A couple of days ago, Edward ‘Ted’ Kennedy, the youngest brother of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Bobby F. Kennedy, sadly passed away. For many, the Kennedy brothers marked an era of brilliant hope, yet their lives were tragically haunted by those they challenged. Ted Kennedy, a supremely gifted orator, read the spell-binding eulogy at Bobby Kennedy’s funeral. While Ted Kennedy’s death marks the end of an unparalleled political dynasty in US history, I recalled a documentary made about the controversaries surrounding the murder of Bobby Kennedy on the 5th June 1968 when he was campaigning for the Democratic Party nomination for the presidential campaign.
For all conspiracy theorists this 60-minute film is a real gem, highlighting the intimidation of eye witnesses, destroyed evidence, a dubious forensics examination, a CIA plot, the unfeasible trajectory of the eight bullets, the fact that Sirhan Sirhan could not have shot Kennedy from where he stood, the dismissal of a Los Angeles coroner who compiled a report supporting the eye witness statements, and even the two mysterious assassins who escaped the Los Angeles hotel after the shooting gleefully exclaiming ‘we killed him, we killed him’. All eye witnesses contradict the official version of the assassination. Perhaps even more startling is that Sirhan Sirhan, the Palestinian man arrested for the shooting, was allegedly hypnotized by the CIA in a Manchurian Candidate (1962; dir. John Frankenheimer) style plot.
Within an hour of the murder the L.A.P.D announced that Sirhan Sirhan was the only assassin, despite credible evidence to the contrary. The film alleges that three assassins were involved. Sirhan remains incarcerated. One of the theories goes that when he was Attorney General Bobby Kennedy threatened to ‘smash the CIA into a thousand pieces’ to tackle its widespread corruption and launched a ‘bitter crusade’ against organised crime. So, the CIA wanted retaliation. For conspiracy theorists everywhere, this sounds like a replay of the JFK assassination where, allegedly, the mafia and government agencies had colluded to prevent withdrawing troops from Vietnam by shooting the President. The resultant cover-ups spawned numerous conspiracy theories and an accompanying media industry.
For instance, the first police officer on the scene was told not to pursue the arrest of a young woman, whom witnesses recalled seeing in a polka-dot dress who cried out “We shot him, we shot him.” A young man who accompanied her, also slipped away. His police report was later amended without his consent. The jury at the subsequent trial never saw all the evidence.
Listen to the evidence presented in this DVD and decide for yourself! It’s available at 973.922 rob in the DVD collection on the ground floor of the University Library.
At Bobby’s funeral at St Patrick’s cathedral in New York, Ted Kennedy movingly read:
“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.”
Directed by David Smith and Tim Tate
UK, 1997
Q. Who was the notorious FBI boss Bobby Kennedy publically challenged over corruption?
