Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Fixate Today Gone Tomorrow. I'm Nikki and I have ADHD, Joy is autistic, and we are letting our hyperfixations fly. Today we are fixating on the Kennedy curse.
Speaker: everyone, welcome back. Hello. So last couple episodes we talked about Robert F. Kennedy. We talked about, you know, we talked about his political career, things he did while he was in office. We talked about his assassination. We talked about his wife, Ethel Kennedy's life after her husband died.
Speaker: ah But because we did a bajillion episodes with JFK conspiracy theories, I thought like we had to talk about some of the RFK conspiracies too. Now, I'm going to fully admit that I did not get as into the ah RFK conspiracy theories as I did JFK.
Speaker: But that is probably good as for both me, my family, and our listeners because it became very consuming in my life last time. Yeah, I was going to say it's probably not the worst thing.
Speaker: So um I actually find the RFK conspiracies more interesting than the JFK ones. I don't think there's more to them or anything. I just think they're like more fun rabbit hole type of thing for me.
Speaker: Agree to disagree. I mean, that's great, right? That's the purpose of this. it But I did get into it enough to to, I mean, I, there was a point, there was a point last night where I was starting to get little excited and starting to dig. And I'm like, all right, I gotta, I just gotta to stop. I gotta stop.
Speaker: There's some good stuff here. I gotta stop. Yes. So yeah, this gets into all that stuff about like every time I was like the Manchurian candidate, we'll talk about it later. So let's jump into it. As always, our sources for the series are listed in the show notes.
Speaker: Because of the conspiracy theories that swirled around his brother's death, Bobby's assassination almost immediately started being questioned. Bobby knew he had enemies and everyone knew that he would have gone after any person or agency he believed could have been associated with the death of his brother.
Speaker: Those agencies or people could not sit by and allow him to become president. So that would include, right, ah maybe top of the list, Jimmy Hoffa. Mm-hmm. Yep. So the president of the Teamsters, um who Bobby Kennedy pursued relentlessly during the Clinton hearings, if you remember.
Speaker: Also, as a Attorney General, he just launched unprecedented ah federal war against mafia in general, and he made many powerful enemies against mob bosses along the way.
Speaker: So definite incentive there. Um, J. Edgar Hoover. think we've talked about the old FBI director and the complicated relationship that he shared with both the Kennedy brothers.
Speaker: So, um, they'd work together, but he, Hoover always is like really resented RFK's activism and oversight and aggressive style at the Department of Justice.
Speaker: a little jealousy. Yeah. I think there, as we go through this, we will see there is no way to escape the mafia of it all having a hand in his murder.
Speaker: ah But there are some, like, we'll get into, like, the wackadoo stuff, too. the wacky The wacky beyond the mafia. Yeah. Well, along the mafia wackiness, we have to always throw in a little bit of, like, Fidel Castro. Yep.
Speaker: Yep. You know, a lot of anti-communism enemies, um you know, Fidel Castro, after the Bay of Pigs, there was all that hostility, especially around the Cuban exiles, which then flows right into mafia. And we won't let myself go down that rabbit hole of how it all is interconnected, but but some some enemies there too. As we talked about even to this day.
Speaker: oh my gosh. Yeah. we have We had a discussion the other day off air. and There's no time. so Should we get into the person who was arrested for the assassination? Or do you have other things before we jump in? No, It's time to jump in. Yes. Given all that, right? Given all those potential enemies.
Speaker: Well, it doesn't matter, right? Because we know exactly what happened. Yeah. Right. Maybe. Question mark. yeah I mean, yeah. Question mark.
Speaker: So let's talk about Sirhan s Sirhan. I'm going to correct you real quick. Did you know his birth name was Sirhan Bashara Sirhan? Oh, oh and US media like kind of caught it like catchier doing the Sirhan Sirhan.
Speaker: Okay. I mean, that makes sense. I mean, I guess it still is. sort Yeah. I mean, it would make total sense that a very, uh, very white media would just be like, let's make this real easy for us.
Speaker: Sirhan Sirhan. Sirhan Sirhan. but So, you know, he was a, um he was, Sirhan Sirhan, was a Palestinian Christian immigrant. And so as a child, he had experienced a lot of trauma stemming from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, which I'd always heard about, didn't really fully understand. So did a little searching.
Speaker: Good, because i I skipped right over it. okay that Well, i like let me say what I said a little. It's not much. More than I did. Basically, in 1947, the UN n adopted a resolution that divided British-controlled Palestine into a separate Jewish and Arab state.
Speaker: The Jewish leaders accepted the plan. The Arab leaders, not so much. And that's what started the Civil War, which has essentially never ended.
Speaker: Yeah. um But in the mid-19—but it was at its height when Serhan Serhan was a child. And in the mid-1950s, Serhan was 12 when he and his family were given a chance to immigrate to the U.S. as part of a refugee program and settled in Pasadena.
Speaker: Okay. Okay. I do want to throw in one of the things in his childhood that shaped, obviously would shape anybody, but shaped what who he became um was he saw his older brother get run over and killed by a military vehicle when they were still, or before they had immigrated.
Speaker: So that was one of the huge losses in his childhood. But yeah, they immigrated to the U.S. when he was 12 years old. At the age of 20, he started to train to become a horse jockey, which i think is really random. I've actually heard recordings from his...
Speaker: must be his other brother who is still alive. um And he, I mean, he said like in high school, Sir Hansard was like a bookish, well-liked kid and even described him very in like detail about how unwilling he would be to hurt a fly. And he said when um his brother, like when this like horse jockey thing came, it was out of the blue kind of, ah which I thought's like a strange thing just to pop up in your life. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: So every year since my kids were little, when they go to school, I make them hold a sign that say what they want to be when they grow up. And the teenagers are so over it, but they do it because they love me. And my son said like, he wants to be one of the people who work in a pit crew at like NASCAR.
Speaker: And I was like, you've never heard spoken about even liking car racing. Yeah. But okay. So was it a joke or was he in that moment really into it? That's what's on his sign this year. That's funny. That's the difference in our parenting style. I would have like written, I told all my kids what they were going to be when they grew up.
Speaker: My kids are grown up. And you know what? They are pretty much. They all listened. Bad parenting. I know most people would tell you about parenting. at Listen, it worked out. They're successful. All right. right. He was, I mean, I guess the one thing he had going for him as a jockey was he was kind of a little guy.
Speaker: Yeah, he was five five about 120 pounds. But this dream, I guess, was short-lived because he lost his job after suffering a head injury during a race. He fell off of a horse.
Speaker: His medical records said that he was treated in the ah ER and released that same day. he would remember later that he was in the hospital for two to three weeks and And the place he was held was a unit that had bars in the windows.
Speaker: And the entire time he was in and out of consciousness. Now, I bring this up because this is, when we get to this section, this is the suspected time that he believes he was trained as a Manchurian candidate. And I will say that during this time, again, his brother... Said he his personality went through a distinct change. Became very much a different person after this event, which could be the head trauma or could be his CIA training.
Speaker: Yeah. It could be either one. So – Um, Manchurian candidate. Cause like, I've always heard that term. Half of what I do is Nikki writes these notes and then I fill in the stuff that I'm always like, I kind of don't really know what that means. Well, and it's super helpful because I forget to do things like,
Speaker: say when someone was born. I just like go right into what I want to talk about. And so Joy's like, wait, I'm sorry. Maybe we should mention all of Ethel Kennedy's kids. And I'm like, oh, right.
Speaker: Well, this is a this is one of those things where I'm like, I should have known exactly what a Manchurian candidate is, but I will give you the definition. It's a person who has been brainwashed, hypnotized, or psychologically manipulated to act as an unwitting assassin or agent For a hostile foreign power.
Speaker: And the i can't remember what comes first. The name, like the title Manchurian Candidate or the movie. It originated from the 1959 political thriller novel which came first.
Speaker: Okay. the That the movie's based on? Yeah, I think there was actually two movies based on There were two. See, this is what happens when I... Well, the only reason I know is because the remake has Denzel Washington in it, and my husband loves Denzel Washington. And the Manchurian candidate in that movie is Liev Schreiber. And I love Liev Schreiber. Nice. So so yeah I would say watch both movies. They're great.
Speaker: In the story, a U.S. soldier is captured by the Korean War and brainwashed by the Chinese and Soviet operatives in Manchuria. Sent back to America as a sleeper agent programmed to commit a political assassination. So, and it's like, it's the the whole thing is like,
Speaker: ah somebody who's like quote in control of this sleeper agent says a phrase or a word or there's some sort of signal that his brain flips and he turns into like this automaton who can only do the mission of killing whoever they're going after or whatever the the mission that they've been trained to do is and this one is where I have a hard time really buying into this but oh yeah but let's explore So after the accident with the horse, Sirhan met Tom Rathke, who introduced him to the ancient mystical order of the Rosy Cross or the Rosicrucians. Rosicrucians.
Speaker: So Tom Rathke was, um they were just like coworkers on this California racing circuit. You just never know when meet these people. Tom was a groomer and a trainer, and but they shared interest in the esoteric mysticism. Yeah. It's like, what are you doing, like, sitting there, grooming the horse? You're like, hey, one day what do you know about?
Speaker: So, according to Rathke, though, like, shortly after they met, Sirhan gave Rathke literature. Regarding meditation from the, let's just call it the order. Okay, from the order.
Speaker: So um Rathke later became a member of the society. And this is funny. In 1967, they ran into each other in Pasadena. And Sirhan complained to Rathke that he had been dropped from the order because after his injury, he didn't have um enough money to pay the membership dues.
Speaker: I think, you know, you can take as much faith in in your your order or the group you join based on how they care for you when you run out of money. so Well, everything I've read says this was a mystical religious cult.
Speaker: But Sirhan was kind of introduced to the ideas of the occult and mind control exercises And his interest in this heightened as his personality changed from the head injury. In 1966, he had an encounter with a stage hypnotist named Richard St. Charles.
Speaker: And he was hypnotized. I i think it was, i can't remember if it an event or something. But Richard St. Charles went on to note that Sirhan was an excellent candidate for hypnosis. And he believed that Sirhan had been hypnotized before.
Speaker: So I did check to see what would make a person an excellent candidate for hypnosis. oh Interesting. And it is... Somebody who cultivates an open mind, has a strong desire to change, and the ability to focus deeply.
Speaker: Now, I had a reason I looked into this. I, too, have been stage hypnotized. Have you? um Yeah. And it absolutely did not work on me whatsoever. That was my question. was like, you were on the stage, but did you get No. And that's why that's part of it. Because I've always to this day been like, okay,
Speaker: I was down there. It's really awkward because you're on stage and then there's other people. And I'm thinking the whole time i'm down there, i like, this is not, this is not doing anything. So, but then you're like, okay, well, do I not do the things and stand out like an idiot, like in that way? Or do I act like the way you're saying and sound like an idiot? And so I've always wondered, like, are the, would the other people really hypnotize? So anyways, when I looked at this definition, cause I'm like, i I think there's just something about me that's just unhypnotizable. And when I saw the ability to focus it focus deeply, I thought, bingo. I can't focus. i have to like I have tried so hard to do like meditation apps and like guided meditations. And I'm like, I i can't do it.
Speaker: I can't stay locked in. Yeah, I don't I don't know. I do know when I was on stage, he kind of went through each person and he kind of like told some people to leave and some people to stay. And when he was on me, I can't even remember. i can't remember exactly what it was. But like, i was like, in between, like, oh, like, I don't even remember what the words he said to me, but kind of something along the lines of like, do you want to stay? i don't even know. And yeah, I just remember being there going, this is like, ah no, this is not, this is nothing. I'm just on the stage now feeling completely uncomfortable needing to act like I'm hypnotized. Yeah. See, I'd hate it because audience participation in a show is my nightmare.
Speaker: Well, and generally me too. I was truly, kirk I mean, I really wanted to know, like I was curious. Yeah. See, your curiosity would get you to go up there. Me, I'd be like, oh no, I don't, I, I'm happy to die not knowing if this is real or not because I will not participate front of an audience.
Speaker: Well, now you know. her our podcast. Good. One fewer thing I do. not work on me. Sirhan, Sirhan. Maybe. Maybe. So Sirhan retained his Jordanian citizenship and never actually became a naturalized U.S. citizen. At the time of RFK's assassination, he was 24 years old.
Speaker: And the way he got a gun was just someone he worked with sold it to him. This so Lee Harvey Oswald-ish. I know. i know. Like he was this little guy Nice, quiet.
Speaker: Randomly got some crappy gun. Mm-hmm. The rest is here. On June 4th, 1968, Sirhan spent time at a gun range, but he would later say he doesn't know why he went to the gun range.
Speaker: Per the timeline, based on what s Sirhan says and then what also was extrapolated from witnesses, that on the the day of June 4th through 5th, 1968, at 8 o'clock in the morning, he was seen by his brother.
Speaker: His brother's name is Munir. Mm-hmm. at Washington and Lake Streets in Pasadena, where they lived. Sometime between 11 and 3, he visited the San Gabriel Valley Gun Club to practice shooting.
Speaker: And it really says if this is something he did on a regular basis, but i think i think he said it wasn't. It wasn't, and he he wasn't even sure why he did yeah that day. 6 to 7.15, he was spotted at Bob's Restaurant. I think that might have been Bob's Big Boy, by the way, yeah um in Pasadena City.
Speaker: college cafeteria. So, and then he went at 1030 down to like the ambassador hotel. Seems to be like this is all a little sketchy on the timeframe, but yeah. Cause I have that. He went to get, he wanted coffee somewhere and he ended up at the ambassador at a party near the ambassador hotel. and like left this party and got to the hotel around 8.
Speaker: And I'm not sure what, do we know what, because then at 10.30 he was back at the Ambassador Hotel. Yes, so that is like he, so at this party he drank, and then at the hotel he like went right to the bar and drank more, and then he went to his car and like was in his car for a little while before he decided he was too drunk to drive and then he went back inside to then get he was trying to sober himself up and like find more coffee yeah and i think like he was not a drinker normally yeah um but he did state that night that he was heavily intoxicated um he said he was downtown los angeles and like there was some parade um celebrating the anniversary of the 1967 arab israeli six-day war
Speaker: And that they that had been kind of part of what provoked him. okay. I don't know. I read that one place. It made sense. Yeah. But except, I don't know. It's kind of weird to have a parade celebrating the start of a war. But he did, later when he was giving his witness and they were interrogating him and they were trying to hypnotize him, they did make a big deal about the drinking and how much he drank. And one point under hypnosis, he claimed that he had four drinks and they were Tom Collins.
Speaker: Okay. Okay. I've never had a Tom Collins, I don't think. And you know, I should up because I don't know what's in one. But anyways, yeah. So yeah, I think that, so he was looking to sober sober up a little. And it seems to me that that, so that's wandering into the Ambassador Hotel looking for coffee that night.
Speaker: I'd say that was like the 1030 time when he went back in. um And he says the next thing that he remembers was being choked by a crowd of people. So he's on the floor being restrained, basically. But he put it as choked by a crowd.
Speaker: Okay. So this, of course, was after the assassination. He had been tackled. um It took five men to subdue him and successfully take his weapon. at one point, he got it back, and he fired off, I think, another shot.
Speaker: i think as I heard it, like they were grabbing his hand, trying to, like... like kind of slam it against a table, hu the gun. And he kept pulling the trigger the whole time. Yeah, like he was. And taking more, like in taking more shots and more shots.
Speaker: And actually, well, we'll talk about how many people he killed. Yeah. ah So he, while in police custody on June 9th, he did admit guilt.
Speaker: But the judge did not accept the confession and denied his request to withdraw his initial plea of not guilty to guilty. I was kind of confused about that. Yeah, i think originally he's like, I guess I put in the plea of not guilty.
Speaker: I think that everybody wanted to trial. yeah they didn't get They didn't get a trial for JFK. You're not, we're not getting off that easy. are having a full time. Yeah. So yeah, that's why he would not accept the the plea. yeah And knowing that lee Lee Harvey Oswald being killed before standing trial for JFK left the public just with so many unanswered questions. They were determined not to let this assassination end without the legal record.
Speaker: so that's why Judge Walker insisted that the evidence against Sir Hen had to be formally and publicly proved. Yeah. And that that's why they wanted, they they thought this was open and shut and easy peasy and fast.
Speaker: And just like a lot of times happens, even today, when you do stuff like that, it just leaves room for more questions. Oh, yes, definitely.
Speaker: um Have you ever heard the hypnosis that they put Sirhan Sirhan through? i did I hadn't until I was researching, and i there's a podcast called, I think it's the RFK Tapes or something like that, and they played a lot of it in that, but I'd never heard it before. It's crazy because they felt like that was how to really, because he didn't remember anything. Yeah.
Speaker: That was how to really get deep within his mind. Right, right. It's very um instructive. um I'm going to play a little part of it here. The recording's not great. So um I'll just insert a little bit here. But essentially, like they it gets to the part where like, Sirhan, are you is there a gun in your hand?
Speaker: Yes, grab the gun. Okay, now pull the trigger. yeah Pull the trigger. and how is this yeah How is this getting ah to the truth of the matter? um They also have him they want him to write everything down.
Speaker: Yeah, they gave him paper and pencil. and had Which I'm right assuming would have been a written confession had he... Well, so i he wrote, he actually wrote a lot, but some of the things that stood out to them was he wrote the word practice and mind control.
Speaker: And then he wrote A-M-O-R-C-O.
Speaker: which is believed to be the ancient mystical order of the rosy cross. So he was just, it was just kind of like, I think it was as he was hypnotized, just like writing the things, writing things down as they were talking to him about it all, telling him to pull the trigger.
Speaker: Well, and at one point I heard him say like, write down what you were drinking. And then they you go back like, no, don't write down, don't write down the question. What were you drinking?
Speaker: ah What? You're right down. What? You were... I fully would have done that. I'm getting all mad at the guy under hypnosis. Now, what do you see, Saran? You're back in the kitchen now. What do you see?
Speaker: Saran, what's he doing here? What? It's your last chance, Saran. Reach for your gun. Where is your gun?
Speaker: Where is your gun? Reach for Reach for it, Sharon. Reach your gun. All I'm going to say is I do not think that this was probably the best way to get truthful testimony. Yeah. of the Yeah. So while under hypnosis, he quote unquote remembered.
Speaker: Use that very loosely. He remembered being in a pantry with a woman, but he didn't know who she was. And he also remembers a woman who gave him coffee and maybe pinched him.
Speaker: So that'll come into play when it's we talk a little bit more about ah the Manchurian candidate theory, that that pinch could have been an injection of something.
Speaker: Oh, I kind of wondered when I read that, but I don't care. Yeah. So after the hypnosis ended, he kept asking the doctor if he thought he was crazy. That's something i would have done.
Speaker: Yeah, right. They never say what the doctor said. I know. I don't remember. So during these interviews, Sirhan could become really combative. And there are times that, I'm so sorry, there's a spider going up a spider web right above my actually, I just saw something moving and was like, I actually saw something go right by your camera. Yeah.
Speaker: It's high enough. It's just like, what's so s Sirhan could actually become pretty combative during these interviews. He was really assertive and he was angry about Bobby and wanting to kill him.
Speaker: At one point, he said that Bobby would have gone on to kill as many people as Hitler did. He actually, he went on to argue or explain that um he was not arguing that Kennedy had killed people, but rather the use of Hitler as a rhetorical device. He was using it to justify the principle of political assassination as a form of preemptive self-defense.
Speaker: But I found this interesting. So the hit Hitler justification is basically when he was challenged, the the morality of the assassination Per Serhan would be as if if if it was imagined as a German or a Jew in Nazi Germany.
Speaker: um Somebody had the opportunity to kill Hitler and hence prevent Hitler. the future killing of all the Jews. And so, right. It's, it's that question of like, when someone's like, if you were around Hitler, when he was a baby, would you kill that baby? Yeah. And Sirhan said, you know, you was like, I'm sure you would have tried to do that. So at some point, and, and I think we'll see like Sirhan's like justification and what he did and what he was thinking. And if it, It it um obviously changes all all over the years a lot. But yeah, that was kind of what he was meaning. Not that Kennedy would have directly killed people or that, but that Serhan by killing him would have indirectly saved.
Speaker: Yes. Yeah. So later Serhan wrote a letter to his attorney after seeing that a book was being written about him in a negative light.
Speaker: In that letter, he said that the author should quote, shut his trap or die. and that the author doesn't scare him because, quote, Kennedy didn't scare me. So I think it's safe to say there is some unraveling.
Speaker: Yes. On February 12th, 1969, the trial began. a psychiatrist who saw Sirhan testified that he was not psychotic.
Speaker: He said that he likely had issues with trauma, but it did not extend to a personality or trauma disorder. The prosecution claimed Sirhan was at the hotel days before planning the attack and that his time at the gun range was practicing for the attack.
Speaker: The defense claimed that the killing was not planned but impulsive. They said he suffered from a mental deficiency. So Sirhan said that he killed Bobby, quote, with 20 years of malice aforethought.
Speaker: And then later he claimed this was a reference to the creation of the state of Israel. So I think that he's saying he was killed Bobby because of the creation of Israel, like to get back at someone, to to revenge for the creation of the state of Israel.
Speaker: And Bobby was who he went after. to share a recording of Sir Han's explanation. When did your feelings start to take on this relationship?
Speaker: incredibly
Speaker: obsessional quality. Was it the Arab-Israeli War after you came to this country? I suppose that that it came to the fore, where I began, where when I began to focus on it, erupted as soon after the 1967 war, where the the Arabs had lost and the Israelis won. And my anger at the American people's reaction to the loss of the Palestinians and and Arabs.
Speaker: awesome So Serhan's rationale for this, at least in one point in in his speaking with Thorius, was that he...
Speaker: His anger was rooted in a deep sense of betrayal over U.S. foreign policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And so there was a what what's called the fighter jet ah controversy. And um so during the 1968 presidential campaign, Robert F. Kennedy strongly advocated for the U.S. to sell 50 Phantom fighter jets to israel um And in the past, ah Sirhan had seen Bobby Kennedy as an advocate for the for the everyman um and for minorities. And so so at the time of this announcement...
Speaker: Sirhan felt really betrayed. So somebody he thought was his advocate suddenly was on the other side and suggesting these mechanisms to, Sirhan's mind, produce the delivery of like a mass destruction. So Sirhan viewed Kennedy's proposal not as standard diplomacy, but as a deliberate attempt to send weapons that would inflict mass death and destruction on his fellow Palestinians. And so that has to do with how he explains his, his, yeah, mind switch on this. And his, his diary has corroborated this, even showing a growing rage in his fixation on Bobby as the person responsible solely
Speaker: um And in this, he also, Sirhan wrote about his support of communism, which we all know the communism of it all in the U.S. at that time, especially. Just threw that word around here and there, willy-nilly everywhere. Right. um But the l LA Times actually reported that the assassination was an act of anti-Semitism and not political protest.
Speaker: And some, on the other side, justified his actions as self ah self-defense against Bobby's promised attack. I think we can see just like now, right? Then this becomes all wrapped up in giving other people's justifications and based on what other point of view and motivations are. And it's like the same thing we're seeing right now with Iran and Iran. Yeah. um Israel and the conflicts going on currently. I was going to say with the same yeah conflict. Exactly. just like
Speaker: But ultimately what I believe comes down to is Sirhan later said he was very drunk on the night of the shooting. I think so too. I think he was drunk. I think the reason he doesn't remember is because he kind of blacked out. Yeah. Right. I don't think he was used to those Tom Collins. Not sure why he had a gun with him.
Speaker: I mean, if it was just, I guess it was in his car when he went out there because if he had been at the shooting range. Yeah, he would have had it um And there was some anger in him. and Yeah. yeah i feel like the I feel like a lot of the... ah I think the drunkenness had a lot to do with this Yeah. um So, like I said, he was convicted of first-degree murder. This was April 17th, 1969, and he was sentenced to death by gas chamber. of course, this is California, so all death sentences are have been commuted. i
Speaker: i forget the official term, but like I think... all the death sentences are on pause. So like everybody on death row is just like not going to actually die.
Speaker: It's something like that. Like it's not officially illegal. yeah Right. The California Supreme court declared the state's death penalty unconstitutional. Okay. There's like a moratorium or something is the word.
Speaker: so 1972 sentence was commuted.
Speaker: In 1989, Sirhan told British reporter David Frost, quote, my only connection with Robert Kennedy was his sole support of Israel and his deliberate attempts to send those 50 fighter jets to Israel to obviously do harm to the Palestinians.
Speaker: However, s Sirhan's memory lapses seem to go toward means, motive, and opportunity of the crime. So these the the memory lapses are very convenient.
Speaker: No, I agree. but To me, not surprising. Number one, the alcohol. Number two, oh yeah. mean, the talk trauma and the adrenaline of the vi event. I guess it doesn't surprise me, but at the same time, I don't think it means that he was brainwashed and that's why he doesn't.
Speaker: Right. Yeah. In 2019, Sirhan was actually stabbed by another inmate and he almost died. He survived and he is still in prison in San Diego County.
Speaker: Fairly recently, he was up for parole again. u huh And I believe two of the Kennedy sons went to plead on behalf of him receiving parole. Yeah.
Speaker: But he did not. No, he did not. So let's talk about kind of like we did with JFK. We talked about some of the evidence and the things that point to more than what we've been shown.
Speaker: So let's talk about the theory of a second gunman. Evidence has been presented that leads some credence to the theory that there was a second shooter in the hotel. Bobby's wounds appeared to have come from behind him, but Sirhan was more on his side.
Speaker: And the wounds look like he was shot at closer range, but Sirhan was not close enough or in the right position to hit Bobby where he was struck. And there also may have been an witness, a person that was physically in between Sirhan and Bobby.
Speaker: So the official narrative on the old lone gunman perspective, there's been several books. One book that suggested the um that Sirhan acted alone was The Forgotten Terrorist by Mel Aydin.
Speaker: He described that Sirhan turned and ducked in a motion that would mathematically reconcile with the bullet wounds. So, which makes sense. So basically so these art ah authors argued that when s Sirhan lunged forward with his gun, Kennedy's like natural reflex would have been to rapidly flinch, turn his body away from the threat and duck down. Right. So if a gun's coming at you from the front, you don't, you don't stand wide open. yet You probably throw your hand over your head, turn duck. um There was also some witnesses who said he was turning at the time to shake hands and um had been turning to his right. So, and when we're talking about that, also the, how far the gun was from him, the, the autopsy showed, concluded that the gun was, have been within inches from his head when he was shot, as opposed to witnesses saying it could have been a couple feet, uh,
Speaker: I don't know. To me, in in the craziness of the moment, there was people all over. It was a mob. I just don't see how that could quite. Yeah. So witness reports and acoustic recordings appear to show that as many as 13 bullets could have been fired. But Sir Hans Gunn's Sir Hans Gunn only held eight bullets.
Speaker: Some point to the simple fact of the amount of victims. Bobby was struck three times and six other people were hit, which makes nine wounds and only eight bullets.
Speaker: So I went back through to check, to check this again, because it seemed crazy. So Kennedy was hit. He had three shots that struck him. So one bullet went in his right shoulder.
Speaker: That was a non-life threatening one hit the base of his neck, non-life threatening. And then the fatal bullet struck the back of his head behind his right ear.
Speaker: and entered his brain. Also, there was a a shot that went like through his jacket, shoulder pad kind of thing, and went through. Okay. There was five other victims.
Speaker: Paul Schrade, he was a regional director for the United Auto Workers Union. He was a good friend of Kennedy's. he He was shot in the forehead, but survived.
Speaker: And actually, he became um later became a vocal advocate for the theory that a second gunman was involved. There was William Weisel. He was an ABC News unit manager who was shot in the abdomen.
Speaker: Ira Goldstein was 19-year-old reporter who was shot in the thigh. Elizabeth Evans was a kind campaign volunteer who was nicked in the forehead by a bullet.
Speaker: Erwin Stroll was a 17-year-old campaign volunteer who was shot in the leg. So when they talked about the nine... wounds it's There was nine wounds, but eight bullets. It wasn't six extra actually extra people. That said, think that's a crazy amount of people to hit. If we talk about how his hand, yeah as as it described, the gun was being wrestled out of his hand. And as he was basically slamming on the table, shots were just going off each time.
Speaker: Yeah. the The likelihood of each one hitting that many people it seems kind of crazy to me. But I also, it was really crowded. That's what I was going to say. it was and It was very crowded because it was, I always picture like girls swarming the Beatles.
Speaker: Like everybody who was working back there, like it it was very, it was a dense room. Yeah. And you can hear it in the recordings. Yeah. At the time, the absolute chaos, the screams. Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah. So it was revealed in 1975 that the bullets recovered from the scene may not match the rifle that Sirhan used. And it was even rumored that a bullet from the scene had been switched out to make sure that Sirhan would be convicted so that there was a bullet that could be directly linked to him.
Speaker: There were also some irregularities with the bullet holes in the kitchen, like actual posts and like portions of walls were removed as evidence, as evidence. um And they, of course, were destroyed along with some files.
Speaker: There had been photographs of police officers standing by bullet holes in the kitchen that went on to not be reported in the files. So there's some discrepancies between the photographs and what has been put in on record.
Speaker: The thing that I find crazy is during the time of JFK's assassination, that the scene of the actual crime was not better locked down.
Speaker: Seems to me there should have been more information about, it should have been easier to know the number number of bullets that had actually been shot, the forensics, the bullet holes in the area.
Speaker: And I can even step back and say, okay, well, that was obviously a huge block of road. And so i can see, i can see in the end how that may not have been as well covered.
Speaker: But in this instance, we're in one kitchen area. Yeah. It just seems to me like, again, this the scene should have been kept down and and there shouldn't have been this many questions. To me, it doesn't seem like it would be that hard to be able to trace all the bullets, to know what every where everything hit, to honestly, know who in the kitchen had a gun in their hand. Right. Yeah.
Speaker: And to be able to know which bullets came from which gun or if they came from multiple, it I find this very surprising. Again, i do get that it was very chaotic at the moment. Yeah.
Speaker: But I just feel like the lessons learned from his brother's um assassination just years earlier don't seem to have made a whole lot of difference. And it could just be information. policing standards at the time too. I know. Right. Yeah. Things have changed, but this always surprises me. I know. I totally agree. It seems like they were called the lessons of JFK when it came time to prosecute somebody, but not in the like evidence collection or talking to witnesses right away, things like that, which
Speaker: I put in here witness testimony, you know, in talking about the number of bullets and what people heard, what people saw, like we know witness testimony is demonstrably unreliable, but what witnesses have come forward with throughout history doesn't necessarily match the forensics of the scene. And to your point, like it would have been real easy to kind of clamp down the forensics of the scene.
Speaker: It's a small room. Which is why I don't understand if we're talking police cover-up or conspiracy, yeah, by the by the CIA. It's why, it to me, in both cases, becomes hard to to differentiate whether we're just talking about cover-up or some level of incompetency. Yeah.
Speaker: Or just different standards of practice. Right. At the time. Right, yeah. Well, shall we move on to the security guard? Yes, because I get excited about this. Okay. Let's talk about the security guard.
Speaker: Thane Eugene Caesar was hired as a security guard for Bobby's time at the hotel. So he was an employee of the Ambassador Hotel. And so he was a part-time guard employed by Ace Guard Service. Mm-hmm. And so he was hired to protect Kennedy. and Because at this time, presidential candidates did not receive any Secret Service protection. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Which particularly surprises me. think maybe Bobby Kennedy would have gotten a little. Well, yeah. Or I even think it's surprising that his family didn't pay for some. I mean, maybe it's not. It's the Kennedys. They think they're and untouchable at all times. but And they were a little cheap. And they were cheap sometimes, too. Yeah.
Speaker: Maybe it's not as so so surprising as I thought. So this is about the point when I was really like, I am not into conspiracy on this guy. Everything's good. And then then i went on. Because this gentleman's full-time job was actually as a maintenance plumber at Lockheed Plant. Note. So Lockheed is an aircraft company in 1968.
Speaker: His position there required security clearance from the Department of Defense. Okay. This is a little interesting, kind of. Okay. Strange that this guy's got this part-time job as a guard, but his regular job is at working for Lockheed.
Speaker: But then you know that the CIA actually had a highly a highly secret A-12 ox cart project that they were developing as the U-2 spy plane's successor.
Speaker: And this was the plane was being developed at Lockheed in the Burbank site while this gentleman worked there. Okay. Okay. So let's go back to real quick. The U-2.
Speaker: Does anyone remember that Lee Harvey Oswald worked at, he was set at an air force base and the base he was based out of was where the U-2 bomber was.
Speaker: Yeah. That like secret, secret yes thing. And the U-2 is a spy plane, right? Yeah. So the the whole thing about the U-2 is it flies at very high altitudes and, um,
Speaker: And it's a spy plane that that the enemy cannot see. So the U-2 by now is becoming a little more obsolete. So this new ox cart was intended to meet the nation's need for a very fast, very high flying reconnaissance aircraft that could avoid the U.S. Soviet air defenses. And the CIA awarded the ox cart contract to Lockheed, who previously had made the U-2 in 1959. Okay.
Speaker: We can also remember, if you really want to go back, that the AU-2 that was flown over the Soviet Union in the May 1960 down.
Speaker: shot down And it was while Lee Harvey Oswald was there. Of course. So at that point, all of the USSR overflights were halted. And that's why it blocked like the original mission going to the Soviet bloc. But President Johnson actually ordered the retirement of this A-12, which was the plane developed by Lockheed, in May of 1968. So that was the month before Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. see
Speaker: So in recap, the guard also worked at Lockheed. Lockheed was in the process of working with the CIA. They had created the plane that seceded the U-2 spy plane.
Speaker: And that program was shut down a month before this assassination happened. Could be totally coincidental. But that's just struck me as really weird.
Speaker: That, yeah, I had no idea of that stuff. Like, my research was like, Caesar hated Kennedy. No, but what we can go on. well yeah and And no, and definitely, I want you go in that. Yeah, this was just when, as soon as I saw the whole Lockheed thing and the U2, I'm like, no, no. That's wild.
Speaker: Well, Caesar himself had really strong right-wing views He was opposed to the entire Kennedy family, saying that if Bobby won the presidential election, he would have, quote, sold the country down the road to the commies or minorities like his brother did. My next note says basically he hated Bobby and he was a racist.
Speaker: Probably it was like 50 percent of the population in 1968. Caesar said that at the time of the shooting, he raised his Rome 38 gun to protect Bobby. He still had job to do, but was knocked down and never ended up firing.
Speaker: This is the kind of thing that I think we should be able to prove, disprove, have better information about. Right. So, yes, it seems like it should be kind of easy to do. um The bullets at the scene were, as we said, the.22 caliber. Caesar did own a.22 caliber weapon, but he said he had sold it three months before the murder.
Speaker: And later receipts would be uncovered that showed he actually sold it three months after the assassination. So he very well could have had his own.22 guns. caliber gun That was the same weapon, not the same weapon, but the same caliber of bullets that Sirhan used. so that's all that's saying is he could have possibly lied about the kind of gun he had there.
Speaker: but But again, nobody seemed to check. Right. At the time. Right, exactly. So Caesar was interrogated and he was they offered him to take a polygraph test, which he did go on to pass.
Speaker: In support of this theory that it was actually Caesar who did the assassination, our boy Robert F. Kennedy Jr. believes this. He believes that Caesar was the person who actually killed his father and that Sirhan did fire, but he missed. Do we know if he has any actual...
Speaker: evidence or reason that this is the theory he backs? I think we'll talk ah we'll talk about it a little bit more later, probably in the next episode. I i can't remember and I don't actually think so.
Speaker: um Okay. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised based on Yeah. of his other theories but and lack of ah evidence well in june twenty eighteen bobby jr planned on meeting caesar in the philippines where he lives now but caesar demanded a twenty five thousand dollars payment to meet so Bobby canceled the meeting.
Speaker: um But also in 2018, Robert Jr. met with Sirhan in prison. And the two had a really long conversation that resulted in Robert believing that Sirhan was not the one who killed his father.
Speaker: So there is a member of the Kennedy family who believes this. At least one. all right. I think we should maybe wrap it up there. Okay. um We have a couple more, but the big one is well next episode we'll get into the Manchuria candidate and we'll talk about the woman in the polka dot dress and all those things. We'll talk a little bit more about ah the Kennedy family's response to especially conspiracies around it, like what the different Kennedys think about.
Speaker: That sounds good. All right. Well, thank you, everybody. and we'll see you next week. Bye.
