SENATOR ROBERT F. KENNEDY DIES
Los Angeles, California (JFK+50) On the morning of June 6, 1968, New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy died at the Good Samaritan Hospital here in Los Angeles. Bobby was 42 years old.
The Senator's death, at 1:44 a.m., came more than 25 hours after he was shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel* following a speech celebrating his California primary victory.
Doctors operated on RFK for 3 hours and 45 minutes but were pessimistic due to the extent of bullet and bone fragments they found scattered through the brain.
RFK was walking through the hotel kitchen pantry shaking hands with employees when 24 year old Sirhan Sirhan** opened fire. The assassin fired 8 shots from a 22 caliber Iver Johnson pistol. 3 shots of the 8 shots hit RFK.
Five others were struck by bullets but all survived. They included...
Elizabeth Evans, Ira Goldstein, Paul Schrade, Irwin Stroll and William Weisel.
With the Senator at the time of death were his wife Ethel, sister-in-law Jacqueline Kennedy, brother Ted, Peter Lawford and Steven Smith.
In speeches on the campaign trail, Bobby often spoke words from George Bernard Shaw...
"Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were & say why not?"***
*Ambassador Hotel (1921-1989) was located at 3400 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. Designed by Myron Hunt and offering 500 rooms, it was frequented by many Hollywood celebrities. Six Academy Award ceremonies were held there.
**Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was born in Jerusalem in 1944 and emigrated to the U.S. at the age of 12. Described as a Palestinian Christian with Jordanian citizenship, he was tried for the murder of RFK in 1969 SBS was convicted and sentenced to death but received a commutation to life imprisonment in 1972. He has been held in solitary confinement at the Pleasant Valley State Prison in Colinga since October 2009.
***RFK was paraphrasing Shaw's line from "Back to Methuselah Act 1, Selected Plays with Prefaces, Vol 2, p. 7", (1949): "You see things; and you say Why? But I dream things that never were and I say "Why Not?" This line was spoken by the Serpent to Eve.
SOURCES
"Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations," 1989, www.Bartleby.com/
"RFK assassination witness willing to testify for Sirhan Sirhan's lawyers," by Brad Johnson and Michael Martinez, www.cnn.com/.
Robert F. Kennedy on Campaign
Los Angeles, California (JFK+50) On the morning of June 6, 1968, New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy died at the Good Samaritan Hospital here in Los Angeles. Bobby was 42 years old.
The Senator's death, at 1:44 a.m., came more than 25 hours after he was shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel* following a speech celebrating his California primary victory.
Doctors operated on RFK for 3 hours and 45 minutes but were pessimistic due to the extent of bullet and bone fragments they found scattered through the brain.
RFK was walking through the hotel kitchen pantry shaking hands with employees when 24 year old Sirhan Sirhan** opened fire. The assassin fired 8 shots from a 22 caliber Iver Johnson pistol. 3 shots of the 8 shots hit RFK.
Five others were struck by bullets but all survived. They included...
Elizabeth Evans, Ira Goldstein, Paul Schrade, Irwin Stroll and William Weisel.
With the Senator at the time of death were his wife Ethel, sister-in-law Jacqueline Kennedy, brother Ted, Peter Lawford and Steven Smith.
In speeches on the campaign trail, Bobby often spoke words from George Bernard Shaw...
"Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were & say why not?"***
*Ambassador Hotel (1921-1989) was located at 3400 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. Designed by Myron Hunt and offering 500 rooms, it was frequented by many Hollywood celebrities. Six Academy Award ceremonies were held there.
**Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was born in Jerusalem in 1944 and emigrated to the U.S. at the age of 12. Described as a Palestinian Christian with Jordanian citizenship, he was tried for the murder of RFK in 1969 SBS was convicted and sentenced to death but received a commutation to life imprisonment in 1972. He has been held in solitary confinement at the Pleasant Valley State Prison in Colinga since October 2009.
***RFK was paraphrasing Shaw's line from "Back to Methuselah Act 1, Selected Plays with Prefaces, Vol 2, p. 7", (1949): "You see things; and you say Why? But I dream things that never were and I say "Why Not?" This line was spoken by the Serpent to Eve.
SOURCES
"Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations," 1989, www.Bartleby.com/
"RFK assassination witness willing to testify for Sirhan Sirhan's lawyers," by Brad Johnson and Michael Martinez, www.cnn.com/.
Robert F. Kennedy on Campaign
Photo by Evan Freed (1968)
