Over 1,000 pages of documents, released by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) earlier this year, related to the 1968 assassination of Robert F Kennedy detailed both the gunman's background and the former US President's earlier interactions with the Agency.
The documents included previously classified assessments, handwritten notes and accounts of Sirhan Sirhan. They revisited long-held questions about the Palestinian-born Jordanian convicted of shooting Kennedy in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968. Among the papers is a July 8, 1968, personality assessment of Sirhan, stating that “under no circumstances would we have predicted that he was ‘capable' of doing what he did.”
Investigators at the time added, “Obviously, we cannot see him as part of a conspiracy. He could be a tool of a conspiracy in the sense that the attempted assassin of Secretary of State [William] Seward and the assigned assassin of Vice President Andrew Johnson (George Atzerodt) were tools of the [John Wilkes] Booth conspiracy.”
Another section noted it was “very unlikely, however, that he could have effectively acted under precise instructions,” adding that Sirhan appeared more similar to the “impulsive assassins” of Garfield and McKinley rather than the “calculating assassins” of Lincoln and President John F Kennedy.
Handwritten Notes Emerge
Some of the most striking material in the collection is Sirhan's own writing. One note reads, “Kennedy must fall Kennedy must fall. Please pay to the order of Sirhan Sirhan.” Another claims, “We believe that Robert F Kennedy must be sacrificed for the cause of the poor exploited people,” warning that the candidate would “eventually be felled … by an assassin's bullet … tonight tonight tonight.”
The gunman's grievances were also reflected in his later comments. According to The New York Times, in a 1989 interview with David Frost, Sirhan, said that Kennedy's “sole support of Israel” in the 1967 Six-Day War “seemed as though it were a betrayal.” Sirhan added he felt “totally sorry” and carried “nothing but remorse for having caused that tragic death.”
Psychological Profiles
The files also included a June 12, 1968, psychological analysis describing Sirhan as having “high intellectual potential” and being “quite intuitive,” with a belief that “communism may appear as an ideal solution.”
Yet doubts about the official version persisted within the Kennedy family. RFK's son, Robert F Kennedy Jr, now the health and human services secretary, has previously questioned whether Sirhan fired the fatal shot. He said after reviewing autopsy and police documents, “I was disturbed that the wrong person might have been convicted of killing my father.”
In 2018, he visited Sirhan in prison. While explaining the visit, the younger Kennedy told The Washington Post in an interview the same year, “I got to a place where I had to see Sirhan.”
He later wrote in a 2021 San Francisco Chronicle op-ed, “I firmly believe the idea that Sirhan murdered my dad is a fiction that is impeding justice,” instead accusing part-time security guard Thane Eugene Cesar as the real killer. Cesar, who denied any involvement, died in 2019.
Kennedy's Earlier Cooperation With The CIA
Away from the assassination itself, the documents also shed light on Robert F Kennedy's travels years before he entered national politics. The files show that during a 1955 trip to the Soviet Union with Supreme Court Justice William O Douglas, Kennedy “served the Agency as a voluntary informant.”
He kept a 129-page diary for the CIA and handed over more than 1,000 photographs and videos from the journey. A CIA official said the material “exemplifies the depth of his patriotism and commitment to serving his country.”
