On this day in 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel, and he was pronounced dead the following day.
Kennedy, a United States senator and candidate in the 1968 Democratic Party presidential primaries, won the California and South Dakota primaries on June 4. He addressed his campaign supporters in the Ambassador Hotel's Embassy Ballroom. After leaving the podium, and exiting through a kitchen hallway, he was mortally wounded by multiple shots fired by Sirhan. Kennedy died at Good Samaritan Hospital nearly 25 hours later. His body was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Sirhan, a Palestinian who held strong anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian beliefs, testified in 1969 that he killed Kennedy "with 20 years of malice aforethought"; he was convicted and sentenced to death. Due to People v. Anderson, his sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1972 with a possibility of parole. As of April 2023, his parole request has been denied 17 times.
Kennedy's assassination prompted the Secret Service to protect presidential candidates, and his assassination has led to several conspiracy theories. No credible evidence has emerged that Sirhan was not the shooter, or that he did not act alone. It has been described as one of four major assassinations in the United States that occurred during the 1960s.
But why?
A motive cited for Sirhan's actions is the Middle East conflict. After his arrest, Sirhan said, "I can explain it. I did it for my country." Sirhan believed that he was deliberately betrayed by Kennedy's support for Israel in the June 1967 Six-Day War, which had begun one year to the day before the assassination.
However, in a June 13, 2010 article titled, "JFK and RFK: The Plots that Killed Them, The Patsies that Didn’t," James Fetzer noted that:
multiple shots targeted RFK, 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;
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!" Source
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