Sunday, July 26, 2020

Recent Presidential Elections
GOP's Ugly Evolution -- Part One

The Republican Party today is not what it was 50 years ago. Nor even 30 years ago.


Since the 1980s, Republicans have held together a coalition around a woolly vision of “limited-government conservatism” that could mean different things to different people. Libertarian-minded business owners saw it as low taxes and deregulation. Conservative Christians saw it in terms of religious liberty or not extending rights to LGBTQ citizens. Middle-class whites who scored high on racial resentment scales saw it as government not taking their money to give free things to freeloading black and brown people.

These different groups can be kept in the same big-tent coalition because they all understood that on the values they cared about most, the Democratic Party was not the party for people like them. Over time, as they identified as conservatives and Republicans, they learned the orthodoxies that “people like them” stood for, and were pulled along for the sake of keeping the governing coalition together, understanding that any defection would spell defeat in a two-party system.

Prior to the ’80s, both parties represented much broader coalitions, which cut much more across racial, cultural, and regional identities. Parties were moderate because after the New Deal, they really were national parties, but with different identities in different regions. Even 30 years ago, you could be a culturally conservative Democrat or a culturally liberal Republican. These overlaps made the parties less distinct. They also made it easier to find common ground with opposing partisans based on other shared identities.

These overlaps were the foundation for a political center and multiple coalitions. Moderation existed not because politicians and voters had identified as “moderates” but because they faced cross-pressure from competing and overlapping values and identities, and the center was the place where these values overlapped.

But as partisan identity has become more closely linked with racial, cultural, and regional identities in the wake of the post-civil rights party realignment, these overlaps have vanished. Our collective sense of cultural, regional, and ethnic status is now more and more linked to the status of our two political parties.

Broadly speaking, the wealthy and corporations have used money (through campaign contributions and lobbying) to shape economic policy so that it disproportionately benefits the rich and corporations. This money has made it harder for the Democratic Party to truly be the party of the working class (one reason … that Democrats have remained moderate).

But its more consequential effect was that it pulled the Republican Party very far right on economic issues. And because many of these far-right economic positions are broadly unpopular on their own, the Republican Party has had to work even harder to disqualify Democrats, turning up negative partisanship to ever higher levels and having to rely more and more on anti-elite/anti-government and now increasingly overt racial demagoguery in order to keep Republicans voting Republican (Drutman 5-7).

it's not just a matter [today] of different opinions on policy, says Robert Jones, CEO of PRRI, a nonpartisan group that studies politics, culture and religion. People have largely picked a side, and they really don't like the other one.

Nearly half the country (48%) thinks the Republican Party has been taken over by racists, a view held by 80% of Democrats. And the Democratic Party? Nationally, 44% think it's been taken over by socialists – and 82% of Republicans share that opinion, according to the extensive study, "Fractured Nation: Widening Partisan Polarization and Key Issues in 2020 Presidential Elections."

The two major parties themselves, Jones says, have largely come to reflect the two Americas, with Republicans encompassing white Christians who feel victimized by the cultural and social changes, and Democrats, the African-Americans, Latinos and women who are driving many of those demographic and social changes.
White evangelicals flocked to the GOP after the civil rights movement took hold in the late 1960s, Jones says, and the Democratic Party became identified with the civil rights movement. That started a "sorting out" that mingles party identification with race and religion, he says.

The trend really took hold during the Reagan years, but "we're seeing it hit at an extreme level," Jones says. "The partisan polarization is driven less by the fact that people love their own party as much as that they hate the other one. They really see each other as the enemy."

More than two-thirds (69%) of Republicans believe discrimination against whites has become as big a problem as discrimination against blacks, compared to 21% of Democrats who feel that way, according to PRRI. For Republicans who cite Fox News as their primary news source, the number rises to 77%.

Asked if they agreed that "immigrants are invading the country and changing American culture," 63% of Republicans said yes, and 20% of Democrats agreed. When it comes to gender roles and the MeToo movement, Republicans felt threatened: a majority of Republicans (53%) believe men are punished "just for being men," and 65% of GOPers think society as a whole has become "too soft and feminine." Among Democrats, 23% agreed men were being punished for being male, and 26% agreed the nation was becoming "too soft and feminine."

More than half of Republicans (55%) believe it's necessary to believe in God to be a moral person, compared with 35% of Democrats who think that way (Milligan 1-2).

The Republican Party today is basically a coalition of grievances united by one thing: hatred. Hatred of immigrants, hatred of minorities, hatred of intellectuals, hatred of gays, feminists and many other groups too numerous to mention. What binds them together is hatred of Democrats because they are welcoming to every group that Republicans reject.

I do not know exactly when hatred became the binding force in the Republican Party, but its takeover of the once “Solid South” of the Democratic Party was the key turning point. When the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts broke the Democratic Party’s hold on that region, the G.O.P. moved in to replace it. But in the process, Republicans absorbed the traditions of racism, bigotry, populism and rule by plutocrats called “Bourbons” that defined the politics of the South after the Civil War. They also inherited an obsession with self-defense, allegiance to evangelical Christianity, chauvinism, xenophobia and other cultural characteristics long cultivated in the South.

The Bourbons maintained their power by dividing the poor and working classes along racial lines so that they would not unify for their mutual betterment by raising taxes on the wealthy, improving schools and making government responsive to the needs of the masses rather than protecting the wealth and position of the Bourbons.
The Southern states have long followed what are now doctrinaire Republican policies: minuscule taxes, no unions, aggressive pro-business policies, privatized public services and strong police forces that kept minorities in their place. Yet the South is and always has been our poorest region and shows no sign of converging with the Northeast, which has long followed progressive policies opposite those in the South and been the wealthiest region as well (Bartlett 1-2).
The few Republicans and conservatives tut-tutting Trump’s rampage of racist rancor ought to know that the history is clear: Their party has been exploiting bigotry and acrimony for decades. There was Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy, which aimed to attract white voters opposed to civil rights advances. Ronald Reagan famously campaigned against “welfare queens” and hailed “states’ rights”—barely coded language deployed to achieve the same results (Corn 1).

Lee Atwater, party chairman, aide to Ronald Reagan and campaign manager for George H.W. Bush, explained this in a 1981 interview with political scientist Alexander Lamis: “You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’ — that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff …”
For half a century, then, the GOP has taught white voters racial resentment, taught them to prioritize concerns about white prerogative over concerns about shuttered factories, dirty water, lack of health care, foreclosed futures. It did this in code — “Willie Horton,” “tax cuts,” “welfare queen” — which, while obvious to all but the most gullible, still allowed respectable white men and women to maintain fig leaves of deniability.
So politicians accepted the votes, but never had to acknowledge the means of their manufacture. White voters gave them the votes, but never had to confront the reasons they did so (Pitts Jr. 1).

The pattern is obvious: The guys at the top of the Republican Party have long tried to take advantage of racial conflict and political divisiveness. At times, they have even encouraged it, believing that would help them win elections. And there’s no better example than Newt Gingrich.

Decades before Gingrich was a Trump-adoring Fox News bloviator, he was speaker of the House. And before that he was a bomb-thrower. In fact, he became speaker partly because he weaponized hate. Elected in 1978, Gingrich was a back-bencher in the House of Representatives when the Republicans appeared to be in a permanent minority. His strategy was to blow up his own party so he could take control and lead it to the majority—and one of his big ideas was that the GOP, in order to succeed, had to create more division within the national discourse.

He established a political action committee called GOPAC to help Republican candidates across the country become more effective campaigners. And in 1990, the group distributed to GOP contenders a pamphlet called “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,” which encouraged the candidates to “speak like Newt”—that is, to rely upon sharp and divisive rhetoric. It presented a list of 30 “optimistic positive” words to use, including “freedom,” “truth,” and “family.” It also provided a list of “contrasting” words: “crisis,” “decay,” and “red tape.” And this second list recommended going to extremes. Republican candidates, it noted, should call Democrats “shallow,” “radical,” “incompetent,” “pathetic,” “sick,” “bizarre,” and “traitors.” Gingrich’s group was urging GOPers to engage in all-out rhetorical war, going beyond arguing over policies to engaging in the politics of personal destruction. Which was one of Gingrich’s own favorite tools. (The good Newt loved to talk about policy; the bad Newt embraced and relished hostile name-calling and discordant combat.)

And the nastiness paid off. The belligerent Gingrich led his Republicans to the majority in the House in 1994.

Not every Republican candidate has adopted this memo as his or her playbook in the past three decades. But its spirit has certainly imbued a significant amount of GOP action. … (Corn 1-3).

The year 1994 … was a major moment in politics. After a rocky start to Bill Clinton's presidency, Republicans were looking to capitalize in the midterm elections. Newt Gingrich, then the House minority whip, began the 1994 campaign by releasing the "Contract With America," a list of 10 bills congressional Republicans pledged to pass if they regained the House majority.

The document was loaded with buzzwords influenced by President Ronald Reagan's 1985 State of the Union address. It talked about "tax relief," "job creation," and "personal responsibility." It proposed "taking back our streets" by toughening the death penalty and building more prisons, and it suggested imposing term limits on "career politicians" so they could be replaced with "citizen legislators."

The campaign worked — Republicans routed Democrats for a 54-seat swing in the House of Representatives, giving the GOP its first majority in the House since the 1950s. Political messaging had changed.

One of the main architects of the "Contract With America" was a Republican pollster named Frank Luntz, who has been at the forefront of political messaging for 30 years. Luntz is credited inside and outside Washington, DC, with teaching a generation of Republican politicians that "it might not matter what we say so much as how we say it," ...

Throughout the '90s, Luntz developed theories on political messaging and engineered countless phrases that subtly promote conservative ideals. Those ideas have since been absorbed into classes at the Leadership Institute, a conservative nonprofit that it says teaches "political technology" to prospective politicians and activists. His rhetorical tips and phrases are regularly distributed among Republican circles. …

Luntz's greatest contributions to Republican messaging can be found in "The New American Lexicon," a playbook published annually by Luntz since the early 1990s. A leaked copy of the 2006 edition provides fascinating insight into Luntz's rhetorical strategy. In a section titled "14 Words Never To Use," Luntz instructs to never say "government" when one could say "Washington" instead.

"Most Americans appreciate their local government that picks up their trash, cleans their streets, and provides police and transportation services," Luntz said. "Washington is the problem. Remind voters again and again about Washington spending, Washington waste, Washington taxation, Washington bureaucracy, Washington rules and Washington regulations."

Luntz suggested replacing "drilling for oil" with "exploring for energy;" "undocumented workers" with "illegal aliens;" and "estate tax" with "death tax." The substitutions often work — an April Ipsos/NPR poll found that support for abolishing the estate tax jumps to 76% from 65% when you call it the death tax.

"It was completely revolutionary," Republican consultant Jim Dornan told Business Insider. "He detected phrases and single words that could change how people thought about the issues" (Abadi 1).


Cited Works:

Abadi, Mark, “Democrats and Republicans Speak Different Languages — and It Helps Explain Why We're So Divided.” Business Insider, August 11, 2017. Web. https://www.businessinsider.com/political-language-rhetoric-framing-messaging-lakoff-luntz-2017-8



Bartlett, Bruce, “The Republican Party Has Become the Party of Hate. New York Times, July 21, 2016. Web. https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/07/21/what-is-the-republican-party/the-republican-party-has-become-the-party-of-hate



Corn, David, “Donald Trump’s Politics of Hate Began with a ‘Cynical and Evil’ GOP Memo,” Mother Jones, July 18, 2019. Web. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/donald-trumps-politics-of-hate-began-with-a-cynical-and-evil-gop-memo/



Drutman, Lee, “Yes, the Republican Party Has Become Pathological. But Why?

We’re Not Going to Fix American Democracy until We Can Explain Why the GOP Went Crazy.” Vox,


Milligan, Susan, “Democrats, Republicans and the New Politics of Hate. In a Deeply Divided Nation, Democrats and Republicans Don’t Just Disagree, They Hate Each Other.” US News, October 21, 2019. Web.

https://www.usnews.com/news/elections/articles/2019-10-21/democrats-republicans-and-the-new-politics-of-hate



Pitts Jr., Leonard, “Is the GOP a Hate Group?” Seattle Times, July 21, 2019. Web. https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/is-the-gop-a-hate-group/












Friday, July 24, 2020

Recent Presidential Elections

Starting this Sunday I start a new series called "Recent Presidential Elections."  It consists of 34 posts that review the presidential elections of 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016.  Look for a new post each Sunday.  Below is a list and sequence of the individual posts.

Harold Titus


Recent Presidential Elections Chronology

GOP’s Ugly Evolution – Part One
GOP’s Ugly Evolution – Part Two

2000 Election:
Results, the Campaigns
Character Assassination
Florida – Disenfranchisement
Florida – Chaotic Returns
Florida – Lawyering, Supreme Court Decision

2004 Election:
Overview
Freak Show
Bush and the Air National Guard
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth
Jim Rassmann
Why Kerry Lost
Election Stolen?

2008 Election:
Results, Pre-Conventions Smears
Reverend Wright, Campaigns
The Heart of the Campaigns
The Debates, Why Obama Won

2012 Election:
Results
Obama’s First Term: Disenfranchisement, Vilification
Obama’s First Term: Obstruction, Achievements
First Term Accomplishments, Campaigns Begin
The Debates
Why Obama Won
Attempted Rigging?

2016 Election:
Results
Trump Voter Characteristics
Liar, Liar
Campaigns, Cheating
The Debates
Why Trump Won:
     Russian Interference
     Anti-Hillary Sentiment
     Substantial Disenfranchisement
     Other Opinions

Sunday, July 19, 2020

Civil Rights Events
Robert Kennedy Assassination

Now it’s on to Chicago and let’s win there!” The senator had won the California primary, a crucial step before the Democratic National Convention just two months away in Chicago. In the early morning hours of June 5, 1968, Kennedy held up his index and middle finger, flashing a “V” for victory sign at the crowd, and departed the stage of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles to the sound of chants.

Within minutes, cheers gave way to screams (Shalby 1).

RFK’s assassination took place shortly after midnight on Wednesday, June 5, 1968, as RFK walked through a crowded food preparation area (better known as the kitchen pantry) in the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, CA. This hotel was closed in 1989 and torn down in 2005. Six public schools, named the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools, now stand on the site.

The alleged assassin, Sirhan B. Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestine-born non-Muslim with Jordanian citizenship, was one of approximately 77 persons in the pantry waiting for RFK to pass through on his way to a press conference. When the senator entered, Sirhan pulled out an eight-shot .22 caliber revolver, pointed it at the senator and fired eight times (Wilkes 3).

Wikipedia offers this detail.

He was on his way to another gathering of supporters elsewhere in the hotel. Reporters wanted a press conference, and campaign aide Fred Dutton decided that Kennedy would forgo the second gathering and instead go through the hotel's kitchen and pantry area behind the ballroom to the press area. Kennedy finished speaking and started to exit when William Barry stopped him and said, "No, it's been changed. We're going this way." Barry and Dutton began clearing a way for Kennedy to go left through swinging doors to the kitchen corridor, but Kennedy was hemmed in by the crowd and followed maître d'hôtel Karl Uecker through a back exit.

Uecker led Kennedy through the kitchen area, holding his right wrist, but frequently releasing it as Kennedy shook hands with people whom 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 an eight-shot .22 Long Rifle caliber Iver Johnson Cadet 55-A revolver.

Kennedy fell to the floor, and bodyguard William Barry hit Sirhan twice in the face while others, including writer George Plimpton and football player Rosey Grier, forced him against the steam table and disarmed him, as he continued firing his gun in random directions. Five other people were wounded in addition to Kennedy: William Weisel of ABC News, Paul Schrade of the United Automobile 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. Barry went to Kennedy and placed his jacket under the candidate's head, later recalling: "I knew immediately it was a .22, a small caliber, so I hoped it wouldn't be so bad, but then I saw the hole in the Senator's head, and I knew". Reporters and photographers rushed into the area from both directions, contributing to the confusion and chaos. As Kennedy lay wounded, Juan Romero cradled his head and placed a rosary in his hand. Kennedy asked Romero, "Is everybody OK?" and Romero responded, "Yes, everybody's OK." Kennedy then turned away and said, "Everything's going to be OK." This moment was captured by Life photographer Bill Eppridge and Boris Yaro of the Los Angeles Times and became the iconic image of the assassination. There was some initial confusion concerning who was shot, one witness believing that the primary victim was Kennedy's campaign manager and brother-in-law Stephen Edward Smith. Another witness stated that a female in a polka-dot dress had exclaimed repeatedly, "We killed him," before running away. Video footage of the witness's testimony can be seen in the Netflix series “Bobby Kennedy for President.”

Kennedy's wife Ethel was three months pregnant; she stood outside the crush of people at the scene seeking help. She was soon led to her husband and knelt beside him. He turned his head and seemed to recognize her. Smith promptly appeared on television and calmly asked for a doctor. Friend and journalist Pete Hamill recalled that Kennedy had "a kind of sweet accepting smile on his face, as if he knew it would all end this way". After several minutes, medical attendants arrived and lifted Kennedy onto a stretcher, prompting him to whisper, "Don't lift me", which were his last words, as he lost consciousness shortly after. He was taken a mile away to Central Receiving Hospital, where he arrived near death. One doctor slapped his face, calling, "Bob, Bob", while another doctor manually massaged his heart. After obtaining a good heartbeat, doctors handed a stethoscope to Ethel so that she could hear his heart beating.

After about 30 minutes, Kennedy was transferred several blocks to the Hospital of the Good Samaritan to undergo surgery (Assassination 4-5).

These are the recorded words of Mutual Broadcasting System reporter Andrew West:

Senator Kennedy has been … Senator Kennedy has been shot! Is that possible? It is possible, ladies and gentlemen! It is possible! He has … Not only Senator Kennedy! Oh my God! … I am right here, and Rafer Johnson has hold of the man who apparently fired the shot! He still has the gun! The gun is pointed at me right this moment! Get the gun! Get the gun! Get the gun! Stay away from the guy! Get his thumb! Get his thumb! Break it if you have to! Get the gun, Rafer [Johnson]! Hold him! We don’t want another Oswald (Kilgore 1).

Another eye-witness, Ivor Davis:

Suddenly, I heard balloons popping. One, two, three, four, five and six.

Then screams. I stepped into the pantry — and there on the concrete floor lay the candidate. Blood gushed from a head wound.

The scene was sheer bedlam.

Get the gun,” yelled a radio newsman.

Give him air,” screamed Ethel, cushioning her husband’s head on a straw hat on the floor.

Not again,” shrieked a Bobby supporter (Davis 4-5).

Sirhan [had been] … seized by bystanders, wrestled to the floor and turned over to police when they arrived (Wilkes 3).

No fewer than five physicians were in attendance at the California presidential primary, including a trauma surgeon. Within minutes of the shooting, the senator was already receiving medical care. RFK was in a semi-conscious state, lying on the kitchen floor for 17 minutes as paramedics were en route. His left eye was shut, his right eye open, but with the pupil shifted to the right. Kennedy was still able to move all four of his limbs.

But then Kennedy began to lose consciousness, prompting one of the doctors, a radiologist named Stanley Abo, to examine the senator’s head wound. A small blood clot had formed at the site of the bullet hole, so Abo inserted his finger into the hole to disrupt the clot. “With that action, the clot dislodged, blood flowed freely from the bullet hole, and Kennedy’s consciousness briefly improved,”…

By 12:32 am, RFK was on a stretcher and on his way to LA’s Central Receiving Hospital, arriving at 12:45 am. He was immediately cared for by Dr. V. Faustin Bazilauskas. At this stage, Kennedy’s gaze became fixed, he wasn’t breathing, and his pulse was almost impossible to detect. The medical staff hooked him up to an IV, inserted an oral airway, placed a respirator mask on his face, and started compressions, which went on for 10 minutes. They also gave him some adrenaline and other medications. Eventually, the senator’s blood pressure returned. It soon became obvious to Bazilauskas and his colleague Dr. Albert Holt that they weren’t able to offer the care required to treat Kennedy’s injuries, so they transferred him to the Good Samaritan Hospital. … the delay in getting the senator to the appropriate hospital was the biggest mistake made that evening—a problem caused when the initial call for ambulance was made, and the nature of Kennedy’s injuries was not fully disclosed.

If the dispatcher had known the injury was a gunshot to the head, the ambulance driver would likely have been instructed to bypass the smaller hospital and go directly to the nearby 400-bed Good Samaritan Hospital,”…

the delay ultimately didn’t have an effect on the final outcome.

Once at the ICU unit of the new hospital and placed under the care of Drs. Paul A. Ironside and Hubert Humble, RFK was disrobed so that his other two wounds could be inspected. He had a gunshot wound on the right side of his back, with X-rays showing a bullet lodged in his neck; the injury was not considered life threatening. He also had a wound on his right shoulder, but no other bullets were found lodged within his body.

The senator was now in very bad shape, and he was no longer responding to pain. At 2:45 am, Kennedy was transferred to the operating room where he received an emergency craniotomy. In 1968, doctors did not have the benefit of modern medical tools such as computed tomography (CT) scans, but they did have X-rays, and they were able to perform brain surgery, and in a manner similar to how it’s still done today.

Over the course of the three hour and 45 minute long craniotomy, the doctors worked to remove as many bits of bone and bullet fragments as possible. After the surgery, RFK regained some motor activity on the right side of his body, as shown by his response to a pin prick.


RFK remained relatively stable in the hours following the surgery, but by 6:00 pm on June 5, about 12 hours after the craniotomy, his condition began to deteriorate. The pressure in his brain began to rise, his electroencephalogram readings became flat, and he stopped breathing. Kennedy never regained consciousness, and he was pronounced dead at 1:44 am local time on June 6, 1968 (Dvorsky 2-4).

Here are additional recollections of individuals who were present at the hotel.

Boris Yaro had arrived at the Ambassador Hotel at 10:30 the night of June 4. The Los Angeles Times reporter was off-duty and hoping to grab a photo of Kennedy. Hours later, after Kennedy took the stage and addressed the crowd, Yaro shouted at the senator to hold up two fingers. He missed the shot.

Yaro saw an opening to the kitchen. Maybe now he’d get his chance.

Gunshots rang out.

Six people were wounded by the gunfire. Only one would die.

The reaction I had was, ‘My God, not again.’”

Yaro saw Kennedy slip to the floor as bystanders grabbed the shooter and slammed his hand down on a freezer top, knocking the gun loose.

I reached out and picked up that revolver,” Yaro said. “I remember the grip was still warm.”

William Barry, Kennedy’s bodyguard and a former FBI agent, grabbed the gun. Rosey Grier, the football player, reportedly sat on the gunman until police arrived.

Kennedy was on his back, drenched in blood. Yaro took six frames.

He headed to The Times’ office. He turned over his film and, after describing what he had seen to the reporter writing the story, went into the darkroom to see the images.

There, in the darkness, he wept (Shalby 1-2).

Juan Romero is 17, working as a busboy. He hears that Bobby Kennedy has won the California Democratic primary in a bid for the presidency of the United States. Romero rushes to the food service area Kennedy is passing through and reaches out to congratulate the man he had met the night before while delivering room service.

And then the shots, the screams, the commotion.

Kennedy goes down, flat on his back, a ghostly look in his eyes. Romero crouches to help, and the black-and-white photographs freeze forever the image of a young immigrant laborer at the side of fallen American aristocracy.


He’d grown up in Mexico, moved to the U.S. at 10, began getting into trouble while going to Hollenbeck Middle School and then Roosevelt High in Boyle Heights. His unfailingly strict stepfather worked at the Ambassador and helped Romero get a job as a busboy to keep him off the street. Romero lifted a pair of rosary beads from the glove compartment of his mother’s car and carried them in his pocket to ward off the temptation to miss school or be late for work.

Bobby Kennedy, candidate for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States, checked into the hotel at the end of the California primary. Romero, who recalled homes in Mexico with photos of the pope and of John F. Kennedy, badly wanted to meet a Kennedy. He told other busboys he’d do anything for them if they let him take a room service call from the candidate.

Romero and a waiter knocked at the door, then pushed two food carts into the room. Several people were present. Kennedy stood at a bay window, finished up a phone call and turned to the visitors.

He said, ‘Come on in, boys,’” Romero recalls, the memory bringing a smile to his face.

I remember staring at him with my mouth open, and I see him shaking the hand of a waiter and then reaching out to me. I remember him grabbing my hand and he gave me a two-handed shake,” said Romero.

He had piercing blue eyes, and he looked right at you. You knew he was looking at you and not through you … I remember walking out of that room … feeling 10 feet tall, feeling like an American.… I didn’t feel like I was Mexican, and I didn’t feel like I was a busboy, and I didn’t feel like I was 17 years old. I felt like I was right there with him.”

The next night, when Kennedy won the primary and made his victory speech at the Ambassador, Romero pushed through the crowd, eager to congratulate him, and to shake his hand once more.

He reached out, and the bullets tore into Kennedy. Romero took out his rosary beads and tried to press them into Kennedy’s hand (Lopez 1-2, 4-5).

SMCC student, Vince Dipierro:

"I couldn't eat for two days. I still get a sick feeling when I'm near the place where he was shot . . . when they brought me home from the first FBI interrogation, there were five police cars parked in front of my place. I felt like a star witness! As it turned out I was the only one who actually saw the first fatal shot fired at Robert Kennedy."

It all started as Vince, a part time Ambassador Hotel waiter, was standing five feet from Kennedy: Sirhan's sickly smile, a smiling girl in a polka dot dress, a quickly raised pistol, and bang! bang! bang! bang! and bang! Fifth Shot. It was the fifth shot that, according to FBI investigators, could have hit Vince in the neck if he hadn't been knocked to the floor by the men wounded on each side of him. "I was scared and numb, never so scared in my life. I trembled for the next two days, couldn't work for ten days. I was still upset when I went back to work." …

"Sirhan knew exactly what he was doing. That smile on his face; he thought he was making a hero out of himself. He deserves the death penalty. "You know, I'll never forget the feel of Kennedy's blood as it splattered gently on the side of my face. Like someone had dipped his hand in warm water and flicked his fingers at me . . . and the ten hours of questioning by the LAPD and the FBI . . . the lie detector test a month later ... to prove that I had really seen the girl in the polka dot dress . . . and the four days in court as a prosecution witness." … (RFK 1-2).

"I have those dreams of seeing Bobby’s body fall down," Corbett said Tuesday. "It’s very strong, and it doesn’t go away. Despite 50 years behind me, I still replay those memories in slow motion."

Dick Corbett was Kennedy’s presidential campaign head of finance. Corbett remembers passing rows of stainless steel work tables littered with dirty dishes and Kennedy shaking the hand of a skinny busboy.

Then, a small man with a .22-caliber revolver stepped out from behind a rack of trays.

Corbett was standing over Kennedy’s right shoulder and saw the gun but didn’t react. It didn’t seem real. By the time the shooter was done, Kennedy was hit three times — once behind his ear, once in his chest and once in the back of his neck. Three other people also had been hit.

Kennedy crumpled to the floor, and the busboy — Juan Modesto [actually Romero], now 67 and living in Modesto, Calif. — found himself cradling Kennedy’s bleeding head in his hands. Corbett remembers bending down and loosening Kennedy’s tie. Blood and the smell of gunpowder was everywhere.

Kennedy was pronounced dead at 1:44 a.m. at Good Samaritan hospital. The family wanted somebody they knew and trusted to remain with the body as an autopsy was performed.

"So I stayed in the morgue, in the basement, the whole night. I watched the coroner perform the autopsy," Corbett said. "The smell of embalming fluid still turns my stomach."

Two days later, Corbett was part of the funeral train that traveled from St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York to Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.


"It was a complete change in my life. All the starry-eyed excitement of youth, when you are following somebody who had such an important cause, just dimmed. Bobby’s death killed me" (Fanning 1-3).

Sirhan’s California state court trial for the murder of RFK began on Feb. 13, 1969, and ended two months later on Apr. 17, when the jury found Sirhan guilty. The trial judge imposed a death sentence, reduced to life imprisonment by the California Supreme Court in 1972. Incarcerated now for 51 years, Sirhan is still serving that sentence.

The official government version of the RFK assassination—the stated view of the FBI, the Los Angeles Police Department and prosecutors in the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office—is that Sirhan was the lone assassin, that Sirhan fired all the shots in the pantry and that there was no conspiracy. According to the official narrative of the assassination, therefore, a single assassin acting alone slew RFK.

However, for persons who have scrutinized the facts surrounding the RFK assassination, or examined the quality of the official investigation, the official account lacks credibility.

Today, it is evident that there are glaring weaknesses in the official account—particularly its no-conspiracy contention. Major discrepancies exist between the official account and the actual evidence. The official probe of the murder was substandard and amounted to a cover-up. There is ballistics and autopsy evidence establishing the existence of a conspiracy (Wilkes 3).

Critics of the police investigation have alleged the following. There had been a second shooter, possibly a woman in a polka-dot dress or the man allegedly seen accompanying her, both supposedly seen with Sirhan several days earlier. Sirhan may have been hypnotized. At least 13 shots had been fired; Sirhan’s pistol had had no more than 8 bullets. The three bullets that had struck Kennedy had come from behind him, not from the front of him.

A 2018 medical research team from Duke University School of Medicine, after reviewing a number of sources while conducting its review of the assassination -- including eyewitness accounts, various medical records, and the autopsy report itself – did concluded that Sirhan’s bullets struck Kennedy and that he was the lone shooter.

many people witnessed the shooting. Much has been made of the fact that the assassin approached Kennedy from the front, but the gunshot wounds were in the back. Several witnesses documented that Kennedy’s head was turned to his left as he was shot, which explains the trajectory of the bullets. In addition, witnesses claim that Sirhan came no closer than a foot from Kennedy when the shooting occurred, but the autopsy report estimates that the gun was within inches of the skin based on the presence of gunpowder in the wound. The same witnesses did not see another shooter. Despite concern over the trajectory of the bullet and controversy about gunpowder on the skin, there was never clear evidence of conspiracy and Sirhan was ruled the lone gunman (Dvorsky 6).

You may read a detailed argument for a second shooter by accessing https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Robert_Kennedy_Assassination.html

Inside St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, before 2,100 people wearing black, the last surviving Kennedy brother, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, began his unannounced eulogy for Bobby.

On behalf of Mrs. Kennedy, her children, the parents and sisters of Robert Kennedy, I want to express what we feel to those who mourn with us today in this Cathedral and around the world,” the young senator from Massachusetts said on June 8, 1968. “We loved him as a brother, and as a father, and as a son.”

He gave us strength in time of trouble, wisdom in time of uncertainty, and sharing in time of happiness. He will always be by our side,” Ted Kennedy said at the funeral. “Love is not an easy feeling to put into words. Nor is loyalty, or trust, or joy. But he was all of these. He loved life completely and he lived it intensely.”


My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it,” he said. “Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world. As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him.”

He paused, regaining his composure to quote Bobby a final time: “Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not” (Mettler 1, 2, 4).


Works cited:

“Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.” Wikipedia. Web. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Robert_F._Kennedy#Assassination


Davis, Ivor. “The Night Bobby Kennedy Was Shot – An Eyewitness Account 50 Years Later.” The Wrap. June 5, 2018. Web. https://www.thewrap.com/night-bobby-kennedy-died-eyewitness-account-ivor-davis/


Dvorsky, George. “New Medical Analysis Shows What Really Happened on the Night Robert F. Kennedy Was Assassinated.” Gizmodo. June 19, 2018. Web. https://gizmodo.com/new-medical-analysis-shows-what-really-happened-on-the-1826949062

Fanning, Ed. “Dick Corbett of Tampa, Witness to RFK Assassination, Still Feels the Loss Every Day.” Tampa Bay Times. June 5, 2018. Web. https://www.tampabay.com/news/Dick-Corbett-of-Tampa-witness-to-RFK-assassination-still-feels-the-loss-every-day_168875497


Kilgore, Ed. “The Powerful Myth of Would-Be President RFK, 50 Years Later.” Intelligencer. June 5, 2018. Web. http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/06/the-50th-anniversary-of-robert-f-kennedys-assassination.html


Lopez, Steve. “Column: 50 Years Later, the RFK Busboy Still Waits on Someone to Follow in Kennedy’s Footsteps.” Los Angeles Times. June 2, 2018. Web. https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lopez-rfk-busboy-20180602-story.html


Mettler, Katie. “‘Those He Youched’: Ted Kennedy’s Heartbreaking Eulogy for His Slain Brother, Bobby.” The Washington Post. June 8, 2018. Web. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/06/08/those-he-touched-ted-kennedys-heartbreaking-eulogy-for-his-slain-brother-bobby/?noredirect=on


“RFK Assassination Eyewitness Recalls Horror Of June 6,1968.” California Digital Newspaper Collection. April 30, 1969. Web. https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=CRS19690430.2.15&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN--------1


Shalby, Colleen. “The Assassination of Robert Kennedy, as Told 50 Years Later.” Los Angeles Times. June 4, 2018. Web. https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-na-robert-f-kennedy/

Wilkes Jr., Donald E. “The Real Story of the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.” Flagpole. June 19, 2019. Web. https://flagpole.com/news/news-features/2019/06/19/the-real-story-of-the-assassination-of-robert-f-kennedy