by David Wayne
“Aristotle Onassis and Jackie Kennedy were going to be married.
This would have been raw meat to Johnson. Three days before, he had announced that he would not run for another term, and he was still seething at the Kennedy camp’s slur that Bobby’s challenge had driven him back to the ranch.
When Johnson planned to play this card we shall probably never know. But shortly after Karr’s visit to the Oval Office, Eugene McCarthy saw Johnson, and when he brought up the subject of Bobby’s presidential run,
‘The president said nothing; instead he drew a finger across his throat, silently, in a slitting motion.”‘438
The world was shocked when Jackie publicly announced her plans to marry Onassis, and everyone wondered the same thing: Why? It seemed such an odd alliance and, frankly, true love was about the last reason that came to anyone’s mind. A friend and associate of Onassis noted a very revealing statement that Onassis had made once; one that he never forgot:
“He then made this interesting remark: He said, ‘A marriage of interests can solve many problems, my dear fellow.’
I missed its significance at the time; it only struck a chord when he married Jackie Kennedy.”439
Reactions to the marriage were predictably bleak. Consider the following newspaper headlines of the time:
Jack Kennedy Dies Today for a Second Time440
The Reaction Here is Anger, Shock and Dismay441
The pages of Sirhan’s notebooks contained two other names written by Sirhan under a hypnotic trance that specifically linked to Aristotle Onassis: Fiona Thyssen, the lover of Ari Onassis’ son, whom Onassis had threatened to have killed; and Stavros Niarchos, Onassis’ arch-enemy of many decades with a competing business empire.
“On the first page, Sirhan had written at the center of a roundel, amid Arabic writing, the single name,
Fiona.
And on another page:
2 Niarkos!
On a third page, between the lines
One Hundred thousand dollars and Dollars-One Hundreds,
Sirhan had written in Arabic:
they should be killed.
And next to that, the number:
Three.
Fiona, Niarchos, and Kennedy: The names were startling by virtue of their very juxtaposition.”442
Yannis Georgakis was Onassis’s attorney, good friend, confidant, and closest business associate for many, many years—and he concluded that Onassis was behind Bobby Kennedy’s murder:
“The truth was, he was shattered by the very real possibility that Onassis had paid for the bullets that killed Bobby Kennedy, and not for the first time he wondered about the nature of Onassis’s deal with Hamshari.
‘Sometimes remarkable chains of circumstances can reasonably be ascribed to coincidence. But at some point the connection is so astonishing that one must assume that it could only have happened by design,’ Georgakis would later muse. ‘And when an Irish-American name, a Scottish name, and a Greek name— the names of Onassis’s three most loathed and troublesome en-emies—are found in a Palestinian killer’s notebook written in Los Angeles shortly after Onassis had given more than a million dollars to a Palestinian terrorist in Paris (far more than that Palestinian had demanded), and the first name on that list has already been killed, you must seriously consider the possibility that you have reached that point.’”443
Onassis reportedly seemed to somehow have knowledge of Bobby’s death before it happened:
“Onassis heard the news at about ten o’clock on the morning of Wednesday, June 5, 1968, while having breakfast in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Bobby wasn’t dead but it looked bad. Meyer told him from New York.
‘Somebody was going to fix the little bastard sooner or later,’
Onassis said. He wasn’t a hypocrite, and the callousness of his reaction did not surprise Meyer. Onassis told him to call as soon as Kennedy was dead—’as if he wanted to know the result of the four o’clock race at Santa Anita,’ Meyer later said:
Thring (Onassis’ lover who was on board the yacht with him at this time) remembers the impassiveness with which Onassis took the news. ‘Hearing something like that when you are so removed from reality made it even more shocking for me. I didn’t expect Ari to be upset; I knew that Bobby’s death was vastly convenient for him; but his reaction was ... it was as if he’d been told something he already knew.”444
As a final note, Onassis actually confessed to his role in the murder. Onassis made the confession to his lover, Helene Gaillet, who vividly recalls the event:
“He stood looking at the ocean, the lights of his yacht glittering across the dark water. Because his back was turned to her, it took Gaillet several moments to realize that he was talking: ‘like somebody praying, really ... that is the only way I can describe it.’ As she strained to catch his words, he turned around and said matter-of-factly,
You know, Héleène, I put up the money for Bobby Kennedy’s murder.”
Said as a simple statement of fact ... ‘I said something like, “Bobby Kennedy? Oh, Ari.”
He gave that little Levantine shrug of his, like so what? ... Onassis had actually confessed his complicity in Bobby Kennedy’s murder, and, in her heart of hearts, she feared that she believed him. ‘In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that he was speaking the truth,’ she said. ‘It was part of Ari’s charm that he would trust you with an extreme confidence.”445
Another close associate of Onassis, David Karr, who handled much of his dirty work, also claimed to know that “Onassis had been behind Bobby Kennedy’s murder.”446
Christina Onassis (who once demanded of Jackie Kennedy: “If you want my father’s fucking money, you keep his fucking name”—and Jackie took both447) was told of her father’s complicity in the RFK assassination when she was twenty-one years old. She let it be known (to family confidants such as Georgakis) that she had always resented the weight of that burden. In what might best be described a sanitized version of events, she later told a journalist that:
“Ari had paid an Arab terrorist protection money to keep his Olympic airline safe from skyjacking, and terrorist attack, which were a huge risk at that time. He later learned that the terrorist, a Palestinian named Mahmoud Hamshari, had used the money to finance the murder of Bobby Kennedy.”448
Historical Perspective
By 1966, Robert Kennedy had clearly undergone a personal transformation. Many had considered him a power-focused and ruthless politician (in the vein of “Don’t get mad, get even”) who had been focused on bitter enemies such as Organized Crime. But tragedies that were both personal and historical had transformed him into a worldly, forward-thinking intellectual who suddenly seemed to have no less in mind than the personal well-being of every less fortunate individual on the planet and how their lot could be improved by strategic political leadership. Nothing evidenced this change more than his address to the students of Cape Town University in South Africa on June 6, 1966. Some students had already begun protesting the racist government policy of apartheid. Rather than avoid a hotly divisive political issue, Kennedy tackled it straight on, claiming the higher moral and philosophical ground:
“Hand in hand with freedom of speech goes the power to be heard, to share in the decisions of government which shape men’s lives. Everything that makes man’s life worthwhile—family, work, education, a place to rear one’s children and a place to rest one’s head—all this depends on the decisions of government; all can be swept away by a government which does not heed the demands of its people, and I mean all of its people. Therefore, the essential humanity of man can be protected and preserved only where government must answer—not just to the wealthy, not just to those of a particular religion, not just to those of a particular race, but to all of the people.”449
His words were stirringly reminiscent of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, almost as though he was invoking that document at a global level, as a call to international equality:
“We must recognize the full human equality of all of our people before God, before the law, and in the councils of government. We must do this, not because it is economically advantageous, although it is; not because the laws of God command it, although they do; not because people in other lands wish it so. We must do it for the single and fundamental reason that it is the right thing to do.”450
Kennedy evidenced that he had mastered the art of placing political movements in both historical and philosophical perspective, and even doing so in a manner that was up close and personal:
“In a few hours, the plane that brought me to this country crossed over oceans and countries which have been a crucible of human history. In minutes we traced migrations of men over thousands of years; seconds, the briefest glimpse, and we passed battlefields on which millions of men once struggled and died. We could see no national boundaries, no vast gulfs or high walls dividing people from people; only nature and the works of man—homes and factories and farms—everywhere reflecting Man’s common effort to enrich his life. Everywhere new technology and communications brings men and nations closer together, the concerns of one inevitably becomes the concerns of all. And our new closeness is stripping away the false masks, the illusion of differences which is the root of injustice and of hate and of war.”451
The eloquent speech has become known as “The Ripple of Hope” address for the stirring words in one of the last passages:
“Thousands of Peace Corps volunteers are making a difference in the isolated villages and the city slums of dozens of countries. Thousands of unknown men and women in Europe resisted the occupation of the Nazis and many died, but all added to the ultimate strength and freedom of their countries. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage such as these that human history is thus shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance
æ There is a Chinese curse which says, ‘May he live in interesting times.’ Like it or not we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also the most creative of any time in the history of mankind. And everyone here will ultimately be judged, will ultimately judge himself, on the effort he has contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which his ideals and goals have shaped that effort.”452
That candescent hope that seemed to materialize in millions of people as a result of his inspired leadership, made his sudden loss on June 6, 1968 all the more poignant. It had seemed that a man who had championed compassion and equality was about to ascend to the presidency. And then he was gone.
When a train carried Robert Kennedy’s body from Washington D.C. to New York on the afternoon of June 8, 1968, thousands of people instinctively lined the tracks over the entire route to pay him their final respects.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
American Conspiracies: Lies, Lies, and More Dirty Lies that the Government Tells Us, Jesse Ventura & Dick Russell, 2010
Shadow Play: The Untold Story of The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination, William Klaber & Philip H. Melanson, 1998
An Open and Shut Case, Dr. Robert Joling & Philip Van Praag , 2008
“Testimonial, An Open and Shut Case”, Robert Vaughn, 2008. http://www. anopenandshutcase.com/?page_id=4
The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination: New Revelations on the Conspiracy and Cover- Up, 1968-1991, Philip H. Melanson, 1994
Rearview Mirror: Looking Back at the FBI, the CIA and Other Tails, William Turner, 2001
Who Killed Robert Kennedy? (The Real Story Series), Philip H. Melanson, 2002
Nemesis, Peter Evans, 2004
“Two Guns Used in RFK Assassination, Experts Say”, Pierre Thomas, March 27, 2008, ABC News. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/LegalCenter/story?id=4534689
“New Evidence Challenges Official Picture of Kennedy Shooting”, James Randerson, February 22, 2008, guardian.co.uk http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/ feb/22/kennedy.assassination
“Simple Facts about the Robert F. Kennedy Assassination”, http://flag.blackened.net/ daver/ index.html
“Sirhan’s Researcher”, Rose Lynn Mangan (Sirhan Bishara Sirhan’s authorized researcher for many years): http://www.sirhansresearcher.com/
“JFK and RFK: The Plots that Killed Them, The Patsies that Didn’t”, James Fetzer, June 13, 2010, Voltairenet.org; Non Aligned Press Network. http://www.voltairenet.org/ article165721.html
“I know who was behind Bobby Kennedy’s murder, by his actor friend Robert Vaughn”, Robert Vaughn, 2009. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1111444/I-know-Bobby- Kennedys-murder-actor-friend-Robert-Vaughn.html
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394Mary Ferrell Foundation, “The Robert Kennedy Assassination,” http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Robert_Kennedy_ Assassination (accessed 12 Feb 2012).
395Mary Ferrell Foundation, “The Robert Kennedy Assassination”
396William Klaber & Philip H. Melanson, Shadow Play: The Murder of Robert F. Kennedy, the Trial of Sirhan Sirhan, and the Failure of American Justice (St Martins Pres, 1997).
397Klaber & Melanson, Shadow Play
398“Simple Facts about the Robert F. Kennedy Assassination,” http://flag.blackened.net/daver/misc/rfk.html (accessed 2 May 2011).
399“Simple Facts about the Robert F. Kennedy Assassination,” http://flag.blackened.net/daver/misc/rfk.html
400Klaber & Melanson, Shadow Play, 109.
401Robert Joling & Philip Van Prag, An Open and Shut Case, cited in James Randerson, “New evidence challenges official picture ofKennedy shooting,“ 22 February 2008, theguardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/feb/22/kennedy.assassination (accessed 1 Jan. 2011).
402Pierre Thomas, “Two Guns Used in RFK Shooting, Experts Say,” 27 March, 2008, ABC News (emphasis added). http://abcnews. go.com/GMA/LegalCenter/story?id=4534689 (accessed 4 Jan. 2011).
403Robert Vaughn, Ph.D., “Commentary re: An Open and Shut Case,” 2008. http://www.anopenandshutcase.com/commentary/ (accessed 4 Feb. 2011).
404Klaber & Melanson, Shadow Play
405Peter Evans, Nemesis: The True Story of Aristotle Onassis, Jackie O, and the Love Triangle That Brought Down the Kennedys (William Morrow: 2004) 213.
406Evans, Nemesis, 217.
407Evans, Nemesis, 214.
408Klaber & Melanson, Shadow Play, 123.
409Klaber & Melanson, Shadow Play, 101.
410Klaber & Melanson, 1997, Shadow Play, page 108
411Simkin, Spartacus Educational, 2007
412California State Archives
413Rose Lynn Mangan, SPECIAL EXHIBIT 10 REPORT: Ballistics Research in the Assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, 2001
414William Turner, Rearview Mirror: Looking Back at the FBI, the CIA and Other Tails (Penmarin, 2001).
415Klaber & Melanson, Shadow Play
416Klaber & Melanson, Shadow Play, 135-136.
417Klaber & Melanson, Shadow Play, 215-216.
418Klaber & Melanson, Shadow Play, 187.
419Melanson, Robert F. Kennedy Assassination
420Klaber & Melanson, 1997, Shadow Play, page 65
421Klaber & Melanson, 1997, Shadow Play, page 87
422Klaber & Melanson, 1997, Shadow Play, page 237
423Klaber & Melanson, 1997, Shadow Play, page 88
424Klaber & Melanson, 1997, Shadow Play, page 91
425Klaber & Melanson, 1997, Shadow Play, page 92
426Lowenstein, 1977
427Klaber & Melanson, 1997, Shadow Play, page 175
428Melanson, Robert F. Kennedy Assassination
429Melanson, Robert F. Kennedy Assassination
430Klaber & Melanson, Shadow Play, 147-150.
431George Lardner Jr., “Jurors Decree Death for Sirhan in RFK Slaying,” 23 April 1969, Washington Post, A1. http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection
/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/S%20Disk/Sirhan%20Sirhan%20Verdict/Item%2004.pdf
432Evans, Nemesis
433Evans, Nemesis
434Evans, Nemesis, 218.
435Evans, Nemesis
436Evans, Nemesis, 219.
437Evans, Nemesis (emphasis added).
438Evans, Nemesis (emphasis in original).
439Evans, Nemesis
440Karen Schneider, J.D. Reed, Shelley Levitt & Elizabeth Gleick, “Hour of Farewell,” 6 June 1994, People. http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20108270,00.html
441Schneider et al., “Hour of Farewell”
442Evans, Nemesis, 231.
443Evans, Nemesis, 231-232.
444Evans, Nemesis, (emphasis added).
445Evans, Nemesis
446Evans, Nemesis, 300.
447Evans, Nemesis
448Evans, Nemesis
449Robert F. Kennedy, “Day of Affirmation Address at Cape Town University,” 6 June, 1966. http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/rfkcapetown.htm
450Robert Kennedy, “Cape Town”
451Robert Kennedy, “Cape Town”
452Robert Kennedy, “Cape Town”
Fred Hampton
December 4, 1969
President, NAACP Youth Council/Chairman,
Illinois Chapter/Deputy National Chairman &
National Spokesman The Black Panther Party
Photo excerpted from the DVD
release of The Murder of Fred Hampton
© Facets Multi-Media, 2007
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VICTIM:
FRED HAMPTON