September 6, 2005
Sirhan Sirhan in a 1998 mug shot
from the California Department of Corrections at Corcoran Prison.
Part II: Why Sirhan Sirhan
Assassinated Robert Kennedy
by
Mel Ayton
For nearly 40 years conspiracy advocates have built their arguments not only
around the controversies surrounding the ballistics evidence and the scene of
the crime but the oft-repeated cry that the assassin had no real motive for his
act. Yet there is a mountain of evidence to prove the contrary.
From the time he was a child Sirhan had been indoctrinated in ideologies that
are at the center of his murderous act. Sirhan's hatred had its roots in the
milieu in which he was raised and the education he received. Later, as a young
adult, Sirhan sought meaning to his increasingly hopeless life by embracing
anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism and Palestinian nationalism.
As a child Sirhan had been taught by Arab teachers who instilled in him the
principles of the Palestinian cause. They promoted the cause of Palestinian
nationalism and made constant references to the great Arab warrior, Saladin, who
had expelled the foreign crusaders from Jerusalem. Teachers would attempt to
inspire their young students to fight for Palestinian rights.
During Sirhan's trial his mother related how the intense feelings of the
Palestinians remained with the family even though they had been far removed from
the conflict when they immigrated to America. She told of how her family had
lived in Jerusalem for "thousands of years" and she spoke of the bitterness and
hatred of the Israelis who had "taken their land." Mary Sirhan believed her son
had killed Robert Kennedy because of his Arab nationalism. She said, "What he
did, he did for his country." A friend of Sirhan's, John Strathman, believed the
young Arab was heavily influenced by his mother's views.
But Sirhan was influenced by the opinions of both his parents. Child
psychologists have long known that the nature of early childhood suggestions by
parents can lead to a lifelong influence on the individual's self-concept. In
Sirhan's case, his parents taught him the Jews were "evil" and "stole their
home." Sirhan's father, Bishara, regretted Kennedy's death but his hatred and
contempt shone through in a statement he made to reporters in the days following
his son's arrest. Bishara, himself a victim of Palestinian propaganda, said, "I
can say that I do not regret his death as Kennedy the American politician who
attempted to gain the presidential election by his aggressive propaganda against
the Arab people of Palestine...Kennedy was promising the Zionists to supply them
with arms and aircraft…and thus provoked the sensitive feelings of Sirhan who
had suffered so much from the Jews…It is not fair to accuse my son without a
full examination of Zionist atrocities against the Arabs – those atrocities
which received the support and blessings of Robert Kennedy."
What was never considered by writers and journalists, in their quest to find
a motive for Sirhan's act of murder, was the effect that teachers and
influential adults in Jerusalem's Arab community had on the young Palestinian.
The way a nation educates its children on the characterization of other races
and religions will often determine the relations between them. Populations are
not culturally prone to hatred – they are educated toward it as studies of Nazi
Germany show. The anti-Semitism inculcated in German children in the 1930s and
1940s remained with them into their old age and the West German government's
post-war attempts to promote anti-fascism had no effect on those who grew up
during the Third Reich.
The propaganda used by Palestinians had no less an effect on the younger
generations of children from the 1940s to the present day. From an early age
Sirhan had been taught by educators, family members, and friends that the Jews
were "treacherous," "an evil enemy" and it was his "duty" to rid Jews from
Palestine. Sirhan's generation was taught to hate, despise, and fear Jews, to
believe that it was not only right for every self-respecting Arab to fight the
Jewish state and that it was just and desirable to destroy it. Undoubtedly, this
milieu of hatred had an intense effect on Sirhan as he grew up.
Sirhan's irrational hatred and anger towards the Jews did not originate with
any mental illness he may have suffered. In fact, his attitude was no different
from that of the majority of Palestinians and the rest of the Arab peoples. His
ideas were entirely rational within the norms of the Arab world. As Glubb Pasha,
an Arab military leader and British officer (and no lover of Jews) reported in
1945, "They (the Arabs) were painfully conscious of their immaturity, their
weakness and their backwardness. They show all the instability and emotionalism
of the adolescent (characterized by) their touchiness and …readiness to take
offense at any sign of condescension by their elders. Slights gave rise to
outbursts of temper and violent defiance."
There is little doubt the conflict and the situation Palestinians found
themselves in, following the 1948 Diaspora, had its effect on all Palestinian
children. Their dark rage and despair originated from poor leadership within the
Palestinian communities and the feeling they had gone unnoticed by the rest of
the world. Theirs were memories of a "lost homeland," the yearning for return
passed down from generation to generation and above all outrage, shame, anger
and humiliation. As writer Sana Hassan eloquently testified, "Living in Beirut
as a stateless person for most of my growing up years, many of them in a refugee
camp, I did not feel I was living among my 'Arab brothers'…I was a Palestinian.
And that meant I was an outsider, an alien, a refugee and a burden…It defeated
some of us. It reduced and distorted and alienated others. The defeated, like
myself, took off to go away from the intolerable pressures of the Arab world…The
reduced, like my parents, waited helplessly in a refugee camp for the world, for
a miracle, or for some deity to come to their aid. The distorted, like Sirhan
Sirhan, turned into assassins. The alienated, like Leila Khaled, hijacked
civilian aircraft."
Before Sirhan immigrated to America at the age of 12, he had been schooled in
East Jerusalem, a section annexed by Jordan during the 1948 conflict. After
1948, East Jerusalem and West Bank schools followed the Jordanian curriculum. In
the Arab world, including Jordan, educational systems were riven with notions
antithetical to the values of tolerance and understanding that are so intently
promoted in the West. Hundreds of books published from 1948 in Egypt, Syria,
Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq promoted the theme that the liquidation of Israel was
not only a political necessity, but also a moral imperative. Israel and its
people were an evil entity and that it was permissible to destroy them. The
textbooks contained material that went beyond the worst excesses of Nazi
Germany.
Arab leaders compiled a curriculum of hatred for use by their children and
the anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish teachings became a basic element in the study
of history in the schools. Arab children were taught that Jews were the ultimate
embodiment of evil and should be "destroyed." Although Sirhan's school was
nominally Christian, teachers were mainly drawn from the Arab community, which
was predominantly Muslim, with some input from foreign missionary workers.
Christian Arabic children used Jordanian textbooks. From 1948 to 1967, Christian
Schools in East Jerusalem were required to teach the Koran. Following his arrest
for the murder of Robert Kennedy, Sirhan told of how he had been influenced by
one particular teacher in his school, "Mr Suheil," who angrily denounced
present-day Arabs and compared them to the Arab warrior Saladin. Suheil tried to
indoctrinate his pupils in Arab nationalism and urged them to be like Saladin
and fight for the Arab cause.
As the Arab world ignored the United Nations call to legitimize the State of
Israel, Arab Jordanian school textbooks continued to refer to Israel as "foreign
occupied Palestine." The texts called for Israel's destruction and made
reference to the obligation Palestinians had to defend Islamic land. In the
textbooks Jews were portrayed as thieves, occupiers and "enemies of the
prophets," "cunning," "deceitful," "wild animals," "locusts" and "treacherous."
The curriculum also exhorted children to violence and described the Jewish state
in Nazi-like terms. They always described Arabs as "victims." In fact, the
purpose of Arab schooling in Jordan and Egypt was to mobilize the population for
future conflict with Israel.
The Israeli educational textbooks during this period were not without their
own bias and many used less than flattering descriptions of Arabs and were
essentially racist towards "goyin" (non-Jews). History textbooks also contained
many biases, distortions and omissions concerning the depiction of Arabs and the
history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. However, the books omitted the incitement
to hatred and violence that was present in the textbooks used by Palestinian
refugees in Jordan and Egypt. In fact, beginning in the 1950s, Israel did much
to promote the concept of peaceful co-existence. Study of Arabic culture and
language was introduced in elementary schools and the works of Arab authors and
poets, even those hostile to Israel, were included in the curriculum.
In December 1956, the Sirhan family moved to the Unites States. At first
Sirhan was not impressed with his new life but he was hopeful that his position
as one of an "oppressed" minority would improve. Robert Blair Kaiser reported
that the 12-year-old asked his mother if, by becoming U.S. citizen he
would get blonde hair and blue eyes. From an early age he would always refer to
himself as a "Palestinian Arab" even though he was, technically, a Jordanian
citizen.
The effect of seeing American students from wealthy backgrounds socializing
among themselves had an impact on Sirhan; an impact long recognized by educators
who have understood how school populations, differentiated by social class,
material possessions and social groupings can experience resentment and
bitterness. Sirhan began to recognize that, for him at least, America was a
society of the haves and have-nots. He identified with the have-nots and
characterized the haves as students who had blonde hair and blue eyes. Sirhan
was beginning to identify himself along racial lines. At this time he was
described by friends and fellow students as "taciturn," "surly," "hard to get to
know," "withdrawn and alone" but also "pleasant and well-mannered."
Sirhan's hatred and anger towards the Jews remained with him as he settled in
his new country. He continued to believe Jews ran the whole country, headed
major organizations of the media, and were responsible for the slanted view the
media gave of Arabs. According to Mohan Goel, an acquaintance of Sirhan's, "(Sirhan)
couldn't understand the Americans, that they let the Jews suck the blood of the
nation, and keep putting money in the banks." Sirhan confessed he still felt,
"…towards the Jews as they (the Jews) felt towards Hitler. Hitler persecuted
them and now they're persecuting me in the same style."
At Pasadena's John Muir High School Sirhan became interested in politics and
began to express his political views. Once he gave a talk to the school's
Foreign Relations Club. Arriving at the venue, Sirhan became disgusted at the
audience that he believed was made up mostly of Jews. Asked if Arabs should
accept the status quo and also accept peace, Sirhan became inflamed. He berated
his questioner and asked, rhetorically, "Give up our own houses? You want us to
give up our own houses"?
The Sirhan family continued to resist acculturation. Conversation at home was
always Arabic and they listened to taped Arab music all day long, especially the
music of Umm Kulthum. They read Arab newspapers and observed Arab customs, read
Arab literature and their way of thinking was always the "Arab way." Arab pride
was also important to them, which is the reason why Sirhan became angry when his
lawyers argued that he had been mentally ill when he shot Robert Kennedy. Sirhan
reacted this way because in Arab culture there is a great stigma attached to
mental illness. In most Arab countries, it is better to be a criminal than to
admit insanity.
Despite his all-English education, Sirhan's mother tongue remained Arabic
although Sirhan claimed to think in English. The family spoke Arabic among
themselves and all the brothers described themselves not as "Christian Arabs"
but as "Palestinian Arabs." The brothers also strongly disapproved of their
sister Aida not marrying an Arab.
During a period of unemployment in 1966/67 Sirhan frequently visited the
Pasadena Public Library, especially during the summer of 1967 when he read
extensively about the Six-Day War. He avidly read B'nai B'rith
Messenger, keeping track of what he described as "Zionist intentions." Angry
and bitter at the Arab defeat, Sirhan frequently railed against the purported
pro-Israeli U.S. television news and the "bias" of magazines such as Time,
Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report.
The Six-Day War had an intense effect on him. He had seen photographs of
Israeli soldiers triumphantly taking control of the Suez Canal and later he
would remark, "If I had seen those guys personally, I would have blasted
them...I would have killed them." His anger against Israel provoked him to write
in his notebooks, " 2 June 1967, 12.30pm -- A Declaration of war against
American Humanity when in the course of human events it has become necessary for
me to equalize and seek revenge for all the inhuman treatments committed against
me by the American people..." Another entry declared, "Long Live Nasser...Long
live the Arab Dream."
Between September 1967 and March 1968 Sirhan had been employed by
health-store owner John Weidner. With Weidner, Sirhan discussed politics,
religion and philosophy. One of Weidner's assistants said Sirhan was "…a fanatic
when it comes to a discussion of religion or politics." According to Weidner,
Sirhan believed he was, "…an Arab...till the end." Weidner quoted Sirhan as
saying, "They (the Jews) have stolen my country. They have no right to be there.
It belongs to Jordan and they have taken it." Weidner said Sirhan believed, "The
Jewish people were dominating, they had a lot of wealth, a lot of power, and he
say (sic) there is no freedom in America...he always had the attitude of
resenting authority...he could be very nervous and arrogant...he was thinking
alone...knowing his hate of the Jews...and knowing his complex of inferiority,
seeing in Kennedy a man who has a big name, rich, successful life, happy -- now
Sirhan, you have got to do something big..."
It was because of Sirhan's touchiness, arrogance and his feelings of
inadequacy and inferiority that friction between employer and employee
developed. Weidner said he sometimes, "…felt that (Sirhan) had turned against
the whole American way of life, and that he was an anarchist in revolt against
our society. And yet he had beliefs and principles. Personal honor and his
self-respect were important to him. And second only to that he esteemed
patriotism. He had strong patriotic feelings for his country (Palestine). Yes, I
would say he loved his country."
Weidner also engaged Sirhan in many discussions about the problems of the
Middle East. According to Weidner, "...he hated the Jews because of their power
and their material wealth, they had taken his country from his people who were
now refugees. Because of Israel, he said, his family had become refugees, and he
described to my wife how he himself had seen a Jewish soldier cutting the breast
off an Arab woman in Jerusalem." He told Weidner, "There is no God. Look at what
God has done for the Arabs! And for the Palestinians! How can we believe in
God"?
During the Easter vacation of 1968 Arab-American Lou Shelby, who hired
Sirhan's brother Adel as a musician for his club The Fez, visited the Sirhans.
Shelby thought the family was "strange." He had previously visited them in
Pasadena on a number of occasions for musical rehearsals and was able to see
them in a social setting. According to Shelby, "The Sirhans always struck me as
being a weird family. By that I mean something quite strange and unusual.
Perhaps the best way to explain it is by saying that though they were
Christians, the general quality, the atmosphere, of their family was that of a
Muslim family. It was serious and heavy and lacking in the adaptability and
quickness which most Arab Christian families here have. And there were their
relations with their mother; the sons were fond of her, of course, but she had
little influence on them and they didn't take her wishes or feelings into
account."
Shelby had known Adel for seven years but it was the first opportunity for
him to talk to Adel's younger brother. According to Shelby, "We had a really big
argument on Middle East politics...we switched back and forth between Arabic and
English. Sirhan's outlook was completely Arab nationalist -- the Arabs were in
the right and had made no mistakes. I tried to reason with him and to point out
that one could be in the right but still make mistakes. But he was adamant.
According to him, America was to blame for the Arabs' misfortunes -- because of
the power of Zionism in this country. The only Arab leader he really admired was
Nasser and he thought Nasser's policies were right. The Arabs had to build
themselves up and fight Israel, that was the only way. The only outside friend
the Arabs had was Russia, but, according to Sirhan, Russia had not proved a good
enough friend during last June's fighting (Six-Day War)."
Following his arrest Sirhan told one of the court-appointed psychiatrists,
George Y. Abe, about his political philosophy. Sirhan told him he was solidly
anti-Zionist and disgusted at the way Jews in America had such a strong
influence within the American political system. Sirhan said he believed Robert
Kennedy listened to the Jews and he saw the senator as having sold out to them.
As Sirhan grew into manhood his hatred of the Jews did not dissipate. He once
denounced one of his brothers for dating a Jewish girl and when Sirhan
discovered that a girl he was dating was Jewish, he rejected her. He became
incensed when he saw the movie Exodus. "Every time I hear that song," he
later told Robert Kaiser (RFK Must Die, 1970), "I shut it off. It bugs
me. The memories. Those Jews…'The fucking Arabs' is what they're trying to say
every time they play that song." Sirhan refused to see the movie Lawrence Of
Arabia as he believed it to be anti-Arab. He also disliked the movie because
it had a Jewish director, Sam Spiegal.
Sirhan became paranoid about Jews in the United States. He said, "The Jews
are behind the scenes wherever you go. You tell them your name and they freeze.
'SUR-HAN,' (they say)." He felt slighted every time someone mentioned his
double-barrelled name. He said, "My name! My name! As soon as anyone heard it,
everything else stopped." He confessed that he was not "…psychotic…except when
it comes to the Jews."
Childhood friend and fellow radical Walter Crowe said Sirhan was virulently
anti-Semitic and professed hatred for the Jews and the State of Israel. Crowe
believed Mary Sirhan propagated these views to Sirhan. Crowe, who studied
Arabic, attended a meeting of the Organization of Arab Students with Sirhan in
1964. In 1965 Sirhan told Crowe of his admiration for President Nasser and
expressed the wish that the Arabs would someday rid Palestine of the Jews. At
Pasadena College Sirhan said he realized " …being an Arab is worse than being a
Negro. Oh, I worked hard…but I stood out in class…just my name gave me away. I
stood out for that teacher as an example to prove the points he wanted to make
to the class about 'acculturation.' Once, during a discussion of adaptation, the
problem, the issue of Palestine came up. This was my chance to speak. I really
wanted to clobber this fellow, this blond son of a bitch and I did. I put him
where he really belonged. I talked for one solid hour. There were two or three
colored people in the class. They had to applaud. I was on their side when they
got up to tell about their grievances. My argument? Well, I said that if the
U.S. was really as benevolent as it claimed to be, why did it send Hitler's Jews
to Palestine? Why not to the Mojave desert? Then see how much milk and honey
they could produce"!
For a brief period a few years before the assassination, Sirhan had secured
employment as a part-time gardener and he came to hate the Jews whose gardens he
tended. He referred to them as those "fucking Jews," "the goddamn Zionists" and
the "fucking Zionists."
A number of people who knew Sirhan, including friend John Strathman, said
Sirhan had been impressed by Hitler's Mein Kampf and also of the German
leader's solution to the "Jewish Problem." Sirhan believed Hitler had had
hypnotic powers over the German people. John Weidner, said, "I soon discovered
he had a dislike for the Jewish people as a nation…he said that in America, the
Jewish people were on the top and directed things…He said they had taken his
home."
However, it was the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 that provoked the worst of his
anti-Semitic rages. Kanan Hamzeh, president of the Organization of Arab Students
in Pasadena, said Sirhan had "intense feelings about the Israelis." According to
John Strathman, Sirhan was "intense" and "mad" about the Six-Day War.
Strathman's wife, Patricia, said Sirhan became "burning mad…furious…" about the
war.
The Sirhan family watched television news reports about the war and they read
the Los Angeles newspapers. The Los Angeles Times editorial of June 6,
1967 said that the U.S. had an obligation to maintain the territorial integrity
of Israel and from the week beginning June 5, 1967, the newspaper devoted many
pages depicting Arabs as figures of ridicule. Television comedy shows refer to
anti-Arab jokes and the general atmosphere throughout America was joy at the
Israeli victory. Arabs living in the United States found it difficult to
understand why the United States sided with Israel, despite the oft-stated view
of American leaders that Israel was viewed as an island of democracy in a sea of
dictatorships. Arab communities in America also failed to understand how the
American people supported Israel because it was seen as the underdog, a small
nation standing up to the aggression from large Arab states. Furthermore,
support for Israel had been linked to the Cold War realities of a superpower's
response to the growing friendliness between Arab states, especially that of
Nasser's Egypt, with the Soviet Union.
One year later, on the anniversary of the Arab defeat, Sirhan saw, on his way
to the Ambassador Hotel on the night of June 4, 1968, an advertisement
announcing a march down Wilshire Boulevard to commemorate the first anniversary
of Israel's victory in the Six-Day War. It was a "…big sign, for some kind of
fund, or something…a fire started burning in me…I thought the Zionists or Jews
or whoever it was were trying to rub it in that they had beat hell out of the
Arabs." At his trial he said, "... that brought me back to the six days in June
of the previous year…I was completely pissed off at American justice at the
time…I had the same emotionalism, the same feelings, the fire started burning
inside me…at seeing how these Zionists, these Jews, these Israelis, …were trying
to rub in the fact that they had beaten the hell out of the Arabs the year
before…when I saw that ad, I was off to go down and see what these
sons-of-bitches were up to."
Sirhan was not alone in his anger. An unnamed girl friend of Adel's told
reporters it was no secret that the Arab community in Los Angeles was upset at
the American government's overt support of Israel. In 1967 and 1968 she and
others joined in a demonstration with marches on Hollywood Boulevard and the
Hollywood Bowl.
Sirhan had developed the idea of "striking out" in the year following the
Arab defeat; his feelings climaxed during the 1968 primary elections.
Furthermore, in the years leading up to the shooting, his Arab nationalism was
fuelled by the Arab newspaper Al Bayan, published in Brooklyn, which
promoted anti-Israeli rhetoric. Some of its articles were overtly anti-Semitic.
As an avid reader of American political periodicals, Sirhan became angry at
the way the American press was treating the Arabs. He told one of the doctors
involved in the case, "I read this magazine article on the 20th anniversary of
the state of Israel…I hate the Jews. There was jubilation. I felt they were
saying in the article, 'We beat the Arabs.' It burns the shit out of me. There
was happiness and jubilation."
There is some evidence that Sirhan was not incorrect in his assumptions that
the U.S. media had a bias against Arab states. In a July 1967 Time
article entitled "The Least Unreasonable Arab," Jordan's King Hussein was
described as the only moderate leader in the Middle East. The magazine stated,
"Instead of trying to salvage what they can the Arabs are busy blaming just
about everybody but themselves for the fact that great glubs of territory lie in
Israeli hands." In its essay Time continued, "Desperately in need of
survival training for the 20th century…a case of arrested development…emotional
and political instability…suffering from one of history's worst inferiority
complexes."
The idea that Sirhan's self-confessed political motivation was spurious did
not originate with conspiracy advocates. From the beginning both Sirhan's
lawyers and the U.S. media sought to portray the assassination of Robert Kennedy
as the act of a deranged individual bent on seeking fame and notoriety.
The New York lawyer Emile Zola Berman, a Jew, became one of Sirhan's lawyers
and was praised for defending a Palestinian. However, he may well have been used
by the defense team to prevent the political aspects of the crime from being
addressed. It was Berman who advocated Sirhan's defense be built around the plea
of "diminished capacity," to prove that Sirhan had been mentally ill. Sirhan
protested and told his lawyers, "Have you ever heard the Arab side of the
story?…I mean on the TV, the radio, in the mass media?…That's what bugs me!
There's no Arab voice in America, and goddamn it, I'm gonna show 'em in that
courtroom. I'm gonna really give'em hell about it." During the trial, Sirhan
repeatedly voiced his political motives but his lawyers went ahead with their
trial strategy.
The act of killing Kennedy can only be seen as an absurd act if there was no
obvious rational motive to consider. Yet Sirhan's crime was indeed explicable
and rational both in personal and political terms, as the Arab communities in
the United States recognized as soon as the facts of the case were publicized.
Henry Awad, the editor and publisher of the Star News and Pictorial, the
largest Arab newspaper in America at the time, said, "The Arab community wants
this trial. We think it's the only way the U.S. will hear about the Arab
cause…Every single Arab in America regrets the killing but the trial will bring
us a chance for publicity."
The New York Times interviewed a celebrated spokesman for the
Arab-American community in the United States, John Jabara, who believed the
trial of Sirhan would bring an "understanding of the Arab cause." Al Anwar,
an Arab newspaper in Beirut commented on June 10, 1968, "…regardless of
everything, Sirhan's blood-stained bullets have carried Palestine into every
American home. The act may be illegal, the price high and the assassination
unethical. But American deafness to the cause of the Palestine people is also
illegal, unethical and carries a high price."
There were a few media outlets in the United States that recognized the true
nature of Sirhan's act but their voices went unheard. The Jewish Observer
recognized that Robert Kennedy's assassination would leave a "deep scar on
America's relations with the Arab world" and it noted how the State Department
played down Sirhan's Arab origins in order not to offend Arab states. They also
observed that members of Congress were avoiding all reference to the
Arab-Israeli conflict.
Psychiatrist Dr. George Y. Abe, who interviewed Sirhan in the pre-trial
period, implied that Sirhan's political ideas were irrational. Sirhan, he said,
"(had) …paranoid-inclined ideations, particularly in the political sphere, but
there is no evidence of outright delusions or hallucinations." Yet the
assassin's motives were anything but paranoid and reflected the thinking of
millions of Arabs both in the Middle East and the United States. Dr. Philip S.
Hicks, a psychiatrist who interviewed the assassin in 1986, said that the
assassination stemmed from "political fanaticism rather than psychotic
violence."
When the United States voiced its support for Israel in the United Nations
Assembly, it enraged Sirhan. He later confessed, "At the time I would have
killed (U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Arthur Goldberg) if I had a gun."
Sirhan also developed an intense hatred for other leading American politicians,
although at his trial he expressed admiration for President Kennedy. He said he
had "loved" the president because JFK had been working with Arab Leaders to try
to bring about a peace settlement to the Middle East. Sirhan believed President
Kennedy "was going to put pressure on Israel…to help the refugees…he was killed
and it never happened."
But Sirhan reserved his burning contempt for Robert Kennedy, who he believed
had made statements in support of Israel that went beyond any expressed by the
other presidential candidates. He imagined Kennedy had "betrayed" him when he
discovered that Kennedy, the candidate who expressed allegiance to the underdog,
had now become his bitter enemy. He also targeted Kennedy because of the
senator's greater potential in becoming the next president. Sirhan knew RFK's
assassination would engender greater publicity for the Arab cause.
At his trial, Sirhan said he wanted Robert Kennedy to be president but that
love turned to hate when he saw television reports of RFK participating in an
Israeli Independence Day celebration. Asked by his lawyer, Grant Cooper, if
anyone had put it in his mind that Robert Kennedy was a "bad person," Sirhan
replied, "No, no, this is all mine…I couldn't believe it (RFK's support for
Israel). I would rather die…rather than live with it…I have the shock of it…the
humility and all this talk about the Jews being victorious…"
Sirhan said he heard a radio broadcast, " (the) hot news was when the
announcer said Robert Kennedy was at some Jewish Club or Zionist Club in Beverly
Hills." At the Neveh Shalom Synagogue Kennedy said, "…in Israel – unlike so many
other places in the world – our commitment is clear and compelling. We are
committed to Israel's survival. We are committed to defying any attempt to
destroy Israel, whatever the source. And we cannot and must not let that
commitment waver." Sharif Sirhan told Egyptian journalist Mahmoud Abel-Hadi
that, following the broadcast of the speech on television, "…he (Sirhan) left
the room putting his hands on his ears and almost weeping."
Sirhan had been aware that Palestinian organizations were beginning to carry
out terrorist acts in the 1960s. In conversations Sirhan held with his friend,
Walter Crowe, the two politically aware young men discussed Arab nationalism.
Crowe told Sirhan that the Arab cause was a fight for national liberation.
Echoing sentiments held by many left-wing radicals of the time, Crowe said the
conflict in Palestine was an internal struggle by Palestinians who were
oppressed by the Israelis. Crowe believed Al Fatah's terrorist acts were
justified and that Palestinian terrorists had gained the respect of the Arab
world. Sirhan agreed and spoke of "total commitment" to the cause. Sirhan was
for "…violence whenever, as long as its needed." Crowe said that Sirhan, "…could
have seen himself as a fighter," and believed that Sirhan saw himself as a
committed revolutionary willing to undertake revolutionary action. Later Crowe
would come to feel guilt about the part he may have played in putting ideas of
terrorist acts into Sirhan's head and reinforcing Sirhan's resolve.
Since June 1967 Al Fatah had been promoting their interests in the United
States. From 1965 to 1967, Fatah pursued a policy of terrorist attacks on
Israeli settlements. Only a few incursions into Israel were aimed at military
targets. In March 1968, a group of terrorists used a land mine to destroy a
school bus in Israel's Negev Desert. Two adults were killed and 28 children
wounded. In April 1968, a passenger bus was stopped by Israeli police a few
miles east of the Sirhan's village of Taibeh. Three young Palestinian terrorists
were shot and two of the victims died. The stories were widely circulated within
the United States
As a keen student of politics and Middle Eastern affairs, Sirhan could not
have failed to read about Fatah's exploits. On the West Coast, Arab students had
been receiving political literature from a number of Arab groups, including Al
Fatah. Students received copies of Al Fatah statements and communiqués,
according to the Christian Science Monitor Beirut correspondent. The
statements exhorted Palestinian Arabs to pursue a more violent agenda to rid the
Jews from Palestinian soil. There is no evidence, however, that Sirhan had met
with any representatives of terrorist groups. However, the Arab community in Los
Angeles gave its wholehearted support for the actions of Palestinian terror
groups and this no doubt influenced and inspired Sirhan.
Sirhan was a student at Pasadena City College from September 1963 until May
18, 1965. During this period two Arab groups were active on campus, The
International Club and the Organization of Arab Students in the United States
and Canada, but were not recognised by the college. According to writer James H.
Sheldon, in an article entitled "Anti-Israeli Forces on Campus," the OAS was
dangerously active in spreading extremist and violent ideas during this period.
Sirhan was involved with the Organization of Arab Students and met the
president of the organisation, Kanan Abdul Latif Hamzeh, through his brother,
Sharif, who was an active member. Sirhan became a de facto member of the
organization that, purportedly, had been set up to assist Arab students in
adjusting to academic life away from home. In reality, it was more politically
active than its mission statement professed. According to Hamzeh, Sirhan
volunteered to assist in organizing meetings setting up chairs and getting
refreshments. Hamzeh also said Sirhan had intense feelings against the Israelis.
Sirhan believed his crime of assassinating Robert Kennedy was "legitimate"
and he was intensely proud of his act. Robert Kaiser tried to fathom Sirhan's
true motives and in December 1968 he told him he did not believe his expressed
pro-Palestinian motives. Sirhan had been "putting him on," he thought. Sirhan
replied, "I could be sometimes. But it's in me…You know, women, money and horses
were my thing, but I still maintain this thing (the assassination) had a
political motivation. There was no other …involving factor." John Weidner said,
"I think he did it because he thought he was doing something for his country…(Sirhan)
told me that when he was a child, he saw members of his family killed by Jews
and he had to flee Jordan when he was a child. He was not a citizen and didn't
like the United States."
By killing Kennedy Sirhan had been advancing the cause of the Palestinians, a
cause which promoted the return of Arab land from the state of Israel. He told
Robert Kaiser, "They (the Palestinians) want action. They want results. Hey! I
produced action for them. I'm a big hero over there."
Sirhan knew that his crime propagandized a political or ideological point of
view – "a propaganda of the deed" as the 1969 National Commission on the Causes
and Prevention of Violence, described it. Sirhan attempted to advance his cause
through publicity and there was a cause and effect relationship to his crime. In
effect, Sirhan was an "unaffiliated terrorist" and the motive for his act was
established on the night he murdered Robert Kennedy when he cried out, "I did it
for my country."
Read Part I: The Robert Kennedy Assassination:
Unraveling the Conspiracy Theories
Mel Ayton is the author of
The JFK Assassination:
Dispelling The Myths (Woodfield Publishing 2002) and
Questions Of
Controversy: The Kennedy Brothers (University of Sunderland Press 2001).
His
latest book,
A Racial Crime – James Earl Ray And The Murder Of Dr Martin
Luther King Jr., was published in the United States by ArcheBooks in
February 2005.
In 2003 he acted as the historical adviser for the BBC's
television documentary "The Kennedy Dynasty" broadcast in November of that year. He
has written articles for Ireland's leading history magazine History Ireland,
David Horowitz's Frontpage magazine and
History News Network.
