Robert F. Kennedy Assassination: 40 Years Later

AFP :

Forty years ago, on June 5, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was brimming with the confidence of a young, charismatic and liberal political star.

He had just won the California Democratic primary, giving him a strong chance to win the party's presidential nomination, rising out of the shadow of his brother John F. Kennedy, the president murdered less than five years before.

Read the whole story: AFP

Comments

[citizenofmars]

sorry- the book is called "Death of a Senator" impossible to find anymore...

[FZliveson]

It was a crazed (Christian) Palestinian, who was arrested for the murder of RFK.
But there is irrefutable evidence that more shots were fired than Sirhan's gun could hold and
that hypnotized motherfucker did not have time to reload. I met RFK two days before his death
and he was a ray of sunlight in a smoky/hazy, dark, war-torn society. The man represented
a turn away from the military industrial complex, Eisenhower warned us against. And, like his brother.
RFK was killed to prevent a swing to peace. Before you call me a "conspiracy buff," I suggest you read half of the 400 books I own on the subject of Post-Eisenhower politics and violence in the USA,

[Wiredwilly]

Sirhan Sirhan shot Robert Kennedy, but apparently he did not KILL Robert Kennedy. According to the coroner Mr. Kennedy was killed by a bullet that came from no more than 3 inches away , fired from the BACK. Sirhan was in FRONT of Mr. Kennedy. There are computerized sound analysis that prove there were many more bullets fired than the 8 Sirhan had in his 22 caliber pistol. There was a security man named Thane Cesar right behind Kennedy who also had pulled a gun. No one investigated if the gun had been fired and possibility that Mr. Cesar was involved. The best tribute to Robert Kennedy is to forget all the " I'm still crying " blubber and re open the investigation. In fact, if people really want Change, re-open the JFK, RFK, MLK, and 9/11 investigations and find out what was REALLY going on.

[castrochavez08]

Bobby Kennedy would have helped the people of our nation in many ways, one by reducing the power of the military industrial complex. He also would have solved his brother's murder, so he was a serious threat to the crime syndicate that killed him.

Got 90 minutes?
This is not proof, but it does make a very plausible case.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4315024059102108031

[ApolloSpeaks]

BARACK AND HILLARY'S MEETING ON RFK'S ASSASSINATION ANNIVERSARY.

The Barack and Hillary meeting last night was on the ominous day of Bobby Kennedy's assassination by a fanatical Palestinian gunman. LIke RFK Obama and Clinton are anti-war candidates. LIke RFK they are U.S. senators. Like RFK Hillary is a senator from New York and related to a former president. RFK was murdered by Sirhan Sirhan who was born in 1944-the 44th year of the 20th century the number of the next president.

Hillary was born in Chicago, Obama resides there. RFK's campaign stop after the California primaries was to be Chicago the site of the disastrous Democratic Convention and anti-war riots.

In 1968 Mitt Romney's father George ran in the Republican presidential primaries and lost to Richard Nixon, like Mitt lost to John McCain. It was Nixon who ended the war and freed McCain from prison.

If Bobby Kennedy had lived he would have beat Nixon and become president. If Hillary had beat Obama in the primaries she would have went on to defeat McCain in the fall as she is clearly more electable. Her loss to Obama prefigures his defeat as RFK's assassination prefigured the defeat of Hubert Humphrey 40 years ago.

It is interesting to note that Obama gave his victory speech at the Xcel Energy Center in Minneapolis-St. Paul, the home of Hubert Humphrey when he ran for president.

[FloaterBall]

In 1968 I was ten years old, growing up in NorCal, like the writer somewhere above, already a political junkie. I stayed up with my mom, watching the returns, then went to bed when Bobby won. We were a non-religious family, I've probably been to church 3-4 times to this day. But my distraught mother came into my room to tell me what had happened. For the only time in my life, she asked me to pray.
My prayer was not answered.
Now, 2008. Dare I hope for the future?

[certainot]

for those comparing obama and kennedy i heard a sickening gun show ad yesterday- don't know if it was a one time thing or not.

tuned across giant NM right wing Limbaugh station 770 KKOB yesterday and the giant NM gun show ad featured needing guns to protect yourself from OSAMA

were they really talking about OBAMA? is this "get osama" theme new and if so, does it represent another way the GOP will go after Obama? will it be used to sell guns in every state the giant gun show goes to?

[debrouillard]

40 years latter and they are back in a better embodyment. The have dropped their pro-War views and are not all for HOPE and CHANGE.

They have incarnated in Sen Obama their best bits.

[lilphucker]

Sorry to bring you Dreamers down, here. But John and Robert Kennedy were both big-time supporters of the VietNam War. It's wrong, how they were taken; but you can't honestly rewrite their postion on escalating the killing (both U.S. and Vietnamese) . Check out today's (6-5-08) "Democracy Now, with Amy Goodman" for a little history lesson.

[donaldw6]

People are complicated, lilphucker. They weren't perfect by a long shot. But there really was something of Camelot there, and there really were a lot of high ideals. It was a different time. I didn't see the episode today, but I know the histories. I do believe Bobby would have ended it if he'd been elected.

Maybe you weren't there. It's not always so easy to understand if you weren't.

[don]

Nixon was the peace candidate too, twice. His plan was to bring peace through victory, and we all know how that turned out. I like to think that RFK had another approach in mind, but there's no knowing how it might have gone.

I'm grateful to have lived long enough to witness the resurgence of progressive ideology, and look forward to a burnishing of the New Deal and a reassertion of fairness in our economic and civil affairs. Obama played and won by the rules without rancor or cheap shots. How refreshing that is. When I first took note of Obama, I recognized a quality in him that I saw in JFK when I first noticed him. It was intangible, but definitely there. Bobby had it too when he began his run for the presidency. They were inspired and invigorated by the possibilities of success, and it was infectious. Change you can believe in.

[e2008usa]

During your entire life.... Have you ever taken a step back.... or Ever figure out soon or later that you were in a wrong direction.­... or never felt that something is wrong... and then DARE to to have the Courage to fight against that BIG cause...(t­he domination of government by corporate power) fight against like we do with Obama in order to repair and make PEOPLES understand that is was wrong.... that peoples had been routed to the wrong path... DID YOU EVER TAKE A RISK and fight against wrong policy (like in the Washington DC) .... fight in order to repair.... in order to restore. No may be not, your life has never been exposed to Danger for the sake of THE NATION, Right ! Take lesson of Respect you owe to the Kennedy

[FZliveson]

Wrong LilPhucker­...JFK was killed after issuing executive order to bring the troops home 1000 per month to be completed sometime in 1964. Your "phacts" are wrong and you need to read some history, not listen to talking headaches like Amy Goodman. Little history lessons are for idiots, who have neither the patience, nor the intellect to really get the picture from history.

[citizenofmars]

JFK wanted out of Vietnam- one of the reasons he was killed

[atombee]

If i may, i'd like to share the lyrics of my song Pop Down the Years, the second verse of which refers to the murders of the sixties ... the first verse of which refers to the optimism the killings shattered seemingly once and for all.

So they told the tale of the golden sun
And the shining girl who lived within
So pretty
I'll go now
I know now
Just where to find her
So the story goes we wore the clothes
To make it seem all possible
The hope it was
All gone now
So long now
But not forgotten

Chorus:
We tried so hard to make it come true
A perfect dream, sun bouncing, sky blue
Pop down the years, still shining on you
Translucent songs that made the world new

Those summer days, your sweet perfume
Just filled the air with magic
A symphony
So bright now
All light now
They watched us dancing.
A slip of time, a ray of sun
A floating song from a perfect world
And endless love
How softly
How sadly
Young hearts were broken

We tried so hard to make it come true
A perfect dream, sun bouncing, sky blue
Pop down the years, still shining on you
Translucent songs that made our love new

*****
For the first time in forty years, i am feeling hopeful for our country.

[donaldw6]

"It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope."

-- Robert F. Kennedy

I heard him speak those words when he was alive, and I felt that ripple of hope spill out of all of us on that day forty years ago. I remember how he spoke to that better part of us, and I've clung to the hope that someday we might be ready to try again to be something more. What do you think, Bobby? Are we any closer?

[meanguy]

what is it about our society that so many of us just 'give up' will because a politician gets assassinated, and can only be 'restored to hope' by another politician? politicians have been the targets of violence since the first caveman tried to tell the rest how many berries they could store...ar­e we really that fragile?

[llozano]

Like other posts I remember waking up and hearing of the news of his assasination. He did not die until later that day. It was announced to us at school. I attended Roosevelt H.S. in Los Angeles, a school that Bobby had visited when he was Attorney General of the U.S. I was not too involved with politics at the time but he was considered a hero and someone who could possibly make a difference for the better. Growing up in East L.A. in a multi-ethnic neighborhood Bobby was the right man at the right time. After JFK, MLK and now RFK many of us were never the same after that day. We were all left as if awakening from a glorious dream right before we received our reward. Some of us are still working to make that dream come true.

[NTO08]

I was 11, and being a political junkie even then, was watching news of Calif. primary on TV...I heard when it happened, and woke my already asleep parents to tell them news...the­y thought I was making it all up, until they saw it for themselves­...the next day, my teacher could hardly control her emotions when discussing the event with us...a horrible day, so soon after MLK, and a foreshadowing of an awful summer in Chicago.

[Sabreen60]

I feel the same sense of hope and renewal toady with O-bama as I did with Bobby Kennedy and before him with John.

[castlerider]

His wife next to him looks so vibrant, so healthy and excited; so proud and beautiful.

Little mention has been made of her, but I relate to her, seeing the inner beauty the moment reflects in her eyes, revealing the spark of a strong soul within.
I dare not consider myself as a witness, too close, out of respect to her, who is at the very front of it all, who is about to have lost so much.
Having grown so much since that day, and understanding so much more, I take this all in, and it breaks my heart all over again.

[michie62]

I was 5 and 1/2 years old that morning when I found my grandpa crying at the kitchen table. He told me a bad person shot "my friend Bobby Kennedy" (I always called him "my friend" as he was so kind to children on the news). I asked if he was going to live and my grandpa, who I thought knew everything told me he didn't know, but he hoped so. That morning, I went to vacation bible school and asked if we could pray for "my friend Bobby Kennedy" and the teacher said we couldn't because he was Catholic. When I went out to the car, I told my grandma and she went back into the church. I don't know what she said. The next morning I woke up and everyone was crying because Bobby had died a bit after 1am. That morning, the teacher said we could pray for my friend. I told her we didn't have to because he was already with God. I watched the funeral and the train. I felt so bad for his kids and the kids who were watching the train go by and for me. To think that Bobby would be 82 now, wow. What might have been. I still choke up and I am not 5 and 1/2 anymore.

[michie62]

And tonight is about Bobby, not anyone else. The hope lives on, the dream never dies.