Posted on 06/05/2008 8:13:42 AM PDT by Nextrush
By late in the evening of June 4th, 1968 it was clear that Robert Kennedy had defeated Eugene McCarthy in the California Primary to establish his preeminence as the "outsider" Democrat candidate for president.
Bobby Kennedy did one-on-one interviews with the big network television reporters and then walked into a ballroom at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles to make a victory speech.
Kennedy told his audience "we can end the divisions within the United States" and then spoke of "change" happening if delegates would consider how he had won in California.
It was now after 3am in the East and midnight in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968.
He left the crowd and made his way through a pantry where he was going for a news conference. With him a few reporters and aides, but no formal security arrangements with police or Secret Service agents.
In the pantry as Kennedy responded to a radio reporter's question, Sirhan Sirhan opened fire. Kennedy was hit in the head and knocked to the floor.
Others were injured and a sruggle broke out with Sirhan.
Reporter Andrew West shouted "Get the gun, get the gun....break his thumbs if you have to, just get the gun.."
It was the middle of the night and I was asleep. The television networks were on the air, but many stations in the smaller cities were not on the air this late at night and the network coverage was probably only seen in the West and in major eastern cities.
Only the three big networks (ABC,CBS,NBC) existed (No cable networks or cable news channels) to provide nationwide coverage of news.
I heard about what had happened later that morning and saw film with the radio reporter's audio on NBC's "Huntley-Brinkley Report" that evening.
Senator Kennedy would die around 24 hours later.
And Ted Kennedy never returned the bags full of cash dropped off to the RFK campaign by Howard Hughes...
“Sirhan Sirhan” wasn’t he a Muslim extremist linked with the PLO?
I loved Bobby’s heart.
yes, I think that’s the same guy
I was six years old, but I remember hearing that Rosey Grier was the man who actually subdued the terrorist and took the gun. Is that right?
Sirhan was born in Jerusalem[1] to Christian Palestinian parents and was raised in the Maronite Church. In his adult life however, he made several religious conversions, joining Baptist and Seventh-day Adventist churches, and dabbled in the occult.[2] His family, which moved to the United States when Sirhan was 12, briefly lived in New York, and soon moved to California. He attended John Muir High School and Pasadena City College in Pasadena, California and was employed as a stable boy in 1965 at the Santa Anita Race Track in Arcadia, California.[3]
“Sirhan Sirhan” wasn’t he a Muslim extremist linked with the PLO?Sirhan Sirhan was a Palestinian immigrant but he was/is a Christian. I don't know of any connection to the PLO. My understanding is he was a nutcase working alone.
Ping to you. If I recall correctly you were in California when this happened.
I met Bobby Kennedy the day before in So. Oregon.
It is also appropriate to note that the RFK assassination was the catalyst that really got the Gun Control Act of 1968 through congress and to LBJ. Prior to that it had languished for 5 yrs. Thanks to the reaction to this one act, all of us have to jump through hoops just to exercise a constitutional right.
Sirhan is a Palestinian Arab, his stated reason for killing RFK was RFK’s support for Israel during the 1967 Six Days War. However, he was not a Muslim. He and his family are Eastern Orthodox Christians.
Rosey Grier subdued Sirhan.
The price you pay when you go after the mob sam G.
There were others involved in taking the shooter down, not just Grier.
Despite the fact that Ray Milland told him not to. ;-)
I had worked on his campaign and as my reward for working so hard...I got to go to the hotel for the rally.
To this day it breaks my heart to think about it.
Mike
I remember this so well, and I was only in the 3rd grade. Kids were crying at school. One little boy whose parents sent him to school with a McCarthy button bigger than his head pinned to his shirt, was crowing about how PLEASED he was at this turn of events, which made us girls cry all the more.
At some point the news trickled down to everyone that he was not just shot; he was dead. Very sad and scary to us.
“Actually I was there at the hotel the night Robert Kennedy was shot.
I had worked on his campaign and as my reward for working so hard...I got to go to the hotel for the rally.
To this day it breaks my heart to think about it.
Mike “
That’s what I recalled you telling me, Mike. I met RFK the day before in Medford at the airport.
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