‘RFK Must Be Killed’: Declassified Robert F. Kennedy Assassination Files Give Insight Into His Murderer’s Mind

The CIA released declassified documents related to its investigation into the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, uncovering for the first time the former attorney general’s “patriotic” relationship with the spy agency during the Cold War.The release of the 1,450 pages of declassified files also included personal and unsettling notes written by Sirhan Sirhan, the Palestinian-Jordanian assassin who shot Kennedy three times at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968. In one handwritten note scribbled during his murder trial, Sirhan repeatedly writes, “R.F.K. must be assassinated” and “RFK must be killed.”Also released is a heavily redacted 1968 personality profile of Sirhan, taken days after Kennedy was killed, which gives a glimpse into the assassin’s mental state.“High intellectual potential [Redacted] not properly utilized, due to severe [redacted],” the report reads.Sirhan Sirhan, charged with the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy during a campaign stop in California. Keystone/Getty Images“No specialized training in any areas, but would have various potentials, if not [redacted]. Learns and understands quickly, but only what fits into his personal frame of reference,” the report adds.In a television interview in 1989, Sirhan told “Inside Edition” that he killed Kennedy after feeling betrayed by his support for Israel during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.“My only connection with Robert Kennedy was his sole support of Israel and his deliberate attempt to send those 50 bombers to Israel to obviously do harm to the Palestinians,” Sirhan said in the interview. He killed Kennedy, who had just finished delivering a victory speech following his win in the 1968 California Democratic presidential primary, not out of “personal malice toward the man, but out of concern for other people,” Sirhan added.Kennedy was serving as a senator from New York at the time of his death.Among the other files released was the CIA’s “personality dossier,” which included a detailed report from Kennedy that he shared with the CIA after, as a Senate staffer, he took an official tour behind the Iron Curtain, include a trip to Baku, Azerbaijan, in what was then the USSR, in 1955. Robert F Kennedy Jr. attends the funeral of his father at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, June 8, 1968. Pix/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images“A great deal has taken place in Baku since the revolution. Before the revolution people were illiterate and there were few public buildings, schools or hospitals and a great number of slums. This has all been changed,” Kennedy told the CIA interviewer. “Our interpreter told us there was no unemployment in Baku and that 99 percent of the population was literate,” Kennedy told his CIA contact, according to the file. “We saw the building where all the newspapers and magazines in town are published, about 100 of them,” he added.The declassified documents are part of President Trump’s executive order to release the remaining files from the assassinations of Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and President Kennedy. In April, the CIA released more than 10,000 pages of declassified records connected to Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination. Mourners pass the coffin of Robert F Kennedy during his funeral at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, June 8, 1968. Pix/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images“Lifting the veil on the RFK papers is a necessary step toward restoring trust in American government,” the health and human services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Kennedy’s son, said in a statement. “Today’s release delivers on President Trump’s commitment to maximum transparency, enabling the CIA to shine light on information that serves the public interest,” the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, said. “I am proud to share our work on this incredibly important topic with the American people.”

‘RFK Must Be Killed’: Declassified Robert F. Kennedy Assassination Files Give Insight Into His Murderer’s Mind

‘RFK Must Be Killed’: Declassified Robert F. Kennedy Assassination Files Give Insight Into His Murderer’s Mind

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