RFK - was His Assassination Part of a Conspiracy?

With the current release of Emilio Estevez' ensemble drama "Bobby," about the lives of several people all staying at the Ambassador Hotel on the day of the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy, the subject of his death has been brought to light once again. 38 years later there are some that don't believe 22-year-old Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan acted alone in RFK's death. Whether this is true or not may never be known. Books have been written on the subject with varying opinions of its authors. Some believe it was an open and shut case while others believe there is more to it then the public has been led to believe.

America loves a good mystery and the events of June 4, 1968 certainly point to some questions being answered. The following pages are the facts as they have been researched. This article simply ponders those facts and theories and will allow you, the reader, to decide for yourself.

For as long as there have been assassinations there have been conspiracy theories. The most famous may be that of Bobby's brother, President John F. Kennedy. To this day everyone has a strong, concrete opinion about whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone or not.

1968 was a turbulent time in America. The Vietnam War was in full swing and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., beloved civil rights leader, was at the height of his popularity when he was gunned down outside a hotel room in Memphis. While James Earl Ray was arrested there are many who, to this day, believe that either Ray didn't act alone or wasn't the shooter at all.

On June 4^th, the ink wasn't even dry on the Warren Commission's final report that left many in this nation unconvinced that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of President Kennedy.

Robert Kennedy was in California for a very important primary stopover. Should Kennedy have won California he would next be heading to Chicago with momentum and the likelihood that he would be the Democratic Presidential Candidate.

That evening, after the ballots closed, the Embassy room of the Ambassador hotel was packed with supporters and campaign workers awaiting the arrival of Kennedy, hopeful that he would make a speech. At 11:30 p.m. Kennedy, along with his wife Ethel and his entourage, made their way to the ballroom. Victory was now imminent and when Kennedy appeared he was greeted with wild applause. Kennedy reached the podium and raised his arms to quiet the crowd. "Bobby," as he was publicly referred to, thanked his supporters and then thanked Don Drysdale for tossing his sixth straight shutout that afternoon for the Dodgers. Kennedy then turned serious and pleaded with the nation to overcome the racial divisions as well as ending the unpopular war in Vietnam. He concluded his speech with, "...now on to Chicago and let's win there." Smiling to thunderous applause, Bobby turned towards the kitchen that would lead him to the Colonial Room where the press awaited him. It was now shortly after midnight, June 5^th.

Hotel security and a few hired security men were there to protect the Kennedy entourage. Secret Service was not present nor was there any members of the L.A.P.D. Just outside the kitchen security officer Thane Caesar took hold of Bobby's right elbow and led him into the kitchen. The kitchen was packed with over 70 people, many of them staff of the hotel and press. It was later reported that that many people in an area like that was tantamount to a jam-packed subway car. If Bobby did notice the approaching Sirhan he likely would have mistaken him for a busboy or cook in the hotel. As Sirhan neared he pointed a gun and fired.

At that moment time seemed to stop. Some people, recognizing the sound of a gun, ducked for cover as the shots rang out. Speechwriter Paul Schrade fell to the ground with a bullet in his forehead. Maitre'd Karl Uecker grabbed Sirhan's arm and leveled it on the steam table next to him but several more shots rang out. Others, including football player Rosey Grier, attempted to disarm Sirhan but didn't until all 8 rounds had been fired. Kennedy lay on the ground, spread-eagled, writhing in pain. Behind him Schrade was also writhing. Seven-year-old Irwin Stroll was shot in the kneecap; ABC television director William Weisel had a stomach wound; reporter Ira Goldstein's hip had been shattered; Goldstein's artist friend, Elizabeth Evans was unconscious from a head wound.

Busboy Juan Romero pressed rosary beads in Bobby's hand and bent his ear to Bobby's mouth and heard him ask, "Is everybody all right?" Stanley Abo was the first doctor on the scene and had to move the weeping Ethel aside to get to Bobby. Abo groped Bobby's head looking for a wound and found a hole below the right ear. An ambulance had been summoned.

Two police officers, Arthur Placencia and Travis White, arrived to a scene they had never before experienced. Pandemonium and terror was evident as they came upon what they would later describe as a "massacre." Sirhan was handed over to them and they noted that he appeared not to be aware of his surroundings or what was happening. He even looked to have "peaceful eyes." As they led Sirhan to their squad car they encountered angry citizens shouting threats.

Ambulances arrived within minutes and Bobby was placed in the first one with Ethel at his side. At the emergency room doctors found powder burns around the wound, indicating that he had been shot at "extremely close range." Since there was no neurosurgeon on sight, Bobby was then rushed to Good Samaritan Hospital. It was just before 1 a.m.

At Good Samaritan doctors uncovered two more wounds - one in the right armpit and another several inches down. Press secretary Frank Mankiewicz greeted the press outside Good Samaritan and announced that Bobby was about to undergo surgery and that his condition was critical. The press noted that Mankiewicz's somber demeanor indicated the worst.

The operation took three hours. Surgeons removed a blood clot that had re-formed behind the brain, and as many "fragments of metal and bone as they could." Bobby could now breathe unassisted but suffered an impairment of blood to the mid-brain. Afterwards, Bobby was placed in critical care with round-the clock supervision. The next 12 to 36 hours were crucial.

Crowds gathered outside the hospital for round the clock vigils for Bobby. The press was updated sporadically and the updates were not encouraging. At 5 p.m. his condition was announced as "extremely critical." At 2 a.m. on the 6^th of June, Mankiewicz made his way into a makeshift pressroom and made the announcement everyone was dreading, "Senator Robert Kennedy died at 1:44 a.m. He was 42 years old."

A bitter nation mourned once again. A Gallup Poll indicated that more then 60% of the American people believed Bobby's death was part of a conspiracy.

Once his brothers had identified Sirhan, Pasadena police and the FBI swarmed on a house he was staying in. In Sirhan's room they found notebooks on a desk that were filled with odd writings including hate remarks about Robert Kennedy including one simple note that read, "RFK must die."

Sirhan Sirhan was charged with murder and attempted murder (on the other wounded people) and when the country got wind that he was Palestinian born, the conspiracy wheels really started to roll. Rumors labeled him as part of a large and extremist terrorist organization, a spy schooled in underground "bring down America" tactics. Witnesses placed Sirhan and at least two other assemblies for Kennedy and one reported that he "looked very intense and sinister."

Coroner Thomas Noguchi conducted the official autopsy on the body of Robert Kennedy on the morning of July 6. This very experienced coroner removed one intact bullet and fragments from another.

In his resulting 62-page report, Noguchi stated that the shot that killed RFK "had entered through the mastoid bone, an inch behind the right ear and had traveled upward to sever the branches of the superior cerebral artery." The largest fragment of that bullet lodged in the brain stem.

Another shot had penetrated Kennedy's right armpit and exited through the upper portion of his chest at a 59-degree angle. The coroner determined that the senator's arm must have been upraised when that bullet entered.

Yet, another, a third, shot entered one-and-a-half inches below the previous one and stopped in the neck near the sixth cervical. This bullet was found intact.

Checking Kennedy's clothing, for other telltale signs, Noguchi followed the path between two bullet holes in his suit coat and announced that a fourth bullet had been fired at the senator. It entered and exited the fabric without touching the senator.

The autopsy, having clarified what bullet actually killed Bobby, also created a controversy. Sirhan had carried an Iver-Johnson eight-cylinder handgun, the chamber having expended all eight cylinders - in other words, fired all eight bullets. Four of those had been fired at RFK - the public accepted that - but there were five others who had been wounded in the pantry. Elizabeth Evans, Ira Goldstein, Paul Schrade, Irwin Stroll and William Weisel. Because there were more victims than accounted-for bullets, a "second gunman" theory was born.

The LAPD quickly responded by claiming it was more then likely that some of the bullets could have hit more then one person. Schrade, who stood behind Bobby, likely was hit by a bullet that had passed through Bobby first. It was evident the LAPD was trying to squelch the rumor of a second gunman as quickly as possible. Noguchi responded that, despite his efforts, there was no way to accurately trace the flight pattern of so many bullets.

One critical issue remained that no one, not Noguchi, the LAPD or witnesses could explain. The shot that both Noguchi and the Los Angeles conclude killed Kennedy - the one that entered the back of his neck, fragmented upon impact and lodged in his brain stem - was fired so close that it left thick powder burns on the skin. Coroner Noguchi estimates (and the LAPD concurs) that the shot was fired at a range no more distant than one-and-a-half inches. Yet, according to all witnesses, Sirhan Sirhan shot in front of Kennedy and, as far as anyone knew, the senator never had the chance to turn his back on him.

Even though Noguchi remained tight-lipped and diplomatic at the time, in his biography that he penned a decade later - entitled Coroner -- he wrote, "Until more is precisely known...the existence of a second gunman remains a possibility. Thus, I have never said that Sirhan Sirhan killed Robert Kennedy."

Vincent DiPerro, a part-time college student and waiter at the Ambassador, told police that he noticed Sirhan shortly before the shooting. DiPerro said that what drew him to Sirhan was the "attractive woman" Sirhan was talking to. She had brown hair and blue eyes and was wearing a white dress with black polka dots. He also mentioned that she had a small pug nose. Moments before the shooting Sirhan whispered something in her ear and she smiled.

A 21-year-old campaign worker named Sandra Serrano also told the investigators about a mysterious polka dot-wearing lady. Having gone out for some fresh air, Serrano found sanctuary on the steps that led down from the ballroom to the street. At about 11:30 p.m., she said, a trio comprised of a young couple and a young male who looked like Sirhan Sirhan ascended the steps from the parking lot and entered the ballroom. The woman wore a polka-dot dress. Not long after, claimed Serrano, the couple, minus the third party, came bolting down the steps, exuberantly crying, "We shot Kennedy!" When the police asked her for a more accurate description of the dress and the woman who wore it, the witness replied, "White dress with polka dots (and she had) a funny nose."

A police sergeant named Paul Sharaga also saw the polka-dot lady. He had been cruising on-duty near the vicinity of the Ambassador when he heard a radio report about a shooting at the hotel. Turning his squad in that direction, he parked it in the adjacent lot and ran inside. But as he reached the sidewalk outside, already in clamor, he overheard a giggling couple pass by him, mumbling, "We shot Kennedy!" The female wore polka dots. By the time it dawned on him what was going on, they had disappeared into the darkness. Sharaga immediately radioed their description into headquarters.

The LAPD discounted all the accounts of the polka-dot lady. Follow up investigations found no evidence of her and witnesses accounts of "We shot Kennedy" is now believed to have been, "They shot Kennedy." It has never been explained why the LAPD found no credence in matching stories by three different witnesses - including a uniformed officer. Nor was it ever explained why anyone who was innocent would be giggling when talking about a murder.

Sandra Serrano was brought in for questioning again because she was the most adamant about the woman in the polka-dot dress. She was taken into an interrogation room and questioned for more then an hour in an almost accusatory nature. Badly shaken by the experience, Serrano nevertheless agreed to take a polygraph test. She failed. The police later defended the brutal verbal interrogation tactics as "routine."

The LAPD reported that waiter Vince DiPerro recanted his story, later claiming he never saw any such woman near Sirhan. One odd fact still remains: Six women were questioned and one, Valerie Schulte, came forward and admitted to having wore a dress of that description. She also admitted to have been right in the area where DiPerro claimed to have seen this woman. She further claimed not to have talked to Sirhan and denied knowing him. Despite the fact that she didn't have a pug nose, it is odd that DiPerro would recant his original story when it is likely he did see her. Some critics speculate that DiPerro had been questioned in the same manner as Serrano and recanted because of either fear or fatigue.

It was also reported that Officer Sharaga had, too, recanted his story due to the mass confusion on the streets. It was further reported that Sharaga claimed he mistaken what the couple had said. Years later, when interviewed by a writer for a book about the assassination, Sharaga said he never recanted his story and that the LAPD did so without his knowledge or approval. To this day he remains adamant about the woman in the polka-dot dress and what he heard that night.

At trial Sirhan tried to have his attorneys removed from the proceedings because it was being established that he was a paranoid schizophrenic and to be crazy was to disgrace his family and people. On the stand Sirhan claimed not to remember the events of the evening of the assassination because he was intoxicated. He did admit, however, that he may have gone temporarily insane, angered to the point of rage over Kennedy's recent shows of support of Israel. He cited, in particular, Kennedy's agreement to help boost Israel's air power.

The problem here is that Kennedy did not deliver the speech Sirhan referred to until May 26. Writings in Sirhan's notebooks indicate his desire to kill Kennedy on May 18.

The trial, which ended April 14, 1969, had lasted 15 weeks and involved testimonies by 89 witnesses. On April 17, 1969, after three days of deliberation, the jury emerged from its huddle to present a verdict that wasn't unexpected - guilty of first-degree murder of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and guilty of five counts of assault with a deadly weapon.

Sirhan Sirhan was sentenced to the gas chamber on May 21, 1969, but fate would step in to spare his life. In 1972 California abolished the death penalty. Today Sirhan is in Corcoran State Prison in California where he is likely to remain for the rest of his life. He is regarded as a model prisoner who, to this day, maintains his innocence.

Just weeks after the trial two reporters from the Los Angeles Free Press came forward to claim they had photographic proof of a second gunman at the scene. They had photographic "proof" of two extra bullet holes in the wooden divider between the sets of swinging doors at the west end of the Ambassador Hotel pantry. A freelance photographer taking generic crime scene pictures had taken the photos innocently, they said.

With all of Sirhan's alleged eight bullets already accounted for by the LAPD, wouldn't this mean, they asked, that another gun had shot that night?

There was a catch. The police had removed the doorjamb in question from the Ambassador Hotel kitchen on June 28, 1968, ten months before the Free Press saw the photos and published the article. The doorjamb had been destroyed. When the Los Angeles City Council, under pressure, demanded an answer why the piece had been done away with, Assistant Police Chief Daryl Gates responded. "True, there had been holes on that particular section of the doorframe and, yes, the police thought they might have been bullet holes. They brought the section back to headquarters for x-ray examination, but after the tests proved absolutely nothing there was no reason to hold onto dead lumber."

When the council asked to see the x-rays, Gates shrugged. They, too, had been done away with, he replied.

One incessant question that kept popping up was how a man who approached him from the front shot Kennedy in the back. All witnesses testified that Kennedy fell facing Sirhan. The assassin's gun arm was pinned down by Maitre'd Uecker after two shots; it continued to squeeze the trigger on impulse or otherwise; but, witnesses claim, even though the remaining shots went askew Kennedy at no time turned his back to the weapon.

As to any guesses who a "second gunman" could have been -- someone close enough to inflict a near "hit" on RFK - there was only one suspect: Thane Cesar, the security guard. Holding onto the senator's right elbow and remaining virtually half-beside him, half-behind him in the procession through the pantry, Cesar was strategically positioned to pump a bullet or two into Kennedy when all hell broke loose. While most involved believe Cesar was incapable of such a crime, it was revealed that Cesar did have a motive, means and opportunity.

When the firing began, Cesar was at point-blank range of Kennedy; and one eyewitness claims to have seen Cesar's gun smoking; although he carried a .38 caliber service revolver, he did own a .22 at the time; he had publicly denounced the Kennedy's; and he was on duty when Sirhan Sirhan managed to slip into the out-of-bounds pantry.

But, in his behalf, many important facts support his innocence. He had no criminal record; volunteered to be questioned; offered to submit his gun for investigation; voluntarily told the police about the .22 he owned; easily agreed to be questioned and given a polygraph test; remained openly honest about his political sentiments; and, most important, he had not been scheduled to work that night, but was called in at the last minute.

Cesar had come under fire many times for his fated time and place in history but suspicion has weakened during the last decade. Tongue in cheek, Cesar once stated, "Just because I don't like the Democrats, that doesn't mean I go around shooting them."

Much of the controversy generating from the June 5, 1968, assassination has been kept alive because of the LAPD's reluctance to keep the case from the public and its case files under wrap. These "secret files," as they were called, were eventually opened to the public in the later half of the 1980s, thanks to the hard work by and pressure from Dr. Philip H. Melanson (political science professor at the University of Massachusetts and co-author of Shadow Play) and George Stone (research aide to attorney Lowenstein).

The LAPD released a heavily censored version of its records in early March 1986, but it was full of blackened-out lines and missing material. This probably did more to revive the tales of conspiracy than squelch them. On a second blast to the system, this time accompanied by Paul Schrade and leagues of others in the politics, arts and sciences, Melanson and Stone demanded the police unlock the files in entirety.

Ultimately, the event proved to be less than expected. The files do not contain any reference to the tests done on the bullet-pocked pantry doorframe nor the x-rays taken of it. Stranger, all records of the trial proceedings referring to the testimony of seven forensic experts about the crime scene have disappeared.

One other avenue that was never followed but many believe should have been, was that Bobby had made many enemies in the mafia Underworld. One obvious suspect was Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, whom Bobby had faced off with and sent to jail. A police informant had once confessed he was told by Hoffa, who was his prison cellmate, that a contract had been put out on Senator Kennedy's life and that if he ever won the primary or was elected President, the contract would be fulfilled within six months. Naturally, when interviewed, Hoffa denied this. Another possible suspect was Chicago Underworld kingpin Sam Giancana, who apparently performed a number of favors for the Kennedy's including swaying Union voters to vote for John in the 1960 Presidential election. According to Giancana's son and grandson, when John appointed Bobby Attorney General, Bobby went after top Underworld figures and it was this that led Sam to orchestrate the assassination of both men.

Whatever the case, the sad truth is, whether there is a conspiracy or not, the country lost a man who fought for the people and was likely going to be the next President of the United States.