Robert F. Kennedy assassinated, June 5, 1968
Some 50 minutes after this day had begun on the West Coast in 1968, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.) was shot three times in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles by Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian immigrant with Jordanian citizenship, who was born in Jerusalem and who held strongly anti-Zionist beliefs.
Five others were wounded in the hail of gunfire, which came after Kennedy had addressed a crowd celebrating his victory in the California Democratic presidential primary.
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Despite intensive neurosurgery at the Good Samaritan Hospital to remove the bullet and bone fragments from his brain, Kennedy died some 26 hours later. His body was flown to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York for a funeral Mass on June 8.
Kennedy was buried later that day at Arlington National Cemetery. His funeral train took eight hours to make the trip to Washington’s Union Station, as tens of thousands of mourners lined the tracks to pay their last respects.
Kennedy had mounted his presidential campaign on March 16, 1968, after Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-Minn.) had paved the way in his own bid for the White House. Fifteen days later, President Lyndon Johnson announced he would not seek reelection, and Vice President Hubert Humphrey became Kennedy’s chief rival. While Kennedy went on to win five of six primaries, his nomination would not have been assured had he lived.
Sirhan was scheduled to die for his crime, but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1972 when the California Supreme Court abolished the death penalty. He has repeatedly been denied parole.
Kennedy was 42 years old when he died. He was survived by his widow, Ethel, who was with him when he died. The couple had 11 children.
Kennedy’s assassination prompted Secret Service protection for major presidential candidates. Humphrey, who had skirted the primaries, went on to win the Democratic nomination at a tumultuous national convention in Chicago. He lost narrowly in November to Republican Richard Nixon.
SOURCE: “ROBERT KENNEDY: HIS LIFE,” BY EVAN THOMAS (2000)