Dan Moldea's The Killing of Robert F. Kennedy

a) George R. Stoner, chief of LA DA's office Bureau of Investigation, in 19 June 1968 memo to LA DA Evelle Younger, re interview w/ Ambass security chief William Gardner: "Mr. Gardner stated that he had discussed security with members of the Kennedy organization and, although they did not say they did not want any security, the implication was clear that they did not want anything to interfere with the Senator mingling with the people in the audiences." (24)

b) "LAPD Metro officer Robert Bruce Pickard recalls, 'The Kennedys did not want any uniformed guys in the hotel, so there were three or four squads, which included eight to ten men each, strategically located within a circle around the hotel.'" (25)

c) general question as to how accurate (self-serving) these "recollections" were by police personnel [more importantly, this sounds a lot like "the Kennedys" were somehow in charge of the Ambassador Hotel as well as the LAPD; the Ambassador was the site of other candidates' rallies -- viz., Max Rafferty's]

a) need to address the conflicting accounts of the decision to go thru pantry; Mold cites no ref & gives no name, but is presumably talking about Kranz report indicating this was Fred Dutton's idea; contemporary TIME article suggests [Bill] Barry didn't like it & that it was RFK's idea (spur o th moment)

"After Sirhan picked up the check for the coffees, at 6:40, they decided to go to the nearby student union at Pasadena City College, where both had been enrolled in 1963. At the union, they met three other friends --- Marof Mohammad Badran, Abdo Jabre Malke, and Anwar John Sayegh. After talking and checking out the coeds, Sirhan and Mistri returned to Bob's Big Boy...

"Sirhan wanted to go shoot pool, but Mistri had another appointment. At about 7:15, Sirhan returned to his car still parked at the restaurant." (27)

a) Sirhan says he entered Rafferty party at 8 PM & drank 4 Tom Collins (a hot night n crowded area) (28)

a) apparently Sirhan was in & out of the pantry area several times frm abt 10 PM on; Judy Royer said she twice asked Sirhan to leave the kitchen pantry btwn 10:15 and 11:00, last seeing him leaving the anteroom; "Robert Klase, having been stopped by a security guard from entering the Embassy Room, tried to get in through the kitchen. While standing in the anteroom, he was asked by a television network technician to guard his equipment until he returned. At about 11:00, Sirhan attempted to enter the kitchen, but Klase advised him that only ABC-TV staff were allowed in the area. Sirhan left without an argument." (30)

"At the same time, Murphy reassigned Cesar to the Embassy Ballroom's kitchen pantry area.

"Murphy told Cesar to position himself at the east door, next to the Colonial Room, the designatd press room where Kennedy planned to hold a news conference after his speech. Instructed to check the credentials of the people walking in and out of the kitchen, Cesar mostly sat, paced, and occasionally checked the bona fides of those people.

"Cesar recalls, 'At about 11:15, Murphy came to me and said that Kennedy would be going through the kitchen pantry on his way to the Colonial Room after his speech on the stage in the Embassy Room. Murphy then moved me from the east pantry door to the west double swinging doors, which were next to the backstage area.

"'A few minutes later, Bill Gardner told me that he wantd me to accompany Kennedy from the west pantry double doors to the Colonial Room. He just told me, "Keep the aisle clear. Make sure that everybody's out of the way, so that Kennedy's group can walk freely."'" (32)

"'The male voice, identifying himself as a sheriff's deputy, claimed that Kennedy was shot,' Rolon recalls, adding that immediately after the shooting the deputy confirmed that Kennedy had been hit and then called Rampart from a private phone in the hotel. 'You could hear a lot of background noise. He was not sure how many suspects, but he felt that they had a perpetrator in custody at the time. He [the deputy] would not identify himself, because he was not supposed to be there.'

"Why? Rolon replies, 'Many times, different law enforcement agencies put people in situations to monitor events. And he was there -- but unofficially, in other words. He was not identified as a sheriff's deputy. They [the Kennedy people] didn't wish to have any security by the LAPD, but we had a 'need to know.'

"The LAPD's long-standing position has been that NO [sic] known law enforcement personnel were present at the Ambassador in an undercover capacity. Rolon told me that he knew of "three or four plainclothes" sheriff's deputies who were working undercover at the Ambassador that night. However, I could not find anyone at the LAPD or the Los Angeles Sheriff's Office (LASO) who would confirm this." (39)

"Right away, an older Jewish couple ran up to me, and they were hysterical. I asked them, 'What happened?' The woman said that they were coming out of the Ambassador Hotel by the Embassy Room when a young couple in their late teens or early twenties, well dressed, came running past them. They were in a state of glee. They were very happy, shouting, 'We shot him! We shot him!' The older woman asked, 'Who did you shoot?' The girl said, 'Kennedy, we shot him! We killed him!'

"I said, 'Can you describe them?' The lady gave me a description of the gal as 'a female Caucasian, in her late teens or early twenties, blond or light hair, and wearing a polka-dot dress.' And she gave me the description of the man, a male Caucasian in his late teens, early twenties, well dressed, but she couldn't describe him any further. Her attention was with the person she had the conversation with: the girl. Then, she said, they both ran off.

"That put this old Jewish woman into hysterics. She was still in hysterics at the time I talked to her. The one thing I learned during my many years in the police department is the remarks that are made spontaneously are very seldom colored by the people's imagination. These were spontaneous remarks from this couple. As far as I was concerned, that was the most valid description available.

"Aftr she gave me the description, and I determined that Kennedy had, in fact, been shot, I notified the Communications Division. I was given a clear frequency. I radioed in the description of the man and woman a number of times, requesting that it be broadcast every fifteen minutes."

[footnote #9] "Sergeant Sharaga remembers that he wrote down the names of the older couple. He then gave that page of his officer's field notebook to Rampart Detectives. However, he never saw his notes again, and they are missing from the LAPD's files. As best as he can recall, the couple's name was Bernstein, but he is not sure." (40)

"Remarkably, at some point after the shooting had ended and several in the crowd wrestled the gun away from Sirhan, Kennedy's official bodyguard, Bill Barry, said in his statement to the FBI, he 'called Roosevelt Grier to hold and protect the assailant and at the same time, directed Rafer Johnson to pick up the gun which was lying on the table.... [D]uring the switch, the assailant somehow again recovered the gun....'

"However, at that point, Sirhan had run out of ammunition." (47)

"I was by myself. So I emptied his pockets, and laid everything on the table. I remember that he had an expended .22-caliber slug in his pocket, a live .22, along with his money and car key. Travis told me to start booking this stuff."

Sirhan was not given a Breathalyzer test. Although the time was never recorded, a prison doctor took a blood sample from the suspect. However, according to a December 11, 1968, memorandum written by Deputy District Attorney David N. Fitts, "Blood samples of admit[t]ees...are not subjected to any test which would reveal presence of alcohol in the blood or the presence of any drug in the system." The sample was later destroyed, which is consistent with police procedure.

Similarly, a routine urinalysis administered to Sirhan "does not disclose the presence or absence of alcohol or drugs in the system of the individual."

In short, Sirhan received no test or measurement to determine whether he had been drinking --- other than the eye comparison test by Officer White.

Removed from Sirhan's pockets were four one-hundred-dollar bills, one five-dollar bill, four one-dollar bills, $1.66 in change, two .22-caliber cartridges (brass cases, lead projectiles), one .22-caliber copper-coated projectile, a brown comb, a car key, two newspaper clippings, and a piece of paper containing a typed verse....

Addendum, 21 July 2014:

We need something more than Dan Moldea's word for it and judgment exonerating Cesar. It's good that Cesar volunteered so much; the issue is whether he might have volunteered in any other circumstances previous to those occasions. Cesar's .22 is not the issue, in my opinion, but at this point his service revolver .38 is.

Fred Dutton made the decision, according to the report made by Thomas F. Kranz, Special Counsel to the LA DA's office. This decision was the obvious one, since RFK was originally scheduled to speak to another overflowing crowd in another ballroom; but since it was around midnight California time, RFK would need to speak with the press to get any remarks out for newspapers in the eastern part of the country. The route he would need to take to get from the Embassy ballroom to the Colonial press room was through the pantry. Sirhan was observed two days earlier (June 2, 1968) seated in the same pantry area shortly after RFK had passed through the pantry from giving a speech and then going to speak with the press. An obvious route to take which had been known previously and could be surmised as being an eventual route RFK would take even had he gone to the other ballroom to speak to the other crowd.

A lot of this is noticeably relying on Cesar's own account of the situation. And Moldea seems to have made an "inverted stretch" to get 1-3 feet to line up with 1 inch. Kranz did a better job, in 1977, by noting a witness's statement that Sirhan was "stabbing" at Kennedy while firing; I can look this up if needed for a page reference from the Kranz report.

Firing from one's tiptoes is not exactly the best firing angle to accomplish anything; it is also unbalanced, and makes suspect any idea that a direct point-blank shot could have resulted after the first shot or two -- again, consider Uecker's account about his own reaction and moves to deflect Sirhan's arm.

However that may be, it's hard to get any point-blank shot from such a proposed scenario. If the scenario is accepted, Sirhan would have had to have been directly on top of RFK to hit at point-blank range.

Again, how was Sirhan close enough on a proposed FOURTH shot to have inflicted a lethal wound from an inch away? [my general point ever since -- is there any evidence whatsoever that Sirhan was essentially on top of Robert Kennedy?-dwd]

Agreed: the three gunshot wounds were at close range.

[I believe Ayton was intending emphasis instead of irony by putting quote marks around "most credible"-dwd]

It's difficult to see what point is being made here. But conceding the premise, wouldn't it be most likely that a general crowd reaction -- like any individual reaction -- would be to move away from the shooter, shots or sound of the shots? In which case RFK should have been protected simply by a general movement away from the maniac shooter, rather than that shooter somehow getting in at least 3 close-range shots (a possible 4th going through shoulder of suit-jacket). Again, consider Uecker's own apparent reaction -- one of a protective movement towards the shooter to deflect his arm as quickly as possible.

McBroom was thrown backwards by the panicked crowd, which makes perfect sense; anyone who was not trying to protect RFK would have logically been moving away from the shooter.

Then apparently the case is closed and there are no problems. But we're not obligated to just accept an "argument from authority," are we? [in retrospect, reading this today, the alleged statement by Noguchi is about the most ironic damned observation I can think of about this case-dwd]

See above. I don't believe in any "multiple assassins" waiting on various routes; but the most likely route to be taken in order to get to the press room was through the pantry -- something which was observable as a previous routine, and something which was likely whether RFK had spoken to the other crowd in the other ballroom or not. Mel makes an important point here, as some people want to argue that RFK was "set up" by, for instance, Bill Barry in a "sudden change of plans" scenario. But Mel also uses the same basic idea to argue for the implausibility of a conspiracy with respect to a second gunman: "conspirators could not have known which route Kennedy was to take when he left the Embassy ballroom stage and entered the kitchen pantry." This is demonstrably false, since 2 days prior to the actual assassination Sirhan was identified as sitting in that very same pantry area about 20 minutes after RFK had passed that way to the Colonial press room upon finishing a speech.................

Addendum, 6 January 2015:

On page 303 of your book...you recount that you were suddenly and angrily aware that Sirhan had been lying to you in the possible belief that as long as he could keep stringing researchers like yourself along, then he would continue to have hope for clemency. I guess the first thing that strikes me about this is, what did you expect? After all the research you already had to have done on the man, knowing how much of a liar and manipulator he was...why was there such apparent surprise and even shock (as you then went off on him and accused him of having motive, means and opportunity)?

My response? When I walked into my first interview with Sirhan, I still believed that a second gun had been fired at the crime scene, either accidentally or intentionally. The lies he told me -- especially those about his memory lapses with regard to matters that went to motive, means, and opportunity -- were what convinced me that he had committed the murder and acted alone.

A related question is more intangible: is it possible that you are quite happy to lay sole blame upon Sirhan in large part because of your resentment over "being used"?

My response: That's a fair question. But the answer is "no" -- for the reasons I explained on pages 305-309.

On page 300 you relate the following exchange:


Moldea: "Were you a participant in a conspiracy?"

Sirhan: "Do you think I would conceal anything about someone else's involvement and face the gas chamber in the most literal sense? I have no knowledge of a conspiracy."

Moldea: "But, yes or no, were you part of a conspiracy, Sirhan?"

Sirhan: "I wish there had been a conspiracy. It would have unraveled before now."


[me, to Moldea:] Would you agree that these are not direct answers to direct questions, and that they are not even a way of answering NO that could be described as definitive (from a compulsive liar)? That being the (probable) case, why would you draw from this a conclusion pointing AWAY from conspiracy when the opposite seems far more likely just in his own answers to your questions? (That is, even if there were no other evidence indicating accomplices/associates)

With regard to your questions about my discussion with Sirhan about a possible conspiracy, my conclusions were not solely based on his responses.

I'm not much interested in issues like Moldea's begging questions or introducing non sequiturs (as if it mattered that he believed in a conspiracy prior to interviewing Sirhan). But the weakness of his last response, and how it seems inconsistent or contradictory relative to the first response, presents a problem.

Dan Moldea first said he concluded Sirhan "committed the murder and acted alone" because lies Sirhan told -- "especially those about his memory lapses with regard to matters that went to motive, means, and opportunity" -- convinced him; in other words, because Sirhan was lying about his own culpability in the crime. The question I raised was whether it's more consistent to extend that and say Sirhan also might be likely to lie about his involvement in a conspiracy to commit murder.

I think some people in the research community will be unhappy with the portrait of Sirhan presented in Larry's essays. But that portrait is true to the evidence in my opinion, and it's confusing how some seem to easily accept the idea that Sirhan was "programmed" as a (gun-wielding) "patsy" when he may only be someone who lies about what he did. The bottom line for me is whether or not we're going to be honest and consistent ourselves in assessing the evidence. If we are, I think we should think about giving up ideas of Sirhan as "an innocent man unjustly accused" and ask instead if the man would ever tell the truth about what happened.