Sirhan Sirhan Assassinates Robert F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and MuseumRobert Kennedy championed civil rights, lending his support to leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. King would be assassinated just months before Kennedy in 1968.
While his brother John earned a reputation as a mediator at home and a firebrand abroad, Robert Francis Kennedy made a name for himself as an arch-conservative under the tutelage of Joseph McCarthy before becoming a passionate liberal spokesman.
From a young age, Robert — the seventh of Joseph and Rose Kennedy’s nine children — struggled to stand apart from his siblings. Serving like his brothers in the U.S. Navy late in World War II, he sailed a short cruise on the destroyer USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., named for his late brother.
Earning a law degree from the University of Virginia, he served as a senatorial aide to Joseph McCarthy before disavowing him for his bullying methods. He then devoted himself to liberalism and his brother’s presidential campaign and was subsequently appointed the Attorney General of the United States at the insistence of their father.
In 1968, Robert launched his own presidential campaign, winning key primary victories in South Dakota and California. Just as it seemed likely that another Kennedy would sit in the White House, RFK was struck down by an assassin’s bullet in Los Angeles.
Bill Eppridge/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty ImagesAmerican politician and Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy (1925 – 1968) lies on the floor of the Ambassador Hotel’s kitchen after being shot while his wife, Ethel Kennedy, leans over him and other watch, Los Angeles, California, June 5, 1968.
Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year old Palestinian-American, had become obsessed with Kennedy thanks to his support of Israel. On June 5, 1968, Sirhan shot Kennedy through the head with a .22 caliber revolver in the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel, making him the third Kennedy brother to fall victim to the Kennedy curse.
Later, interviews with Sirhan suggested that the young man was psychologically unstable and that he had written endless variations of the phrase “RFK must die” in his diary.
At Robert’s funeral at New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral, mourners lined up for 25 blocks outside the door. By now, public awareness of the disturbing sorrows to befall the Kennedy clan was becoming stronger, and many began to see it as something more than terrible luck.
