Robert F. Kennedy assassination Totally Explained

Everything about Robert F Kennedy Assassination totally explained

The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, a United States Senator and brother of assassinated President John F. Kennedy, took place shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968. He was killed following celebrations of his successful campaign in the Californian primary elections while seeking the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. The perpetrator was a 24-year old Palestinian immigrant named Sirhan Sirhan, who assassinated Kennedy because of the senator's stance towards Israel. As of 2008, Sirhan remains incarcerated for this crime. The number of reporters near the scene meant that the shooting was recorded on audio and the aftermath was captured on film, with the subject dominating news coverage over the following week.
Kennedy's body lay in repose at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York for two days before a funeral mass was held on June 8. His body was interred near his brother John at Arlington National Cemetery. His death prompted the protection of presidential candidates by the United States Secret Service. Hubert Humphrey went on to win the Democratic nomination for the presidency, but ultimately lost the election to Richard Nixon.
As with his brother's death, Robert Kennedy's assassination and the circumstances surrounding it have spawned a variety of conspiracy theories, particularly in relation to the existence of a supposed second gunman.

Background

The approach of the 1968 presidential election saw the incumbent president, Lyndon Johnson, who had won the 1964 election with a landslide of the popular vote, presiding over social unrest: there were ghetto riots in the major cities despite his attempts at introducing anti-poverty and anti-discrimination legislation, and there was significant opposition to military action in Vietnam. The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in April 1968 led to further riots in 100 cities.
Robert Kennedy had been appointed United States Attorney General in January 1961, and remained in this post until he resigned on September 3, 1964 to run for election as a United States senator. He took office on January 3, 1965. Following a series of electoral battles for convention delegates, Kennedy was still in second place after the California primary, with 393 delegates compared to Hubert Humphrey's 561.

Assassination

Four hours after the polls had closed in California, Robert F. Kennedy claimed victory in the state's Democratic presidential primary. At approximately 12:15 a.m. PDT, he addressed his campaign supporters in the Embassy Room ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel, located in the Mid-Wilshire district of Los Angeles. At the time, the government provided Secret Service protection for incumbent presidents but not for presidential candidates, and Kennedy's only security was provided by former FBI agent William Barry, while two former professional athletes acted as unofficial bodyguards. During the campaign, Kennedy had welcomed contact with the public, and people had often sought frantically to touch him.
   Kennedy had planned, when he finished speaking, to walk through the ballroom and go to another gathering of supporters elsewhere in the hotel. With deadlines fast approaching, however, reporters wanted a press conference. As Kennedy spoke, campaign aide Fred Dutton made the decision that Kennedy would forego the second gathering and instead go through the kitchen and pantry area behind the ballroom to the press area. Kennedy finished speaking and started out, when William 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, hemmed in by the crowd, followed hotel maitre d' Karl Uecker through a back exit.
   Uecker led Kennedy through the kitchen area, holding Kennedy's right hand but frequently releasing it as Kennedy shook hands with people in the area. Uecker and Kennedy started down a passage way narrowed by an ice machine against the right wall and a steam table to the left.
   After Kennedy had fallen to the floor, security man Bill Barry hit Sirhan twice in the face and others, including maître d's Uecker and Edward Minasian, writer George Plimpton, Olympic gold medal decathlete Rafer Johnson and professional football player Rosey Grier, forced Sirhan against the steam table and disarmed him. Sirhan wrestled free and grabbed the revolver again, but he'd already fired all the bullets. Barry went to Kennedy and lay his jacket under the candidate'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 from both directions, contributing to the chaos. As Kennedy lay wounded, Juan Romero cradled the senator's head and placed a rosary in his hand. Kennedy asked Romero, "Is everybody safe, OK?" and Romero responded, "Yes, yes, everything is going to be OK." Captured by Life photographer Bill Eppridge, the picture of Kennedy and Romero became the iconic image of the assassination. Ethel Kennedy 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. After several minutes, medical attendants arrived at the hotel and lifted Kennedy onto a stretcher, prompting him to exclaim, "No, no." He lost consciousness shortly thereafter. Kennedy was taken a mile away to Central Receiving Hospital, where he arrived near death. One doctor slapped his face, calling, "Bob, Bob," while another began massaging Kennedy's heart. After obtaining a good heartbeat, doctors handed a stethoscope to Ethel Kennedy so she could hear her husband's heart beating, and she was relieved. After about 30 minutes, Kennedy was transferred several blocks to the Hospital of the Good Samaritan for surgery. Surgery began at 3:12 a.m. PDT and lasted three hours and 40 minutes. Ten and a half hours later, at 5:30 P.M. PDT on Wednesday, spokesman Frank Mankiewicz announced that Kennedy's doctors were "concerned over his continuing failure to show improvement," while his condition remained "extremely critical as to life."
   Kennedy had been shot a total of three times: one shot was behind his right ear at a range of approximately and bullet fragments were dispersed throughout his brain. Two other bullets entered at the rear of his right armpit, one of which exited from his chest while the other lodged in the back of his neck. Despite extensive neurosurgery at the Good Samaritan Hospital to remove the bullet and bone fragments from his brain, Kennedy died at 1:44 a.m. PDT, nearly 26 hours after being shot.
   Five other people were also wounded: William Weisel of ABC News, Paul Schrade of the United Auto Workers union, Democratic Party activist Elizabeth Evans, Ira Goldstein of the Continental News Service and Kennedy campaign volunteer Irwin Stroll.

Perpetrator

Sirhan Sirhan was strongly anti-Zionist. A diary found during a search of Sirhan's home stated, "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 1968." It has been suggested that the date of the assassination is significant, because it was the first anniversary of the first day of the Six Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors. When Sirhan was booked by police, they found in his pocket a newspaper article that discussed Kennedy's support for Israel. At his trial, Sirhan testified that he began to hate Kennedy after learning of Kennedy's support for Israel.
During his trial, Sirhan's lawyers attempted to use a defense of diminished responsibility Sirhan testified that he'd killed Kennedy "with 20 years of malice aforethought," although he's maintained since being convicted that he's no memory of the crime. The judge didn't accept this confession and it was later withdrawn.
Sirhan was convicted on April 17, 1969 and six days later was sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1972 after the California Supreme Court, in its decision in California v. Anderson, invalidated all pending death sentences imposed in California prior to 1972. In 2006, he was denied parole for the 13th time and is currently confined at the California State Prison in Corcoran.

Media coverage

As the shooting took place, ABC News was signing off from its electoral broadcast, while the CBS broadcast was already over; it wasn't until 21 minutes after the shots that CBS's coverage of the shooting would begin. The reporters who had been present to report on Kennedy's win in the primary ended up crowding into the kitchen where he'd been shot
Over the following week, NBC devoted 55 hours to the shooting and aftermath, ABC 43 and CBS 42 with all three networks pre-empting their regular coverage and advertisements to cover the story. Three men who appear in video 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.
After further investigation, O'Sullivan produced the feature documentary, RFK Must Die. The film casts some doubt on the earlier identifications and ultimately reveals that the man previously identified as Gordon Campbell was in fact Michael D. Roman, a now-deceased Bulova Watch Company employee, who was at the Ambassador Hotel for a company convention. O'Sullivan ultimately expresses his doubt that the "Morales" in the film footage at the Ambassador Hotel and the man positively identified as Morales in later photographs are the same man.

Second gunman

The location of Kennedy's wounds suggested that his assailant had stood behind him, but witnesses said 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 coroner Thomas Noguchi. Several witnesses, though, said that as Sirhan approached, Kennedy was turning to his left shaking hands, facing north and so exposing his right side. During a reexamination of the case in 1975, the U.S. 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 theory.
More recently, analysis of audio recordings of the shootings taken by freelance reporter Stanislaw Pruszynski appear, according to forensic expert Philip van Praag, to indicate that thirteen shots were fired, even though Sirhan's gun held only eight rounds.

Aftermath and legacy

Memorial

Following the autopsy on June 6, Kennedy's body was returned to New York City, where he lay in repose at St. Patrick's Cathedral, viewed by thousands, until a funeral mass on the morning of Saturday, June 8.
His brother, Senator Ted Kennedy, eulogized him 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." 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. Kennedy was buried near his brother John, in Arlington National Cemetery, in the only burial ever to take place there at night. The remaining candidates for the elections were immediately protected under an executive order issued by Lyndon Johnson, which caused a strain on the ill-resourced Secret Service.

1968 election

At the time of his death, Kennedy was significantly behind Vice President Hubert Humphrey in convention delegate support, but this hasn't deterred many from the belief that Kennedy would have ultimately secured the nomination following his victory in the California primary. Historians such as Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. have argued that Kennedy's broad appeal and charisma would have been sufficiently convincing at the Democratic Convention to give him the nomination.
Only thirteen states held primaries that year, meaning that most delegates at the Democratic convention could choose a candidate based on their personal preference. Historian Michael Beschloss thus believes it unlikely that Kennedy could have secured the nomination given that the convention selected Hubert Humphrey as the candidate even though he hadn't participated in any of the primary contests. Humphrey ultimately went on to lose the general election to Republican Richard Nixon.

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