Sirhan Sirhan, on the right, accused or killing Senator Robert F. Kennedy, is seen with his lawyer Russell E. Parsons in Los Angeles in June 1968. Photo credit: Anonymous/Ap
Around 10,000 pages of records related to the 1968 murder of Sen Robert F Kennedy were released on Friday, including handwritten notes by the gunman, who said that the Democratic presidential candidate “must be dispositions with murders.
Many of the archives had previously been made public, but others had not been digitized and seated for decades in federal government storage facilities. His release continued the dissemination of historical research documents ordered by President Donald Trump.
Kennedy received a mortal shot on June 5, 1968 at the Ambassador hotel in Los Angeles moments after giving a speech that celebrates his victory in the presidential primaries of California. His murderer, Sirhan Sirhan, was convicted of first degree murder and is fulfilling life imprisonment.
The files included images of written notes of Sirhan.
“RFK must be discarded as was his brother,” said writing outside an over -vacuum, referring to Kennedy’s older brother, President John F Kennedy, who was killed in 1963. The return direction was from the director of the district of the district.
Sirhan also filled a page of a passage of Pasadena City College with variations or “RFK must” and “RFK must be killed.” In a note dated May 18, 1968, he wrote: “My determination to eliminate RFK is becoming an unwavering obsession.” In another of the documents, the murderer said he advocated “the overthrow of the current president.” Democrat Lyndon Johnson was in the White House at the time of the death of Robert F Kennedy.
“I still have no absolute plans, but soon I will compose them,” said Sirhan, who promised support for communist Russia and China.
The documents include interviews with Assassin’s acquaintances, the files also included interview notes with people who knew Sirhan of a wide variety of contexts, such as classmates, neighbors and co -workers. While some described him as “a friendly, child and generous person”, others represented a young man of empanado and “impressionable” who felt strongly about his political convictions and briefly believed in mysticism.
According to the files, Sirhan told his garbage collector that he planned to kill Kennedy shortly after Martin Luther King Jr was killed on April 4, 1968. The sanitation worker, a black man, said he planned to vote Bled.
“Well, I do not agree. I am planning to shoot the son of a dog,” Sirhan replied, man told researchers.
FBI documents describe interviews with a group of tourists who heard rumors that Kennedy was shot in the week before his death. Several people who visited Israel in May 1968 said a tourist guide told them that Kennedy had shot. A person said he heard that he had made an attempt on Kennedy’s life in Milwaukee. Another listened to him in Nebraska.
The National Archives and Registration Administration published 229 files condemning the pages to its public website.
The launch occurs a month after files were revealed without edition related to the murder of President Kennedy. These documents gave curious readers more details about the operations of the Cold War era in other nations, but did not provide initial credit to long -date conspiracy theories about who killed JFK.
Trump, a Republican, has defended in the name of transparency the publication of documents related to murders and high profile investigations. But it is also deeply suspicious for years of government intelligence agencies. The release of your file administration once hidden opens the most public scrutiny of the operations and conclusions of institutions such as the CIA and the FBI.
Trump signed an executive order in January asking for the release of government documents related to the murders of Robert F Kennedy and King, who were killed within two months of each.
Kennedy’s murderer’s lawyers have said for decades that they are unlikely that they reincidate or represent a danger to society, and in 2021, a probation board considered Sirhan adequate for liberation. But Governor Gavin Newson rejected the decision in 2022, keeping it in a state prison. In 2023, a different panel denied him liberation, saying that he still lacks information about what caused Kennedy to shoot.
RFK is still a hero for American liberals Kennedy remains an icon for liberals, who see him as a human rights champion who also promised to combat poverty and racial and economic injustice. They often consider their murder as the last of a series of important tragedies that put the United States and their policy on a darker and more conservative path.
It was a sometimes divisive figure that turned his life. Some critics thought that Vietnam’s war came late, and released his campaign for president in 1968 only after the Democratic primaries in New Hampshire presented the political weakness of President Johnson.
While Kennedy’s campaign inspired Hope’s Democrats, he was still following Minnesota Sen Hubert Humphrey for the presidential nomination of the party after winning the California primaries.
Kennedy’s older brother appointed him to the United States Attorney General, and he remained a nearby assistant for him until JFK’s murder in Dallas. In 1964, he won a seat in the United States Senate in New York and was seen as the heir to the family’s political legacy.
One of his children, Robert F Kennedy JR, now serves as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Posted on April 19, 2025
