As Sirhan, the accused murderer of Sen. Robert Kennedy in 1968 remains in prison, Robert Kennedy Jr. maintains his stance of Sirhan not killing his father and a second gunman being involved in the crime.
In a 2021 San Francisco Chronicle op-ed, Robert Kennedy Jr. had written, “I believe Cesar killed my father. Sirhan is not my father’s killer.” This opinion and belief of him has caused a feud inside the Kennedy family.
As reported by New York Post, “It was revealed Wednesday that Kennedy Jr., the current US health and human services secretary, sent a letter to then-US Attorney General Eric Holder in 2012 requesting a new investigation into his father’s death and the two-gunmen theory. The letter to Holder, who served under President Barack Obama, came to light in documents on the assassination declassified by the Trump administration.”
Ethel Kennedy, the mother of Robert Kennedy Jr. and his other siblings, however does not support his stance and had posted on her daughter Kerry Kennedy’s X account in September, 2021, “Our family and our country suffered an unspeakable loss due to the inhumanity of one man. He should not have the opportunity to terrorize again.”
Her comments were made following Kennedy Jr.’s recommendation to the “California Board of Parole Hearings that Sirhan be given parole in 2021”, as reported by New York Post. His siblings Joe, Courtney, Kerry, Chris, Max and Rory did not support him and stood with his mother.
Kennedy Jr. had also sent a letter to Holder, the then-US Attorney General, in 2012, which included a three-page “Summary of Evidence for the New Investigation” compiled by Paul Schrade. Schrade was not only a labor leader and confidant of Kennedy, he was also among the five people wounded during the attack on Kennedy.
The aforementioned letter said, “Paul and his team of nationally prominent attorneys including former US Attorney Rob Bonner strongly believe this new evidence is conclusive and requires a new investigation. I agree and support his request for a new investigation.”
Schrade had also sent a letter to Holder on July 29, 2012 that mentioned that the request of a new investigation was based on “new forensic tests on a journalist’s audiotape recorded during this crime and found in the FBI’s files.”
Schrade, who passed away in 2022, had also mentioned that Kennedy’s autopsy showed that he was shot from behind whereas eyewitnesses have confirmed that Sirhan had stood in front of him. Regarding the same, Kennedy Jr. had sent a letter on August 27, 2021, to the Board of Parole Hearings that mentioned, “I have been a strong advocate for the release of Mr. Sirhan B. Sirhan since I learned of evidence that was not presented to the court during his trial.”
The letter further said, “After years of careful investigation, I arrived at the conviction that the story of my father’s murder was not as cut and dried as portrayed at trial.While Sirhan clearly fired shots at my father, overwhelming evidence suggests that these were not the shots that took his life.”
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He further mentioned, “Cesar, hired as a security guard for the night, ‘was in the exact position to fire the shots as described in the autopsy. Three witnesses saw him draw his gun — which he later admitted — and one said she saw him fire it. The Los Angeles police never bothered to examine the gun. Cesar, who was moonlighting that night from his high-security clearance job at the Lockheed plant, acknowledged a loathing for the Kennedys and their race-mixing sympathizers.”
It now remains to be seen if Kennedy Jr.’s words indeed reopen the investigation regarding Kennedy’s death.
