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aliases category tags created updated summary born died location relations
Robert Kennedy
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis Kennedy
RFK
Bobby Kennedy
Political Figure
Person
JFK
McClellanCommittee
OrganizedCrime
OperationMongoose
CIA
MLKWiretaps
CubanMissileCrisis
Bolshakov
MarilynMonroe
SirhanSirhan
Assassination
2026-10-07 2026-10-07 Robert F. Kennedy was chief counsel of the McClellan Committee, Attorney General under John F. Kennedy, and a United States senator and presidential candidate shot in Los Angeles in 1968. 1925-11-20 1968-06-06 Brookline, Massachusetts, USA
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employed_by Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field 1957 chief counsel 1
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employed_by United States Department of Justice 1961 Attorney General 2
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investigated Jimmy Hoffa 1957-08-20 chief counsel examining Hoffa in committee hearings 5
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informant_for Central Intelligence Agency voluntary informant, per CIA file 201-211732 7
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participant_in Operation Mongoose 1961-11 member, Special Group (Augmented) 10
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relative_of John F. Kennedy brother 10

Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925 to June 6, 1968) was chief counsel of the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field, known as the McClellan Committee, and served as Attorney General of the United States under his brother John F. Kennedy from 1961.12 As a United States senator and candidate for president he was shot in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968.3

Seymour Hersh writes that in an interview published in 1988 by the John F. Kennedy Library, Kennedy said of Myer Feldman that his older brother had valued Feldman's work, but that Feldman's major interest was Israel rather than the United States.4

McClellan Committee and the Hoffa hearings

Kennedy joined the McClellan Committee as chief counsel in 1957, under the committee chairman, John L. McClellan; Senator John F. Kennedy was among its members.1 At the hearing that opened July 31, 1957, McClellan's opening statement said the committee expected evidence that Jimmy Hoffa, "through the help of racketeers," had supported John O'Rourke in obtaining control of joint council No. 16 of New York, and that Hoffa was going to tie up with the International Longshoremen's Association. "Hoffa would have a stranglehold over the port of New York," the statement said. Kennedy then explained the committee's charts to the members.1

Hoffa was sworn on August 20, 1957, with the attorney George S. Fitzgerald at his side. After reading a prepared statement reserving the right to review the transcript and to decline questions outside the committee's authority, Hoffa answered Kennedy's examination, which began with his career in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters since about 1932 and his presidency of a Detroit local. Kennedy asked about a federal antitrust charge arising from a wastepaper organizing drive (Hoffa said it ended in a nolo contendere plea and a $1,000 fine), a 1946 extortion indictment (Hoffa said it was reduced to a misdemeanor under a Michigan statute), and the J & H Sales Co. Kennedy told the witness: "I am not saying whether you are guilty or not guilty."5

Hoffa returned as president of the Teamsters on August 5, 1958, with the attorneys Edward Bennett Williams, Fitzgerald and David Previant, and was examined by Kennedy again in the August 13 to 20 and September 11 to November 17, 1958 sessions and in June and July 1959.6

Central Intelligence Agency personality file, 1958 to 1964

The Central Intelligence Agency opened a personality file on Kennedy on January 7, 1958, when he was counsel to the Senate investigations subcommittee. The file's summary lists documents on his 1955 trip to the Soviet Union with Justice William O. Douglas, a list of questions on which the Soviet Russia Division wanted information ("Requirements for US Citizens Travelling in South Central Asia"), reports of agency contacts with Kennedy or Douglas, and "Information Reports" based on information Kennedy supplied on his return, published by the Office of Operations from January to April 1956. A July 20, 1955 field dispatch (NITA-4680) reports a contact with Kennedy in Tehran by station personnel.7

On March 16, 1964, Branch 4 of the Covert Action Staff requested covert security approval for Kennedy to serve on the Planning and Guidance Committee for the Practical Politics Institute under Project ORSENSE, which was designed to train U.S. trade unionists being sent overseas to work with foreign trade unionists. The request form states that Kennedy "will be witting of Agency interest in the Institute and will know the students to be employed by the Agency," and the summary says it was planned for him to be "a lecturer and 'front' man" for the institute. The summary adds that the institute was apparently never established and that there is no record that the approval was granted or that a formal relationship with him existed. Its closing sentence reads: "In short this file reflects only that Mr. Kennedy served the Agency as a voluntary informant."7

Attorney General, Marcello and Operation Mongoose

A United States Department of Justice deportation sent Carlos Marcello to Guatemala on April 4, 1961. A May 24, 1961 Federal Bureau of Investigation memorandum from R. O. Lallier to A. H. Belmont, reporting a May 12 interview in Guatemala City, records the account of Paul Loeb, chief of the CIA station there. Loeb said it was his understanding that Attorney General Kennedy had conferred with Allen Dulles and asked for the CIA director's help in making certain Guatemala accepted Marcello as a citizen, and that he received instructions from headquarters to give the matter special handling. Loeb said he then approached President Miguel Ydigoras, who insisted that the matter be handled quietly, and that he was at the airport when Marcello arrived on a U.S. Border Patrol plane to find 15 to 20 reporters waiting. According to the memorandum, Marcello was to be returned to the United States on or about May 10 but did not appear at the airport, and Loeb was convinced he was living on a farm in the interior of Guatemala.8

On November 1, 1961, the White House aide Richard Goodwin wrote to President Kennedy that "the Attorney General would be the most effective commander" of a "command operation" for Cuba. After a White House meeting on November 3, 1961 on a new program against Fidel Castro, Kennedy's handwritten notes read: "My idea is to stir things up on island with espionage, sabotage, general disorder, run & operated by Cubans themselves with every group but Batistaites & Communists." A presidential memorandum of November 22 assigned the direction of the program to the Attorney General, with Edward Lansdale as his chief of operations; the version issued on November 30 placed the program "under the general guidance of General Lansdale, acting as Chief of Operations," and assigned the Attorney General no direction role.9

The program, Operation Mongoose, was overseen by a group called the Special Group (Augmented) (NSC Special Group), consisting of the regular Special Group members (McGeorge Bundy, U. Alexis Johnson, Roswell Gilpatric, John McCone and Lyman Lemnitzer) augmented by Robert Kennedy and General Maxwell Taylor. President Kennedy appointed Taylor chairman of the group. The State Department editors of the Foreign Relations series wrote that Robert Kennedy "was the principal motive force within the group and the informal link between the group and the President," and the Church Committee wrote that Kennedy "played an active role in the MONGOOSE Operation, a role unrelated to his position as Attorney General."910 The Church Committee also records Goodwin's proposal that Kennedy head Mongoose and the President's decision to give Lansdale the coordinating task instead.10

In October 1962 the CIA project officer for Mongoose, William Harvey, asked Lansdale to put before the Special Group (Augmented) a request for policy approval to sabotage Cuban-owned vessels "wherever and whenever secure access to them can be attained," normally in non-Bloc ports, as "targets of opportunity."11 At the group's meeting on October 4, 1962, Kennedy stated that the President "is concerned about progress on the MONGOOSE program and feels that more priority should be given to trying to mount sabotage operations," and urged "massive activity"; the group decided that "considerably more sabotage" should be undertaken.12 At the group's meeting of October 26, 1962, with the Attorney General present, it was agreed that agent-team dispatches be suspended and that no major acts of sabotage be undertaken for the time being.13 The Church Committee records that on October 30, 1962 the group ordered a halt to all sabotage operations, and its chronology lists November 1962 as the end of Mongoose.12 On January 4, 1963 Bundy wrote to the President that "there is well nigh universal agreement that Mongoose is at a dead end" and proposed that the Mongoose office be disbanded, naming Nicholas Katzenbach as the Attorney General's delegate to the interdepartmental group that had drafted the reorganization.14

In October 1963 Desmond FitzGerald met the Cuban official AM/LASH and represented himself as Robert Kennedy's personal representative; the contact plan stated that FitzGerald "will represent self as personal representative of Robert F. Kennedy." The Inspector General's report states that, according to FitzGerald, Richard Helms decided "it was not necessary to seek approval from Robert Kennedy for Fitzgerald to speak in his name." Helms testified that he did not recall such a discussion and that he "felt so sure that if I went to see Mr. Kennedy that he would have said yes, that I don't think there was any need to." The case officer present, identified as Case Officer 2, "did not recall whether Robert Kennedy's name was used."15

The May 7, 1962 briefing on the Giancana and Maheu operation

On May 7, 1962, Sheffield Edwards, the agency's director of security, and its general counsel, Lawrence Houston, briefed Kennedy on the operation that had used Johnny Roselli, Sam Giancana and Robert Maheu against Castro. The agency wanted the prosecution of Maheu's wiretappers in Las Vegas dropped. The Attorney General's calendar for that day lists a 1:00 meeting with Helms and a 4:00 meeting, and Helms testified that he did not recall meeting the Attorney General on May 7.16

Edwards wrote a memorandum to the Attorney General dated May 14, 1962. On April 24, 1962, Herbert J. Miller, Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, had advised that the "national interest" would preclude prosecution based on the tap. After the CIA briefing, a decision was made not to prosecute.16

J. Edgar Hoover recorded a May 9, 1962 meeting with Kennedy in a memorandum dated May 10. In it the Attorney General is quoted as saying that the CIA had assisted Maheu in the installation and that the agency "could not afford to have any action taken against Giancana and Maheu." Hoover also recorded Kennedy's awareness that the "gutter gossip" linked the failure to act against Giancana to Giancana's relationship with Frank Sinatra.16

Houston testified: "If you have seen Mr. Kennedy's eyes get steely and his jaw set and his voice get low and precise, you get a definite feeling of unhappiness." Edwards testified that Kennedy said at the end of the briefing, "I want you to let me know about these things," or words to that effect.16 The agency's Inspector General concluded that the Attorney General "was not told that the gambling syndicate operation had already been reactivated," and was never told that the CIA had a continuing involvement with gangster elements.16

Bolshakov channel and the Cuban Missile Crisis

A Khrushchev letter of September 29, 1961 reached the White House through Georgi Bolshakov, who handed it to Pierre Salinger at the Carlyle Hotel in New York on September 30.17 A second Khrushchev letter, dated November 9, 1961, was delivered to Salinger by Bolshakov, identified as editor of the magazine USSR, on November 11.18

Justin Chandler writes that the New York Daily News correspondent Frank Holeman, a friend of Bolshakov, asked him on April 29, 1961 whether it would be better to meet Robert Kennedy directly; that Bolshakov, whom Chandler describes as a member of the Soviet Main Intelligence Directorate, met Kennedy outside the Justice Department gate on May 9, 1961; and that they met repeatedly afterward, including at the Kennedy home in Hickory Hill. Kennedy said in an oral history interview that "most of the major matters dealing with the Soviet Union in the United States were discussed," and that "arrangements were made, really, between Georgi Bolshakov and myself. He was Khrushchev's representative."19 The Foreign Relations editorial note on a later meeting describes Bolshakov as "ostensibly Press Attache of the Soviet Union but reputedly one of the leading KGB officials in Washington and a direct link to Chairman Khrushchev."20

Chandler writes that on October 22, 1962 Khrushchev sent a message through Bolshakov saying "no missile capable of reaching the United States would be placed in Cuba," that Robert Kennedy was "reported to say" of Bolshakov, "that son of a bitch has got to go," and that there is no evidence Bolshakov knew the exact nature of the weapons in Cuba. Chandler attributes the first passage to Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein and the second to Dino Brugioni.21

At 9:30 p.m. on October 23, 1962 Kennedy met the Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin on the third floor of the Soviet embassy. His memorandum to the President of October 24 states that he told the ambassador he was there "on my own and not on the instructions of the President," and that "the duplicity of the Russians had been a major contributing factor." He recorded Dobrynin's answer that he had told Kennedy no missiles were in Cuba, that Khrushchev had given similar assurances through TASS, and that as far as Dobrynin knew there were still none.2

On the afternoon of November 19, 1962 Kennedy met Bolshakov and warned that unless the Soviet Union withdrew its IL-28 bombers from Cuba the United States was prepared to resume low-level reconnaissance; the Foreign Relations editorial note states that the Robert Kennedy Papers were not open to its historians and cites Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s biography for the meeting.20 On December 14, 1962 President Kennedy wrote to Khrushchev that "we have been very glad to have opportunities for private exchanges with and through Mr. Bolshakov, and I am sorry to learn that he is returning to Moscow."22

Wiretaps on Martin Luther King Jr.

In September 1963 Assistant Director William Sullivan recommended to Hoover wiretaps on Martin Luther King Jr.'s home and the offices of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; a note by Associate Director Clyde Tolson on the memorandum observed that the Attorney General "turned down a similar recommendation on July 22, 1963." On October 7, 1963, citing "possible communist influence in the racial situation," Hoover requested the Attorney General's permission for a wiretap "on King at his current address or at any future address to which he may move" and on the SCLC office in New York. Kennedy signed the request on October 10 and on October 21 approved coverage of the SCLC office in Atlanta.23

Two memoranda by Courtney Evans describe the Attorney General's reaction. On October 10 he summoned Evans and, according to Evans, "noted that the last thing we could afford to have would be a discovery of a wiretap on King's residence," then said the FBI should go ahead "on a trial basis." Evans's second memorandum records that Kennedy was "apparently still vacillating" and asked that the coverage be evaluated after thirty days. Wiretaps were installed on the SCLC's New York office on October 24, 1963 and on King's home and the SCLC's Atlanta office on November 8, 1963.23

The Church Committee wrote that it was not able to ascertain why Kennedy approved in October 1963 a request he had refused in July. Burke Marshall testified that he had assumed Kennedy authorized the tap because King had not kept a commitment to cease communication with a person the committee calls Adviser A.24 Edwin Guthman, Kennedy's press chief at the Justice Department, testified that Kennedy told him in 1968 that his "clear recollection" was that Kennedy's "feeling was that if he did not do it, Mr. Hoover would move to impede or block the passage of the civil rights bill," and that Kennedy felt he might as well settle whether Adviser A had the influence on King the FBI contended.25

Marilyn Monroe

An FBI report on Marilyn Monroe's February 1962 stay in Mexico, relaying accounts from sources, states that she "reportedly spent some time with" Kennedy at the Hollywood home of Peter Lawford, and that she "reportedly challenged Mr. Kennedy on some points proposed to her by" Arthur Miller.26

A 1973 FBI memorandum in file 105-40018 summarizes Norman Mailer's book on Monroe. It records rumors that Monroe was having an affair with the then Attorney General and that her death was related to a plot, and says these allegations "were branded false and no factual support existed for them." It records Mailer's suggestion that "'right-wing' FBI and CIA Agents had a 'huge motivation' to murder Marilyn Monroe in order to embarrass the Kennedy family," and notes that the rumors had been repeated in a July 1964 book by Frank Capell.27

The 1968 shooting and the investigation files

A Department of State telegram drafted June 5, 1968 and sent to the American embassy in Amman and other posts reported that the "Person currently held by Los Angeles police connection Kennedy shooting" was "now tentatively identified as Sharif Bishary Sirhan," born in Jordan on March 19, 1944 and admitted at New York on January 12, 1957. The telegram instructed all posts to "institute maximum security precautions" and to refrain from comment.28

Governor Gavin Newsom's 2022 decision states that Sirhan Sirhan shot Kennedy at close range in the Ambassador Hotel and wounded five bystanders (Elizabeth Evans, Ira Goldstein, Paul Schrade, Irwin Stroll and William Weisel); that a jury convicted him of first degree murder and five counts of assault with a deadly weapon; and that he was condemned to death on May 22, 1969, a sentence modified in 1972 to life with the possibility of parole.3

A June 14, 1968 CIA memorandum for the record concerns a June 12 meeting with John Joseph Boles, political adviser to the executive officers of Occidental Petroleum. Boles, who held a doctorate in economics and had twenty years' experience as an area specialist on the Arab Middle East, was convinced that the assassination was the product of a Palestinian group and listed it among fifteen or more political assassinations he attributed to Al-Fateh. The memorandum describes the information as consisting largely of impressions and as inconclusive, and Boles promised to bring back supporting facts after a Middle East trip in early July 1968.29

A July 23, 1968 memorandum to the FBI, captioned "Sirhan Investigation," reports that a usually reliable source told the agency's Beirut representative that on June 22, 1968 Salim Lawzi, publisher of the Beirut newspaper Hawadith, told Anwar Jamal, press counselor of the United Arab Republic, that he had met Lebanese figures to study and organize Sirhan's defense. Lawzi said he had received promises of 10,000 Lebanese pounds from Kamil Abd al-Rahman and 5,000 from Hani Salem and expected to collect 200,000 to 300,000 Lebanese pounds in Lebanon. The memorandum adds that, according to a reliable source, the United Arab Republic considers Lawzi a strong pro-Nasserist, although he "sometimes strays for opportunistic reasons."30

A July 1968 memorandum to the FBI on Moshe Yaacov Eldar records that Eldar, in correspondence with Mordechai Stein, wrote that he had been "summoned" as a witness in the Robert Kennedy murder trial; the agency had no record of him in its central files.31

The Los Angeles Police Department's investigation was conducted by Special Unit Senator. Its records, estimated at 50,000 pages with a card index of over 8,200 entries, over 4,800 interviews and 155 items of physical evidence, passed to the California State Archives in August 1987; the finding aid records that the investigation consumed over 6,400 personnel hours over thirteen months and cost in excess of $289,000, and that the collection includes re-investigative files of 1974 to 1978 on "second-gun" theories and records of the Wolfer Board, an internal police inquiry into allegations against the ballistics examiner DeWayne Wolfer. The finding aid's index lists interview files for Thane Cesar and for Stus Pruszynski.32

Philip M. Van Praag presented a 2008 paper to the American Academy of Forensic Sciences on a "recently re-discovered audio recording (the only known recording of the actual shots)" made during the shooting. His abstract says that some of the original evidence "suggested the presence of a second gun," that the second gun "could not be proven" because of premature destruction of evidence, and that the recording "reveals the presence of two guns as a result of a unique forensic analysis methodology."33

The writer Dan Moldea wrote that eyewitnesses saw the security guard Thane Eugene Cesar with his gun drawn, that Cesar told police he was carrying a .38-caliber revolver, that he stood directly behind Kennedy, and that he had owned a .22 which he sold after the shooting and which disappeared. Moldea wrote that Cesar answered "No" when asked in a March 27, 1987 interview whether he had shot Kennedy, and that Cesar passed a polygraph examination administered by Edward Gelb; Moldea wrote that he then accepted Cesar's innocence.34 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote on December 14, 2021: "I believe Cesar killed my father," and that "Three witnesses saw him draw his gun" and that "one saw him fire it."35

An Associated Press report of February 28, 2011, by Linda Deutsch, says that William F. Pepper, Sirhan's attorney, had Sirhan examined several times by the psychologist Daniel P. Brown of Harvard University, "an expert in hypnosis of trauma victims." The report quotes Pepper: "There have been substantial breakthroughs." Pepper would not disclose what was accomplished in the sessions and said of Sirhan's memory: "There is no doubt he does not remember the critical events."36

The Director of National Intelligence released more than 60,000 pages on the case on May 7, 2025, including audio recordings of Los Angeles Police Department interviews with Sirhan and recordings of eyewitness interviews. The release states that some of the files had previously been released by the Los Angeles Police Department or to individuals under the Freedom of Information Act.37

Sirhan parole decisions

The Board of Parole Hearings found Sirhan suitable for parole in 1975 and rescinded the grant; it found him unsuitable at fifteen subsequent hearings. On August 27, 2021, at the sixteenth hearing, it found him suitable. On January 13, 2022, Newsom reversed that decision, writing that Sirhan "currently poses an unreasonable danger to society if released from prison" and "has failed to develop the insight necessary to mitigate his current dangerousness."3 The governor's press release cited his "refusal to accept responsibility for his crime" and "lack of insight and accountability required to support his safe release."38 On March 1, 2023, a new board denied parole and set the next hearing for three years later, stating that Sirhan "still lacks insight into what caused him to shoot the senator and presidential candidate in 1968." His attorney, Angela Berry, said: "I do feel the board bent to the political whim of the governor."39

Footnotes

  1. "Investigation of Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field," Hearings before the Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field, 85th Cong., Part 10, July 31 to August 6, 1957, pp. 3591-3593 (members present, including Senator John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy, chief counsel; Chairman McClellan's opening statement; Kennedy's explanation of the charts follows). https://archive.org/details/investigationofi10unit ↩︎

  2. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963, vol. XI, Cuban Missile Crisis and Aftermath, doc. 53, Memorandum From Attorney General Kennedy to President Kennedy, October 24, 1962. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v11/d53 ↩︎

  3. Governor Gavin Newsom, Indeterminate Sentence Parole Release Review, Sirhan Sirhan, B-21014, decision of January 13, 2022 (statement of facts; board hearings of 1975 and August 27, 2021). https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/1.13.22-Sirhan-Reverse-Decision.pdf ↩︎

  4. Hersh, Seymour M. The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. Random House, 1991, chapter 8, pp. 99-100. ↩︎

  5. "Investigation of Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field," Hearings, Part 13, August 20-23, 1957, testimony of James R. Hoffa, pp. 4927-4937 (oath, p. 4927; prepared statement, pp. 4929-4930; examination by Kennedy begins p. 4930; antitrust, extortion and nolo contendere exchange, pp. 4931-4932). https://archive.org/details/investigationofi13unit ↩︎

  6. Hearings, Part 36 (August 5, 6, 7, 8 and 12, 1958; Hoffa sworn as president of the Teamsters, p. 13278); Part 37 (August 13-20, 1958); Part 40 (September 11-November 17, 1958); Part 54 (June 25-30, 1959); Part 56 (July 10, 13 and 14, 1959; Hoffa "Resumed" with counsel Edward Bennett Williams, pp. 19693 ff.). https://archive.org/details/investigationofi36unit and the corresponding items investigationofi37unit, investigationofi40unit, investigationofi54unit and investigationofi56unit. ↩︎

  7. CIA Reading Room, "Summary of DDO File on Robert F. Kennedy, 201-211732," with the request for approval of March 16, 1964 (Project ORSENSE), CIA Reading Room document 07164990. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-07164990 ↩︎

  8. FBI memorandum, R. O. Lallier to A. H. Belmont, May 24, 1961, file 92-2713-175,176, NARA record 124-10210-10327 (JFK release), reporting Paul Loeb's account of a May 12, 1961 interview by Agent Papich in Guatemala City. The April 4, 1961 deportation date is from the report of Blakey, Cornwell and Ewing on Carlos Marcello, House Select Committee on Assassinations, Report, vol. IX, pp. 69-75, as summarized by Laura Denk, Assassination Records Review Board, file 4.0.1.3. https://documents3.theblackvault.com/documents/jfkfiles/jfk2022/124-10210-10327.pdf and https://documents3.theblackvault.com/documents/jfkfiles/NARA-Oct2017/ARRB/LDENK/WP-DOCS/ORGCRIME/MARCELLO.RTP.PDF ↩︎

  9. FRUS 1961-1963, vol. X, Cuba, January 1961-September 1962, doc. 269 (Goodwin to President Kennedy, November 1, 1961), doc. 270 (editorial note: November 3, 1961 meeting; Robert Kennedy's handwritten notes of 11/7/61; the Special Group (Augmented)), and doc. 278 (memorandum of November 30, 1961, and editorial note on the November 22 version). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v10/d270 ↩︎

  10. Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders: An Interim Report (1975), p. 140 (Special Group (Augmented); Taylor named chairman; Goodwin's proposal; Robert Kennedy's role). https://archive.org/details/allegedassassina00unit ↩︎

  11. FRUS 1961-1963, vol. XI, doc. 10, Memorandum From the CIA Project Officer for Operation Mongoose (Harvey) to the Chief of Operations, Operation Mongoose (Lansdale), October 8, 1962, "Sabotage of Cuban-Owned Ship." https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v11/d10 ↩︎

  12. Church Committee interim report (1975), pp. 147-148 (Special Group (Augmented) meeting of October 4, 1962, citing the minutes of the meeting; halt of sabotage ordered October 30, 1962, citing Lansdale's memorandum for the record) and chronology, pp. 293-294 ("November: Operation MONGOOSE ends"). https://archive.org/details/allegedassassina00unit ↩︎

  13. FRUS 1961-1963, vol. XI, doc. 82, Minutes of Meeting of the Special Group (Augmented) on Operation Mongoose, October 26, 1962. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v11/d82 ↩︎

  14. FRUS 1961-1963, vol. XI, doc. 261, Memorandum From the President's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to President Kennedy, January 4, 1963. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v11/d261 ↩︎

  15. Church Committee interim report (1975), p. 87 n. 3 (contact plan; Case Officer 2 testimony of August 1, 1975, p. 60) and pp. 174-175 (Inspector General's Report, pp. 88-89; Helms testimony of June 13, 1975, pp. 117-118 and 132). https://archive.org/details/allegedassassina00unit ↩︎

  16. Church Committee interim report (1975), section on the May 7, 1962 briefing of the Attorney General, pp. 131-134, citing Houston testimony of June 2, 1975, p. 14; Edwards testimony of May 30, 1975, p. 17; Edwards memorandum to the Attorney General, May 14, 1962; Hoover memorandum, May 10, 1962; Miller memorandum, April 24, 1962; Helms testimony of September 16, 1975, p. 8; and the Inspector General's Report, pp. 65 and 118. https://archive.org/details/allegedassassina00unit ↩︎

  17. FRUS 1961-1963, vol. VI, Kennedy-Khrushchev Exchanges, doc. 21, Letter From Chairman Khrushchev to President Kennedy, September 29, 1961, editorial note on delivery by Bolshakov to Salinger, September 30. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v06/d21 ↩︎

  18. FRUS 1961-1963, vol. VI, doc. 23, Letter From Chairman Khrushchev to President Kennedy, November 9, 1961, editorial note on delivery by Bolshakov to Salinger, November 11. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v06/d23 ↩︎

  19. Justin Chandler, "'Thank God for Bobby': Robert Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis," Air University, School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, June 2017, pp. 95-96 (citing Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble (1997), pp. 110-113; Larry Tye, Bobby Kennedy (2016), p. 247; and the Robert F. Kennedy oral history for the John F. Kennedy Library, as cited there). https://archive.org/details/DTIC_AD1047161 ↩︎

  20. FRUS 1961-1963, vol. XI, doc. 194, Editorial Note (meeting of November 19, 1962, citing Memorandum by Robert Kennedy, November 30, as cited in Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy and His Times, p. 550). https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v11/d194 ↩︎

  21. Chandler, "Thank God for Bobby," pp. 98-101 (citing Lebow and Stein, We All Lost the Cold War (1994), p. 68; Brugioni, Eyeball to Eyeball, p. 178; and Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble, pp. 194 and 197). The Kennedy remark rests on Brugioni as cited by Chandler. https://archive.org/details/DTIC_AD1047161 ↩︎

  22. FRUS 1961-1963, vol. XI, doc. 247, Message From President Kennedy to Chairman Khrushchev, December 14, 1962. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v11/d247 ↩︎

  23. Church Committee, Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans (Book III, 1976), Section IV.B, "Wiretap Surveillance of Dr. King and the SCLC: October 1963-June 1966," pp. 115-116, citing Bland to Sullivan memorandum of 9/6/63, Hoover to the Attorney General of 10/7/63 and 10/18/63, and Evans to Belmont memoranda of 10/10/63 and 10/21/63; installation table, p. 116. https://archive.org/details/ChurchCommittee ↩︎

  24. Church Committee, Book III (1976), p. 117, citing Burke Marshall testimony of March 3, 1976, pp. 20 and 55. https://archive.org/details/ChurchCommittee ↩︎

  25. Church Committee, Book III (1976), pp. 117-118, citing Edwin O. Guthman testimony of March 16, 1976, pp. 5 and 15-17. https://archive.org/details/ChurchCommittee ↩︎

  26. FBI, Marilyn Monroe file, Mexico City report covering her February 1962 visit to Mexico (text dated February 21 and 23, 1962), in the Marilyn Monroe FBI Files. https://archive.org/details/MarilynMonroeFBI ↩︎

  27. FBI memorandum, stamped August 1, 1973, file 105-40018 (Marilyn Monroe), concerning Norman Mailer's book on Monroe, in the Marilyn Monroe FBI Files. https://archive.org/details/MarilynMonroeFBI ↩︎

  28. Department of State outgoing telegram to American embassy Amman and other posts, drafted by NEA (Lucius D. Battle) June 5, 1968, CIA Reading Room document 05161067. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-05161067 ↩︎

  29. CIA Reading Room document 07169750, memorandum for the record, "Suspicion of 'Palestinian' Conspiracy Behind Kennedy Assassination," June 14, 1968. The archived OCR is partly illegible at the passage naming the group, so that wording is a paraphrase. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-07169750 ↩︎

  30. CIA Reading Room document 07169746, Deputy Director to FBI, "Sirhan Investigation," July 23, 1968. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-07169746 ↩︎

  31. CIA Reading Room document 07169734, memorandum to the FBI Director regarding Moshe Yaacov Eldar, July 1968. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-07169734 ↩︎

  32. California State Archives, Los Angeles Police Department Records of the Robert F. Kennedy Assassination Investigation, ca. 1968-1978 (collection rfkguide), finding aid, Online Archive of California, scope and content and index of interviewees (Cesar, Thane: CSA-K7, K8, K24; Pruszynski, Stus: CSA-K123). https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf387002h3/ ↩︎

  33. Philip M. Van Praag, "Acoustic Analysis of Gunshot Recordings Utilizing Frequency Selective Integrated Loudness Envelope Evaluation," American Academy of Forensic Sciences, Engineering Sciences Section, abstract C20, 2008. https://www.aafs.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/AAFS-2008-C20.pdf ↩︎

  34. Dan E. Moldea, account of his investigation, excerpted from Confessions of a Guerrilla Writer (chapters on Gene Cesar and the polygraph) and his 1987 Regardie's article; http://www.moldea.com/DEM-on-RFK.pdf ↩︎

  35. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., "Governor Newsom Should Not Block," Substack, December 14, 2021. https://robertfkennedyjr.substack.com/p/governor-newsom-should-not-block ↩︎

  36. Linda Deutsch, Associated Press, February 28, 2011, report on Sirhan's parole hearing, as reprinted by Salon. https://www.salon.com/2011/02/28/assassin_can_t_remember_shooting_robert_kennedy/ ↩︎

  37. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, News Release No. 11-25, "DNI Gabbard Releases More Than 60,000 Additional Pages Related to Senator Robert F. Kennedy Assassination," May 7, 2025. https://www.odni.gov/3532/pr-11-25/ ↩︎

  38. Office of Governor Gavin Newsom, "Governor Newsom Grants Executive Clemency, Reverses Parole Decision for Sirhan Sirhan," press release, January 2022. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2022/01/13/governor-newsom-grants-executive-clemency-reverses-parole-decision-for-sirhan-sirhan/ ↩︎

  39. "California board denies parole for RFK killer Sirhan Sirhan," KTVU, March 1, 2023. https://www.ktvu.com/news/california-board-denies-parole-for-rfk-killer-sirhan-sirhan ↩︎