"... he revealed to The Washington Post last week. It was the culmination of months of research by Kennedy into the assassination, including speaking with witnesses and reading the autopsy and police reports. 'I got to a place where I had to see Sirhan,' Kennedy said. He would not discuss the specifics of their conversation. But when it was over, Kennedy had joined those who believe there was a second gunman, and that it was not Sirhan who killed his father. 'I went there because I was curious and disturbed by what I had seen in the evidence,' said Kennedy, an environmental lawyer and the third oldest of his father’s 11 children. 'I was disturbed that the wrong person might have been convicted of killing my father. My father was the chief law enforcement officer in this country. I think it would have disturbed him if somebody was put in jail for a crime they didn’t commit.'"
I guess it's news that the son of RFK feels like that, but other than that, it's The Washington Post flogging conspiracy theory titillation.
143 comments:
Proving that Kennedys got progressively nuttier.
Conspiracy Envy.
Let Sirhan out and give him a gun and Robert Kennedy Jr.'s address.
"It wasn't me!"
"
Let Sirhan out and give him a gun and Robert Kennedy Jr.'s address."
I almost needed a new keyboard after that one.
If the old man was still around, Sirhan would have had an "accident" in prison years ago. The young ones are a bunch of addled morons.
Jr. is living proof of the "decline of generations" - only in his case it's brain power not testosterone that's declining.
He left his wife sitting in a car for three hours? imagine the outrage if she had been a child or a dog.
There was no Starbucks nearby?
Is it okay to say this guy is a nut? Eyewitnesses saw Sirhan do it. And the entire law enforcement infrastructure was in on a conspiracy? Please.
What does this say about his environmental activism?
But he’s rich and Hines is probably good in the sack.
This is like the reparations bar. What a thrill to so easily become a savior. What merit Jr acquires, standing up for the real victim here.
One time when I was a kid I tried to sound like James Bond. This woman asked me my name. And so I went with my last name, first.
"Carmichael. Taylor Carmichael."
And she did not get that I was like James Bond.
She said, "Carmichael Taylor Carmichael?"
Like I was Sirhan Sirhan's fucked up cousin or something.
And I was like, "No, Taylor is my first name." Although actually it is my middle name. I go by my middle name.
This shit never happens to James Bond.
Trump's fault.
Robert Kennedy, Jr., apparently thought Rosey Grier and Rafer Johnson were lying, presumably because they’re black. Sirhan had voluminous notebooks that were entered into evidence. Where in those notebooks was an accomplice mentioned.
Lee Harvey Oswald killed the only Kennedy with a brain (though Teddy had a certain low cunning).
She said, "Carmichael Taylor Carmichael?"
That's what you get for having two last names.
Conspiracy theories are the thing this year, evidently.
Cheryl Hines is married to Bobby Jr.? Is it too much to hope we’ll see him on a future episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm”? With his cockamamie theory about Sirhan Sirhan skewered? Please, God, make it happen.
Kennedy should go back, give Sirhan ten dollars and watch his eyes light up.
He's an idiot.
If you parse his words, you realize what an idiot this "environmental lawyer" Kennedy is.
"I think it would have disturbed him if somebody was put in jail for a crime they didn’t commit."
Isn't the younger Kennedy saying a crime "they" did commit, but "he" (Sirhan) didn't?
Actually, no, Kennedy is saying it is a crime that "they" did commit.
But when it was over, Kennedy had joined those who believe there was a second gunman, and that it was not Sirhan who killed his father.
So, Sirhan was a "gunman" and part of a conspiracy to murder RFK, Sirhan just didn't pull the trigger.
Yet, who better than Sirhan to name that "second gunman" and co-conspirator, and why didn't Sirhan tell him during their meeting?
Or is Kennedy Jr. saying it was mere happenstance these two "gunmen" arrived at the same time and place on the occassion of his father's murder?
What would Rosie Greer think?
I guess it's news that the son of RFK feels like that
Did he feel like that or did he think that? Believe that?
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."
So Junior’s visit probably has something to do with his support for the peace loving Palestinians and their oppression by those rotten Israelis.
Can the Kennedys please go away and leave us alone?
I thought, after all, that it was "you and me" who killed the Kennedys, but apparently a bunch of 'em are still around.
And there’s this, “In an interview with Yahoo News Guest Host Stephanie Sy, Robert Kennedy, Jr. endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. Kennedy said he is “so glad that [Bernie Sanders] did what he did in the primary season to force the conversation” on a number of progressive issues, but he’s “very gratified” that Clinton and Sanders have reconciled.”
An idiot endorses a criminal.
Every day that Hillary is not President is a great day in America.
Some of the more interesting theories involve a prominent Arab businessman hamshari and Aristotle onassis in Peter Evans nemesis.
This will come full circle when RFK Jr. claims Sirhan's childhood vaccinations caused the murder that Sirhan didn't commit.
Lee Harvey Oswald killed the only Kennedy with a brain
A B-24 killed the best of them.
I imagine Larry David would catch holy hell from Cheryl Hines if he left her sitting in a car for three hours. But when you're a Kennedy, they let you do it. (She should be grateful the car wasn't upside down in water.)
Of course then there's the matter of who owned the ambassador hotel, g David schine, of were going down the rabbit hole.
All Kennedy has to do is read and watch Rosey Grier's statements, as he was the guy who took the gun away from Sirhan, and protected him from the lynch mob that was forming. He said Sirhan didn't give up the gun easily, and no one was helping Grier except George Plimpton. George backed-up Rosie's version of the events.
Plimpton ran with the Kennedy's and Robert Jr, knows full well that George was telling the truth and not forming a conspiracy against the family, by picking some innocent guy to take the fall.
Or the mob boss on whose racetrack sirhan worked.
The women in the poke dot dress fleeing the scene with an man have always raised my suspicions mind.
The same RFK, Jr. who pushed the vaccine-autism theory through the media cheesecloth, ready to make a secret deal with his own father’s assassin? This guy will do anything to stay in politics!
I wonder if Dad would be proud? -willie
It's "polka dot," you Polish-hating idiot.
Speaking of RFK’s time as AG, did he do any illegal wiretapping? How did he treat MLK? Did he do anything the MeToo movement might not be happy with?
A member of that group recalled how Bobby had made a 'sexual advance' that she termed 'a typical Kennedy thing.' He had invited himself to her home for a party, and throughout dinner Bobby was 'touching' her leg. But that wasn't enough. As the hostess later learned, he had been doing the same thing to her friend who was seated on the other side of him.
That kind of behavior continued, according to a trusted friend of Mary's.
'He would be at the dinner table and his hands would go all up their legs or skirts and they just laughed. The Kennedy aura kept them from saying, "You're an a**hole."'
At one point, Mary revealed to a friend that Bobby 'wanted to bring another woman into the bedroom,' and have a ménage à trois, but Mary had adamantly refused, and Bobby was said to have been furious with her for turning him down.
The Mary Kennedy source who mentioned the failed ménage à trois request by Bobby said that during the last six months of Mary's life, she had talked about Bobby's numerous affairs, and that it was an 'astronomical number.'
In the months before she committed suicide in May 2012, she made a number of alarming comments to a longtime friend. She allegedly said she 'feared for her life,' claimed that Bobby 'repeatedly 'told her that she would be 'better off dead,' and that it would be 'so much easier' if she killed herself.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3231043/How-serial-cheater-Bobby-Kennedy-Jr-strutted-family-home-exposing-private-parts-demanded-m-nage-trois-wife-Mary-went-public-Cheryl-Hines-telling-Mary-things-easier-killed-herself.
The strange sole gunman with an unexplained mental illness theory always pushed in the Media is actually far less likely then a "conspiracy" of two or more to perform the professional hits.
The trouble is the actual investigations ( I.e, those not done by the FBI's Faked Investigation and Evidence Destruction and Witness Statement Discounting Teams) are turning up what actually happened.
(Eaglebeak)
Bobby Kennedy was not the chief law enforcement officer of the country, although he was the Attorney General. The chief law enforcement officer of the country is the President (Article II).
Someone should tell RFK Jr, and someone should definitely tell the DOJ and the FBI.
He signed off on the taps against king, that is true.
She allegedly said she 'feared for her life,' claimed that Bobby 'repeatedly 'told her that she would be 'better off dead,' and that it would be 'so much easier' if she killed herself.
The Marilyn Monroe 'suicide' has always smelled fishy to me.
Hah - the anti-conspiracy folks are running 38-0 on this one!
May I have the temerity to offer a dissenting view?
Famed LA prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi - who got famous by prosecuting the Manson family - wrote a large tome called,"Reclaiming History", the most thorough defense of the Warren Report and most thorough refutation of any and all "conspiracy theories" about JFK. It and "Case Closed" by Gerald Posner are the definitive books establishing Oswald as the lone assassin.
However, decades earlier, in 1975, Bugliosii went the other way on little brother, RFK
The problem with the RFK "lone gunman" theory as noted by Bugliosi was twofold:
First, Sirhan's Iver-Johnson pistol had capacity for 8 bullets. But RFK was hit 3 times and 5 other folks were shot - the bullets found in the bodies (thankfully no one else was killed). Bugliosi got a sworn statement from an LAPD officer who found at least 2 bullet holes in the wall. If there are more than 8 shots, by the powers of math, you have 2 shooters.
Second, and in my eyes most convincing, the autopsy report by famed LA coroner Dr. Thomas Noguchi, says that RFK was shot 3 times from behind , the fatal shot was point blank to the back of RFK's head, near the R ear. But Sirhan by every single account was waiting in the pantry, while RFK and his entourage marched towards him. Sirhan was several feet in front of RFK shooting at his front, not behind.
Source: "The Assasination of Robert F Kennedy" by William Turner.
If there are more than 8 shots, by the powers of math, you have 2 shooters.
There has been speculation for years that RFK's bodyguards fired shots, and even speculation that one of them hit Kennedy.
A fellow surgery resident was doing a Surgery service rotation at Good Samaritan Hospital when Kennedy was brought in and Nat Reid operated on him. As they were moving Kennedy from the hospital gurney to the operating table, a bullet fell out pf his clothing. My fellow resident picked it up, walked out to the Secret Service people in the hallway and asked if anyone wanted it.
That makes 11.
Sirhan Sirhan is incarcerated in the Richard Donovan facility on Otay Mesa down in South San Diego county. It's maybe four miles north of the border. I used to go down and fly model airplanes on Otay Mesa. Models could drift across the border into Tijuana, at which point you kissed your models goodbye.
But Cheryl Hines couldn't get a Starbucks down there; I can attest from personal experience that the closest Starbucks is several miles away. Otay Mesa has half a dozen correctional facilities on it--all of them built in the last 15 years. The prison business is good these days. Not so much if you are in one---but okay if you own one or are employed in one.
The best book about the killing is by Dan Moldea.
Sirhan usually says he can't remember shooting his gun, and some infer that he was "hypno-programmed." There was a security guard named Thane Cesar behind RFK who drew his weapon when gunshots began, but it was a .38 as opposed to Sirhan's .22.
(She should be grateful the car wasn't upside down in water.)
Another time my keyboard was in danger this morning.
...but Kennedy, hemmed in by the crowd, followed maître d'hôtel Karl Uecker through a back exit.
Uecker led Kennedy through the kitchen area, holding Kennedy's right wrist but frequently releasing it as Kennedy shook hands with those he encountered. Uecker and Kennedy started down a passageway narrowed by an ice machine against the right wall and a steam table to the left. Kennedy turned to his left and shook hands with busboy Juan Romero just as Sirhan Sirhan stepped down from a low tray-stacker beside the ice machine, rushed past Uecker, and repeatedly fired what was later identified as a .22 caliber Iver-Johnson Cadet revolver.[20]
After Kennedy had fallen to the floor, Barry saw Sirhan holding a gun and hit him twice in the face while others, including maîtres d' Uecker and Edward Minasian, writer George Plimpton, Olympic gold medal decathlete Rafer Johnson and former professional football player Rosey Grier of the New York Giants and Los Angeles Rams, forced Sirhan against the steam table and disarmed him as he continued firing his gun in random directions. Five other people were also wounded: William Weisel of ABC News, Paul Schrade of the United Auto Workers union, Democratic Party activist Elizabeth Evans, Ira Goldstein of the Continental News Service and Kennedy campaign volunteer Irwin Stroll.
After a minute, Sirhan wrestled free and grabbed the revolver again, but he had already fired all the bullets and was subdued.
----Wiki
This is your mind on Heroin.
The democrats need a reason to blame another republican city for JFK's death prior to Nov. Dallas has already been assigned blame for JFK (to excuse the commie) so why don't we go with the entire state of Kansas (to excuse the arab).
That would make the lefty's world quite neat and tidy.
Dan Moldea wrote a fantastic book about Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters. He is a great journalist, love him.
But he got the RFK murder wrong. Thane Cesar - the rent a cop- who provided security to RFK that fateful night, lied about his gun.
Because no one in prison has ever lied about doing the crime, not once in all of world history.
An 8 shot revolver ?
This is far from the dumbest theory expounded by RFK Jr. The extraordinary thing is how little his views are mocked. If a child of the Bush family were this flaky, he would be an endless source of merriment for SNL. Some of the Reagan kids were flaky, but they were flaky in a Democratic kind of way, so they got a pass.
No Darrell, the Kennedys, from the jkk generation on have always been this nutty.
The press used to hide it.
It is just that we see the nuttiness now
John Henry
Even if Sirhan were to be paroled, he wouldn't live long enough to get a single Grape Slushie at a 7-11.
He's safe where he is.
An 8 shot revolver ?
The Model-55 had 8 shot capacity. It could use short or long .22 low or high velocity. I can't remember if it did magnums. Although being a cheap model, a magnum would probably shorten its life.
Darrell
Re the Kennedys at dinner parties:
"I'd perform oral sex on Bill Clinton"
Nina burleigh
"when you are a celebrity they let you grab them by the pussy"
Donald trump
John Henry
There was a security guard named Thane Cesar behind RFK who drew his weapon when gunshots began, but it was a .38 as opposed to Sirhan's .22.
Alleged. Eugene "Thane" Cesar owned both a .22 and a .38. He said he had a .38 at the event. No one looked at his weapon. The cops let him exit before the investigation started.
But he was a employed as a Defense Contractor and had a vested interest in the war.
Was there a “deep state” conspiracy? Who were the players?
Darrell
Re the Kennedys at dinner parties:
"I'd perform oral sex on Bill Clinton"
Nina burleigh
"when you are a celebrity they let you grab them by the pussy"
Donald trump
John Henry
From Dan Moldea's book "The Killing of Robert F. Kennedy: An Investigation of Motive, Means, and Opportunity":
"During a prison visitation, McCowan tried to reconstruct the murder with Sirhan.
Suddenly, in the midst of their conversation, Sirhan started to explain the moment when his eyes met Kennedy's just before he shot him.
Shocked by what Sirhan had just admitted, McCowan asked, "Then why, Sirhan, didn't you shoot him between the eyes?"
With no hesitation and no apparent remorse, Sirhan replied, "Because that son of a bitch turned his head at the last second."
The Sirhan team has tried to discredit this. However, Moldea has a signed letter from McCowan confirming the conversation, available to see on his website. Pepper for the stew.
-LWL
Blogger Unknown said...
The same RFK, Jr. who pushed the vaccine-autism theory through the media cheesecloth, ready to make a secret deal with his own father’s assassin? This guy will do anything to stay in politics!
I wonder if Dad would be proud? -willie
You’re talking about President Donald Trump’s special Vaccine/Autusm Commissioner, there.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/robert-f-kennedy-jr-trump-vaccine-safety-commission-235058
Thane Cesar has always been the favorite suspect if one postulates a second gun. He's been looked at, and looked at, and looked at. He made no secret of his dislike for Bobby Kennedy, politically. I think he may have voted for George Wallace.
But he didn't come into money, nor go away and become hard to find.
Sirhan was still right there, gun in hand, definitely shooting. The situation was dynamic, in motion, which makes the testimony of some witnesses that Sirhan wasn't close enough a little dubious.
chuck drops by for his daily Trump hate.
“But he was a employed as a Defense Contractor and had a vested interest in the war.”
And so the rent-a-cop murdered RFK. To secure his military-industrial empire. And then he urinated on a Russian hooker.
Tantalizing not titillating is what I would have labeled it, otherwise spot-on analysis as usual.
Remind me again of how many eyewitnesses said Sirhan Sirhan fired the shot?
Notice how Kennedy Jr. hedges this all with "second gunman".
AI cannot control that which is God's domain: Have no unhealthy fears.
I think why this RFK conspiracy theory never got traction is because Sirhan was certainly guilty of murder or attempted murder. He shot 5 or 6 people (depending on your conspiracy theory sensitivity level).
So, obviously, Sirhan deserved his many years in prison, particularly since he was never able to coherently explain the "hypnosis" angle of why he started shooting people. There was corrobative testimony that Sirhsn spent several hours at the gun range the day of the murder.
I will remind people who might have forgotten this, or never knew it- Sirhan Sirhan was a Palestinian who shot Kennedy because he thought Kennedy supported the Israelis. At the core, I do suspect this the motivation for Kennedy Jr.'s declaration today- a way to burnish his pro-Palestinian, anti-Israeli bonafides.
Well, he had a traumatized childhood and he grew up in an environment where conspiracy theories were as pervasive as swamp miasma. There were many who claimed the Marilyn Monroe's accidental overdose had something to do with his father's machinations, and there were even people who said that Mary Jo Koepechne's swimming accident was somehow the result of his uncle's extreme carelessness. It's no wonder he's so susceptible to these conspiracy theories..
Well if he thinks it I suppose that's minimally newsworthy, but not without the caveat that he also believes that vaccines cause autism.
The .22 that killed RFK was a high velocity round to the back of the head (behind the right ear) and was from inches away. According to the autopsy.
But then autopsy tools were crap in those days.
The bullet disintegrated in the brain. All they found was fragments. This was the kill shot. The other bullets that hit him were recovered. They did not fragment, they were survivable.
Whoever shot him behind the ear, didn't want to cripple him.
But Sirhan, did in fact shoot him. There is no question about this. He might not have killed him, but we shouldn't free him on that technicality.
"Is it okay to say this guy is a nut? Eyewitnesses saw Sirhan do it."
1. Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable. In fact, if the only evidence in a trial is an eyewitness's testimony, be very careful before voting "guilty."
2. No one asserts Sirhan was not there, or was not involved; the only assertion made (by some) is that there was at least a second person involved. This, if true, does not mean the eyewitnesses did not see Sirhan or that Sirhan did not have a gun or did not fire the gun.
3. I haven't heard anything about the RFK shooting to cause me to question the accepted historical recountng--that Sirhan shot RFK. This doesn't mean there couldn't have been or wasn't another party or parties involved.
If Sirhan Sirhan had been named Robert Smith, a white Baptist from Alabama, Kennedy Jr. never has this epiphany, all else being equal.
The headline should have read: Vaccine Truther RFK Jr Floats New Conspiracy Theory about Dad's Killing
That would've taught him. Hopefully.
Too many lunatics are getting away with having too much platform these days. It needs to end.
RFK had eleven children? Where ever did he find the time? And was his wife ever not preggers?
I'm assuming the first two were girls, so it was the third who became "Jr."
There's a 4-part series on Netflix called "Bobby Kennedy for President," which is almost all material shot at the time, from which one can get some idea as to what was Bobby's appeal.
"I think it would have disturbed him if somebody was put in jail for a crime they didn’t commit."
Just another example of how political correctness fucks up the brain. Long ago our brilliantly innovative linguistic tradition evolved means to dispel some of the more confusing ambiguities inherent in human thought. In this case the means is known as the sex-indefinite he. Being afflicted by progressivism Kennedy Junior is unable to correctly use the plural pronoun, thus his speech and writings are confusing, inelegant, and frequently nonsensical.
Did he feel like that or did he think that?
As an environmental lawyer, Kennedy Junior doesn't think anything.
Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable. In fact, if the only evidence in a trial is an eyewitness's testimony, be very careful before voting "guilty."
True. However, the prosecution of Sirhan Sirhan did not hinge on eyewitness testimony. Like many homicidal paranoids, Sirhan kept a journal.
Sirhan's journal has been perhaps the main piece of evidence used to argue that he was hypno-programmed. Because he wrote "RFK Must Die" over and over, hundreds of times.
RFK had eleven children? Where ever did he find the time?
Have you ever had sex with a guy?
If the woman's boring enough he can get it over with in a few minutes. Or even less.
"Some of the Reagan kids were flaky." At least Patti Davis' flakiness led her to do something worthwhile. I mean, of course, do a nude video for PLAYBOY. Yummy.
I like how the Kennedy hagiographer gets in that little detail, that the wife who waited in the car is "actress Cheryl Hines". I'm surprised he didn't tell us what kind of car she waited in. I'm sure it was a very nice car.
"Because he wrote "RFK Must Die" over and over, hundreds of times."
Makes one wonder what you would find in Chuck's and Inga's journals.
These weren't just eyewitnesses, though- they were the people who literally wrestled the gun away from the assassin while he was firing it.
But what about the shots from the grassy steam table? And hundreds of witnesses in the kitchen passageway reported hearing shots from the triple sink.
"While his wife, the actress Cheryl Hines, waited in the car, Robert Kennedy Jr. met with Sirhan for three hours..."
This is probably the only period of three consecutive waking hours that she can be (reasonably) sure he wasn't having sex with someone else.
Because I don't think they let Sirhan have conjugal visits.
But it is a Kennedy, so some rules might get waived.
LWL
Michael K - an ex-LEO I knew many years ago had a Hi-Standard .22 revolver with a 9-round cylinder. The trigger pull made it difficult to shoot accurately, but it was an interesting gun.
Binks, Char Char Binks. I see my reputation precedes me.
If I could be another, GORDON Lightfoot it would be.
Some years ago, Sirhan Sirhan, looking for parole, said that RFK would have wanted him released. That's probably correct which makes the justice even more cosmic.
Sirhan's journal has been perhaps the main piece of evidence used to argue that he was hypno-programmed. Because he wrote "RFK Must Die" over and over, hundreds of times.
I was forced to write "I will not stick my tongue out at the teacher" (or something like that, I've forgotten the precise details) one hundred times. What did I learn?
1) Some teachers are as mature as the kids they teach.
2) How to tape three pencils together in echelon.
In 2004, the Rantburg website published a six-part series of articles that I wrote, titled "Aristotle Onassis, the Palestinian Fatah, and Sirhan Sirhan". The first part began as follows:
------
In December 1971 Aristotle Onassis's ex-wife Tina met with their daughter Christina to ask her to stop bad-mouthing her current husband Stavros Niarchos, a man long hated by Aristotle Onassis. Christina was Niarcho's niece and step-daughter, since he had been married to Tina's sister Eugenie and was now married to Tina herself. Among the accusations that Christina kept repeating about Niarchos was that he had murdered Eugenie. In order to give Christina a broader perspective, Tina informed Christina that her father Aristotle had financed the assassination of Robert Kennedy.
The next day Christina passed this information on to her brother Alexander Onassis, who subsequently placed some related papers into a safe-deposit box. After that, Alexander told his lover Fiona Thyssen that these papers would prevent his father Aristotle from harming Fiona, a woman long hated by Aristotle Onassis. Since Fiona was 16 years older than Alexander, Aristotle considered her to be a gold-digger and wanted her out of Alexander's life.
Several months later Alexander showed some of his papers to Yannis Georgakis, a lawyer who was close to the entire Onassis family. The papers included photocopies of pages from the notebooks of Sirhan Sirhan, who had assassinated Robert Kennedy. During the weeks before the assassination, Sirhan would place himself into a hypnotic state and write stream-of-conscious thoughts into a notebook. On one page Sirhan had written at the center of a roundel, amid Arabic writing, the single name Fiona. On another page he had written 2 Narkos!. On a third page, between the lines One Hundred thousand Dollars and Dollars and One Hundreds, Sirhan had written in Arabic: they should be killed, next to which he had written the number three.
It was obvious to Tina, Christina and Alexander that for some reason Sirhan had been hypnotized into a fixation on killing three people -- Fiona Thyssen, Stavros Niarchos, and Robert Kennedy -- who had long been fiercely hated by Aristotle Onassis.
[continued in my next comment]
Continuing my comment at 3:50
=====
In the fall of 1974 a 34-year-old photographer Helene Gaillet was stranded in Paris on her way to a job in Africa, because the job was canceled. A year earlier she had met Aristotle Onassis at a dinner party in New York, and he had told her to call him if she ever needed a place to stay in Paris. She called his number but was told he was away on his private island, Skorpios, in the Aegean Sea. Several minutes later, however, Onassis returned her call and invited her to join him in Skorpios. He would fly her there at his own expense. She accepted his invitation and subsequently spent several days with him there.
During that time they had a short affair, which included a series of intimate conversations about their lives. By that time his health was failing (he died four months later), so he was in a confessional mood. During one of those conversations he told her, "You know, Helene, I put up the money for Bobby Kennedy's murder."
==================
In May 1968 the above-mentioned lawyer Yannis Georgakis was serving as the chief executive officer of Olympic Airways, which was owned by Aristotle Onassis. Georgakis was informed by a Mossad official serving in Israel's embassy in Paris that Onassis was meeting regularly in Paris with a Palestinian terrorist named Mahmoud Hamshari. About a week later Onassis informed Georgakis that a Palestinian terrorist group had demanded $1.2 million in protection money from Olympic Airlines, threatening to blow up the company's airliners if the money was not paid. Onassis said he had reached an agreement with Hamshari and now needed $200,000 from the company's funds to pay the first installment of the protection money. Onassis assured Georgakis that the subsequent installment payments would be arranged "off the books" and channeled through Onassis's Panama corporations.
Reluctantly, Georgakis agreed to provide the $200,000. He asked to be included in any future negotiations between Onassis and Hamshari, but Onassis assured him that the entire agreement had already been settled and that no further negotiations should occur.
Onassis flew to New York with the $200,000 in cash. He put all the money into a shopping bag and gave it to his long-time chauffeur, Roosevelt Zanders, who personally delivered the money to someone in an apartment at United Nations Plaza. As instructed by Onassis, Zanders did not ask for a receipt for the money.
http://www.rantburg.com/index.php?D=07/05/2004&HC=1&SO=Terror%20Networks
Parts 2-5 of my six-part series are no longer available at Rantburg.
Part 6 still is available and begins:
======
On March 16, 1968, Robert Kennedy entered the presidential election. During late March Aristotle Onassis met repeatedly with Mahmoud Hamshari in Paris. By about March 26 Onassis informed David Karr that he and Jackie Kennedy had secretly decided to get married, and Karr passed that information personally to President Lyndon Johnson on April 2. At about that same time, Jackie informed Robert Kennedy, and he persuaded her to keep their wedding plans secret until after the election, in exchange for which he promised not to cause trouble for Onassis. When Jackie informed Onassis of her agreement about that issue, he feared that a newly elected President Robert Kennedy would ignore that promise and exploit his new power to cause maximum trouble for Onassis.
In about early May 1968 Aristotle Onassis obtained from Olympic Airline chairman Yannis Georgakis the first installment payment of $200,000 of a planned total of $1.2 million to Mahmoud Hamshari. Onassis flew with the cash from Paris to New York, where his chauffeur Roosevelt Zanders delivered it in a shopping bag to an apartment at United Nations Plaza. That same evening, Onassis had dinner with Jackie Kennedy, her mother Janet Auschincloss and Robert and Ethel Kennedy at the home of Jackie's friend (and soon to be Onassis's lover) Joan Thring. Robert Kennedy's attitude toward Onassis at the dinner was frosty, since he could not conceal his disapproval for the marriage.
Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Robert Kennedy in Los Angeles on June 5. Aristotle and Jackie married on October 20. By this time the mass media had reported that the official investigators of the assassination had concluded that Sirhan was a lone nut, not involved in any conspiracy.
On October 31, Onassis called Georgakis and told him he had decided to not pay the remaining million dollars to Hamshari. Onassis explained to Georgakis that he doubted that other airlines were paying so much money to the Palestinian terrorists to prevent hijackings and bombings.
On the night of December 19, Georgakis was dining with Onassis when the latter accepted a phone call from his secretary in Paris. The secretary reported that a man had called on Onassis's private line and said that a bomb had already been placed on board an Olympic flight that was preparing to fly from New York to Athens — a flight carrying Jackie, her two children, and four friends. The flight was called back as it was taxiing to take off. The flight was delayed for four hours while every piece of luggage was searched, and no bomb was found.
The following morning Georgakis received a phone call from Hamshari. Unless the remaining million dollars was deposited into a Swiss bank account by three o'clock that afternoon, Hamshari, warned, another Olympic flight would really be attacked. Georgakis reported the threat to Onassis, who agreed to the payment.
A few days later, on December 26, 1968, two Palestinian terrorists instead hijacked an El Al Boeing 707 flight from Athens to New York. One person was killed and two were seriously injured in that attack. The two Palestinians were subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment but were released from prison on July 27, 1970, at the demand of six other Palestinians who hijacked an Olympic airliner that was flying to Cairo. ....
http://rantburg.com/index.php?D=07/20/2004&HC=6&SO=Terror%20Networks
In 2004, the Rantburg website published a six-part series of articles that I wrote...
A long narrative you have there. Lots of names but short on logic. Can you provide evidence for any of it?
One of the best books I ever read was Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story, written by C. David Heymann.
This book is a great journalistic accomplishment. Using an astounding number and variety of sources, the the book proves convincingly that Robert Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy had s sexual affair for a rather long time after John Kennedy was assassinated.
This affair was a major reason why Robert Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis hated each other.
https://www.amazon.com/Bobby-Jackie-C-David-Heymann/dp/141655629X
Quaestor at 4:14 PM
Can you provide evidence for any of it?
My series of Rantburg articles was based largely (but not only) on the book Nemesis: The True Story of Aristotle Onassis, Jackie O, and the Love Triangle That Brought Down the Kennedys, written by Peter Evans.
Here's the last paragraphs of my Part 6:
[quote]
In January 1968 Aristotle Onassis commissioned Peter Evans to write his biography. Evans interviewed Onassis many times during that year, but then Onassis cancelled the deal shortly before me married Jackie Kennedy. Onassis resumed the collaboration with Evans in the spring of 1974 and the interviews continued until shortly before Onassis's death. Evans published the resulting biography, Ari: The Life and Times of Aristotle Socrates Onassis, in 1986.
Georgakis read the book immediately and complemented Evans, but hinted that the biography had missed a very important part of Onassis's last year. Christina belatedly read the book in May 1988 and then met with Evans to suggest that he write another book, about how her father had financed the assassination of Robert Kennedy. She wanted him to slant the book, however, to show that her father's role had been inadvertant and unwitting. She promised to meet with Evans and Georgakis in December 1988 to begin collaborating on the book. She died, however, mysteriously in June. After her death, Georgakis decided to stop collaborating with Evans on the book. Later that year he died after a long illness.
[end quote]
Evans went on to write the book Nemesis
https://www.amazon.com/Nemesis-Aristotle-Onassis-Triangle-Kennedys/dp/0060580542/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1527369674&sr=8-1&keywords=nemesis+evans+onassis
I'm surprised he didn't tell us what kind of car she waited in. I'm sure it was a very nice car.
And, was it left running for those three hours?
@ Mike Sylvester,
The Peter Evans book on Onassis is very good and well sourced.
One thing I don't think normal folks like us recognize is that billionaires prior to Buffett, Gates and Bezos, were often vicious, conniving thieving monsters. Joe Kennedy, Onassis, Howard Hughes had all sorts of crazy stuff going on in their lives.
As a general matter, I don't view conspiracy theories with the same negative connotation as many folks. Julius Caesar's murder was a conspiracy by political opponents. Lincoln's murder was a conspiracy by Southernors bitter over losing the Civil War. Watergate was a conspiracy by GOP operatives E. Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy to burglarize the Dem offices.
So, I certainly don't buy every or even most conspiracy theories out there, but I do listen to them and explore the evidence. Cui Bono? remains a powerful tool to figure stuff out.
https://nypost.com/2018/05/23/inside-jfks-door-to-door-search-for-a-french-call-girl-and-why-she-had-to-look-like-jackie/
John Henry
A man desperately striving for relevance. Living off grandfather's dough.
Blogger Megaera said...
Michael K - an ex-LEO I knew many years ago had a Hi-Standard .22 revolver with a 9-round cylinder. The trigger pull made it difficult to shoot accurately, but it was an interesting gun.
You're right. I hadn't seen one but they do exist.
Evans went on to write the book Nemesis
In other words nothing?
But he got the RFK murder wrong. Thane Cesar - the rent a cop- who provided security to RFK that fateful night, lied about his gun.
Any bodyguard who had a choice between a .22 and a .38 would be a lunatic to choose the .22 pistol.
Then again any cop who would let anybody leave the scene of a Presidential candidate's assassination, let alone an armed bearer, let alone the victim's bodyguard? The first guy should be the second guy's psychiatrist.
Only in Cali I suppose. This kind of thing doesn't happen in New York City, because the NYPD would solve the murder.
Blogger Quaestor said...
Evans went on to write the book Nemesis
In other words nothing?
Sounds interesting. I ordered it.
But when it was over, Kennedy had joined those who believe there was a second gunman, and that it was not Sirhan who killed his father.
Jesus, this fucking loon puts his politics above his fathers murder. I'm not sure I can think of anything more disgusting.
Quaestor at 6:52 AM
In other words nothing?
I don't understand your question.
You seem to think that a book is nothing.
Anyone can create scenarios by using names and dates and relationships, particularly if the principals are dead and cannot refute the allegations. The argument I have read here regarding Onassis seems to fit the prototype but falls short of the more compelling conspiracy theories I've encountered in that it lacks the cause and effect logic of a good yarn. Perhaps I'm hopelessly slow on the uptake, but I do not see anything remotely probable about the case as presented except the matter of blackmail paid to protect an airline from terrorist bombings — and even that has anachronistic elements.
For the better part of a decade, Palestinian terrorism against airlines took the form of hijackings and not bombings per se, an exception being the Dawson's Field hijackings which witnessed four pirated aircraft destroyed by the so-called PFLP. The passengers and aircrews were safely released, and while the destroyed planes were a monetary loss, the loss was mainly born by insurance companies. While Onassis was alive hijacking was a danger to aircraft, however, no airline would operate without insurance against such occurrences since the liabilities that could arise from such air piracy could bankrupt even a major carrier. Consequently, I find the proposition that Onassis would pay "protection" to terrorists less than believable on its face. Real first-person testimony backed up by financial records is called for, but I doubt will be forthcoming.
Assuming for the moment that Onassis did pay blackmail to terrorists, that in and of itself bears in no way on the question of his putative responsibility for the murder of Robert Kennedy. If Sylwester gives Quaestor a million dollars, Sylwester is not responsible for whatever criminal enterprise Quaestor finances with that money — UNLESS Sylwester suborned the aforesaid enterprise in the first place. If Onassis paid protection to Hamshari, he was foolish given the millions in insurance premiums he was already paying, he was not, however, complicit in Hamshari's plans for that money. Another point I find objectionable in the narrative is this statement: A few days later, on December 26, 1968, two Palestinian terrorists instead hijacked an El Al Boeing 707 flight from Athens to New York. Instead? How can one justify that using that word unless one knows the El Al hijacking was an alternate plan? The use of the word is otherwise indefensible as it implies connections which have no existence in the known evidence. Furthermore, El Al, as the official Israeli state carrier, has always been the preferred target of Palestinian terrorism, whereas Olympic, a corporation headquartered in a country that gave the PLO a degree of diplomatic recognition in 1969 has been generally free of piracy incidents. (There was one hijacking in 1969, which was carried out by four persons who demanded to be flown to Albania. No connection to Middle East terrorism is indicated by the available facts.)
You seem to think that a book is nothing.
Some books are nothing. It depends on what's between the covers. A book about Onassis's plot to kill Kennedy that wasn't written is a definite nothing.
You seem to think that a book is nothing.
I asked you if you can provide evidence for any of the narrative you have given us. You replied by referring to a book and an unwritten book. I took that as a no.
After the second shot, Karl Uecker, assistant maître d'hòtel on the hotel staff, gets Sirhan in a headlock and pins his arm down.
Nary a word about bodyguard Rosie Grier's heroics. It seems to me that a prime suspect is Karl Uecker who had a hold on Kennedy's wrist when the killing went down.
Now,one theory is back in the 50s, onassis was smuggling oil that destined to the Chinese during the Korean war, and rfk spotted it. Now onassis had ticked off other parties around 1955 he commissioned 'controversial' banker hjalmar scacht for an exclusive agreement to shop Saudi oil other parties didn't like it and hence they sicced Robert Maheufront company on him. This i got from hougans spooks.
Now Another detail is that onassis rival stage is niarchos got himself a security consultant, Alfred homer ex company operativr in charge of far east operations, that includes trying to topple sukarno.
The Onassis conspiracy thesis presented here seems neither convincing nor interesting. "It was obvious that..." Leading to the idea that Sirhan PUT HIMSELF into a hypnotic trance.
Well, gee, if he could do that then he could probably have talked about some of this, either back in those first couple of years when he was sentenced to death or in the 50 YEARS SINCE. If he could have testified about anything at all this would have been sensational news.
J. Edgar Hoover and LBJ are much more credible as mortal enemies of RFK than is Aristotle Onassis.
You look at means and oportunity:
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1995-05-28/news/1995148006_1_sirhan-robert-kennedy-robert-f/2
But the fmr head of the presidential protective detail says the escort down the ambassador hotel was the worst possible route.
The king family in the 90s did a similar thing with James earl Ray, absorbing him based on a complex plot sketched out by a junior aide to king William pepper.
Buwaya? Where are you? I need you to interpret narciso's posts.
I think that relatively straight forward rfk had angered some like palestinans monsters oil men like onassis, some had the motive others lacked the opportunity of the means.
Ny undercover related the pepper account of the plot around 99,
Quaestor at 8:01 PM
I asked you if you can provide evidence for any of the narrative you have given us. You replied by referring to a book and an unwritten book. I took that as a no.
I didn't mention any "unwritten book".
Quaestor: “ in echelon”. Nice.
BAG
“Conspiracy theory” is a misnomer. No one denies conspiracies. What skeptics deny is massive, secret, elaborate conspiracies requiring the cooperation and secrecy of hundreds of disparate people over long periods of time. Here we see a billionaire, lawyers, cops, bodyguards, a waiter, and dozens of witnesses all conspiring to falsely prove ... prove what exactly? That a guy who fired shots at Kennedy actually hit him.
Well, at least Kennedy Jr. didn't hint that Trump was connected to it all- at least, not yet.
I have been able to get at Parts 2-5 of my six-part series in Rantburg by means of a work-around.
Part 2
------
In January 1954 Aristotle Onassis signed a secret agreement with Saudi Arabia's finance minister. The agreement basically said that Onassis would provide Saudi Arabia with its own fleet of oil tankers. Saudi Arabia expected that its ownership of such a fleet would help that country to become independent of Western petroleum companies, to earn a fuller share of profits, and eventually to nationalize the entire industry on its territory. Onassis expected to earn hundreds of millions of dollars for his role in the arrangement.
Despite the secrecy, however, the US Government soon learned of the deal and during the following months employed a variety of methods to undermine it. The US Justice Department found fault with Onassis's past purchases of oil tankers and subsequently seized his tankers and also money he had earned from those tankers. In February 1954 the Justice Department arrested Onassis himself and charged him with criminal conspiracy to buy the tankers illegally. The State Department pressured the Saudi government to disassociate itself from Onassis. Arrangements were made for Peru to seize nine of Onassis's whaling ships. One of Onassis's business associates was pressured to sue Onassis for swindling him out of $200,000 and to accuse Onassis of paying a $350,000 bribe to the Saudi finance minister. Eventually in October 1954 King Saud decided not to assign the agreement, which therefore became void. All these developments almost bankrupted Onassis.
Most of Onassis's anger about the collapse of the Saudi deal was misdirected toward Robert Kennedy, who in 1954 was a 29-year-old attorney working on the staff of a Senate subcommittee. One of Kennedy's investigations for the subcommittee had raised accusations about shipping business that some Greek companies conducted with Red China, but this issue did not involve Onassis in particular. Kennedy did not play any apparent role in the seizure of Onassis's assets or in his arrest. The business associate who sued Onassis hired as an expert witness an accountant who had worked for Robert's father Joseph Kennedy for many years, but that accountant had no direct association with Robert Kennedy himself.
In fact Robert Kennedy had nothing at all to do with the US Government's discovery of Onassis's Saudi deal. The CIA station in Athens had been informed about it by another Greek shipper, Stavros Niarchos, who was Onassis's brother-in-law (the two men were married to two sisters). Niarchos had heard about the deal from Onassis's wife Tina, who was involved in a love affair with Niarchos.
In order to protect the real source of its information, the CIA cleverly encouraged Onassis's initial reaction that the deal had been exposed during Kennedy's investigation of the Greek shippers who did business with Red China. For example, the accountant of Robert Kennedy's father was apparently moved into and out of the lawsuit in order to inflame Onassis's suspicions about Kenned's role in the matter. Niarchos himself certainly collaborated in the continuing effort to divert Onassis's anger away from himself and onto Kennedy. And in the following years Kennedy himself publicly criticized Onassis on many occasions, which further enraged Onassis.
=============
[continued in my next comment]
"Jesus, this fucking loon puts his politics above his fathers murder. I'm not sure I can think of anything more disgusting."
Where does "politics" come into play? Apparently he has been convinced for some reason to believe Sirhan did not kill his father, or, at least, was not the sole gunman. How is that politics?
Continued from my comment at 7:29 AM
In the early 1960s Onassis became closely involved in several business enterprises with a fellow Greek ex-patriot, Spyros Skouras, who had immigrated to the United States in 1912. Skouras became a movie producer and during that career, he clashed angrily several times with Joseph Kennedy, who was also a movie producer. In May 1962 Skouras's movie studio was losing millions of dollars in the filming of Cleopatra and Something's Got to Give. The latter movie starred Marilyn Monroe, who was extraordinarily capricious and absent during the filming. In conversations with Onassis, Skouras blamed Monroe's misbehavior on Robert Kennedy, her secret lover. Skouras knew about this affair (and about Monroe's earlier affair with John Kennedy) and informed Onassis.
Exasperated by the problems and losses caused by these two films, Skouras decided to leave the movie business and to establish a shipping business. Onassis invested $10 million in Skouras's hipping business, which intended to introduce new loading and unloading technology that would require far fewer longshoremen. Because of this manpower issue, Onassis became involved in negotiations with Jimmy Hoffa, the chief of the Teamsters labor union and also a hater of Robert Kennedy, who was then the US Attorney General.
During this same time, Onassis began a love affair with Lee Radziwill, the younger sister of Jacqueline Kennedy. Lee and her husband Prince Stanislas Radziwill were each divorced from previous spouses when they married each other, so they married in a civil wedding instead of a Roman Catholic wedding. Since John Kennedy was now President of the United States, Robert Kennedy used the family's prestige to try to convince the Catholic Church to annul the Radziwills' previous marriages. This effort (and the Kennedy family's reputation) was endangered by publicity about Lee's affair with Onassis, and so Robert Kennedy phoned Onassis directly and asked him to stay away from Lee. Onassis responded with the words, "Bobby, you and Jack fuck your movie queen [Monroe] and I'll fuck my princess [Radziwill]." Onassis thus revealed to Robert Kennedy that he knew about the Kennedy-Monroe affairs, which were still very secret.
Also during this same time, Hoffa learned (perhaps from Onassis) about the Kennedy brothers' affairs with Monroe and so he bugged Monroe's home and telephones to record related conversations. Through these recordings, Hoffa learned that Monroe and Robert Kennedy had met in Monroe's home on August 4, 1962, a few hours before she died of an overdose and that some of Kennedy's associates had subsequently entered her house during the period between her death and the notification of the police. Hoffa apparently hinted to Onassis about the existence of these tape recordings, since Onassis asked Monroe's publicist whether he knew anything about them, offering to pay big money to buy them.
=============
[continued in my next comment]
Continued from my comment at 7:35 AM
--------
During the following months Robert Kennedy communicated subtle threats in order to pressure Onassis to stay away from Lee Radziwill. The main thrust of these threats was that Kennedy would exploit his position as US Attorney General to cause legal problems for Onassis and his businesses. This pressure backfired, as Onassis arranged for Radziwill to live blatantly with him on his yacht. The feud escalated dramatically in September 1963, when Jackie herself also moved onto the yacht for a few weeks in order to convalesce from a miscarriage. Robert Kennedy responded by continuing his subtle threats against Onassis, and Onassis responded by seducing Jacqueline on the yacht.
Refreshed by her affair with Onassis, Jacqueline returned to the White House. A few weeks later, on November 22, 1963, John Kennedy was assassinated. At Jacqueline's invitation, Onassis came and stayed in the White House during the funeral days. Robert Kennedy confronted Onassis in the White House, and they eventually engaged in a ridiculous argument that embarrassed Onassis in front of the other guests. Kennedy wrote up a written statement for Onassis to sign, promising to donate half of his wealth to the poor, and Onassis signed the paper with Greek words that nullified the promise.
In the months following the assassination, Jacqueline wanted to quickly marry Onassis, but this desire was discouraged by Robert Kennedy, who now headed the Kennedy family. Robert Kennedy managed to prevent the marriage as long as he lived. He was assassinated on June 5, 1968. Onassis then married Jacqueline on October 20.
======
This is the end of Part 2 of my six-part series that was published on the Rantburg website in 2004.
Part 3 of my six-part series that was published at Rantburg in 2004.
-----------
In January 1968 David Karr arranged for Mahmoud Hamshari, also known as Dr. Michel Hassner, to be introduced to Aristotle Onassis. Karr introduced Dr. Michel Hassner to Onassis's circle as an expert in aviation finance who would propose a restructuring of the debt of Onassis's Olympic Airline. Eventually, Hamshari (aka Hassner), using money provided by Onassis, arranged for Sirhan Sirhan to assassinate Robert Kennedy.
David Karr had known Onassis since 1956. Karr worked in many varied jobs during his life, but at that time he managed a public relations company that specialized in helping companies that were involved in proxy fights in corporate takeovers. It might be more accurate to say that Karr was specialized in performing dirty tricks for his clients. He collected and distributed (or threatened to distribute) scandalous information about his clients' opponents. By 1967 Onassis was using Karr for a variety of secret tasks; in that year, for example, he asked Karr to ask Soviet officials about possibly supplying crude oil for a refinery he considered building near Athens. Onassis's closest associates wondered about that assignment, because Karr had no expertise related to the petroleum business or to the Soviet Union. Onasssis's trust in Karr was a mystery.
At some point in his own past, while working as a movie producer in Hollywood, Karr had become acquainted with William Joseph Bryan, Jr., a local hypnotist. Bryan's American Institute of Hypnosis treated people in the film industry for alcohol and drug additions, and he had served as the technical adviser on the filming of the movie The Manchurian Candidate. Karr gave Bryan's phone number to Hamshari and advised him to visit Bryan. Karr later said he referred Hamshari to Bryan because Hamshari complained that he suffered headaches whenever he visited Los Angeles, which he did frequently during 1967 and 1968.
==============
In the summer of 1979 Karr contacted Leslie Linder, a former movie agent, whom Karr had known while he worked in the movie business. Karr wanted Linder to represent his proposed memoirs, which would include a revelation that Onassis had played a key role in the assassination of Robert Kennedy. Linder was interested and scheduled another discussion of the proposal again with the added participation of Oscar Beuselinck, a London lawyer.
In the meantime, Karr departed for a business meeting in Moscow, where he planned to open a big hotel. He remarked that he had all the evidence of the Onassis story in Paris, and he promised to call Linder and Beuselinck as soon as he returned from Moscow.
Karr was found dead in his Paris apartment on the morning of July 7, 1979. He had a fractured larynx, and blood was found on his pillow. A forensic examination concluded he had died of a heart attack, but his widow Evia Karr and his business partner Ronnie Driver insist that Karr was murdered by agents of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
[End of Part 3]
Part 4 (Only the first part is available to me.)
======
Mahmoud Hamshari was born in a village near Jaffa in 1939 and eventually became an important official in the Palestinian Fatah. In June 1967, following the Six-Day War, he attended a Fatah meeting in Damascus to discuss further strategy. The meeting's participants represented a broad scope of attitudes within Fatah, and Hamshari appeared to be among the most aggressive. When he spoke, he focused his anger on US support of Israel and proposed actions that would attack the US. In particular, he proposed the Fatah "kill a high-profile American on American soil" in order to make the US "think twice about backing the Jews."
This proposal seemed to earn little explicit support at the meeting, so Hamshari then proposed that the organization greatly increase its fund-raising activities in the US, in order to manipulate the US to support the Palestinians too. Fatah apparently adopted this proposal and assigned Hamshari himself to implement it, operating under the supervision of Fatah's intelligence chief, Abu Iyad (Salah Khalef). In the following months, Hamshari began to travel to Europe and the United States, using several false names, including Dr. Michel Hassner. Late in 1967 a Fatah official gave Hamshari a list of Palestinian immigrants living in Los Angeles. The list had been acquired from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which had records on the Sirhan family, then living in Los Angeles.
[I'll try another way to get the remainder of Part 4.]
Mike this is an interesting back story to the woman in the poke-dot dress heard by several witnesses as she exclaimed "We shot...Kennedy--in my understanding there was more than one shooter.
Wow. No comment on Cheryl Hines waiting in the car for 3 hours?
Continuing my comment at 7:53 AM
--------------
In some unknown circumstances, Dr. Hassner (Hamshari) began to associate frequently with David Karr, a mysterious associate of Aristotle Onassis. Karr did not introduce Hassner to Onassis directly, but instead introduced him indirectly into Onassis's inner circle as an investment consultant for Arab Bank, specializing in the restructuring of airline debts. Such expertise was of interest because Onassis's Olympic airline was struggling with debts. A meeting between Hassner and Onassis was scheduled for a day in January 1968 in Paris, but Onassis left for Athens unexpectedly right before the meeting. Therefore Hassner met instead with several members of Onassisâ inner circle. The airlineâs chief executive officer, Yannis Georgakis, was not informed about the meeting by Onassis and so did not participate.
At this meeting, Hassner revealed to the group that he had been approached by a Palestinian terror group who demanded that the airline pay $350,000 to the group so that they not blow up bombs on Olympic airliners. Hassner said he was acting only as an honest broker, a facilitator, and did not know the identities of the terrorists, who had contacted him through the Palestine National Fund.
After Onassis returned to Paris, he began to meet frequently in Paris with Hassner, the two alone. Between meetings, Hassner sometimes traveled to Los Angeles and back. Karr says that during this period he gave Hassner the phone number of a Los Angeles hypnotist named William Joseph Bryan, Jr.
Georgakis, the CEO of Olympic, heard about Hassner for the first time in May 1968. He heard about him not from Onassis, but from a Mossad official stationed at the Israeli embassy in Paris. Onassis himself informed Georgakis about a week later, saying that he had already decided to pay $1.2 million (no longer just $350,000) to Hassner and that Georgakis should provide the first $200,000 in cash from Olympic funds. Georgakis complied, and Onassis subsequently flew with the cash to New York, where his chauffeur delivered it to an apartment at United Nations Plaza.
Part 5 of my six-part series that was published at Rantburg in 2004.
--------
Sirhan Shirhan was born in 1944 in Jerusalem, one of seven children. His father worked for the city water department. The family fled their home in 1948 and lived in a refugee camp in Jordan until the end of 1956, when they emigrated to Pasadena, California. Within a year the father returned to Jordan. Sirhan Sirhan graduated from high school in 1963. He then enrolled in a local college but failed to attend classes and dropped out within a few months. He worked in a series of odd jobs.
In late 1965 he got a job at the Santa Anita horse-racing track. He decided to become a jockey. In the summer of 1966 he began working as an exercise boy at a horse ranch in Corona. In September he fell off a horse and injured his head. He subsequently complained of head pains and blurred vision. He continued to work at the ranch but in July 1967 he filed a Workers Compensation claim and quit that job and went to work for a health-food store in Pasadena. He eventually received a couple thousand dollars from his claim in February 1968 and then quit his health-food job in March 1968.
Back while he worked at the Corona ranch, he became interested in mind control. He thought that mind-control techniques might help him to achieve his personal and political goals. After his head injury, he also employed the techniques to try to alleviate the pain from his injuries. His mind-control exercises includes self-hypnosis and "automatic writing" in a notebook while in self-induced trances. His "automatic writing" on January 31, 1968, includes the statements: "Robert Kennedy is going to die" and "Who killed Kennedy? I don't know I don't know I don't know." At that time, Robert Kennedy was a US Senator representing the state of New York, not yet a candidate to become President. (David Karr arranged a meeting between Mahmoud Hamshari and Aristotle Onassis in January 1968.)
[Continued in my next comment]
Continued from my comment at 7:52 PM
------
Many of these writings expressed hatred toward the United States. Many of the writings are incoherent and undated. On one page he wrote at the center of a r, oundel, amid Arabic writing, the single name Fiona. On another page he had written 2 Narkos!. On a third page, between the lines One Hundred thousand Dollars and Dollars and One Hundreds, Sirhan had written in Arabic: they should be killed, next to which he had written the number three.
(When Aristotle Onassis's ex-wife and son and daughter saw those pages, they immediately recognized them as somehow inspired by Onassis, who hated Fiona Thyssen, Stavros Niarchos, and Robert Kennedy.)
On March 16, 1968, Robert Kennedy announced his candidacy for the presidency. On April 4, a few days after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Sirhan discussed that assassination with a Black friend named Alvin Clark. During the course of that conversation Clark mentioned that he intended to vote for Robert Kennedy in the upcoming primary election, and Sirhan responded that Clark's vote would be wasted because "I'm planning on shooting him."
On May 2 Sirhan had a conversation with Walter Crowe, a high-school friend who had become a Communist. Crowe described the Palestinian movement as a war of national liberation, and Sirhan agreed, remarking that Al Fatah's revolutionary objectives required total commitment.
On May 18, Sirhan wrote a page with repeated statements of RFK must die and pay to the order of ... The page vows that Robert F. Kennedy must be assassinated before 5 June 68 (the anniversary of the Six Day War).
[Continued in my next comment]
Continued from my comment at 8:02 PM
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On the evening of June 4, 1968, an itinerant Christian preacher named Jerry Owen (he himself said) parked a horse trailer outside the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, where Robert Kennedy's campaign organization had scheduled its anticipated victory following the California primary elections. Later that night, Sirhan assassinated Kennedy in the hotel. The next day, Owen reported to the Los Angeles police that he had picked up Sirhan and a young woman hitchhiking on June 3. During the course of that meeting, Owen said, Sirhan had agreed to buy a horse from Owen on the night of June 4 in the hotel parking lot. That deal, explained Owen, was why he himself had parked his horse trailer in the parking lot and why Sirhan had four one-hundred-dollar bills in his pocket when he was arrested. Owen further surmised that Sirhan intended to use the horse trailer as a get-away vehicle.
The Police basically dismissed Owen's report as a publicity stunt. (In 1970 this incident was examined in a lawsuit that Owen filed against a television station. During that trial, several witnessed testified that Owen had become acquainted with Sirhan at the Corona race track, where on one occasion a few weeks before the assassination Owen had given Sirhan a large wad of cash)
Immediately after he was arrested, Sirhan declared that "I did it for my country." Within a few minutes, though, he began avoiding any discussion of his motive. He instead wanted to talk with the investigating policemen about Albert DeSalvo, the so-called Boston Strangler. Later, Sirhan claimed that he had no memory of anything about the assassination, about his intention, about his notebooks, or about the act itself. During his trial he reluctantly allowed his lawyers to construct a legal defense of diminished responsibility due to mental illness.
Sirhan was not hypnotized by himself or anyone else in order to manipulate him to assassinate Robert Kennedy. Even without the hypnosis, Sirhan was willing and eager to assassinate Kennedy because of the latter's support for Israel. The initial purpose of Sirhan's self-hypnosis was to focus his mind and bolster courage for this difficult mission. Eventually, though, the hypnosis served also as a legal excuse to try to avoid execution. The notebook served as evidence that he was often in deep trances and so plausibly had no memory of the assassination. Also, the hypnosis deflected political blame from the Palestinian cause as Sirhan's main motivation.
Sirhan hoped that if he could avoid execution, then eventually he would be freed in a prisoner swap forced by Palestinian terrorists. He was sentenced to death, but later that sentence was commuted when the Supreme Court declared the death penalty to be unconstitutional.
Sirhan mentioned Albert DeSalvo repeatedly in his notebooks and at the police station immediately after his arrest. DeSalvo had been hypnotized by a Los Angeles hypnotist named William Joseph Bryan. After he died in 1977, a couple of prostitutes whom he frequently hired told investigators that he sometimes bragged that he had hypnotized Albert DeSalvo and Sirhan Sirhan.
I already provided the first paragraphs of Part 6 in my above comment at 4:11 PM (May 26). The remainder still is available on the Internet at ...
http://rantburg.com/index.php?D=07/20/2004&HC=6&SO=Terror%20Networks
I intended to write a Part 7, which would have described William Joseph Bryan's lawsuit, which revealed many details about the relationship between Bryan and Sirhan.
However, by the time I was ready to write my Part 7, I was banned from Rantburg -- which is another story that is irrelevant here.
It is more than generalized conspiracy theory whackery. Sirhan Sirhan has been made into a hero of the radical left because of his victim status as a Palestinian. Can't have mere reality intrude on the narrative that it was 'vil 'Merican fascists who killed Kennedy as in "after all it was you and me." Not some terrorist but evil Americans.
A few years ago, Kennedy objected to Ayers and Dohrn's dedication of a book to Sirhan and got one or the other of those terrorists stripped of their emeritus status.
Now he has joined them in their sick fetishism of terrorists for the greater goal of vilifying our justice system and Americans in general. His is a progressive disease.
The Innocence Project, which does good work in some cases but very dishonest things in others and has entirely invented false statistics regarding causes of wrongful conviction, is considering Sirhan as a client.
Onassis paying protection money? His more likely response response would have been to use the $200 million as bounty money for the heads of those threatening him being put on spikes. J Paul Getty did something similar when his son (grandson?) was kidnapped.
Which is not to say that the so called protection money was not just a scam of some kind.
Onassis would never pay protection money. He would instead, pay to have the heads of those making the threats put on spikes. Similar to what J Paul Getty did when his son (or grandson?) was kidnapped.
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