Sirhan Sirhan is convicted of assassinating Robert F. Kennedy.
Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925 June 6, 1968), also referred to by his initials RFK or by the nickname Bobby, was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 64th United States Attorney General from January 1961 to September 1964, and as a U.S. Senator from New York from January 1965 until his assassination in June 1968. He was, like his brothers John and Edward, a prominent member of the Democratic Party and has come to be viewed by some historians as an icon of modern American liberalism.Kennedy was born into a wealthy, political family in Brookline, Massachusetts. After serving in the U.S. Naval Reserve from 1944 to 1946, Kennedy returned to his studies at Harvard University, and later received his law degree from the University of Virginia. He began his career as a correspondent for The Boston Post and as a lawyer at the Justice Department, but later resigned to manage his brother John's successful campaign for the U.S. Senate in 1952. The following year, he worked as an assistant counsel to the Senate committee chaired by Senator Joseph McCarthy. He gained national attention as the chief counsel of the Senate Labor Rackets Committee from 1957 to 1959, where he publicly challenged Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa over the union's corrupt practices. Kennedy resigned from the committee to conduct his brother's successful campaign in the 1960 presidential election. He was appointed United States Attorney General at the age of 36, becoming the youngest Cabinet member in U.S. history since Alexander Hamilton in 1789. He served as his brother's closest advisor until the latter's 1963 assassination.His tenure is known for advocating for the civil rights movement, the fight against organized crime and the Mafia, and involvement in U.S. foreign policy related to Cuba. He authored his account of the Cuban Missile Crisis in a book titled Thirteen Days. As attorney general, he authorized the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to wiretap Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference on a limited basis. After his brother's assassination, he remained in office during the Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson for several months. He left to run for the United States Senate from New York in 1964 and defeated Republican incumbent Kenneth Keating. In office, Kennedy opposed U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and raised awareness of poverty by sponsoring legislation designed to lure private business to blighted communities (i.e., Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration project). He was an advocate for issues related to human rights and social justice by traveling abroad to eastern Europe, Latin America, and South Africa, and formed working relationships with Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez, and Walter Reuther.
In 1968, Kennedy became a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for the presidency by appealing to poor, African American, Hispanic, Catholic, and young voters. His main challenger in the race was Senator Eugene McCarthy. Shortly after winning the California primary around midnight on June 5, 1968, Kennedy was mortally wounded when shot with a pistol by Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian, allegedly in retaliation for his support of Israel following the 1967 Six-Day War. Kennedy died 25 hours later. Sirhan was arrested, tried, and convicted, though Kennedy's assassination, like his brother's, continues to be the subject of widespread analysis and numerous conspiracy theories.
Sirhan Bishara Sirhan (; Arabic: سرحان بشارة سرحان Sirḥān Bišāra Sirḥān, born March 19, 1944) is a Palestinian convicted murderer who was found guilty of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.
Kennedy, a United States Senator and brother of John F. Kennedy, was shot by Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California, on June 5, 1968. He died the following day at Good Samaritan Hospital.
Sirhan was born to an Arab Christian family in Jerusalem, where he attended a Lutheran school. In 1989, he told David Frost: "My only connection with Robert Kennedy was his sole support of Israel and his deliberate attempt to send those 50 bombers to Israel to obviously do harm to the Palestinians." Some scholars believe that the assassination was the first major incident of political violence in the United States stemming from the Palestinian–Israeli conflict in the Middle East.Sirhan was convicted of murder and is serving a life sentence at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego County, California. On August 27, 2021, after years of being denied parole, Sirhan was granted parole by a two-person panel of the California parole board. Prosecutors declined to participate or to oppose his release under a policy by Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón. On January 13, 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom blocked Sirhan's release on parole.