RFK ASSASSINATION



 From:       Assassination in Our Time, by Sandy Lesberg
             --------------------------------------------
                  ROBERT     FRANCIS     KENNEDY 
___________________________________________________________________________

Born November 20, 1925 Brookline, Massachusetts
Died June 5, 1968 Los Angeles, California

U.S. Senator from New York; campaigned for Democratic nomination for 1968
presedential election; former Attourney general under his brother, President
John F. Kennedy

Alleged assassin:
Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, 26 years old, born in Palestine
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 
With tragic prophecy, John F. Kennedy once said,"I ran for Congress to take the
place of my brother Joe. If anything happens to me, Bobby will take my place.
And if Bobby gives out, there is Teddy coming along." So it was that Robert
Francis Kennedy, 42 years old, seventh of Rose and Joseph Kennedy's nine
children, and with his two older brothers dead before him, set out to become
president of the United States.

Robert Kennedy's whole life had been geared for the challenge of politics.
After servingin the Navy, he graduated from the University of Virginia Law
School and, by the age of 27, had already served as a prosecutor for the
Criminal Division of the U.S. Justice Department and managed his brother
John's campaign for a seat in the U.S. Senate. He then worked for the Senate
Permanenant Investigations Subcommittee, chaired by Senator Joseph McCarthy,
and in a reversal of roles which would from then on catagorise him in some eyes
as ruthless, he became chief council for a sub-committee investigating the same
Senator McCarthy and his practices of communist "witch hunting". He also gained
national status as the man who convicted teamsters' union boss Jimmy Hoffa.
Following John Kennedy's successful campaign for president in 1960, he became a
ttourney general of the United States, offering, as many felt, a sober and
substantial balance to some of the more casual activities of Camelot.

After his brother's death he became U.S. senator from New York, waging a
grueling and deft campaign against a popular and well-respected Republican
incumbent, Senator Kenneth Keating. It was during this time that his own
political focus began to come clear. From a pragmatic campaign organiser and
political wheeler-dealer that had catyagoride his behind-the-scenes behaviour
with his brother John, he gradually found his own unique roots with the people,
transforming him inot an idealistic humanitarian whose political drive evolved
from responding to the desparate needs of the oppressed.

When Lyndon Johnson removed himself from the 1968 presidential race, Kennedy
declared his candidacy. His rapid move to the head of the field was spurred by
his seemingly magical ability to communicate to an electorate that apparently
was ready for his brand of idealism, his visions of conferring dignity to the
dispossessed of America. He often expressed his political creed by quoting,
"Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were
and say, why not."

He had just won the vital Californian primary; shortly after midnight on June
5, Kennedy was addressing a crowd at a victory celebration in the Embassy
Ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. 

The large room was packed with exuberant campaign workers and supporters who
crowded around the stage where a jubilant Kennedy, his wife Ethel, standing
near him, was saying a few words of thanks to his workers and volunteers and
offering congratulations to his Democratic opponent, Senator Eugene McCarthy.
He also emphasised his gratitude to Cesar Chavez, leader of the migrant farm
workers, whose cause Kennedy had strongly espoused and on whose behalf Ethel
Kennedy had become involved. 



[Part 2 to follow]

from Big Al.


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From: ccasm@cc.newcastle.edu.au
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk,alt.conspiracy
Subject: RFK ASSASSINATION - PART 3  (final)
Message-ID: <1992Apr29.143737.1@cc.newcastle.edu.au>
Date: 29 Apr 92 04:37:37 GMT
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from:          Assassination in Our Time         by Sandy Lesberg
               --------------------------------------------------
                      ROBERT     FRANCIS     KENNEDY
____________________________________________________________________________

continued from part 2....


Sirhan's weapon has never been test-fired, as is usual with standard police
procedure, to determine whether or not the recovered bullets were all fired
from Sirhan's weapon. In fact, the head of the Los Angeles Police Department
Criminology Laboratory unexplainably refused to test-fire the gun during
investigations.

A young woman with a white polka-dot dress was seen with Sirhan in the hotel
kitchen but left shortly before Kennedy started out of the Embassy Ballroom. A
campaign worker, Sandy Serrano, saw a woman in a white polka-dot dress,
accompanied by two other people, pass her and enter the hotel while Kennedy was
speaking in the ballroom. Serrano, still outside after the shooting, saw these
same people race out of the hotel and, according to Serrano, the woman in the
polka-dot dress shouted "We shot him! We shot Kennedy!". Cathy Fulmer, a woman
the police produced as a possible suspect, was not identified by Serrano as
the same woman she had seen; Cathy Fulmer was found dead in a motel room
several days after the conviction of Sirhan. There is no conclusive finding
about her death.

The alleged assassin, Sirhan Bishara, was born March 19, 1944, in Jordan. A
common name for the area, Sirhan means variously "wolf", "wanderer", or "one
who grazes"; Bishara was his father's first name. As is the custom, Sirhan did
not use a family name so at the age of 12, when he came with his parents to the
U.S., for want of a last name, he doubled his first name, to become Sirhan
Bishara Sirhan. The family lived in Pasadena, California, where Sirhan attended
high school and then Pasadena City College for a short time. Slight of frame,
5 feet 2 inches, 120 pounds, he hoped to become a jockey and started
apprenticeship at Hollywood Park as a horse boy. Later, as tensions mounted
between Jordan and Israel over the Palestinians, Sirhan was known to be deeply
concerned over the matter. The occupations and  whereabouts of Sirhan are
unclear in the later part of of 1967 and into 1968, but among his belongings
were later found several newspaper clippings which defamed Robert Kennedy,
along with careful records of where Kennedy would be appearing during the
California primary campaign. In his diary was the entry, "Robert Kennedy must
be killed before June 5, 1968."

In searching for motivations to explain why the Jordanian-born Sirhan would
have attempted to assassinate Senator Kennedy, many people focused on the
Palestinian tensions and the fact that Kennedy strongly supported a pro-Israel
stance. There were the clippings and the diary memos, which lend support to
this idea. However as of this writing, Sirhan is, according to doctors, unable
to recall drawing or firing a gun on June 5. Doctors contend that inability
to recall an act, either conciously or at a subconcious level, can indicate
either a mental disorder or some kind of programming input or behavioural
modification, caused by an external influence acting with deliberation. With no
history of mental disorders, the possibility of a conspiracy involved in
programming the alleged single assassin simply cannot be dismissed ............


from Big Al.


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From: ccasm@cc.newcastle.edu.au
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk,alt.conspiracy
Subject: RFK ASSASSINATION PART 2
Message-ID: <1992Apr28.131118.1@cc.newcastle.edu.au>
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From:              Assassination in Our Time, by Sandy Lesberg
                 ------------------------------------------------
                     ROBERT    FRANCIS      KENNEDY
 __________________________________________________________________________

Continued from Part 1.....

Leaving the ballroom, Kennedy and his wife with staff and aides, including
athletes Roosevelt "Rosie" Grier and Raffer Johnson, and a local private
body-guard Thane Cesar, made their way into a corridor which would lead them
through a hotel kitchen to another room where a press conference was scheduled.

Waiting in the narrow, fluorescent-lit kitchen corridor were several television
cameramen; the maitre-d'hotel Carl Uecker, and hotel employees Jesus Perez and
Juan Romero. Also waiting was Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, armed with a .22-caliber
eight-shot Iver Johnson pistol. Each man waited for his own purpose.

Shaking hands as he went, Kennedy was moving slowly down the corridor when
Sirhan fired: once, twice, crying out something unintelligible. He fired all
eight shots before he was tackled from every side to screams of "Rafer, get the
gun -- get the fucking gun!" Kennedy lay mortally wounded and five others in
the corridor sustained bullet wounds. Rafer Johnson and Rosie Grier had grabbed
Sirhan as much to protect him from the shocked and furious crowd as to subdue
him. Ethel Kennedy  knelt by her husband, trying to keep the crushing crowd
away. Kennedy's only words were, "How bad is it?" Juan Romero placed a rosary
in his hands. Kennedy had been hit by three bullets, two entering his armpit
and another entering his right mastoid from behind his left ear. He was rushed
in an ambulance to Los Angeles Central Receiving Hospital for massive brain
surgery. The damage, however, was too great and Senator Robert F. Kennedy died.


===============================================================================
.----------------------------------. [Among the several photos of RFK with his
|                                  |  brothers and family is one standing with
|                                  |  his wife at the Ambassador Hotel, June 5,
|      ^^^^^^^                     |  making his victory speech, minutes before
|                                  |  being gunned down. 
|      0     0                     |  Another photo shows a close-up of Sirhan.
|    [         ]                   |  Another shows the shooting scene with the
|         ^                        |  following caption: "The crowd, with ex 
|                                  |  football player Roosevelt Grier in the
|       \___/                      |  foreground, grabbing Sirhan after he
`----------------------------------'  began shooting." Sirhan is in a headlock.
Another photo has the caption: "In Amman, Jordan, the father of Sirhan studies
a Jordanian magazine which bears a picture of his son". The father is dressed
in robes with typical arabian headwear.
 The full-page photo on page 223 shows RFK on his back on the floor of the
kitchen, shirt open to the waist with a male taking his pulse at the wrist, as
Ethel kneels beside him. Caption reads "Moments after the shots were fired".]
=============================================================================== 


Even now (1976) there are many unexplained inconsistencies and counter evidence
that dispute the single assassin theory which was the official finding.

In all, ten bullets were recovered from the assassination scene; two of the
three bullets fired at Kennedy lodged in his brain and neck; five bullets
lodged in each of five other people hit (Paul Schrade, Elizabeth Evan, Ira
Goldstein, Irwin Stroll and William Weisel); three bullets were recovered from
different locations in the kitchen area. Sirhan's pistol could only fire eight
shots without reloading, which he did not have the opportunity to do. Since
there were two bullets unaccounted for, it is apparent that at least one other
weapon was fired at the time. Simple arithmetics argues against the official
finding!

In the official medical report, Dr. Thomas Noguchi concluded theat the bullet
entering Kennedy's right mastoid and penetrating the brain was the cause of
death. It was Dr. Noguchi's expert opinion, given in testimony at the
investigation, that the fatal bullet was fired at a range of not more than two
or three inches from Kennedy's head. However, no witness who testified ever
placed Sirhan any closer to the Senator than two feet during the time he was
firing his pistol. Thane Cesar, the Security guard, was standing directly
behind Kennedy and admitted drawing his gun after Sirhan began firing. Ceasr
conceded his gun might have gone off, but asserted that he did not shoot at
Kennedy. Why has his gun not been test-fired for comparison?

Criminologist William W. Harper compared the bullet which entered Kennedy's
armpit with the bullet removed from William Weisel and found that the bullets
had no common characteristics and sharply differing rifling marks -- indicating
that the bullets could not have come from the same gun. Further, Harper stated
that, based on the available evidence, Kennedy was shot at least once from a
position completely removed from where Sirhan was standing. Harper therefore
concluded that a second weapon was involved and that two different firing
postures were used in the shootings. His findings and conclusions are supported
by a number of authoritative experts, including three other qualified
criminologists (Dr. Herbert L. MacDonell, Vincent P. Quinn and Lowell
Bradford).


Part 3 to follow....

from Big Al.

  [Except where indicated as captions,  the photo details above between
   the ==== are mine, not the author's]