RFK children speak about assassination in Dallas
DALLAS (AP) - Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is convinced that a lone gunman wasn't solely responsible for the assassination of his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, and said his father believed the Warren Commission report was a "shoddy piece of craftsmanship."
Kennedy and his sister, Rory, were interviewed by Charlie Rose on Friday night in front of an audience in Dallas as a year of observances begins for the 50th anniversary of the president's death.
Their uncle was killed on Nov. 22, 1963. Five years later, their father was assassinated in a Los Angeles hotel during his primary victory celebration.
Robert Kennedy said his father spent a year trying to come to grips with his brother's death. He said his read writings by Greek philosophers, Catholic scholars, poets and Henry David Thoreau "trying to figure out kind of the existential implications of why a just God would allow injustice to happen of the magnitude he was seeing."
He said his father believed the Warren Commission, which concluded Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing the president, was a "shoddy piece of craftsmanship." He said that he, too, questioned the report.
"The evidence at this point is convincing that it wasn't a lone gunman," he said, but he didn't say what he believed may have happened.
The attorney and well-known environmentalist also told the audience light-hearted stories Friday about memories of his uncle.
As a young child with an interest in the environment, he recalled, he made an appointment with his uncle to speak with him in the Oval Office about pollution.
He'd even caught a salamander to present to the president, which unfortunately died before the meeting.
"He kept saying to me, 'It doesn't look well,'" Robert Kennedy recalled.
Kennedy and his sister, Rory, were interviewed by Charlie Rose on Friday night in front of an audience in Dallas as a year of observances begins for the 50th anniversary of the president's death.
Their uncle was killed on Nov. 22, 1963. Five years later, their father was assassinated in a Los Angeles hotel during his primary victory celebration.
Robert Kennedy said his father spent a year trying to come to grips with his brother's death. He said his read writings by Greek philosophers, Catholic scholars, poets and Henry David Thoreau "trying to figure out kind of the existential implications of why a just God would allow injustice to happen of the magnitude he was seeing."
He said his father believed the Warren Commission, which concluded Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing the president, was a "shoddy piece of craftsmanship." He said that he, too, questioned the report.
"The evidence at this point is convincing that it wasn't a lone gunman," he said, but he didn't say what he believed may have happened.
The attorney and well-known environmentalist also told the audience light-hearted stories Friday about memories of his uncle.
As a young child with an interest in the environment, he recalled, he made an appointment with his uncle to speak with him in the Oval Office about pollution.
He'd even caught a salamander to present to the president, which unfortunately died before the meeting.
"He kept saying to me, 'It doesn't look well,'" Robert Kennedy recalled.
No one has ever been able to duplicate what Oswald supposedly was able to do. Â There was another video recording that revealed possible shots from the grassy knoll - this video tape was confiscated and NEVER made public. Â Even the autopsy was botched. Â I will always believe Oswald was innocent and that the Warren Commission for whatever reasons did not investigate properly or chose not to report the truth.
Ya oswald got 3 shots off with a mannlicher-carcano(italian for piece-o-cacrap) rifle in 6 and a half seconds on a moving target with 2 hits including a head shot......Ya right !
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 @sargerator YOU said it!!
A reading of David Talbot's "Brothers" and certain other books will give insight into Bobby's real feelings about the assassination and the Warren Commission report. In short he was certain that there had been a conspiracy and that he was constrained politically from attempts to investigate and hopefully expose the truth. He told many intimates that his securing the presidency himself would enable him to have control of an investigation which hopefully would expose the actual people and agencies involved in the killing of his brother.
Of course Oswald didn't kill JFK.
Try reading Vincent Bugliosi's award-winning book, Reclaiming History. Clearly, Oswald WAS the lone assassin.
@felines99Â Bugliosi's book is nonsense. A lawyer taking one side of an argument. He could easily write another to present the opposite conclusion.
"Simply stated, it isn't fashionable to think that Kennedy was the victim of a tragic historical accident. Accepting the conclusions of the Warren Report is uncool.
In this environment, enter Vincent Bugliosi . .. . What Bugliosi has done is reframe the narrative in such a compelling manner, in such an original writing voice, that he essentially shuts the conspiracy theorists down cold. 'Reclaiming History' is the unrushed version of the Warren Commission report, with all the wrinkles ironed out.
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In a 20-year effort, Bugliosi takes the Kennedy assassination and lays it out on a legal pad, pros and cons, discrepancies and all, and comes up with what amounts to an airtight prosecution brief. In so doing, he takes the storytelling to the next level; scores of pages are devoted to merciless debunking of leading critics of the Warren Report. And, to his credit, Bugliosi does not personally dismiss sincere critics, even those who, for example, have written books alleging that the Zapruder film was massively altered.
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At some point, dots have to be connected. Responsible investigators have to come up with some evidence that meets a simple legal standard: credible. Furthermore, the facts in the case have to connect with other known facts in order to be credible. Bugliosi has taken the existing research and presented it in such a fashion as to leave no trace of doubt, let alone reasonable doubt, that Kennedy was shot twice, by Oswald, using his own perfectly accurate rifle, with no help, from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
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In 'Reclaiming History', Bugliosi goes as far as humanly possible to establish and arrange the facts. Slight inconsistencies are standard in any criminal case . . . . But it requires a far greater suspension of disbelief to think that a minor crank like Oswald would actually be entrusted with the assassination by the CIA, the mob and Castro than it does to think that he carried the act off himself.
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The popular American catechism says Kennedy was killed by some goofy amalgam of sinister forces. It's very entertaining, but it's just not so."
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.Political Science professor and journalist Jack Ohman.
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 @axpman  @hill Nah. Read the book. It's all there.
 @felines99  @hill Video alone shows that it's impossible for JFK to have been killed in the manner put forth as the official story. Â
 @hill  Bugliosi specializes in dramatic fiction. The portrait he painted of Charles Manson was ridiculous. It was brilliant because it got a really dangerous man put away forever, but that nonsense about "Helter Skelter" being the primary motive was ludicrous. Saying that it was all about drugs and money would have been pretty boring though, and he wouldn't have had as much to directly connect Manson to the murders.
 @hill You obviously HAVE NOT READ Bugliosi's book (or you are brain-dead).