There Is No Justice In America
Despite conclusive evidence that President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy were murdered by the US Deep State, the official cover-up continues.
General News 2/26/2016 at 19:15:46
RFK Murder Cover-Up Continues After Dramatic Parole Hearing
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Sirhan Sirhan
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A California parole board this month rejected a dramatic plea to release the convicted slayer of 1968 presidential contender Robert F. Kennedy, thereby continuing one of the nation's most notorious murder cover-ups.
Kennedy friend Paul Schrade, 91, argued that the accused assassin Sirhan B. Sirhan, firing from Kennedy's front, could not have killed the New York senator in a hotel massacre that left Schrade wounded in June 1968.
"Kennedy was a man of justice," Schrade told the parole board Feb. 10 in a prepared statement at a state prison in San Diego, CA.
"But, so far," Schrade continued, "justice has not been served in this case. And I feel obliged as both a shooting victim and as an American to speak out about this -- and to honor the memory of the greatest American I've ever known, Robert Francis Kennedy."
The board refused to grant clemency despite additional evidence from multiple witnesses and books through the years supporting defense claims that Kennedy (shown in a file photo at left) was killed from the rear.
The full text of Schrade's unsuccessful arguments to California's parole board are appended to a longer version of this column on the Justice Integrity Project site, and provide a powerful new dimension to the historical debate regarding the 1968 deaths of Kennedy(widely known as "RFK" in news headlines) and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
This month was the first time Schrade has made such a verbal plea on behalf of a Sirhan, who is widely regarded by researchers (but not publicly by authorities) as a likely victim of mind-control before he fired at Kennedy, who had left a ballroom at the Ambassador Hotel via a hotel pantry when he was shot.
Sirhan, a former race track exercise jockey who disappeared from his family for many weeks shortly before the shooting, has maintained that he could not remember details of his actions, including repetitious entries in his diary "RFK must die!" that defenders describe as a symptom of mind control by unknown perpetrators.
Authorities have kept Sirhan in solitary confinement in essence for more than 45 years while his advocates have unsuccessfully argued for a new investigation or clemency. His most recent parole hearing before this year's was in 2011.
Schrade addressed his remarks in part to Sirhan (shown at right in a prison photo).
"Sirhan, I forgive you," said Schrade, whom Sirhan shot in the forehead in the pantry. Schrade continued:
"The evidence clearly shows you were not the gunman who shot Robert Kennedy."
"There is clear evidence of a second gunman in that kitchen pantry who shot Robert Kennedy," said Schrade. "One of the bullets -- the fatal bullet -- struck Bob in the back of the head. Two bullets struck Bob literally in his back. A fourth bullet struck the back of his coat's upper right seam and passed harmlessly through his coat. I believe all four of those bullets were fired from a second gunman standing behind Bob. You were never behind Bob, nor was Bob's back ever exposed to you."
Also, Schrade presented documents supporting his clemency request that included a 2012 letter from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the late senator's oldest son, to then-U.S. Attorney Gen. Eric Holder asking for a pardon. Schrade provided also what he called "new evidence" supporting a brand new investigation.
The killing occurred in a Los Angeles hotel shortly after Kennedy was announced as winning California's Democratic presidential primary. The death removed a leading contender who was poised to win the presidency in 1968.
Instead, Republican Richard Nixon narrowly defeated Vice President Hubert Humphrey, whose late-starting candidacy was crippled by dissension across the nation and especially within the Democratic Party. Among causes were protests over the Vietnam War waged by the administration of incumbent Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson and many post-assassination riots in cities after the 1968 assassinations of Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
This month for the 15th time, California officials denied parole for Sirhan, who was convicted of murder in the first degree during a trial in 1969 and sentenced to death in a gas chamber before separate legal decisions abolished the death penalty in California.
Schrade, a former United Auto Workers union official and friend to Kennedy, is far from alone in his belief in Sirhan's innocence in killing Robert Kennedy, even if Sirhan shot Schrade. At least a dozen books dating back nearly five decades have attacked the investigation and verdict.
The Debate
Schrade was one of five shooting survivors from the night of the assassination when Sirhan was wrestled to the ground after the shooting. The defendant is shown in a mug shot after arrest.
For Sirhan's unsuccessful 2011 parole hearing, the Palestinian-born Christian defendant, a resident of Pasadena before the shooting, recalled under hypnosis that a still mysterious woman had infatuated him, as the Associated Press reported in Convicted RFK assassin Sirhan Sirhan says girl in polka-dot dress manipulated him.
Several books argue that Robert Kennedy's murder was inextricably linked to his desire to expose after his hoped-for election as president the true story of his brother John's assassination in 1963 via a high-level conspiracy. Then rogue operatives in government, business and the media operated a cover-up so powerful as to intimidate even the Kennedy family and its friends unless and until Robert Kennedy, a New York senator, could attain wider powers as president.
Books and articles also approve the official conclusion that Sirhan acted alone to kill RFK and injure others. Among them are The Killing of Robert F. Kennedy (1995) by investigative reporter Dan Moldea.
Sirhan Sirhan is shown in a photo upon his arrest in 1968
Crime Scene Evidence
Physical evidence from the hotel kitchen crime scene remains an important dimension in the background of this month's clemency appeal and other ongoing research efforts and controversies.
Critics of the official investigation have argued that Kennedy's wounds from the back and 14 shots fired when Sirhan's gun could fire just eight shots constitute overwhelming evidence that a second gunman administered the kill shots and escaped. Critics allege that authorities were complicit by seizing, secreting and ultimately losing such physical evidence such as woodwork panels, and ignoring or intimidating witnesses disputing the official story.
Los Angeles county coroner Dr. Thomas Noguchi, M.D., authored a 62-page autopsy report that found that the fatal shot killed Kennedy from behind. It said the fatal shot traveled upward, at nearly point blank range, and that two other shots wounded Kennedy. One other shot was said to have gone through his clothing. Bullets that wounded five others, including Schrade, were recovered during their surgeries. Thus, there were eight known wounds, three for Kennedy and five for others.
In February 1969, Noguchi's testimony was regarded as helpful to Sirhan's defense at trial but not enough to thwart Sirhan's conviction. Two weeks later, the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors fired Noguchi on 64 counts of unprofessional behavior. Noguchi fought what are now widely regarded as trumped up charges, and was reinstated.
Dr. Cyril Wecht, M.D. and J.D., a medical school professor, consultant, former coroner for Allegheny County in Pennsylvania, and former official consultant appointed by Noguchi, has been writing and speaking about the RFK case for 45 years.
Wecht has asserted that the fatal shot that killed Kennedy "behind the ear was fired at a distance of approximately 1 to 1.5 inches away from his head and had a forward trajectory." Further, Wecht, a former president of the American Academy of Forensic Scientists, has said repeatedly (and confirmed for this column) that "Sirhan's gun was never that close to RFK and was never positioned behind RFK."
Wecht co-signed an unsuccessful petition to Los Angeles county seeking a new grand jury investigation. Attached to the petition, submitted by Schrade as a victim, were 800 exhibits. Among the 50 individuals and organizations co-signing the petition were former RFK press secretary Frank Mankiewicz, film maker Oliver Stone, and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., a Harvard historian and White House aide to the late President Kennedy.
Official reaction was "carefully muted," as described in the 1997 book Shadow Play by William Klaber and Philip Melanson.
"This has been looked at a number of times before, and it hasn't resulted in anything different," said Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates, "so I'm not going to comment on it."
What Can We Do?
Looking ahead, a number of human rights and legal reform groups are building on the compelling evidence that a cover up occurred in the murder of President Kennedy in 1963 and his brother Robert in 1968, among others. Those involved in the research include the new group Citizens Against Political Assassinations (CAPA) chaired by Wecht, our Justice Integrity Project, and such longstanding advocates as the Assassination Archives and Research Center (AARC).
The purpose? Justice -- and a better understanding of why injustice continues to undermine public life today.
About the Author:
Washington, DC-based Andrew Kreig directs the Justice Integrity Project (www.justice-integrity.org)and two other organizations in business and civic affairs. He is an attorney, author, and strategist listed in Who’s Who in the Worldand Who’s Who in America since the mid-1990s. He has lectured on government and business issues on five continents, including as co-keynoter at the annual National Association of Broadcasters' Futures Summit and in recent years has been a research fellow affiliated with universities. Read more at AndrewKreig.com
From 1996 to 2008, he was President/CEO of the Wireless Communications Association in its worldwide advocacy to create a wireless broadband industry. Earlier, he was an attorney with a national law firm, and law clerk to a federal judge.
In 1987, he authoredSpiked: How Chain Management Corrupted America’s Oldest Newspaper, a widely reviewed case study of changes affecting newspaper industry, his first employer after college. He holds degrees from Yale Law School and the University of Chicago School of Law, and a history degree from Cornell University, where he was a student newspaper editor, rowing team member, and Golden Gloves boxer.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books areThe Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West
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