Legacy of Secrecy (125 page)

eventually be sentenced to six months in federal prison. First, though,

Rosselli would have to stand trial again in Los Angeles, for the Friars

Club charges that also involved four codefendants. Rosselli’s attorney

was working closely on the defense team’s strategy with distinguished

Los Angeles lawyer Grant Cooper, whose client in the trial had owned

a Las Vegas casino. Cooper’s client had also worked with Rosselli on an

aborted hit scheme, to silence the key witness in the Friars Club case.20

In late May, Bobby alternated between campaigning in Oregon and in

California, with the latter getting the lion’s share of his attention, due

to its huge slate of delegates. Though the state had recently elected con-

servative governor Ronald Reagan, Bobby’s campaign had gone well,

generally drawing huge and enthusiastic crowds as he rode in open

cars and stopped to give talks. Security was a problem, and was almost

impossible to manage effectively, especially in Los Angeles. Mayor Sam

Yorty and Police Chief Ed Davis were extremely conservative, with Yorty

considering Bobby “subversive.” Bobby had openly criticized Yorty in

Senate hearings following the 1965 riots in Watts, because of the deplor-

able conditions that had helped trigger the outburst. Yorty sometimes

didn’t bother to hide his racism, as when he used a slur to introduce a

black Assistant Secretary of Commerce, and then made a point of wiping

off his hand after shaking hands with the black official. Yorty’s police

chief, Edward M. Davis, continued the problems that led to the riots by

resisting hiring minorities to serve on the force. There was a growing

chasm of mistrust in 1968 between the police and liberals, minorities,

and those opposed to the war—the very groups Bobby was trying to

woo.21

During much of the time that Bobby was darting around the Los Ange-

les area, police security was almost nonexistent. Bobby had previously

626

LEGACY OF SECRECY

had a trusted friend in the LAPD, Captain James Hamilton, who had

founded the LAPD’s intelligence unit, but Hamilton had left the force

to take a security job with the National Football League (and had since

died), leaving no one to mediate the friction between the LAPD and

Bobby’s campaign. It would have been clear to anyone who attended

Bobby’s events that the police were not providing close security for the

candidate, though officers were often stationed in the area for crowd

control.

In an ordinary house in Pasadena on May 18, 1968, a twenty-four-year-old

former aspiring jockey named Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was writing in

his notebook, apparently as part of his interest in self-hypnosis. Sirhan

loved horses but was a compulsive gambler who had been losing hun-

dreds of dollars in recent weeks. In his notebook, Sirhan wrote “May

18, 9:45 AM,” then scribbled “RFK must die” and “Robert F. Kennedy

must be assassinated before 5 June ’68.” On the same page, Sirhan wrote

more statements about assassinating Bobby, followed by “Please pay to

the order of of of of of.”22

As Bobby continued to dash around Los Angeles in between trips to

Oregon, the security situation began to reach a critical point. Secu-

rity usually went well when Bobby visited towns just outside of Los

Angeles—like Pomona, on May 20, where he drew four hundred sup-

porters to Robbie’s Restaurant. There, a Pomona police officer kept

an eye on a young couple who appeared suspicious, until a manager

dealt with the problem. But security issues arose when Bobby was back

in Los Angeles, as he was for a rally downtown on May 24 and for a

small motorcade five days later. When Bobby’s motorcade stopped at

9th Street and Santee, Bobby left his car and walked into the crowd,

where he was soon mobbed. According to a Los Angeles police sergeant,

when a motorcycle officer attempted to rescue Bobby from the crowd,

an LAPD report says that “Kennedy and his aides berated the sergeant

and told him that they had not asked for the assistance of the police.”23

The police seemed to take that as a signal to back off even more,

though accounts differ greatly about whether Bobby’s staff rejected fur-

ther police protection in Los Angeles. Though Bobby had a rally sched-

uled at Los Angeles’s Ambassador Hotel on June 2, and his hoped-for

victory party on the night of the California primary, on June 4, the Los

Angeles police wouldn’t have official security roles at either event.24

While Richard Nixon would later make the most effective use of

television in the 1968 campaign, Bobby was adapting to the medium.

On May 20, 1968, his campaign aired a documentary about Bobby in

California and Oregon. Jewish voters were an important constituency

for Bobby, especially in California, and the TV special talked in general

terms about Bobby’s support for Israel. On May 26, Bobby gave a speech

at a Portland synagogue, urging the Johnson administration to “sell

Israel the fifty Phantom jets she has so long been promised.” The Jew-

ish vote in Oregon wasn’t large, but Bobby’s speech was covered in Los

Angeles area papers, which were read by his true intended audience.

Bobby lost the Oregon primary on May 28, 1967, by six points to Eugene

McCarthy, which made his winning California even more critical.25

Eugene McCarthy had been demanding a debate with Bobby, and

one was finally scheduled for June 1, 1968, in San Francisco. By most

accounts, Bobby did well, even when asked about wiretapping Dr. King.

However, the moderator pointed out that on most issues, the candidates

had few substantial differences.26

On June 2, 1968, Bobby Kennedy went to the Ambassador Hotel in

Los Angeles for a rally, which seemed to go smoothly. That was good

for Bobby and his staff, because the following day would be the most

intense of their campaign so far, a 1,200-mile trek that would drive Bobby

to the brink of exhaustion.

On June 3, Bobby went “from Los Angeles to San Francisco, back

to Watts and Long Beach, on to San Diego, and back to [Los Angeles,

all] in thirteen hours,” according to Evan Thomas. The first problem

arose that morning, as Bobby’s small “motorcade crept through San

Francisco’s Chinatown”—when suddenly, a series of what sounded

like shots erupted. Bobby’s wife “dove for the bottom of the car,” while

Bobby, “standing on the rear hood of a convertible, remained upright

and continued to wave to the surging crowd.” But a journalist “who was

running alongside the motorcade saw Kennedy’s knees buckle” at the

sound, which turned out to be only firecrackers. Even so, “Ethel was

[so] badly shaken” that Bobby asked a reporter to comfort her while he

continued to smile and wave.27

That night, after side trips to Watts and Long Beach, Bobby was in

San Diego for a rally at the El Cortez hotel. The strain and pressure were

getting to Bobby, and soon after beginning his speech to the crowd of

three thousand, Bobby suddenly fell silent. Thomas wrote that Bobby

“nearly collapsed. He abruptly sat down on the stage and put his head

in his hands.” NFL football star and friend Roosevelt Grier got Bobby

628

LEGACY OF SECRECY

“into a bathroom, where he threw up. He lay on the floor while Grier

knelt and mopped his head.” Then Bobby got to his feet and walked

back to the stage, where he completed his talk, finishing with his classic

words: “Some men see things as they are, and ask—why? I dream of

things that never were, and I ask—why not?”28

Chapter Fifty-five

On June 4, 1968, California’s primary was underway when the first exit

polls at 3:00 PM showed Bobby Kennedy winning by eight points over

McCarthy. Even if Bobby won the same day’s primary in South Dakota,

Humphrey would still have a big lead in delegates, though not a major-

ity. A win in California could very well propel Bobby to the nomination,

setting up a race in the fall with Richard Nixon that would echo the 1960

fight between JFK and Nixon.1

At 6:30 PM, Bobby—accompanied by his family and advisors—

headed to the Ambassador Hotel, where he planned to greet his sup-

porters in the Embassy Ballroom later that night, then talk to reporters

in a smaller room. For his personal security, Bobby had only his one

unarmed bodyguard, Bill Barry, plus athletes Roosevelt Grier and Olym-

pic decathlon champion Rafer Johnson, both unarmed. Dan Moldea

found the hotel had hired “18 security guards for crowd control,” includ-

ing eleven unarmed guards who worked for the hotel. The rest were

armed guards hired for the night from Ace Security—again, for crowd

control, not personal protection. There were no Los Angeles police offi-

cers at the hotel that night, though some were stationed nearby.2

The Ambassador Hotel was full of parties on the night of June 4, 1968,

including several for large companies and other political races, for both

liberal and conservative candidates. Sirhan Sirhan went to a private

party first, after seeing a name he recognized from high school on the

marquee. His former classmate wasn’t there, so Sirhan said he “drank

four Tom Collins.” For the diminutive Sirhan, that was a lot of alcohol.

It was almost as if he were steeling himself for a difficult upcoming task,

using liquid courage to buttress the self-hypnosis he’d been studying.

Bobby would leave Los Angeles the next day, June 5, and Sirhan had no

way of knowing when Bobby would be back. After downing the drinks,

Sirhan felt woozy, but went to his car and got his pistol.

630

LEGACY OF SECRECY

Bobby watched TV coverage of the results anxiously with family, friends,

and advisors in his suite on the Ambassador’s fifth floor. By 11 PM, it

finally looked like Bobby would be victorious. Less than an hour later,

Moldea wrote that Bobby “took a freight elevator down to the kitchen

[and] walked through the pantry and anteroom,” toward the doors to

the Embassy Ballroom.3

Hotel ballrooms and kitchens are often connected by a maze of hall-

ways and pantries, used to whisk food and celebrities to waiting crowds.

Gaining access to such areas is usually not difficult, especially if some-

one looks as if they belong there, either as a worker or someone dressed

for business. In Sirhan’s case, the fact that his darker skin and black hair

made him look Hispanic helped, since he resembled the Ambassador’s

busboys and kitchen workers. Various other people also managed to

get into the pantry area behind the ballroom, though some people were

turned away. Guarding the pantry area was Ace Security guard Thane

Cesar, armed with his own .38 pistol. However, Cesar was there only

for crowd control, not as a bodyguard, and had only recently started

working part-time for Ace at night to earn extra money.4

The plan was for Bobby to enter the Embassy Ballroom and make

some remarks. He would then exit out the back door, turn right, go

through some swinging doors into the pantry, past an ice machine, head-

ing to the smaller Colonial Room to meet the press. While some thought

that route was a last-minute decision made at the end of Bobby’s speech,

work by Larry Hancock shows the route had been known since at least

10:00 PM, an hour prior to Bobby’s arrival at the ballroom. Hancock

documented that several hotel “security personnel . . . stated [to law

enforcement] that Kennedy staff had told them, well before the Sena-

tor arrived to make his address, that RFK would be exiting though the

pantry.”5 Kennedy had to address the press in the Colonial Room, and

there was no other effective way for him to get there, since walking

off the stage and trying to exit through the packed ballroom wasn’t a

realistic option.

Shortly before midnight, Bobby entered the Embassy Ballroom to the

rousing cheers of almost two thousand rapturous supporters. Bobby

clearly relished his victory, but he talked about the themes close to his

heart, including

. . . the direction we want to go in the United States . . . what we’re

going to do for those who still suffer in the United States from hun-

ger; what we’re going to do around the rest of the globe; and whether

we’re going to continue the policies which have been so unsuccessful

in Vietnam. . . . We should move in a different direction. . . . My thanks

to all of you, and now it’s on to Chicago and let’s win there!6

As the crowd went wild and began chanting his name, a beaming

Bobby left the stage and headed toward the ballroom exit to the pantry

that would lead him to the waiting reporters.

Sirhan Sirhan had been seen carrying a drink as late as 10 PM. He later

said he was drunk when he went into the press room in the Colonial

Ballroom, where he stared at a teletype, which the teletype operator

later confirmed. Sirhan claims he wandered into the Embassy Ballroom

before Bobby arrived, looking for coffee to help him sober up, and that

someone directed him to the pantry area. He says he spoke briefly to a