“Sirhan Didn’t Kill My Father”
That's a powerful essay on today's opinion page of the San Francisco Chronicle -- making a strong argument why California Governor Gavin Newsom should uphold the ruling of the state parole board and finally release the man who was wrongfully convicted of the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. "The pain that we all feel from my father's death should not prevent us from pursuit of the truth," the article concludes. "I firmly believe the idea that Sirhan murdered my father is a fiction that is impeding justice. If Newsom overrules Sirhan's parole, he will become just one more California official who claims to love my father but persists in denying him justice."
Yes, the essay was written by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the environmental lawyer who has widely lost respect because of the public health concerns he's raised about some vaccines. (For the record, I know Bobby and respect him for his courage, but disagree with him about his Covid vaccine stand.) But the fact that he has been marginalized on the vaccine issue should do nothing to detract from his outspoken position on his father's assassination.
My own research led me to similar conclusions about the RFK assassination at Los Angeles's Ambassador Hotel in June 1968. Like RFK Jr., I believe that the actual assassin of his father was a shooter posing as a security guard. The private security at the hotel that evening was under the control of CIA contractor Robert Maheu -- a Kennedy hater who was hired by the CIA to arrange for the Mafia assassination of Fidel Castro. The now deceased Maheu, whom I interviewed for my 2007 book "Brothers," must be considered a central figure in the RFK assassination -- along with Thane Eugene Cesar, the security guard who escorted RFK into the hotel pantry kill zone. (RFK Jr. was in negotiations to speak with Cesar, whom he believes was his father's assassin. But Cesar was seeking a big pay day for the interview, and he reportedly died in the Philippines in 2019.)
RFK Jr. is not the only Kennedy who believes Sirhan was framed for the assassination -- two of Bobby's living nine siblings have also called for his release.
Even more important, independent investigators who have deeply researched the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy have come to the same conclusion as Los Angeles County Coroner Thomas Noguchi did over a half century ago -- Sirhan is not the killer of Senator Kennedy.
Sirhan should finally be released. And Robert F. Kennedy should finally get the justice he deserves, with an official investigation devoid of political skulduggery.
A final note: This photo of RFK by Fred McDarrah hangs above my writing desk. I was a teenage volunteer in Bobby's 1968 presidential race -- which would've resulted in his election, and a reopening of the JFK case. (Bobby, the nation's top lawman at the time of his brother's murder, believed the official Warren Report was a fairy tale.) But he was murdered before he could become president. America took a very tragic path because of the assassinations of the 1960s. The bad guys won -- and their kind still runs the country. We need to take it back.
