Preface-the following article here has come about due to an article I read recently in the BBC. The story is concerning a documentary, by Shane O'Sullivan, that claims to have uncovered evidence of CIA complicity in the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Allegedly, there were three CIA agents present at the Ambassador Hotel on the night of the assassination, agents who had no legitimate reason to be there, and in fact were suppossed to be in Asia at the time. They and their four "accomplices" are noted in the film in question, which has evidently already been broadcast on the BBC, though as of yet there is no true substantiation of the identities of the people in question.
This article, which I discovered on a link on Truthout, you can read for yourself. I find it notewrothy that, aside from Truthout, there has been no buzz about it here in the states, despite the recent release of a film, "Bobby", which concerns itself with the events of the night of the assassination as seen through various fictionalized characters at the Ambassador Hotel.
My own opinion of Kennedy is that he was a driven man, to the point of obsession. I don't think he was a good man, to be blunt. In fact, I think he was consumed by his own narrow views of right and justice, and at the same time, he was a manipulative, cunning, and, yes, ruthless povocateur, aggressive, maybe even unhinged. He was dangerous, not only to those enemies who may have deserved his wrath, but to the world.
My reasoning is as follows below. Of course, you can make up your own mind. But, as a very wise man named Maddox once said-"if you do not agree with me, well, you are just wrong".
Pictured above-Robert Kennedy, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthey, and an unknown man.
Many of Robert Kennedy's admirers would prefer to skip over the beginning of his career in public service, when he served as legal council to the now largely discredited Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy. During the height of the notorious Red Scare Kennedy rose to this position due to the influence of his father, former British Ambasador Joseph Kennedy. It was a period when many people were threatened with the loss and ruination of their careers and reputations, and Kennedy, himself an ardent anti-Communist, was a zealous advocate of Mccarthy at this time. When it turned out that many if not most of McCarthy's allegations were unfounded, that Mccarthy had actually fabricated or exaggerrated many of his charges, and even inferred a far greater number than actually existed, he was finished.
After the fall of McCarthy, Kennedy went on to assist in the organized crime hearings alongside his brother, future President and then Massachusetts Senator John Kennedy, in which Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa became a major target of Kennedy. The two would become hated enemies from that moment on.
When John became President in 1960, his father persuaded him to name Robert as his Attorney General. Kennedy proved to be arguably the greatest AG of all time, at least on the surface. Despite the fact that his father was said to have Mafia connections, and that these ties proved invaluable to his sons winning of the Presidency, especially due to the influence of the Chicago Outfit on the Chicago Dailey/Democratic machine, Robert made his number one priority of the time, the eradication of Organized Crime.
To this end, he engaged in many questionable acts, and even outright illegal ones. For example, he once abducted New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello, and illegally transported him to South America, giving him no time to call his lawyer or even his family, or even to pack, and with only what money he had in his wallet at the time. Marcello had arrived here as an infant and had never become a naturalized citizen. Still, Kennedys actions were without a doubt illegal.
Marcello made it back, eventually, and Kennedy went after him again, as he did other Mafia figures, even Sam Giancarlo, the Chicago Mafia don who had in effect made his brother President.
Kenndy was obsessed, with a clarity of perception that made him distinquish right from wrong with laser intensity. There was no grey area, and so when he was turned to for advice in his brothers moments of greatest adversity, he assummed a kind of power and influence that amounted to far more than would ordinarily be embodied in the head of one mere cabinet agency.
At no time was this more true than in the matter of the Cuban controversies, first with the Bay of Pigs, and afterwards with the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was Robert to whom John turned to more than any other advisior, civilian or mlitary. His advice, especially on the Cuban Missile Crisis, was well heeded.
Cooler heads prevailed, which is ironic, as Robert Kennedy was nothing if not an egotistical, temperamental hothead. After all, if John had listened to Roberts advice, due to the latters disdain for Texas Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson, Kennedy would not have picked Johnson as his running mate, and so would have lost the entire South, and thus the election-Mafia assistance notwithstanding.
But Kennedy had been instrumental in the on-going efforts of the CIA to eliminate Castro, which lead to several failed assassination attempts of what was, after all, a head of state. This seems to have been on-going since the days of the Bay of Pigs fiasco, during which President Kennedy, having okayed the amphibious assault of some Cuban exiles under covert CIA leadership, then denied the vital air support needed to insure the success of the mission. Many of the exiles were killed,many more ended up in Cuban prisons. Before November 22nd in Dallas, Texas, it was the darkest period of the Kennedy presidency.
It would be easy to note that Robert Kenedy would have likely advised his brother as to the potential illegality of the mission. Still, ever the ardent anti-communist, he would have been eager, and zealous, in his attempts to rid the world of the scourge of Castro. And so he involved himself in this matter as well. Small wonder that, when the Cuban Missile Crisis erupted, Robert Kennedy rendered advice of uncharacteristic moderation.
Then, there was Viet-Nam, and the assassination of the corrupt Diem brothers, a CIA action that is alleged to have also been sanctioned by the Kennedy's-Robert, as well, had a hand in this affair.
Finaly, there is the matter of Marilyn Monroe, whom Bobby had approached out of concern for his brothers extramarital dalliances with, and whom he then himself began an illicit affair with. How this all ended is not exactly clear. But apparrently, after both brothers had ended the relationship, due to the influence of FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover, the Hollywood starlet, considered the greatest sex symbol of her day, became despondent. She seems to have called Kennedy and made some veiled threat to end her life, and to leave something behind that would insure the whole story got out.
Alarmed, Kennedy and some agents made it to Hollywood, where they found Miss Monroe dead from what was actually meant to be a half hearted cry for help that went way too far. Whatever incriminating evidence she had left behind, if there really was any, was removed, including any trace of Kennedy's presence. It is a mystery that has lanquished to this day and still is the fodder for conspircacy theories and acussations of murder on the part of Kennedy, accussations that are understandable, though certainly unprovable.
His actions even on the day of his brothers assassination give just cause for suspicion. In an effort to hide the fact that his brother had sufferred from Addisson's Disease, it has been alleged that Robert Kennedy had covertly confiscated the remains of his brothers brain tissue, which had been collected in pieces after the assassination. He then evidently had the remains destroyed.
Incredibly, he decided to run for President in 1968, on an anti-war ticket, in oppossition to the very war that he himself had advocated, and been among the strongest supporters of during his brrthers Presidency-the Vietnam war.
In order to do this, he first ran for the United States Senate from the state of New York, in 1966, and won. He began his campaign for the Presidency almost immediately, as possibly the first carpetbagger Senator since the days of Reconstruction. The first anti-war candidate, Eugene Mccarthey, had polled enough votes in the New Hampshire primary against incumbent Predident Johnson-Kennedys despised foe-that Johnson himself announced he would not seek re-election in 1968.
Kennedy then set about derailing Mccarthy, and hi-jacked his position as the major opponent of a war that had turned into the greatest fiasco the country had yet gone through. The war Kennedy himself was initially to a great degree responsible for.
Kennedy was now the advocate of peace. He was also the proponent now of civil rights, a mantle he had some rightful claim to, having as Attorney General enforced the courts desegregation orders, though at the same time he had, at the behest of Herbet Hoover, conducted illegal surveillance on Martin Luther King, on the grounds of communist subversive influences.
He probably- had he not been assassinated following the California primary in a pantry of the Ambassador Hotel after his victory speech-would have gone on to win the Democratic nomination that year. He would not have won the Presidency.
For one thing, he knew where all the bodies were buried. Unfortunately, so did a lot of other people, and he was the one who had done most of the digging.
For another thing, George Wallace as it was had won five Southern States as the result of Southern Democratic anger at the national Democratic Party, an anger which smoulders to this day. Had Bobby Kennedy been nominated as oppossed to former Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Wallace would probably have won more like six or seven, maybe more. He still would not have won, or even come close. But those extra votes would have come from Democrats, not from Nixon, who would have won by a greater margin than he did against Huphrey.
Nixon's margin of victory against Huprheye was close, maybe less than one percent of the popular vote. Against Kennedy, it would not have been close.
So the question is, why would the CIA have involved itself in an assassination attempt against Robert Kennedy? Was he a danger to them, at all? Would it more than likely have been some other enemy, out for revenge? Marcello, for example, or Giancarlo?
Or perhaps a vengeful memberof the Cuban exile community. Like, for example, Desi Arnaz? I am not being facetous here. The man ultimately convicted of asassinating Kennedy, Sirhan Sirhan, worked on a horse farm owned by Arnaz, who was an ardent opponent of the Castro regime, and a supporter of the Cuban exiles, though he himself had actually left Cuba during the reign of Batista.
When you have enemies, many times you have bullets to show for it. Kennedy had enemies, so draw your own conclusions.
He was a very mercurial man, and in many ways, is the father of the modern Democratic Party. I guess that would explain why so many of their positions over the last few decades have amounted to political suicide.
