At the time of Robert Kennedy's appointment as Attorney General by his brother, President John F. Kennedy, there was strong criticism of the younger Kennedy's lack of experience in court, and according to some sources his brother only appointed him after their father forced him to.

So let's say Bobby doesn't become Attorney General of the United States. Who could fill that position? What would be the consequences? Would this prevent Kennedy's political rise, and possibly his assassination?
 
I think RFK had a major role as an advisor in the President's inner circle and very trusted since he was Jack's brother, perhaps most famously in lore and legend during the Cuban Missile Crisis (don't know how accurate each of several films are)
 
Byron "Whizzer" White might become Attorney General, to be succeeded by Nicholas Katzenbach when White joins the Supreme Court. RFK would remain an important JFK advisor, even without a Cabinet position. He might still run successfully for the Senate from New York in 1964; his name was a more important asset than his Cabinet record.

So what would change? One answer might be that the federal Anti-Nepotism law [1] would never have passed. Yet even that is unclear. It is frequently assumed that it was the product of congressional resentment of JFK having chosen his brother for Attorney General. However, Neal Smith, the Iowa Democrat who sponsored the law, always insisted that it was not in any way aimed at the Kennedys, and indeed his concern seemed to be more with small-town postmasters: "He said the primary offender of hiring relatives was the postmaster in small towns, and suggested that the hiring of relatives created a morale problem with other workers." http://archives.chicagotribune.com/...nti-nepotism-bill-puts-crimp-in-old-u-s-habit See also Congressional Quarterly's *Guide to Congress* which mentions Smith's explanation https://books.google.com/books?id=iqN2AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1160 but also notes that there had been much unfavorable publicity about members
of Congress "padding their official or district offices with relatives who did no work for their government paycheck."

Neal Smith is still alive, by the way... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Edward_Smith

[1] "A public official may not appoint, employ, promote, advance, or advocate for appointment, employment, promotion, or advancement, in or to a civilian position in the agency in which he is serving or over which he exercises jurisdiction or control any individual who is a relative of the public official..." https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/3110
 
The thing with Robert Kennedy as Attorney General is that, like many things, it seemed to be President Kennedy wanting to extend his brain and person into that role. JFK could not be in two places at once, so his brother would therefore fill that role to get as close to that as possible, and to have a confidant in terms of the AG. Arguably, President Kennedy was already acting as his own Secretary of State. He thought Dean Rusk was second rate. With a different Attorney General, it would therefore be a different situation. It would not be President Kennedy attempting to act in the role of Attorney General as well. That would be a much different relationship, with a distinct rather than a Kennedy personality.
 
The rule prohibiting family members of the president from certain government positions is averted or delayed. I wonder who ends up being the first to do it.
 
The rule prohibiting family members of the president from certain government positions is averted or delayed. I wonder who ends up being the first to do it.

As I indicated in my post above, it is doubtful that the Anti-Nepotism law was passed because of resentment of the Kennedys.
 
Here are my strong contenders:
- Byron White, had meet JFK while they were in England, and was the Colorado state chair of John F. Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign, would IOTL serve as 4th United States Deputy Attorney General and then Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He studied University of Colorado, Boulder (BA) Hertford College, Oxford Yale University (LLB).
- Estes Kefauver, vice presidential candidate in 1956, United States Senator from Tennessee since 1949, been in congress since 1939. A southern lawyer gives him credit from the south. Has a Bachelor of Laws degree from Yale Law School, between 1927 and 1939, Kefauver practiced law in Chattanooga, first with the firm of Cooke, Swaney & Cooke, as a partner in Sizer, Chambliss & Kefauver, and later in the firm of Duggan, McDonald, & Kefauve. Kefauver refused to sign the Southern Manifesto, he faced staunch opposition for renomination from his party's still-thriving pro-segregation wing, but he won the primary decisively, 64% vs. 34% for his opponent, Tip Taylor. Hopefully, working in the cabinet, would make him stop smoking and drinking heavily.
- Thurgood Marshall, IOTL Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1967-1991) as the first African-American justice. Marshall was a lawyer who was best known for his high success rate in arguing before the Supreme Court and for the victory in Brown v. Board of Education, a 1954 decision that ruled that segregated public schools were unconstitutional.
- Adlai Stevenson II, Presidential candidate in both 1952 and 1956, former-governor of Illinois. IOTL served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from 1961-1965, recieved a Bachelor of Laws at Northwestern University School of Law, obtained a position at Cutting, Moore & Sidley, an old and conservative Chicago law firm.
- Hubert Humphrey, more of an ally of Johnson, he is an avid speaker on actively protect civil rights for racial minorities
- Arthur Goldberg, would later serve JFK as U.S. Secretary of Labor and Supreme Court Justice.
 
Here are my strong contenders:
- Byron White, had meet JFK while they were in England, and was the Colorado state chair of John F. Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign, would IOTL serve as 4th United States Deputy Attorney General and then Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He studied University of Colorado, Boulder (BA) Hertford College, Oxford Yale University (LLB).
- Estes Kefauver, vice presidential candidate in 1956, United States Senator from Tennessee since 1949, been in congress since 1939. A southern lawyer gives him credit from the south. Has a Bachelor of Laws degree from Yale Law School, between 1927 and 1939, Kefauver practiced law in Chattanooga, first with the firm of Cooke, Swaney & Cooke, as a partner in Sizer, Chambliss & Kefauver, and later in the firm of Duggan, McDonald, & Kefauve. Kefauver refused to sign the Southern Manifesto, he faced staunch opposition for renomination from his party's still-thriving pro-segregation wing, but he won the primary decisively, 64% vs. 34% for his opponent, Tip Taylor. Hopefully, working in the cabinet, would make him stop smoking and drinking heavily.
- Thurgood Marshall, IOTL Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1967-1991) as the first African-American justice. Marshall was a lawyer who was best known for his high success rate in arguing before the Supreme Court and for the victory in Brown v. Board of Education, a 1954 decision that ruled that segregated public schools were unconstitutional.
- Adlai Stevenson II, Presidential candidate in both 1952 and 1956, former-governor of Illinois. IOTL served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from 1961-1965, recieved a Bachelor of Laws at Northwestern University School of Law, obtained a position at Cutting, Moore & Sidley, an old and conservative Chicago law firm.
- Hubert Humphrey, more of an ally of Johnson, he is an avid speaker on actively protect civil rights for racial minorities
- Arthur Goldberg, would later serve JFK as U.S. Secretary of Labor and Supreme Court Justice.

(1) Hubert Humphrey wasn't a lawyer.

(2) Absolutely no way JFK is going to appoint Thurgood Marshall Attorney General in 1961. At that time he was still trying to appease the South on civil rights in return for hoped-for southern support on New Frontier economic legislation. Hence, for example, his delay in signing an executive order banning racial discrimination in federally financed housing. (During the campaign, he had said that Eisenhower could end such discrimination with a "stroke of the pen." But then he took so long to sign such an order that irate civil rights supporters started sending him pens in the mail.)

(3) Stevenson's specialty was considered to be foreign affairs. Liberals wanted him to be appointed Secretary of State. Making him Ambassador to the UN was the ideal way to appease them.

(4) Kefauver was perhaps a bit too populist and Goldberg too associated with organized labor. (Of course there was a place for someone closely associated with organized labor--as Secretary of Labor.) As a moderate liberal, JFK was still interested in business support.

My bet is on Byron "Whizzer" White. If he is later appointed to the Supreme Court, he may be replaced by Nicholas Katzenbach (who succeeded RFK as Attorney General in OTL).
 
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