster Proposals in 1966, Mr. Goldson incurred the ire of the most powerful nation on earth — the United States. He had been sworn to secrecy, so he risked jail in Belize. (He had been incarcerated by the British in the colonial days of 1951, along with Leigh Richardson.)

The Guatemalan president between 1958 and 1963, Manuel Ydigoras Fuentes, after his presidency claimed that the Kennedys, President John and then Attorney General Bobby, Sr., had promised to support Guatemala’s claim to Belize in return for Guatemala’s providing a training base for Cuban exiles preparing to invade Fidel Castro’s Cuba in 1961. It was during Fuentes’ presidency that Mr. Goldson was most militant in anti-Guatemalan rhetoric in his newspaper, The Belize Billboard. (Mr. Goldson did not take over the leadership of the Opposition NIP until late 1961, although he was a member of their national executive.)

In Belize during his presidency, John Kennedy had been popular, because he offered refuge to Belizeans with relatives in the U.S. after Hurricane Hattie in October of 1961, and because Belizeans thought he was supportive of the black civil rights movement in America being led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the time. It should also be noted that the population of Belize was majority Catholic.

But, politics is a monster. Kennedy needed the Guatemalan training base, hence Belize may have become a pawn in his discussions with Fuentes.

So, the question in 2024 is what is it that Bobby Kennedy, Jr. is being offered to support Trump and the Republicans. If Kennedy’s support puts Trump over the top, Belizeans have to worry about “mass deportations” promised by the Republicans.

The Kennedy name is magical in Democratic circles. That name has been betrayed by Kennedy, Jr. Belizeans were never, ever betrayed by Philip Goldson. We must be grateful always for his courage, honesty, and patriotism.