Robert Kennedy Assassination

History 6 Minutes

Today is the 57th anniversary of the assassination of RFK.  This article, from History.com., details the information available at the time.

From: History.com:

Shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, Senator Robert Kennedy is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after winning the California presidential primary. Immediately after he announced to his cheering supporters that the country was ready to end its fractious divisions, Kennedy was shot several times by 24-year-old Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan. He was pronounced dead a day later, on June 6, 1968.

The summer of 1968 was a tempestuous time in American history. Both the Vietnam War and the anti-war movement were peaking. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated in the spring, igniting riots across the country. In the face of this unrest, President Lyndon B. Johnson decided not to seek a second term in the upcoming presidential election. Robert Kennedy, John’s younger brother and former U.S. Attorney General, stepped into this breach and experienced a groundswell of support.

The Assassination of RFK

The assassination of Robert Kennedy was another tragic incident in a year marked with unrest.

Kennedy was perceived by many to be the only person in American politics capable of uniting the people. He was beloved by the minority community for his integrity and devotion to the civil rights cause. After winning California’s primary, Kennedy was in the position to receive the Democratic nomination and face off against Richard Nixon in the general election.

As star athletes Rafer Johnson and Roosevelt Grier accompanied Kennedy out a rear exit of the Ambassador Hotel, Sirhan Sirhan stepped forward with a rolled-up campaign poster, hiding his .22 revolver. He was only a foot away when he fired several shots at Kennedy. Grier and Johnson wrestled Sirhan to the ground, but not before five bystanders were wounded. Grier was distraught afterward and blamed himself for allowing Kennedy to be shot.

Sirhan, who was born in Palestine, confessed to the crime at his trial and received a death sentence on March 3, 1969. However, since the California State Supreme Court invalidated all death penalty sentences in 1972, Sirhan has spent the rest of his life in prison. According to the New York Times, he has since said that he believed Kennedy was “instrumental” in the oppression of Palestinians. Hubert Humphrey ended up running for the Democrats in 1968, but lost to Nixon.

SOURCE: HISTORY.COM

RFK JR. however, does not believe Sirhan is his father’s murderer.  This is a recent article in the NY Post:

Robert Kennedy Jr. has long maintained that Sirhan Sirhan, who has spent nearly 60 years in prison for killing his father, is innocent of the crime — and that a second gunman was involved in the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy in 1968.

That belief has fueled division between him and the majority of his siblings as well as their mother, Ethel, when she was alive. And it’s sure to heat up again as Sirhan, 81, could be eligible for parole again next year.

“I believe Cesar killed my father,” Kennedy Jr. wrote in a 2021 San Francisco Chronicle op-ed of security guard Thane Eugene Cesar, who died in 2019 and was never charged. “Sirhan,” Kennedy Jr. wrote, “is not my father’s killer.”

It was revealed Wednesday that Kennedy Jr., the current US health and human services secretary, sent a letter to then-US Attorney General Eric Holder in 2012 requesting a new investigation into his father’s death and the two-gunmen theory. The letter to Holder, who served under President Barack Obama, came to light in documents on the assassination declassified by the Trump administration.

When Kennedy Jr., 71, recommended to the California Board of Parole Hearings that Sirhan be given parole in 2021 — the 16th time he faced the board — six of his siblings, led by their mother, slammed the move.

“Our family and our country suffered an unspeakable loss due to the inhumanity of one man,” said Ethel in a Sept. 7, 2021, post on her daughter Kerry Kennedy’s X account — adding: “He should not have the opportunity to terrorize again.”

Ethel passed away on Oct. 10, 2024, at age 96.

Her children Joe, Courtney, Kerry, Chris, Max and Rory have opposed Sirhan’s parole. Son Douglas, like Kennedy Jr., is in favor.

Daughter Kathleen Kennedy Townsend told the Washington Post in 2018 that Kennedy Jr. “makes a compelling case” about Sirhan not acting alone, but has not commented on the matter since.

Kennedy Jr.’s 2012 letter to Holder included a three-page “Summary of Evidence for the New Investigation” compiled by Paul Schrade. A former labor leader and confidant of RFK, Schrade was among five people wounded in the fusillade of bullets that resulted in Kennedy’s death at Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel following his Democratic presidential primary victory in California.

Schrade, who was shot in the head by Sirhan during the melee, spent years trying to prove his theory that there were two gunmen involved in the assassination.

“Paul and his team of nationally prominent attorneys including former US Attorney Rob Bonner strongly believe this new evidence is conclusive and requires a new investigation,” Kennedy Jr. wrote in his letter to Holder. “I agree and support his request for a new investigation.”

The request was based on “new forensic tests on a journalist’s audiotape recorded during this crime and found in the FBI’s files,” said Schrade in his own letter to Holder dated July 29, 2012.

An acoustics expert who examined the recording maintained that 13 shots were fired. Sirhan fired all eight shots from his .22-caliber Ivar Johnson revolver and did not reload, said Schrade in his letter to Holder.

Schrade, who died in 2022 at age 97, also pointed to the autopsy report that showed that RFK was shot from behind. Eyewitnesses said Sirhan had stood in front of the candidate.

“I have been a strong advocate for the release of Mr. Sirhan B. Sirhan since I learned of evidence that was not presented to the court during his trial,” said Kennedy Jr. in an August 27, 2021, letter to the Board of Parole Hearings. “After years of careful investigation, I arrived at the conviction that the story of my father’s murder was not as cut and dried as portrayed at trial.

“While Sirhan clearly fired shots at my father, overwhelming evidence suggests that these were not the shots that took his life.”

Cesar, hired as a security guard for the night, “was in the exact position to fire the shots as described in the autopsy. Three witnesses saw him draw his gun — which he later admitted — and one said she saw him fire it,” Kennedy Jr. wrote in 2021. “The Los Angeles police never bothered to examine the gun. Cesar, who was moonlighting that night from his high-security clearance job at the Lockheed plant, acknowledged a loathing for the Kennedys and their race-mixing sympathizers.”

Sirhan has consistently maintained that he does not recall the events that took place on the day of the assassination.

Other recently released files on the assassination released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard revealed numerous menacing handwritten notes in Sirhan’s bedroom in the Pasadena, Calif., home he shared with his mother and three siblings.

“My determination to remove RFK is becoming more the more of an unshakeable obsession,” read one of the scribbled notes included in the file.

When Sirhan was up for parole in 2021, the Kennedy family fight over his impending release led to one side “double-crossing” the other, inside sources told The Post at the time.

The family members against Sirhan’s release had promised that they would not make a statement to the parole board, sources told The Post.

“The night before the hearing I got a letter from the parole board via the LAPD,” Sirhan’s lawyer Angela Berry told The Post in 2021. “It read, ‘On behalf of the Kennedy family, we oppose the release of Sirhan.’  [Kennedy Jr.] had been staying out of it specifically on the assumption that his family was going to stay out of it … I got ahold of him right away letting him know what happened.”

In response, Kennedy Jr. stayed up late writing a letter in favor of Sirhan’s release that barely made it into the hearing, sources said.

“The parole hearing started at 8:30 a.m. and Robert’s letter streamed in at 10:30 a.m.,” Berry said. “It read in part, ‘I have to assure you that the letter you got is not on behalf of the whole Kennedy family.’ That was the very last thing the hearing officer read into the record.”

SOURCE: NYPOST.COM

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29 thoughts on “Robert Kennedy Assassination”

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    1. @charliekirk11

      Here are 50 MAJOR wins from Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill that the media is ignoring

      1. No taxes on tips — servers, bartenders, and bellhops just got a raise Promises made, promises kept

      2.Made Trump tax cuts permanent — Biden wanted them to expire.

      3.Child tax credit raised to $2,500

      4.Overtime pay tax-free — work hard, actually keep more.

      5.$1.6 trillion in spending cuts — the largest rollback of government bloat in U.S. history.

      http://6.Work requirement for welfare — able-bodied? Then get off the couch.

      7.Deporting 1 million illegal immigrants per year — no more catch and release.

      8. Builds the wall—finishes it — 701 miles of serious border protection. Massive!

      9.10,000 new ICE agents — law and order at the border. Huge!

      10.Eliminates Medicaid for illegal aliens — American benefits for Americans.

      11.“Trump Savings Accounts” for kids — build generational wealth from birth. Game changer.

      12.Slashes IRS funding — no more 87,000 new agents breathing down your neck.

      http://13.Green New Deal defunded — no more money for solar BS.

      http://14.Energy production unleashed — back to drilling, fracking, etc.

      15.Tariffs on Chinese-built ships — protect American shipbuilders.

      http://16.Buy American, build American — required on all infrastructure projects.

      http://17.Estate tax protections expanded — family farms and businesses stay in the family.

      18.Repeals DEI mandates — merit matters again. DEI is dying.

      19.Bans taxpayer-funded gender ideology in federal agencies.

      20.Military pay raise + benefits boost

      21.National missile defense (“Golden Dome”)

      22.HSA accounts expanded — use them for direct primary care.

      http://23.School choice tax credits — parents, not unions, control education. Historic!

      24.Feds barred from mandating pronoun usage.

      25.Medicaid block grants to states — local control, not DC strings. Saves hundreds of billions.

      26.Revives apprenticeship programs — college not required to succeed. The cartel hates this.

      27.1% of exports must ship under U.S. flag

      28.Mandates voter ID for federal elections.

      29.Ends ESG mandates in retirement accounts

      30.Cracks down on Big Pharma middlemen

      31.Bans drag shows for kids at federally funded venues.

      32.Fires the climate cult from federal boards

      33.Veterans get priority housing access

      34. Tax credit for buying American-made vehicles

      35.Stops Chinese ownership of U.S. farmland — our soil is finally protected!.

      36.Bans CRT from federal training programs.

      37.Ends taxpayer-funded abortions abroad. And defunds planned parenthood!

      38.Guts federal diversity czars — cuts the bloated bureaucracy.

      39.Revives the Keystone XL pipeline

      .

      40. Eliminates federal COVID emergency powers

      41.Enacts Social Security tax cuts for seniors.

      42.Defends religious liberty in the workplace

      43. Restores due process on college campuses.

      44. Massively expands trade school funding

      45. Outlaws federal funding for gender transitions for minors.

      46. Creates nationwide “patriot curriculum” grant fund

      47.Halts funding to the UN’s woke agenda arms.

      48. Tax breaks for adoption and large families.

      49. Increases penalties for fentanyl trafficking — life in prison for cartels.

      50. Restores cash bail in federal jurisdictions — no more revolving-door criminals.

      And this is just a taste.

      Promises made, promises kept.

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  13. Mike Davis@mrddmia
    ·
    48m
    Dear Federal Judges:

    We The People are the sovereign.

    The cornerstone of sovereignty is control of our border.

    We lend the federal government limited, specific, enumerated, and divided powers.

    Congress may create due-process rights for the expulsion of illegal aliens, if it chooses.

    But we never gave you that power.

    Not at our founding.

    Not after the Civil War.

    Not in any subsequent Congress.

    Certainly not after the last election.

    You allowed Biden to illegally mass-import over 10,000,000 illegal aliens, including terrorists. 

    Now you’re illegally stopping Trump from expelling the worst terrorists and their enablers.

    You are violating one of our most important sovereign rights.

    You are destroying your legitimacy with a large swath of Americans.

    Like

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  15. unseen1
    @unseen1_unseen
    Okay, for those that don’t know. We have already surpassed the current debt limit due to spending already approved during Biden’s term.

    Sec Yellen said it would be reached back in Jan 2025. The freedom clowns wouldn’t increase the debt limit with the CR back in Dec and saddled Trump with a debt limit that had already/would shortly be reached as he entered office. They did that on purpose to box in Trump from having bills for immigration and deportationsnas single issue bills. Remember the debate over one or two bills? Yeah, see how that works.

    But thanks to a good tax season, tarrifs, some fancy footwork by Sec bessent, a total freeze on hiring/spending, lay offs, doge cuts, etc, we have been able to avoid defaulting. Surprising the swamp critters, but the end is in sight, and now it’s thought Aug 2025 will be when we can no longer pay our bills due to the fake debt limit, and we default or go hat in hand to the dems.

    So those making the argument that we don’t need to raise the debt limit are either uninformed or liars.

    If you remove the debt limit increase from the BBB, the Senate will have to get dem votes to increase it before Aug since it would then require 60 votes.

    Getting those votes will further derail the MAGA agenda as they will demand a price for their votes. Do you understand how the swamp works now?

    There’s zero possibility that the debt limit won’t be increased. It will.

    The only question is, do we do it now and not worry about it for the next 4 years, or do we pay the price the dems/swamp will demand and give up much of the maga agenda?

    Rand paul knows this. Elon should know this. Massie knows this. They all hope you don’t know this because their entire argument falls apart if you do.

    The only other option is default, and that would cause untold misery.

    But believe the clowns if you want, and in Aug, we will be debating the debt limit increase and what the dems get for their votes. I’m also 100% sure when/if that debate happens both Massie and Paul will be No votes so they can pretend to be principled about the debt while we see the massive price tag they caused us to pay for something that would have been free with the BBB.

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  16. Eric Daugherty
    @EricLDaugh
    🚨 BIG yikes…it’s heating up

    Trump on @ElonMusk
    : “Elon knew the innerworkings of this [Big Beautiful Bill]…he had no problem, all of a sudden he had a problem, only when he found out we’re gonna have to cut the EV mandate.”

    “He hasn’t said bad about me personally, but I’m sure that’ll be next. I’m very disappointed in Elon.”

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