By Alexei Summers (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: March 28, 2012
The entire event was captured on live television and shook the nation to its core: yet another beloved American politician slain before the public eye, lying in a red carpet made from his own blood.
It was June 5, 1968, shortly after midnight in Los Angeles, California at the Ambassador Hotel when 24-year-old Palestinian immigrant, Sirhan Sirhan allegedly drew a .22 caliber Iver-Johnson Cadet revolver and gunned down Senator Robert F. Kennedy, the democratic nomination for President of the United States of America.
Shortcut to the year 2012, and Sirhan Sirhan is soon up for parole once again. He was arrested shortly after the assassination, tried and sentenced to death by gas chamber – a sentence which was overturned and replaced with life imprisonment. He is now in his 60s, and judges have been denying his appeals for parole for years. He has, as of 2011, been denied parole a total of 14 times.
Robert F. Kennedy, referred to lovingly by the American public as “Bobby” Kennedy, was the brother of former president John F. Kennedy – better known as JFK, and also famously assassinated. Given the popularity of the family, it is unsurprising that the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the Kennedy brothers have been the object of question, concern and controversy for the past half century.
And there is plenty of controversy. For one thing, Sirhan Sirhan claims to have no memory of killing Bobby Kennedy, despite numerous confessions that he committed the crime. This has been the subject of much speculation of a Manchurian Candidate-style brainwashing of some sort.
The Manchurian Candidate was a political thriller novel released in 1959, written by Richard Condon. The novel’s premise is that a platoon of soldiers in the Korean War are captured by the communists, brainwashed and then released. It is apparent by the end of the novel that they have been brainwashed by the communists to overthrow the US government from the inside. The film adaptation of the novel, starring Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey, featured the final dénouement of the film as an assassination attempt by Raymond Shaw, a brainwashed character in the film who is unaware of his actions.
It is in this light that Sirhan Sirhan is viewed by conspiracy theorists, speculating foul play and internal conspiracy surrounding the deaths of the Kennedy brothers. It has been suggested that he, like Raymond Shaw in the novel, was programmed to assassinate Kennedy. After he carried out his duty, conspiracy theorists reason, his memory of the event was wiped.
There is some evidence that could be interpreted as corroborating this. At his trial, his behaviour was seen as erratic or even mechanical. Any time he was asked if he shot Senator Kennedy, witnesses reported that he would quickly answer “yes,” but as though he had no control over his response.
The memory wipe theory has also been supported by psychologist Dr. Eduard Simson-Kallas, who worked closely with Sirhan during his stay in San Quentin Prison. After many hours of hard work, hypnosis, therapy and analysis, the doctor determined that Sirhan truly had no memory of the murder or its aftermath, and confirmed that it was entirely possible that he had been brainwashed to carry out the act by persons unknown.
The CIA has been accused of having a part in both Kennedy brothers’ deaths. Since both of the Kennedys’ deaths, the CIA has had free roam of many political decisions that during JFK’s day-and-age simply wouldn’t have flown. Foreign government takeovers, assassinations, and coup-de-tats — you name it. If they want it to happen, it will. The Kennedys were well-known to have had a poor relationship with the CIA: to hold extreme contempt of them, block their actions, and ultimately disregard much of the organization’s advice. It was therefore in the CIA’s interest for the Kennedys to die.
The questions remain unanswered; even Sirhan Sirhan is apparently unsure of the truth behind the events that transpired on that fateful day so many years ago. Since the death of the Kennedys, public perspective regarding the government (and its organizations, such as the CIA and the FBI) has been mistrustful. While it is a sad state of affairs when one lends sympathy to one of the 20th centuries most well-known contemporary villains, the fact is, that’s just the mistrustful age we live in.
No matter whose fault the assassination really is, it remains highly unlikely that Sirhan will ever be released, and that the judges will continue to reject his appeals for parole. The Manchurian Candidate, after all, is just a movie.
