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* {{Cite journal |last=Meloy |first=J. Reid |date=2010 |orig-date=1992 |title=Revisiting the Rorschach of Sirhan Sirhan |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327752jpa5803_10 |journal=] |volume=58 |issue=3 |doi=10.1207/s15327752jpa5803_10 |url-access=subscription |access-date=February 27, 2022 |via=]}} * {{Cite journal |last=Meloy |first=J. Reid |date=2010 |orig-date=1992 |title=Revisiting the Rorschach of Sirhan Sirhan |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327752jpa5803_10 |journal=] |volume=58 |issue=3 |doi=10.1207/s15327752jpa5803_10 |url-access=subscription |access-date=February 27, 2022 |via=]}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Sieg |first=Kent G. |date=1996 |title=The 1968 Presidential Election and Peace in Vietnam |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27551671 |journal=] |publisher=] |volume=26 |issue=4 |pages=1062–1080 |jstor=27551671 |url-access=subscription |access-date=February 27, 2022 |via=] |archive-date=December 31, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211231095749/https://www.jstor.org/stable/27551671 |url-status=live }} * {{Cite journal |last=Sieg |first=Kent G. |date=1996 |title=The 1968 Presidential Election and Peace in Vietnam |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27551671 |journal=] |publisher=] |volume=26 |issue=4 |pages=1062–1080 |jstor=27551671 |url-access=subscription |access-date=February 27, 2022 |via=] |archive-date=December 31, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211231095749/https://www.jstor.org/stable/27551671 |url-status=live }}
* {{cite journal |last=Socarides |first=Charles W. |date=1979 |title=Why Sirhan Killed Kennedy: Psychoanalytic Speculations on an Assassination |journal=] |volume=6 |issue=4 |url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/7d5f7ce3cca8de4e680607d112b0a690/1?cbl=1816657&pq-origsite=gscholar |url-access=subscription |access-date=February 27, 2022 }}


'''''American National Biography''''' '''''American National Biography'''''

Revision as of 07:07, 27 February 2022

1968 assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy For the assassination of Robert's brother John, see Assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy lies mortally wounded on the floor immediately after the shooting. Kneeling beside him is 17-year-old busboy Juan Romero, who was shaking Kennedy's hand when Sirhan Sirhan fired the shots.
LocationAmbassador Hotel, Los Angeles, California, United States
Coordinates34°03′35″N 118°17′50″W / 34.0597°N 118.2971°W / 34.0597; -118.2971
DateJune 5, 1968; 56 years ago (1968-06-05)
12:15 a.m. (UTC−7)
TargetRobert F. Kennedy
Attack typePolitical assassination
WeaponsIver Johnson .22 revolver
DeathsRobert F. Kennedy (died on June 6, 1968, from injuries)
InjuredPaul Schrade, William Weisel, Elizabeth Evans, Ira Goldstein, Irwin Stroll
PerpetratorSirhan Sirhan

On June 5, 1968, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was mortally wounded shortly after midnight at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Earlier that evening, the 42-year-old junior senator from New York was declared the winner in the South Dakota and California Democratic presidential primary during the 1968 presidential election. He was pronounced dead at 1:44 a.m. PDT on June 6, about 26 hours after he had been shot.

Following dual victories in the California and South Dakota primary elections for the Democratic nomination for the presidential nomination, Kennedy spoke to journalists and campaign workers at a live televised celebration from the stage of his headquarters at the Ambassador Hotel. Shortly after leaving the podium and exiting through a kitchen hallway, he was mortally wounded by multiple shots fired from a handgun. Kennedy died in the Good Samaritan Hospital 26 hours later. The shooter was 24-year-old Sirhan Sirhan. In 1969, Sirhan was convicted of murdering Kennedy and was sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1972 due to the court case People v. Anderson. A freelance newspaper reporter recorded the shooting on audio tape, and the aftermath was captured on film.

Kennedy's remains were taken to St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York, for two days of public viewing before a funeral Mass was held on June 8. His funeral train traveled from New York to Washington, D.C.; many spectators lined the route to view the journey. His body was interred at night in Arlington National Cemetery near his brother John F. Kennedy. His death prompted the United States Secret Service to protect presidential candidates. Vice President Hubert Humphrey was also a presidential candidate; he went on to win the Democratic nomination but ultimately lost the election to Republican candidate Richard Nixon.

Much like his brother's assassination, Robert Kennedy's assassination has led to a number of conspiracy theories; to date, no credible evidence has emerged that Sirhan was not the shooter, or that he did not act alone. Kennedy and Huey Long of Louisiana (in 1935) are the only two sitting United States Senators to be assassinated. It was one of four major assassinations of the 1960s in the United States, coming several years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 and the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, and two months after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968.

Background

Robert F. Kennedy

Photographic black-and-white portrait of Robert F. Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy in September 1963

Robert F. Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1925, as the seventh of nine children of Joseph P. Kennedy. After graduating from the Milton Academy in 1943, he enrolled in the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps, and later served on board USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. In 1948, Kennedy visited the British Mandate of Palestine, and wrote around six dispatches for The Boston Post. He dismissed the possibility of the Jewish state becoming communist as "fantastically absurd", and called it the "only remaining stabilizing factor in the near and far".

In 1960, Robert's elder brother, John F. Kennedy, was elected the president of the United States. He appointed Robert as the attorney general. During his tenure, Robert served as his brother's close advisor, and was associated with various significant decisions made by the Kennedy administration. According to author Matthew A. Hayes, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Robert acted as a "de-facto Chief of Staff, Presidential Agent and Intermediary for his brother", and was an "indispensable partner" in its successful resolution. On November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, while riding in his presidential limousine. Subsequently, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the presidency. Johnson mostly retained all prominent Kennedy advisors, including Robert as attorney general. Robert was deeply affected by his brother's assassination, yet, despite his political differences with Johnson, he remained in the attorney general post.

In 1964, polls showed that various Democrats wanted Kennedy to be Johnson's running mate in the presidential election. However, Kennedy instead organized his senatorial campaign in New York, challenging Kenneth Keating, an incumbent Republican senator. During a campaign speech, Kennedy declared his support for Israel, stating that in the event of an attack, "we will stand by Israel and come to her assistance". Kennedy won the election; during his congressional career, he supported civil rights, and developed personal relationships with various civil rights leaders. He opposed Johnson's policies during the Vietnam War.

1968 presidential campaign

Robert F. Kennedy shaking hands with people in the crowd
Senator Robert F. Kennedy, campaigning for president in 1968

The 1968 presidential campaign has been referred to as one of the most volatile campaigns in United States history. In the run-up to the 1968 presidential election, there was significant opposition to the ongoing Vietnam War. It was also a period of social unrest; there were riots in major cities. Allard K. Lowenstein, a Democratic politician, organized a "Dump Johnson" movement to prevent Johnson from becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, and asked Kennedy to run instead. Kennedy refused, asserting that he did not want to split the Democratic Party for his personal benefit. Eugene McCarthy, a senator from Minnesota, emerged as the leader of "Dump Johnson" movement, and entered in several state presidential primaries. In late January 1968, Johnson ordered the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, which, in the view of historian Lloyd Gardner, "shattered hopes that the war could be won within a reasonable period of time—if ever—and broke open the cracks in the Democratic coalition".

On March 12, 1968, in the New Hampshire Democratic primary election, McCarthy nearly defeated Johnson with his 42% to Johnson's 49% of the votes. Four days later, Kennedy announced his presidential campaign. On March 31, few days before the Wisconsin primary, Johnson announced that he would not seek the presidency. Four days later, civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, leading to further riots in several cities. The same day, Kennedy gave a speech in Indianapolis, Indiana, saying:

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black. ... let's dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.

In April, Vice President Hubert Humphrey announced his candidacy for the presidency. He mostly avoided primaries and focused on states which held caucuses. Contrary to Kennedy, Humphrey supported the Vietnam War.

Assassination

California primary and the victory speech

The California presidential primary elections were held on June 4, 1968. Polls by CBS showed Kennedy leading by 7%. The statewide results gave Kennedy 46% to McCarthy's 42%. Around four hours after the polls closed in California, Kennedy claimed victory in the state's Democratic presidential primary. Following the California primary, Kennedy was in second place with 393 delegates, against Humphrey's 561 and McCarthy's 258. Kennedy also won the South Dakota primary same night, winning around 50% of the vote. He spoke by phone with South Dakota Senator George McGovern, who congratulated and apologized to Kennedy for considering his candidacy as "an impossible dream". Author Joseph Palermo referred to Kennedy's victory as his "greatest".

At approximately 12:02 a.m. PDT on June 5, Kennedy addressed his campaign supporters in the Ambassador Hotel's Embassy Room ballroom in the Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles. At the time, the government did not provide Secret Service protection for presidential candidates. Kennedy's only security personnel was former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent William Barry and two unofficial bodyguards: Olympic decathlon gold medalist Rafer Johnson and former football player Rosey Grier.

At approximately 00:15 a.m., concluding his victory speech, Kennedy said:

So I thank all of you who made all this possible. All of the effort the you made and all of the people who's names I haven't mentioned but who made all the work at the precinct level, who got out to vote, who did all of the efforts that's required. I was a campaign manager eight years ago, I know what a difference that kind of effort and that kind of commitment made. I thank all of you. Mayor Yorty has just sent me a message that we've been here too long already. So my thanks to all of you and on to Chicago and let's win there.

Shooting

Kennedy addressing supporters in the Embassy Ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel

Kennedy planned to walk through the ballroom when he had finished speaking. He was on his way to another gathering of supporters elsewhere in the hotel. Reporters wanted a press conference; campaign aide Fred Dutton decided that Kennedy would forgo the second gathering and instead go through the hotel's kitchen and pantry area behind the ballroom to the press area. Kennedy had welcomed contact with the public during the campaign, and people had often tried to touch him in their excitement. Soon after Kennedy concluded the speech, he started to exit when Barry stopped him and said, "No, it's been changed. We're going this way." Barry and Dutton began clearing a way for Kennedy to go left through swinging doors to the kitchen corridor, but Kennedy was hemmed in by the crowd and followed maître d'hôtel Karl Uecker through a back exit. Uecker led Kennedy through the kitchen area, holding his right-wrist, but frequently releasing it as Kennedy shook hands with people whom he encountered. Uecker and Kennedy started down a passageway narrowed by an ice-machine against the right wall and a steam table to the left. Kennedy turned to his left and shook hands with a busboy named Juan Romero, just as Sirhan Sirhan stepped down from a low tray-stacker beside the ice-machine, rushed past Uecker, and repeatedly fired an eight-shot .22 Long Rifle caliber Iver Johnson Cadet 55-A revolver.

Kennedy fell to the floor; Barry hit Sirhan twice in the face while others, including writer George Plimpton and Grier, forced him against the steam table and disarmed him, as he continued firing his gun in random directions. Five other people were wounded: William Weisel of ABC News, Paul Schrade of the United Automobile Workers union, Democratic Party activist Elizabeth Evans, Ira Goldstein of the Continental News Service, and Kennedy campaign volunteer Irwin Stroll. A minute later, Sirhan wrestled free and grabbed the revolver again, but all the bullets had already been fired and he was subdued. Barry went to Kennedy and placed his jacket under Kennedy's head, later recalling: "I knew immediately it was a .22, a small caliber, so I hoped it wouldn't be so bad, but then I saw the hole in the Senator's head, and I knew". Reporters and photographers rushed into the area. As Kennedy lay wounded, Romero cradled his head and placed a rosary in his hand. Kennedy asked Romero, "Is everybody OK?" and Romero responded, "Yes, everybody's OK." Kennedy then turned away and said, "Everything's going to be OK." The moment was captured by Life photographer Bill Eppridge and Boris Yaro of the Los Angeles Times and became the iconic image of the assassination. There was some initial confusion concerning who was shot, one witness believing that the primary victim was Kennedy's campaign manager and brother-in-law Stephen Edward Smith. Another witness stated that a female in a polka-dot dress had exclaimed repeatedly "We killed him" before running away.

As the shooting took place, ABC News was signing off from its electoral broadcast, while the CBS coverage had already concluded. CBS re-began its coverage of the assassination 21 minutes after the shooting. The reporters present to report Kennedy's victory ended up crowding into the kitchen where he had been shot and the immediate aftermath was captured only by audio recording and cameras that had no live transmission capability. ABC was able to show scant live footage from the kitchen after Kennedy had been transported, but all of ABC's coverage from the hotel was in black-and-white. CBS and NBC shot footage in the kitchen of the shooting's aftermath on color film, which had not been broadcast until it was developed two hours after the incident. Los Angeles CBS radio affiliate KNX (AM) interrupted its rundown of local primary returns to provide coverage of the shooting. KNX also simulcast coverage from KNXT-TV (now KCBS-TV) with anchor Jerry Dunphy, which was also fed nationwide on the CBS Radio Network in the initial hours after the shooting.

Immediate aftermath and death

Kennedy's wife Ethel was three months pregnant; she stood outside the crush of people at the scene seeking help. She was soon led to her husband and knelt beside him. He turned his head and seemed to recognize her. Smith promptly appeared on television and calmly asked for a doctor. Friend and journalist Pete Hamill recalled that Kennedy had "a kind of sweet accepting smile on his face, as if he knew it would all end this way". After several minutes, medical attendants arrived and lifted Kennedy onto a stretcher, prompting him to whisper, "Don't lift me", which were his last words, as he lost consciousness shortly after. He was taken a mile away to Central Receiving Hospital, where he arrived near death. One doctor slapped his face, calling, "Bob, Bob", while another doctor manually massaged his heart. After obtaining a good heartbeat, doctors handed a stethoscope to Ethel so that she could hear his heart beating. After about 30 minutes, Kennedy was transferred several blocks to the Good Samaritan Hospital to undergo a surgery. A gymnasium near the hospital was set up as temporary headquarters for the press and news media to receive updates on his condition. Surgery began at 3:12 a.m. and lasted approximately 3 hours and 40 minutes. At 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, spokesman Frank Mankiewicz announced that Kennedy's doctors were "concerned over his continuing failure to show improvement"; his condition remained "extremely critical as to life".

Kennedy had been shot three times. One bullet was fired at a range of 1 inch (3 cm) and entered behind his right ear, dispersing fragments throughout his brain. The other two entered at the rear of his right armpit; one exited from his chest and the other lodged in the back of his neck. Despite extensive neurosurgery to remove the bullet and bone fragments from his brain, he was pronounced dead at 1:44 a.m. on June 6, nearly 26 hours after the shooting. Frank Mankiewicz left the hospital and walked to the gymnasium where the press and news media were set up for continuous updates on the situation. At 2 a.m. on June 6, Mankiewicz approached the podium, took a few moments to compose himself, and made the official announcement:

I have a short announcement to read, which I will read at this time. Senator Robert Francis Kennedy died at 1:44 a.m., June 6, 1968. With Senator Kennedy at the time of his death were his wife Ethel, his sisters Mrs. Stephen Smith, Mrs. Patricia Lawford, his brother-in-law Mr. Stephen Smith and his sister-in-law Mrs. John F. Kennedy. He was 42 years old. Thank you.

Over the following week, NBC devoted 55 hours to the shooting and aftermath, ABC 43 hours, and CBS 42 hours, with all three networks preempting their regular coverage and advertisements to cover the story.

Perpetrator

Sirhan Sirhan

Main article: Sirhan Sirhan
The assassin, Sirhan Sirhan

Sirhan Sirhan (born March 19, 1944) is a Palestinian Arab with Jordanian citizenship, born in Jerusalem, who held strongly anti-zionist beliefs. A diary was found during a search of his home, and he wrote on May 19: "My determination to eliminate RFK is becoming more and more of an unshakable obsession. RFK must die. RFK must be killed. Robert F. Kennedy must be assassinated ... Robert F. Kennedy must be assassinated before 5 June 68." It has been suggested that the date of the assassination is significant because it was the first anniversary of the start of the Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors. When Sirhan was booked by police, they found a newspaper article in his pocket that discussed Kennedy's support for Israel; Sirhan testified at his trial that he began to hate Kennedy after learning of this support In 1989, he told David Frost in prison: "My only connection with Robert Kennedy was his sole support of Israel and his deliberate attempt to send those 50 bombers to Israel to obviously do harm to the Palestinians." Some scholars view the assassination as one of the first major incidents of political violence in the United States stemming from the Arab–Israeli conflict in the Middle East.

The interpretation that Sirhan was motivated by Middle Eastern politics has been criticized as an oversimplification which ignores his psychological problems. Sirhan's lawyers attempted to use a defense of diminished responsibility during the trial, while Sirhan himself tried to confess to the crime and change his plea to guilty on several occasions. He testified that he had killed Kennedy "with 20 years of malice aforethought". The judge did not accept this confession and it was later withdrawn.

Sirhan was convicted Kennedy's murder on April 17, 1969, and was sentenced to death six days later. In 1972, the sentence was commuted to life in prison with the possibility of parole after the California Supreme Court invalidated all pending death sentences that were imposed prior to 1972, due to its ruling in California v. Anderson. Since that time, Sirhan has been denied parole 15 times and is currently confined at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in southern San Diego County. His lawyers have claimed that he was framed, and he claims to have no memory of his crime.

Assassin's gun

The Iver Johnson .22 caliber revolver that Sirhan used to shoot Kennedy originated from Albert Leslie Hertz, a resident of Alhambra. He initially bought the gun to protect his business during the 1965 Watts riots, but never used it and kept it in its wrapping paper and box. Hertz's wife decided the gun was too dangerous and gave it to her daughter, Dana Westlake. Westlake did not use it and gave the gun to her next-door neighbor, George Erhard. Erhard later sold the gun to Sirhan's brother, Munir Bishara Sirhan, known as "Joe", who George knew was working at Nash's department store at the corner of Arroyo and Colorado in Pasadena. At the time, Erhard was looking to seek more money from the gun sale to finance some work on his car.

In the interview with the Los Angeles Police Department, Munir said that his brother asked him to obtain a gun because he wanted to visit a rifle range. Munir explained to them that rifle ranges rented guns, in which Sirhan replied "I don't want to get involved. I don't want a signature." Sirhan later asked him if he knew any gun owners, and Munir told investigators that "I don't know why my brother wanted it, you know, wanted anything to do with guns." This request was because Sirhan was a non-citizen; it was illegal under California law for an alien to purchase firearms. Munir later approached Erhard in the parking lot of Nash's store and Erhard showed him the pistol. At this point, Munir said that he asked Erhard to bring the gun to Sirhan's house, since his brother was interested in buying it. He stated that he and Erhard went to Sirhan's home and met him at the dining room, where the three agreed to a sale price: Munir produced $19 and Sirhan paid the $6 balance. However, the LAPD Summary Report stated that:

On June 25, 1968, a polygraph examination was administered to Munir Sirhan to determine his truthfulness regarding the gun and whether or not Erhard had ever been in the Sirhan home. Munir Sirhan's responses to questions indicated he was being untruthful ... Munir admitted that he was lying when he said Erhard had been inside his home ... He corrected himself and stated he had asked Erhard if he had any guns for sale and that eventually Erhard showed him the .22-caliber revolver. He examined the gun in the parking lot of Nash's Department Store ... After examining the gun, he told Erhard he did not have sufficient money to purchase the gun at that time. He asked Erhard to bring the gun to the corner of El Molino and Howard Streets in Pasadena later that evening and told him that he would have the money to purchase the gun. Munir stated that he and Sirhan were together when Erhard came to deliver the gun. Munir Sirhan then stated that Sirhan Sirhan had been the one who bought the gun. Munir was again informed that the polygraph test showed that he had actually purchased the gun. Munir Sirhan refused to change his story.

It is likely that Munir and Sirhan purchased the gun in such a clandestine manner because they were both aware that it was unlawful for aliens to own handguns. Sirhan first shot the gun in March 1968 and practiced with it about a half dozen times between March and May 1968. He said he "liked guns". Munir said Sirhan kept the gun in the glove compartment of his De Soto. Munir often heard Sirhan playing with something that made a "click, click" sound, and he believed it was the gun. Munir had been "frightened" by the look in Sirhan's eye when his brother handled the gun. In fact Munir was so worried he made Sirhan swear on their dead sister, Aida, that he would not use the gun in a "bad" way. Sirhan had violated three California laws merely by possessing the pistol he used to kill Robert Kennedy. Thus, if Sirhan were simply an unwitting patsy involved in a conspiracy, the conspirators must have knowingly chosen a man who had been risking the whole conspiratorial venture by possessing an illegal weapon and firing it at a police range. Had Sirhan been caught with the illegal weapon, the purported conspiracy would have collapsed.

Conspiracy theories

Main article: Robert F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories

As with the 1963 assassination of his brother, President John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy's death has been the subject of widespread analysis. Some individuals involved in the original investigation and some researchers have suggested alternative scenarios for the crime, or have argued that there are serious problems with the official case.

CIA involvement hypothesis

In November 2006, the BBC's Newsnight program presented research by filmmaker Shane O'Sullivan alleging that several Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers were present on the night of the assassination. The three men who appear in films and photographs from the night of the assassination were positively identified by former colleagues and associates as former senior CIA officers who had worked together in 1963 at JMWAVE, the CIA's main anti-Castro station based in Miami. They were JMWAVE Chief of Operations David Morales, Chief of Maritime Operations Gordon Campbell and Chief of Psychological Warfare Operations George Joannides. However, several people who had known Morales, including family members, were adamant that he was not the man who O'Sullivan said was Morales. After O'Sullivan published his book, assassination researchers Jefferson Morley and David Talbot also discovered that Campbell had died of a heart attack in 1962, six years prior to the assassination of Kennedy. In response, O'Sullivan stated that the man on the video may have used Campbell's name as an alias. He then took his identifications to the Los Angeles Police Department whose files showed the men he identified as Campbell and Joannides to be Michael Roman and Frank Owens, two Bulova sales managers attending the company's convention in the Ambassador. O'Sullivan stood by his allegations stating that the Bulova watch company was a "well-known CIA cover".

Second gunman hypothesis

The location of Kennedy's wounds suggested that his assailant had stood behind him, while some witnesses assert that Sirhan faced west as Kennedy moved through the pantry facing east. This has led to the suggestion that a second gunman actually fired the fatal shot, a possibility supported by Thomas Noguchi, the Chief Medical Examiner and Coroner for the County of Los Angeles, who stated that the fatal shot was behind Kennedy's right ear and had been fired at a distance of approximately one inch. Other witnesses, though, said that Kennedy was turning to his left shaking hands as Sirhan approached, facing north and so exposing his right side.

During a re-examination of the case in 1975, the Supreme Court ordered expert examination of the possibility of a second gun having been used, and the conclusion of the experts was that there was little or no evidence to support this hypothesis. As recently as 2008, eyewitness John Pilger asserted his belief that there must have been a second gunman.

In 2007, it was revealed that forensic expert Philip Van Praag had analyzed an audiotape of the shooting known as the Pruszynski recording in which Van Praag had discovered acoustic evidence that a second gun had been involved in the assassination. Van Praag found that 13 shots were fired even though Sirhan's gun held only eight rounds, its maximum bullet capacity, and Sirhan had no opportunity to reload it. Van Praag states the recording also reveals at least two cases where the timing between shots was shorter than physically possible from Sirhan's gun alone. Forensic audio specialists Wes Dooley and Paul Pegas of Audio Engineering Associates in Pasadena examined Van Praag's findings and corroborated the presence of more than eight gunshots on the tape along with over-lapping shots, all of this indicating the presence of a second shooter. Similar corroboration came from forensic audio and ballistics expert Eddy B. Brixen in Copenhagen and audio specialist Phil Spencer Whitehead of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. Other acoustic experts, however, have claimed that they could find no more than eight shots recorded on the audiotape. The Pruszynski recording was published in 2004 by CNN's Brad Johnson; its existence had been unknown to the general public previously.

On February 22, 2012, Sirhan's lawyers William Francis Pepper and Laurie Dusek filed a court brief in District Court in Los Angeles claiming that a second gunman fired the shots that killed Kennedy. It was the fourth and final in a series of federal briefs filed under the writ of habeas corpus by Pepper and Dusek beginning in October 2010. Judge Beverly Reid O'Connell denied the petition in 2015.

Aftermath and legacy

Memorial

Following Kennedy's autopsy on June 6, his remains were taken to Manhattan, where his closed casket was viewed by thousands at St. Patrick's Cathedral. The funeral mass was held on the morning of June 8. Kennedy's younger brother, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, delivered the eulogy with the words:

My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it. Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will someday come to pass for all the world. As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: "Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."

Robert Kennedy's grave in Arlington National Cemetery

Immediately following the mass, Kennedy's body was transported by a slow-moving train to Washington, D.C., and thousands of mourners lined the tracks and stations, paying their respects as the train passed by. On the way to the cemetery, the funeral procession passed through Resurrection City, a shantytown protest set up as part of the Poor People's Campaign. The procession stopped in front of the Lincoln Memorial, where residents of Resurrection City joined the group and sang "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". Kennedy was buried near his older brother, John, in Arlington National Cemetery, in the first burial to have ever taken place there at night; the second was the burial of his younger brother Ted in 2009. After Kennedy's assassination, Congress altered the Secret Service's mandate to include protection for presidential candidates. The remaining candidates were immediately protected under an executive order issued by Lyndon Johnson, putting a strain on the poorly-resourced Secret Service.

1968 election

At the time of his death, Kennedy was substantially behind Humphrey in convention delegate support, but many believe that Kennedy would have ultimately secured the nomination following his victory in the California primary. Only thirteen states held primaries that year; most delegates at the Democratic convention could choose a candidate based on their personal preference. Historian and senior Kennedy campaign advisor Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., and others have argued that Kennedy's broad appeal and charisma would have been sufficiently convincing at the 1968 Democratic National Convention to give him the nomination. Historian Michael Beschloss believed that Kennedy would not have secured the nomination. Humphrey, after a National Convention in Chicago at which violence in the streets occurred, was far behind in opinion polls but his support grew. He ultimately lost the general election to Republican Richard Nixon by the narrow popular vote margin of 0.7 percent. Nixon won by a more decisive 301–191 margin in the electoral vote.

Cultural and social impact

Kennedy's assassination represented the death of optimism for a brighter future that his campaign brought for many Americans who lived through the turbulent 1960s. Juan Romero, the busboy who shook hands with Kennedy right before he was shot, later said, "It made me realize that no matter how much hope you have it can be taken away in a second." Jack Newfield, a reporter who had been traveling with the campaign, expressed his feelings on the effect of the assassination, closing his memoir on Kennedy with:

Now I realized what makes our generation unique, what defines us apart from those who came before the hopeful winter of 1961, and those who came after the murderous spring of 1968. We are the first generation that learned from experience, in our innocent twenties, that things were not really getting better, that we shall not overcome. We felt, by the time we reached thirty, that we had already glimpsed the most compassionate leaders our nation could produce, and they had all been assassinated. And from this time forward, things would get worse: our best political leaders were part of memory now, not hope. The stone was at the bottom of the hill and we were all alone.

Kennedy's blood-stained shirt, tie and jacket are now in the possession of the Los Angeles County District Attorney. A controversy occurred in 2010 when Kennedy's clothing was transported to the California Homicide Investigators Association conference in Las Vegas, where they were included in a temporary public display of never-before-seen artifacts from crime scenes related to prolific serial killers and infamous murders, such as the Black Dahlia murder and the killing of Hollywood actress Sharon Tate. The items and Kennedy's clothing were subsequently removed from the exhibit, with the LAPD apologizing to the Kennedy family.

Until 1987, the LAPD retained the original files, reports, transcripts, fragments of the bullets that struck Kennedy and the four other bystanders in the kitchen pantry, the .22 caliber Iver-Johnson handgun used by Sirhan, Kennedy's blood-stained clothes and other artifacts related to the assassination. In 1987, the LAPD donated the entire evidence collection (except for Kennedy's clothes) to the California State Archives in Sacramento for permanent preservation. The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination Archives of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (known as the Southeastern Massachusetts University prior to 1991) also contain a large collection of materials on the assassination, located at the Claire T. Carney University Library.

See also

References

  1. "A busboy kneels again next to RFK". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on November 5, 2012. Retrieved January 31, 2011.
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