Shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, Robert Kennedy was shot, The New York Times headlining:

"Kennedy is Dead, Victim of Assassin; Suspect, Arab Immigrant, Arraigned; Johnson Appoints Panel on Violence"

Sirhan Sirhan was the alleged assassin, convicted, and serving a life sentence at (no pun intended) Pleasant Valley State Prison, CA, despite convincing evidence of his innocence.

In his October 17, 2008 article "The Assassinations of the 1960s as ‘Deep Events,’ " Peter Dale Scott discussed the killings of both Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King, saying:

"The more that I look at these deep events comparatively, ranging over the past five decades, the more similarities I see between them, and the more I understand them in the light of each other."

With respect to both Kennedys and King, official accounts obscured the events, suppressed key facts, enough to question the guilt of the alleged suspects, concealing the real culprits and why men of this stature were assassinated – what Scott called "some continuing and hostile force within our society…"

In his June 13, 2010 article titled, "JFK and RFK: The Plots that Killed Them, The Patsies that Didn’t," James Fetzer debunked the official accounts, saying:

"we are looking at staged events that fit into a recurrent pattern in US and world history where innocent individuals (or ‘patsies’) are baited and framed for cover-up purposes," RFK’s killing "in part intended to prevent a reinvestigation into his brother’s death….The assassinations of RFK and JFK were both conspiracies. Both involved the destruction of evidence. Both involved the fabrication of evidence. Both involved framing their patsies. Both involved complicity by local officials. Both involved planning by the CIA. Both were used to deny the American people (their) right to be governed by leaders of their own choosing." Both put a myth to the rule of law, judicial fairness, and democratic freedoms.

Both crimes and MLK’s assassination eliminated figures dark American forces wanted silenced, blaming innocent "patsies" for the killings, Sirhan Sirhan for RFK’s. Fetzer’s article explains numerous important facts:

• multiple shots targeted him, more "than could have come from Sirhan Sirhan’s gun" that was also the wrong caliber;
• "RFK was shot behind the right ear from about 1.5 inches, but Sirhan was never that close and always in front of him;"
• the coroner and LAPD reports were contradictory;
• LAPD "engaged in massive destruction of evidence from the pantry of the hotel because ‘it would not fit into a card file,’ " as part of an official cover-up to blame Sirhan for a state-sponsored assassination, evidence suggesting CIA involvement in both Kennedy brothers and MLK killings;
• Sirhan’s gun was a ".22 caliber, eight-round revolver (serial number H-53725);"
• he "emptied his weapon from a location in front of Bobby Kennedy;"
• Dr. Thomas Hoguchi’s autopsy "showed RFK was hit by four bullets, all of which were fired from behind at upward angles; The Assassination of R... Christian, Jonn Best Price: $8.16 Buy New $25.63 (as of 06:20 UTC - Details)
• five others were wounded by separate shots;"
• as many as 13 shots were fired;
• Dr. Noguchi’s autopsy "did not point to Sirhan as the killer;"
• an eyewitness, DeWayne Wofler, "testified that the bullets fired at RFK had come from an entirely different gun," not Sirhan’s;
• a security guard, Eugene Cesar, standing right behind RFK, had a drawn gun of the same caliber as the murder weapon; it was never examined nor was he charged; and
• "a woman in a polka dot dress" left the scene hurriedly, "shouting, "We shot him! We shot him! We shot Kennedy!"

In their book, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jonn Christian and William Turner made a convincing case "indicting Cesar for the crime," concluding "that Sirhan may have been firing blanks."

Fetzer’s article has detailed information on both JFK and RFK assassinations, accessed through this link.

Below, Sirhan gives his own account of what happened that night and why he was at the Ambassador Hotel.

JFK. Analysis of a Sho... Martin, Orlando Best Price: $14.42 (as of 05:45 UTC - Details)

"My Morning with Sirhan"

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On January 21, 2010, Academic Prison Teacher, Gerald B. Reynolds, spent time with Sirhan and wrote it up in detail. An account below follows.

At the Delta Facility library, a prison guard let him in. His ID said Sirhan Sirhan. "He looked at me in a calm way with a half-smile. I looked at him….There was an eerie, prolonged silence." He’s now 66 years old, 42 of them in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

After another "calm silence….I swiveled in my chair to face Sirhan Sirhan and asked, ‘Did you do it?’ "

"Did I do what," he responded.

Reynolds: "You know."

Sirhan: "What do you want to know?"

Reynolds: "Did you kill Robert F. Kennedy?"

Sirhan: "No, I did NOT kill Robert F. Kennedy!"

Reynolds: "I know you didn’t."

Sirhan: "How do you know?"

Reynolds explained that he studied the details of his case, learned that RFK was killed at point blank range by a bullet to the back of his head.

"The real assassin appears to be Kennedy’s 26 year old Ace Security Company bodyguard….Thane Eugene Cesar. At least one eye witness claims to have seen Cesar with a smoking gun in his hand immediately after Kennedy fell to the floor. An audio recording made during the assassination indicates that there were at least 11 shots fired (perhaps more) from possibly three different guns."

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"The conclusion is that Kennedy was shot three times from behind with a fourth bullet passing through his suit coat. The fact that you (Sirhan) were standing in front of Kennedy is undisputed and yet according to the coroner’s report not one bullet entered Robert F. Kennedy from the front of his body."

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Sirhan: "Oh my! I knew this morning when I woke up that God was telling me he had something great in store for me today and this is it! God has sent you to me!….I was beginning to lose hope so you were sent to lift my spirits. Now I can be hopeful again. Thank goodness somebody else knows."

Reynolds: "Have you ever talked to anybody else in prison that knows the truth of your case?"

Sirhan: "Yes. One person, that’s all….He was one who drives a truck around and empties the dumpsters….I had a job where I had to take the garbage out of the kitchen….to the dumpster….once in a while he would talk to me. He told me he believed I was innocent."

Reynolds: "Did you talk to this guy often?"

Sirhan: "Actually no. He and I only talked maybe about three times and each time it was only for about five minutes or so."

He explained that he never met anyone in prison, besides him, who knows. He said friends on the outside set up a web site for him – rfkmustdie.com, with information about him, RFK, and whether CIA operatives killed him, framing Sirhan for the crime.

Reynolds: "Do you have an appeal on file right now?"

Sirhan: "Not now. Everything has run its course. I had a great attorney named Lawrence Teeter….He was a wonderful man and a great attorney. He tried several times to win me an appeal and even just to get a new evidentiary hearing but the courts seemed biased against me. The judges wouldn’t budge….Teeter died in 2005, and I haven’t really tried to work on any appeal since then."

Read the rest of the article

June 28, 2010

The Best of Stephen Lendman