From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of iHeart Radio.
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noel.
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Paul Mission Controlled decad Most importantly, you are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. This evening, we're returning to one of the strangest cases of assassination in US history, which is saying a lot if you know anything about US history. We talked about parts of this story in numerous previous episodes. Do check out our work on the assassination of JFK in nineteen
sixty three. Also check out Rob Reiner's excellent recent deep dive Who Killed JFK, And then also look into some of our previous work in this and other shows on the death of JFK's brother, Robert Kennedy just five years later in nineteen sixty eight.
Oh yeah, there's a ton of previous work. We would send everybody over to listen to the RFK tapes, which is a show that came out June fifth, twenty eighteen, exactly fifty years after the assassination of RFK. It's Really Good, hosted by a guy named Zach Stewart Pontier and Bill Klaber, who then went on to host the MLK tapes that we made in twenty twenty two about Martin Luther King's assassination also in nineteen sixty eight.
It was a heck of a year.
Oh yeah, and just up top, guys, I wanted to mention this because I literally found out as I was doing research for this episode, the connective tissue between rfk's assassination and mlk's assassination is this attorney named William Pepper. He was a big part of the MLK. Well, he was interviewed for the RFK tapes, but he's a big part of the MLK tapes, and the host Bill Klaber, spent a bunch of time with him in his home and I just found out he passed away on April seventh this year.
Yeah, this year.
Really sad. He's like an amazing human being that's done an incredible amount of work and it's just really sad that he's.
Passed and he has quite a record, mister Pepper of activism, of investigation.
Yeah, and well he represented Syrah and Syrian and he also represented James Earl ray On, behalf of the King family.
Yeah, it may surprise some of us, especially younger listeners. You might hear us some an assassination happened multiple in nineteen sixty eight. That was a long time ago, so it might it might baffle you to realize that the man who murdered RFK is alive today. The man who was convicted a first degree murder in the case of Robert Kennedy is alive today. In fact, he almost got parole not too long ago, and his legal team has been attempting to get him parolled for decades as well.
We had in our episode on Drugs as Weapons, we had a conversation about Jimson whed and Datura. Yeah, it prompted us to return to a question that well over thirty five percent of Americans have been asking for a very long time. Was rfk's assassin, Sirhan Sirhan involved in
a conspiracy? Here are the facts. First, I mean, I feel like maybe we're in an information bubble because the three of us know or the four of us know who Sirran Sirrahan is, But do we think most people know or is it just a name they might have heard.
I think it might largely be a name I might have heard, simply because it's kind of remarkable as a name, you know, it immediately makes you sort of take notice with what, what's a double name? What's that about? And also, by the way, Jimson Weed, doesn't that sound like a nom de plume for like some sort of Southern Fried like author or something. I really like.
We like him as an old prospector. Yeah, his dog's name is silver, of course. Okay, yeah, I think I was on that episode.
But I do love that. Sirhan Bishara Sirhan Man literally's first name, last name, same thing that must have been intentional. Was born in Jerusalem mandatory really yeah wow, mandatory Palestine. It's very consistent upon itself on March nineteenth, nineteen forty four. He was raised as a Palestinian Christian and was also born with Jordanian citizenship. He moved to the US at the age of twelve, to New York and then eventually to California, where he attended Pasadena City College.
Yeah, it's kind of an American dream. Sirahan has as of this point not acquired US citizenship and remains a citizen of the nation of Jordan. I love your point out religion because he was always a fervent Christian growing up, and like many people, he was on a search for
spiritual meaning, so he evaluated several different Christian denominations. As an adult, he attended Baptist services, he spent time as a Seventh Day Adventist, and eventually he joined an esoteric organization called the Rosicrucians in nineteen sixty six, which will be familiar to longtime listeners.
For sure, the Order of the Rose Cross.
Yes, yeah, in his case he joined the largest one, the ancient mystical Order of the Rose Cross. Its describes itself as a fraternal order, a philosophical, a political order that is devoted to quote, the study of the elusive mysteries of life and the universe. Nothing weird, nothing vague.
Well, folks might remember that from our conversations around the Georgia guidestones and the potential identity of R. C. Christian, which that you know, a pseudonym RC believed to be referring to Rose Cross and then was a member of that order as well, which has a lot of parallels to Freemason kind of ideology.
Yeah, this is I'm glad you mentioned that as well, because Rosicrucianism is already bound up in multiple unrelated conspiracy theories. So for the many people who believe there's more to Sirhan Sirhan's story, whatever that might be, this association can feel like not quite a red flag, but maybe a rosy one, a not worth it, I don't.
Know, look of the world through Rosaicretian colored glasses.
You will, However, Surhan Surhan is now not famous for not best known for being a member of a rose Crucian order, is unfortunately best known for the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel on June fifth, nineteen sixty eight, the one year anniversary of the nineteen sixty seven Arab Israeli War.
And another name for that war is the Sixth Day War. You can look that up if you'd like to. It's another one of those times in history where there was there was a lot of often hidden and sometimes overt anti Israel sentiment.
Yeah, and a lot of Islamophobia as well. A lot of bad blood is the best way to put it. This is also known as the Third Arab Israeli War, and it's called Arab Israeli, of course, is a specific state. It's called Arab because a coalition of Arab states. We're on the other side of the conflict, primarily Syria, Egypt, and Sirhan, Sirhan's homeland of Jordan. So there's a lot of context that goes into this, and will later learn what Sirhan himself says about this, and then later reneges
upon a couple of times. Things are On the day of his death on June fifth, nineteen sixty eight, things are looking pretty great for Robert Kennedy. It's a very tense situation. You know, if you've ever lost a sibling, you don't just get over it. So the death of his brother and one of his closest friends is still very much haunting him. And like the rest of America, Robert Kennedy has very serious questions about the official investigation into the murder of JFK.
Well, as we learned with our previous look at JFK, his brother RFK that we're talking about today, is he owes his political rear to his brother, right, Like he was brought into the fold by JFK essentially appointed, and you know, America overall was not too happy about RFK getting appointed to where he was, Like remember when he brought when he was brought in as I think attorney general.
He was yes, without despite not having qualifications to be attorney general.
So you can imagine they're not just brothers. They're like in a way, business partners, very closely tied right in their political careers. So when JFK is assassinated, it's let's say, it was of high interest to his brother and business partner.
And just like his brother, Kennedy, Robert Kennedy is no fan of the company or the agency, the CIA. They do not get along.
He in the FBI right because because of some of the implications that had been going on with activity, let's say, monitoring activities by the FBI.
Yeah, these are the days of a different kind of wire tapping than people labor under in this country. In twenty twenty four, Robert Kennedy is running for president. He is the Democratic front runner. Right now, he's in California. He has successfully done his bit to achieve like to get one step closer to being the Democratic candidate for the next presidential election. So he's at the Ambassador Hotel. The reason we're bringing up the CIA FBI connections, they
go deep. It's also interesting to note that he has a lot of unofficial bodyguards at this point, several athletes who just believe in his cause, believe in his mission, and he has been on record saying to the FBI and CIA associate it's like, stay away, you know what I mean. I don't need your involvement here. I am running a presidency for the people, so I want to meet the people.
But he has a former FBI agent rolling with him, right.
He does.
He has a former FBI agent that we'll get to or or a former associate. We'll see, we'll see.
Like Bill Berry, isn't it right? Am I wrong?
I thought, Oh, I'm thinking of Thane Caesar, who was a security guard was in the in the area but not working directly with r fk.
Oh Okay, not that was Bill Berry. There was a there's an ex FBI agent who was also rolling with him at the time when like at least when he well, we'll get to. But when he went into the area where he was shot.
Emphasis on x FBI agent. What we're saying is that many of the people in the Ambassador Hotel at this time had interesting past all their own. Each could be an epic. Well, many of them could be their own episodes. Uh, we'll give you the official story, Sirhan. The court found Sirhan shot Robert Kennedy four to times with a twenty two caliber pistol, leading to Kennedy's death twenty six hours later, due primarily to injuries to the brainstem and to his head,
his occipital lobe and so on. Other victims were there. Other people got shot. There were six shooting victims all in all, including some journalists, a democratic activist, a campaign volunteer. All of the other people except RFK survived thankfully. And Sirhan has tackled immediately he's brought to the ground. He's still firing wildly in the air by ourn.
Tired football player, right.
Yes, and Rayfer Johnson, who was an Olympic athlete and to Catalon gold medalist. Yeah, those two guys were the kind of the security detail we were talking about.
Rosie Greer being the name of the La Rams I believe former football player.
Yes, that's correct. No relation to the Rosicrucians that we know of, or there or. This is definitely an or is there episode, because when Sirhan is being taken down, he is alleged to have been yelling out things like I can explain, and I did this for my country.
What a thing to say whilst mid shooting spree. No, really, give me a chance to explain. It's all good. Don't worry about it.
Right, Yeah, like someone's gonna go wait, let's hear.
Him out, Jesus.
So later he would note in a couple of different conversations, he would note that he felt betrayed by rfk's support of Israel. There are there's a specific moment he cites where he says, I decided RFK had to die three weeks ago before I came to the Ambassador hotel because I was incensed by his that he was going to send military support to Israel, specifically jets.
Well, yeah, in his pocket there was a newspaper clipping that specifically said, quote, the United States should, without delay, sell Israel the fifty phantom jets she has so long been promised, which is a quote from Kennedy in that clipping. And I think it can also be noted that when when Sire and Sirhan's home was rated, there was a notebook allegedly in there that had scribbling all over it quote RFK must die. Like like, we'll.
Get to that too. Oh yeah, yeah, that's.
The stuff of like conspiracy movies, you know where you see it like scrawled on the wall and blood or something, you know what I mean.
Yeah, as we'll find later in this episode, it's definitely the stuff of premeditation.
If he actually wrote it, put it there, just just putting that out there.
Yep. And before it gets all of that, let's get to the let's go back to that specific day, the aftermathic conspiracy. As we said, he's captured, he's tacked, he is disarmed at the scene. A few days later, he confesses to the murder to police and interrogation, but then he pleads not guilty, and there's this trial that goes
on for quite some time. A judge. His legal team later asked the judge to allow him to change his plead too guilty after those papers are found in his home that have what you would call highly implicating language, you know what I mean, kind of the way that a celebrity stalker might be found to have a bunch of writing in their home that for prosecution can function as evidence of escalation, right, evidence of going from compulsive thoughts to action. And this is a thing that happens.
The question is, you know, the question about the providence of the handwriting, the origin of the writing, stuff like that that has been an extreme focus for a lot of what we will call independent researchers. Maybe he also he did something I don't know how to feel about this. According to witnesses and reporters during this lengthy trial, he behaved in an odd manner and for more I guess
cynical or skeptical observers. They were certain that he was acting this way on purpose, trying to put on a show to bolster his legal team's argument that he had diminished capacities, diminished mental capacities at the time of the
time of the murders and even during the trial. And we kind of, I hate to say it, but we do see that kind of attempt at theater in court cases in the US, you know, somebody is filing for a personal injury and they make sure that they show up like kitted out right, even if they might not need all the cast or the neck braces, et cetera. And then what's that thing. Like a lot of celebrities, there was this halcyon era in the nineties and early
two thousands. Whenever a controversial celebrity or musician went to court, they always for some reason that glass is on.
Yeah, because it makes you, like, what a little more approachable seeming, Not sunglasses though, right, like glass No, no, yeah, that would be the opposite of fact if it was anyone wearing sunglasses inside immediately sus. But now if you're wearing glasses, it makes oh, you're a human being, just you know, you have flaws, right, your eyes are are perfect.
This guy couldn't have done it that much cocaine, like did his.
Glasses almost did a spittack just sorry, well, let's talk.
His demeanor was described really strangely when he was there, like at the assassination. So trial is one thing you're talking about. I've seen that too. But when he was there at scene, his calm demeanor was noted several times just how he acted. He acted and did a thing and then was calm. But they also described him as being quote not in complete control of his mind while at the scene, which what does that mean?
Well, the calm aspect combined with that really makes me think of like someone's been activated, right, and then they're like, you know, kind of non emotionally going through these pre sat instructions, right, yeah, right.
The idea then that a series of commands had been enacted and afterwards you're just done, the program has run. Right, that's the implication here, But there is there's even more to the story, which we'll get into. These are still just the facts. The jury was not convinced by this argument for diminished capacity. There are long standing questions about whether defense dropped the ball in some way and be that as it made. Sirhan was convicted on April seventeenth,
nineteen sixty nine. He was sentenced to death in the gas chamber three years later. This sentence, like all of the death sentences in California, is commuted to life in prison, and that's due to a Supreme Court ruling People versus Anderson, which outlawed the death penalty in that state. So that was a blanket change. It's very important to note he
was not singled out and getting his sentence commuted. The way that the way that George Bush did for those serial killers in Texas or for that one serial killer. But there's another strange aspect to the story that we have to give you right before we get to the ad break. It's one that remained consistent for quite some time. For decades, Sirhan. Sirhan has claimed he has little to no memory of the assassination at all.
Yeah, and the reason why we're talking about this is because we talked about that drug and like what it would do in the moment, you could lose your memory. So I say we dive in to any of the possible conspiracy theories surrounding this thing and just go through each one.
Yeah, we'll get to it after a word from our sponsors. Here's where it gets crazy. How does that old saying go? Every prison is full of innocent men, depending on who you ask. Sirhan's case is different because there is never really a question about whether he was in the room, whether he attacked RFK. Well, just say whether he attacked
our FK. There's no question about that. Absolutely happened, multiple witnesses, ballistics evidence, he had a gun, he fired the gun, he admitted that, and earlier he had written, or he appears to have written, a manifesto calling for Kennedy's death. It's chock full of vitriolic language condemning Kennedy. It is clear and inarguable that he did not particularly care for RFK.
But again, the world is full of people who don't like each other, and most of them never become assassins, right, most of them are just like it's Greg.
Well, yeah, I think it creates a problem for anyone who comes after to look at this thing, because if you've got an individual who has a depresentment of someone, then they could be used as a very helpful We'll use the phrase that Rob Reiner used when we talk to him, patsy. That is the word that Lee Harvey
Oswald used to describe himself in his situation. And if you've got somebody like Sirian Cyerhan who has a hatred or maybe even a psychological thing going on where he's writing down RFK must die in his notebook, if he has a gun and he's on premise, you know, for the place where let's say you're a group that's going to kill RFK, it would be a fall guy. It
would be a pretty easy fall guy. But he did, according to multiple witnesses, he shot that gun see your hands here, and shot the gun that he had at RFK, hitting him. So it's a I don't know, but.
Hitting is not necessarily not every gun shot is fatal. There you go, and we're going to learn some more specifics that that are troubling. Okay, So an interrelated couple of theories here, double dragon kind of theory set involves the idea of orchestrations by the CIA or CIA associates and a second gunman. Again, there's a lot in common with the allegation surrounding the JFK assassination. Just a few years prior. There was a twenty eighteen interview with Washington Post.
A lot of the sources we're going to be talking about are coming kind of recently because there is a cyclical media interest in the Sirhan case whenever he comes
up for parole. So Robert F. Kennedy Junior, a somewhat controversial political figure today, talks to the Washington Post in twenty eighteen and says, you know, I traveled out to California and I met Sirhan Sirhan where he is incarcerated, and I talked with him for a long time, and I left believing what Sirhan told me that he himself did not kill my father and that a second gunman
was involved. And then RFK Junior's sister, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, herself a politician, would later say that her brother made a compelling case. She talked to him about his conversation with Sirhan, and they both called for the investigation to be reopened. They also were pretty their credit. Take it as you will. RFK Junior said, I don't think that my opinion will really change anything, but I, as his son, I think Sirahn should be out of prison or we should at least look into this again.
Isn't it weird? Guys? Isn't it weird that Martin Luther King Junior's son did the exact same thing, came forward, talked to his father's alleged assassin, was convinced by a bunch of research and witnesses and other evidence that was coming forward that this person wasn't the killer of his father, and tried to get him out of prison like that happened. These are two assassinations that occurred in nineteen sixty eight
and they both have sons. Both men who were killed have sons that were convinced that the person who was in jail didn't kill their father.
And now that's not the same thing as conclusively proving in a sense, but it is powerful.
Yeah, it makes people take notice. You know. Those are usually the people that are like, yes, justice has been done, you know, I feel vindicated, or my father's death has been vindicated, as opposed to the exact opposite, which certainly makes people take a little bit of pause.
Right, agreed. And we know that there has been extensive research into this because a lot of people, again weren't satisfied with the legal proceedings nor the government's conclusions. One book I want to give a big shout out to is A Lie Too Big to Fail, which you can read for free on archive dot org right now by an author named Lisa Peas Pea se and this author argues that the real mastermind of the assassination was not sir Han Sirhat, not a politically motivated lone wolf act,
but instead a CIA fixer named Robert Mayhew. Have we heard we were talking about Mayhew a little bit off air. Have you guys heard about him? Dug into his story. Have you seen Mission Impossible?
Of course, the new one on the plane recently and it was quite good.
I don't know about the new one, but allegedly the Mission Impossible idea was based on his life in part. What would a movie series based on our lives be like? I don't know if it would be as exciting as Mission Impossible.
Oh, we got time, we can write some more storylines.
Geez, yeah, I gotta. It'll just be a cavalcated Casey is here. But Mayhew is fascinating because he has never been officially linked to the assassination. And the other CIA folks, which I'm sure we'll get to that we're in the area or for some reason, maybe operating, maybe just there, they have not been linked to the assassination. But may You in particular, has one a heck of a CV or, since we're talking about prison, he's got a hell of
a jacket. He was an ex FBI agent and the CIA worked with him through his own private company, and they asked him job to handle jobs that it wanted to keep at an arm's length, it wanted at a remove you know.
Wait a second, Yeah, Mayhew is one of the other guys that Rob Reiner in his show Who Killed JFK talks about with the the the anti Castro group.
Yeah, yeah, he Mayhew is There really were cases where someone would come to Mayhew under shady circumstances like this is your mission, should you choose to accept it. He'd lined up sex workers for Forton presidents, and he was the connection between the CIA and the MOB in at least one of the plans to kill Castro. He definitely,
he definitely did this stuff. I want to shout out Chicago mag They have a great two thousand and seven right up on this by Brian Smith that talks about Mayhew's involvement.
Geez man.
So again, if you're looking for conspiracy, this guy is perfect casting because he actively did conspire to do some messed up stuff.
Yeah. Well, and he's not the only JM wave associated guy that was there at the Ambassador Hotel on the day of the assassination, and we'll get into that. But this is this is nuts.
Yeah.
His For more than a decade and a half, Mayhew and his company they Mitch out of Washington, they were on a monthly retainer with the CIA, and CIA records would later confirm this. So we don't have a direct connection with Mayhew and Sirhan, but you can see why so many authors and researchers they Paul us at this part. Oh, he also worked with Howard Hughes, and he would be like the fixer for the CIA and Howard Hughes, because Howard Hughes would fund CIA operations.
Every so often just for fundzies.
Yeah, what do you get the what do you get the company that has everything, you know, lots of tissue boxes. There we go, right, Oh geez? He also okay, so p says Mayhew. Given his involvement in the murcurer side of the trade, he would have had access to CIA experiments and hypnosism mind control. He would have been read on to things like Midnight Climax mk ultr. Everybody check out Midnight Climax, which is hosted by our own Noel Brown. Yeah, hell of a story.
And mk Ultra ran from nineteen fifty three to seventy three, so we're in the tail end of mk ultra here.
So they had lessons learned, right, They at least knew what didn't work, and they also officially ended in seventy three. So yeah, I know that sounds snarky, but officially ended whatever take it as will.
They got the Internet, Yeah, they.
Got the Internet, don't They don't need the LSD anymore. So. This author reasons that his knowledge of this and his previous involvement is deep connections would have allowed Mayhew and his crew to frame Sirran Sirhan as a patsy for the death of Robert Kennedy while having another gunman, like a professional operator, fire the fatal shots.
Like another agent that we already mentioned once in this show. We'll keep going.
Yeah, right, and again, none of the book is really compelling. If you like this kind of stuff, it's a great read. Again, it's free online, the author. The author also has to point out that none of this was ever proven in court. It's not been acknowledged by the US government. Parts of the inconsistencies have been acknowledged. The book came out in twenty nineteen, and the author spent twenty five years writing this. But is also, to be very clear, is not the
first person raising these allegations. I don't know Robert Mayhew, though, if you were going to cast someone for this conspiracy, he's great. He's one of the best picks even though I don't know, but he wasn't there. It wasn't he was not physically there, right, because he's a professional. Why would he be.
Should you want to? Can we go to the johann Edes thing, the connection?
Yeah?
Yeah, tell us about Johann Edes.
Okay, So a person that again Rob Reiner mentioned to us and then was mentioned extensively in his show Who Killed JFK mentions this guy, George Joannedes, who was quote chief of psychological warfare operations and worked extensively with jam Wave, which was the CIA's Miami base for this whole secret war they had with Castro, right with.
The producers of things like The Bay of Pigs.
Yes, and it has been known now that Joe and Edes was at the Ambassador Hotel on the day of the assassination. Despite Senator Kennedy or Robert Kennedy's distaste for CIA activities and his unwillingness to be protected by a lot of those official you know, bodyguard are facilitating security systems which are like, you know, if you're operating as a very high level person, it would be secret service, but secret service wasn't available to him at the time.
It then would have probably been the FBI, and he had an ex FBI agent with him, but he didn't have any official acting FBI agents with him. And just knowing that this guy Joann Edes was there along with a couple other people from that same company, same crew, it calls into question. I don't know it. For me, it's like it's enough to need to be tracked down, like we need to know exactly what Joan Edi was doing there and where he was and all that other stuff, but we just don't have the full details.
Maybe there's a totally innocuous reason, you know what I mean? Maybe, yeah, maybe there is. The point raising is that we don't know. And until until we know what that reason is, until it can be proven to be innocuous, then yeah, you have to put it again in this weird Vin diagram of stuff that doesn't prove something. But it doesn't feel right, you know, there's something dissonant about it. I don't know. They also twenty ten, Sirhun's lawyers argue, what's that what
was once treated like a wing nut idea? Sirhnen's own lawyers in court say, look, the CIA hypnotiz Siirrahan Sirahat. They made him an involuntary participant in the assassination. The implication there is crazy, first off, because these are professional attorneys saying this in court, but secondly because the implication is like, why him though? Why him? If there seems to be this preponderance of evidence in the weeks leading up to it, or indeed the year's leading up to it, Why him?
Why there?
Right? Did they identify someone struggling with mental issues who already had a track record of threats against STARRFK? Did they make those threats up? Did they put that did they plant that diary? I don't know.
I mean, it feels like the kind of you know, candidate for a patsy or a fall guy that you see in other conspiracies as well, you know, whether it be pinning, you know, a murder for higher scheme on somebody who was sort of like a low hanging fruit kind of potential, like maybe low level drug runner or something, you know, who could fit the bill, but definitely didn't have the kind of motivation that maybe it would be made out to seem.
Cause I think we maybe have talked about this in the past, but the route through the kitchen was not the planned way to go to exite from the podium where he was just speaking.
It was a last minute switch.
Yeah, and he was just told that by one of those athletes that was acting as a security team. I don't know. There's something about about changing a walking route like last minute that for me, compromises RFK security in that moment, which means if you were aware that that was going to happen, or if you caused that route change to happen, you could have somebody planted there and it I don't know, there's something to that that feels so important to me.
There's also a counterpoint. There's another side to that point, which is that it's not uncommon for those last minute
switches to occur. If you feel like your established route, like if you've already signaled that and messaged that out and you're worried about possible danger or shenanigans, then there are completely good and smart reasons to change the path at the last minute to keep them guessing, which is sort of why you don't see I mean, you see it all the time with VIPs, not even necessarily heads of state, but you can see it with celebrities, right, especially if they have ardent stalkery fans.
I think you're right if they made it public, right, or if you made it even public to like staff at the hotel rather than just your internal security staff.
Someone found out, right. It could be as simple as sliding, you know, sliding one hundred to someone at the front desk who happens to know the established route, or you know, a place like the Ambassador Hotel also is home to VIPs, and so in these fancy hotels there are often and if you go to the right hotel, folks, trust me, there are protocols in place, and you can see those protocols, but they lose they lose value with every new person that is aware of them.
Well, because they're unspoken and like, you don't wanna, you don't want to overplay that hand, and it kind of dilutes the whole, you know, kind of secrecy of it all. And then I guess it hasn't requires a shift in.
Protocol, right, Yeah, And the thing we're quarreling with here is it's again it's another great unknown. Where did they decide proactively to change the route on their own due to concerns or were they pushed into that? Were they decision treed into walking through the kitchen and perhaps even thinking that was their own idea. All of these are possible, none of them are proven. Uh, and it's tantalizing, but it's torturous. I mean, look, none of all of this,
which is bothersome, none of it is. Forgive us for saying so smoking gun level evidence of anything. But there's a lot of unusual stuff already. We haven't even gotten to even weirder things yet. No, So these earlier authors, these researchers conclude that they seem to conclude that Siahan did not himself kill Kennedy, or if he was the killer, that he was a lot more like a bullet than an assassin. Right he would The argument is he was
made to do so. And they also say that the LAPD and the district attorney at the time were either crooked or incompetent, and maybe his defense lawyers were crooked or incompetent because they didn't challenge any of the physical evidence, and the physical evidence marri way falls not as ironclad as perhaps prosecution made it out to be. Is that fair to say that's not?
Like?
Take there, I think it is.
I think they're just weird. There's other weird stuff that was going on. Most of it came out after the trial.
Way after the trial, Yeah, because they wanted to shut this down. The US at the time was already already had some threats to the status quo as the elite saw it, right, widespread anti war activism, civil rights movement, some secessionist movements like American Indian Movement, all this kind of stuff. So it is in their interest to try to nip something in the bud, make the story look right,
and move on as quickly as possible. The problem is the stuff that comes out afterwards, like the autopsy findings, right that Kennedy must have been shot at close range, that somehow got shot in the back of the head. Yeah, you don't have to be a gun nut to know that. If you're shooting at someone from the front, it's really tough to hit them in the back of.
That well, unless they turn their head right as being fired towards them.
And to the left.
Yeah, as a magic bullet.
You know.
Well, well no, but really, like if you're in a situation and somebody in front of you or to your side is firing a gun at you, a little twenty two let you say a little Iiver Johnson twenty two revolver, but it's not. It would sound loud and it would be scary. You would probably turn away right, which then a bullet could hit the back of your head. That's what was argued.
Or if somebody says watch out, depending on where they're standing and turned to look at them, Yep, possible, possible. Yet we also have to take tough. But the distance is what we have to think about. Don't forget about
the distance because numerous eyewitnesses at the shooting, and I wouldn't. Yes, we get eyewitness reports are sticky infallible, but numerous people confirmed multiple times over time that Sir Had was not close enough to fire at close range and that he only got two shots out in Kennedy's direction before he is getting held and tackled to the ground. And as
he's going down, he's just shooting wildly. He's spraying the rest of the rest of his bullets, just out, go with God style, And that's what tackled and dealt with basically, right, I can explain. And his pistol had eight shots in it. The earlier said revolvers that might think you had that might sound like it had six shots. Right, No, this is a twenty two caliber with eight bullets in it, which will be important later. But I don't know, do
you guys? Right now, before you get any weirder stuff, is it possible that Sirhan Sirhan could have been manipulated by someone? Did he act on his own?
Well? Yeah, but before we see that, Ben, there was somebody with a gun standing right behind RFK when this went down.
Yes, yeah, we'll get to him as well, Fane.
Right, there's somebody that has a gun who is holding Rfk's arm as he's walking through the kitchen. I don't know, Okay, whatever is.
This the theory of like Sirhan Sirhan as distraction as diversion while somebody else does the deed.
That's the theory, that's the possibility.
Let's go into the drugs too on the way to that, because that's hypnosis and drugs. That's where That's what prompted us to kind of re explore this. We talked about a Manchurion candidate before over the years. Right, it comes from a fiction novel. Right, it's not like a super secret real Soviet program, but in this novel, a son of a political dynasty is brainwashed into becoming an assassin for the community.
And this is not the same as say a sleeper agent, where I think a lot of people kind of misconstrue those concepts where someone is deployed as like a basic you know, civilian, and then you know, whenever they're given a particular order or code word or whatever, they are activated and then they carry out these instructions. This is much deeper. This is someone who is given a code word that all of a sudden switches their brain and makes them into a killing automaton of sorts.
Right.
Oh, yeah, and let's jump into that guys. After another word from our sponsor, we'll be right back.
We've returned. Yeah, that's an important differentiation, NOL. So if you have seen shows like The Americans, which is loosely based on real events, then you'll know that sleeper agents can be a real thing and exist as to all intents and purposes. They exist as citizens of the country in which they're operating until they get their signal, their directives, et cetera. The idea of a Manchurian candidate are argues
that subconscious demands have been embedded into your psyche. You are a sleeper agent, but you are not aware you are a sleeper agent until you get that code word. You know, someone runs up to you, shows you a picture of a white elephant and says shah mahlamading dong and then you're like, hello, en up nukes.
And presumably the idea here in theory is that this is the deepest level of deniability for the handlers of this individual or for the people that are actually using them as a weapon, because I mean, even with the sleeper agent, you could get information out of that person, you could potentially figure out who they are answering to, whereas with a Manchurian candidate, they don't know who they're
answering to. There they literally you can't get anything out of them because it's not there for them to give and.
It might not Yeah, that's a great point. Might not also go to the extreme of murder. The idea or this theory says that maybe you could have someone who is induced to give over sensitive information right just because they're you know, a top level defense engineer. But there's also, as we gain it through, there's something else interesting about
the idea of deniability. So if there's a Manchurian candidate, and it's operating purely on trigger words, right, casting a spell for lack of a better word, or like a visual series of visual accues, or even old factory stuff. You as the person orchestrating this Shenanigan, you don't have to present them the trigger yourself. You can just pay somebody without who has no idea what's going on. You can pay them and say, look, I gave fifty bucks. You see that guy over there, or you know two
days there's going to be this guy over here. I want you to hold up this picture of what's an unusual animal, a zebra. I want you to hold up this picture of a zebra I don't know, and then and then I want you to slowly turn it upside down and counterclockwise. Yeah.
Or you plant somebody wearing a polka dot dress that it walks by and says something, or just you know, makes a gesture that is the trigger.
Right exactly. There are a million ways you could do it in this theory. There's never been a proving case of a man sure an actual Mentorian candidate in the real world, and that's because the problem goes to timeframe right. A lot of this goes to distance and time. So you can hypnotize someone and can give them trance state suggestions, but hypnosis is not going to make people do stuff they would not ordinarily do.
Well, and it's not going to necessary. Again, we don't know. There's a lot we don't know about how hypnosis works, and you know, certain people are more susceptible to it than others. But it does kind of beg credulity to think that you could implant something that would just lay dormant indefinitely, right, I don't know it.
It's a little bit of hard to swallow for me without continual maintenance, Without continual maintenance.
Even if you're dosing someone with LSD, right with an MK ultra style experiment, if that person is in an LSD and you know, affected state, and you're telling them things like RFK must die, you're repeating it over and over and over and over and over in that state while you're watching maybe film of the man's face and death and all this stuff. These the conjured imaginations that
appear in fictional stories. Right, Even if you're doing that, how does the human being not recall any of those images or moments or just the very fine memories that could occur.
There, Right, How can you embed it deeply enough into the psychic soil or the neurologicals.
Without having other byproducts that people would remember? You think you'd remember getting strapped to a chair with lidlocks on and being forced to watch these films? Well, you know, I mean you can't. We don't have the selectivity in how we can mess with people's memories. It's kind of to pick and choose.
I don't think.
Well yet, we're getting there.
We stumbled on something just randomly in our last conversation that that's why we're doing this, right.
Yeah, So I like that we're pointing this out to fiction versus fact. So another example of this is chloroform is often portrayed as this sort of super spy knockout things, right, yeah, But the reality is you have to keep applying chloroform to keep someone knocked out if you Yeah, and.
You can kill someone pretty easily.
You could kill them.
Pretty easily too, So if you take the rag off of their face, they're going to get up and they're gonna be pissed at you, So be very very you know what. Actually, let's I hope this is not a hot take. Your life is your own, but try to avoid situations where you feel like you have to chloroform people.
Yeah, at the very least get some sort of dart you know, gun situation with like a much longer acting sedative sedatives.
There was a recent story, you guys, this guy there's an Elvis impersonator that was allegedly killed by someone via chloroform during a sexual encounter. You can read about it in the New York Post search for New York Elvis impersonator allegedly killed after being chloroformed during sexual encounter.
Are people using chloroform like poppers like aminyl nitrate.
Or some people?
Get down man, they'd do it.
Yeah, well, what you do in the bedroom is your home, but be careful, don't go too heavy on the chloroform, guys.
Right, Consent and safety are keys. And there's okay, So there's the other question. All right, we know the problem with the Manchurian candidate deployment in the real world is the time frame issue. But what if you could get around the time frame entirely. What if you just drugged the right person on the scene directly before you needed an action, and then you set them loose disturbingly enough. And this is what Matt was alluding to. We know
with certitude that certain drugs can and do that. The torah aka Jims and Wei is being deployed by criminals throughout South America to do this very thing, as we record right now, as you hear.
This scopelamine, it's the thing that what was a devil's breath, it's the thing that's what it can get blown in your face. Then you are immediately a compliant automaton, essentially with no memory of what's happening. Nogamed.
It could be put on the tip of a cigarette. It doesn't take much.
Yeah, and you could literally you could literally make a suggestion. You blow the thing. You make a suggestion. It's like shoot RFK right, somebody even hands you a pistol, or maybe you've already got a pistol. Uh. It's just it's crazy that it I think it may actually work.
It would.
We know that it's worked in criminal cases. We know that the effects are immedia. It's tasteless, it's odorless, it's it's it's tough to find it if you're an investigator and you don't know what you're looking for the results of being poisoned. This way, we know that people will be tremendously compliant. They will go to their ATM and empty it out. They'll come to you hours later with vague memories of helping criminals move the furniture from their houses.
This is nasty stuff. Check out our Drugs as Weapons episode, and the lead toxicologist or the lead world expert I should say on this, they agree that, unlike hypnosis, exposure to these drugs can make you do stuff that you would not ordinarily do. So this is if Sara Han was under the influence of something like that, he would have also been extremely compliant to suggestion throughout the interrogation process,
so long as it happened shortly after ingestion. And this stuff can last like twenty four hours more.
Dude. And they said he was calm, right, but he wasn't of his own mind. He was like, like, I'm just imagining. I have not seen anyone under the effects of detura scope lamine or whatever, but I imagine someone who is just compliant and looks normal. Maybe you might think that he would be he would appear more intoxicated
because he was drinking. Tom Collins he had like several Tom Collins drinks while he was there at the Ambassador Hotel, at least according to the official story, which you could slip something in his drink while he's there at the bar.
You could slip something in his drink and have a brief conversation. Oh my, coming right. I mean, there are a thousand ways to get to people with this stuff. Be safe, keep an eye on your drinks and joan edies.
Again, the chief of psychological warfare operations was hanging out at the hotel.
For possibly innocuous reasons.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that we have to say.
Yeah, there's also this other thing. I mean, you do
have to note the next part. The reason that the check secretly stopped using scopolamine, the reason that so like even the Nazis gave it up, is because it was terrible as a truth seraha was terrible for suggestions and confessions, because people under the influence of that will confess to anything their interrogator suggests, even if it's impossible, like hey, do you have a tail, And they're like, oh, yeah, I haven't checked recently, but I probably do, you know
what I mean? Like that to that level of absurdity, because they also do anything that suggested up to it, in including killing someone. If that is Sirahan Sarahan had actual bullets in his gun and not blanks. Paul, can we get a record scratch?
I haven't heard this one.
So what if Sirrahan Sarahan was handed like going back to the distraction second gunman theory, what if it was handed a twenty two caliber pistol but it had blanks in it and he was just functioning as a distraction.
This is yeah, Anna Patsy, right, I mean, yeah, like a fall guy.
But wait, what because there I guess it depends on what you what evidence you believe. But in the ballistics there were twenty two rounds found, like embedded into the walls in like a door frame.
Wait, but from other people firing right at Sirhan.
Now the trajectory, the trajectory from some of them were Sirhan firing but he only had eight.
Yeah, and people would also we'll get to people also claim they are thirteen gunshots later. But anyway, so the in a lie too big to fail. Peace quotes eyewitnesses saying they saw I'm not sure how I feel about the shredded paper fluttering through the air as Siahan was firing, and that was indicative of ca scenes containing explosive charges, but no actual bullets. I don't know. Again, eyewitnesses are imperfect,
and to remember shredded paper through the air. While that may be true, that might not have anything to do with the gunshots.
Pretty circumstantial, right, Yeah.
That's a good word for it. And then there were other people who were strapped at this time. There were armed men around behind Kennedy. One of the guys confirmed to be present and armed was a security guard named Fane Caesar aka Jeene Caesar, and he had previously done some work in Los Angeles with a guy named Robert May. It was not the kind of work that gives you a four oh one.
K And you may also see his name written as Eugene Fane Caesar, but he has been described as holding on to Robert Kennedy's arm, kind of leading him through the kitchen while he is armed. And then what did we talk about the bullet back of the head situation.
Yeah, and he actually talks with Caesar, spoke on record to researchers about this, and there was one interview he had with an author named Dan Muldia, and he said, quote, there are dozens of articles that come out saying I carried a second gun that possibly could have been the person who shot Bobby Kennedy because and this Caesar speaking, because the bullet entered the back of his head. However, to be clear, Caesar is always denied any kind of implication.
He passed away recently in the Philippines where he retired, And there's nothing wrong with retiring abroad. I feel like I made that sound like such a bread crumb, But there's nothing wrong with retiring abroad. People go to Costa Rica all the time or whatever. But if we bring it all together, then the alternative narrative is something quite strange.
A world in which Sirhan Sirhan is also a victim hypnotized or drug somehow compelled to appear to murder RFG, while behind the scenes a shadowy cabal orchestrates the actual hit. Not very straightforward. It's a little mouse trappy, isn't it. Uh?
The little Yeah. This is complicated as all heck, unless there was again, like we talked about it in the past, when you've got that uncertainty thing you everybody tries to throw darts to be like, oh, man, well maybe that's it. Well, maybe that's it. Maybe this is the connection. Maybe that's the thing, and you'll will do it forever until we get some certainty or some truth. If somebody comes out and just says blatantly, hey, here's what's going on.
But do we have like a real reason why the government would want to collude to assassinate Robert Kennedy? Is it like finishing the job of what they supposedly were doing when they colluded to assassinate J F. Kennedy? Are these these connected, like, well, where's the threat? I guess I've never fully wrapped my head around that aspect of it.
The argument would be that factions of the government, most notably factions in domestic and foreign intelligence agencies like the CIA and the FBI, wanted to continue functioning without oversight and saw JFK in particular and RFK as well as threats to their operations. That's the idea that has not been officially recognized in any court, but it's something I think a slim majority of Americans still believe, at least here in the here in the US you know where
you five. Most of the Americans anyway. I don't know either. But I do have one question that isn't brought up enough in the literature here. It's this, where was Bigfoot? There's there's no documentary record of Bigfoot, has no alibi for this.
Can he fire a gun?
Right?
I mean thick fingers of his I'm having fun with this, but yeah, if you have, if you have proof of bigfoots whereabouts nineteen sixty eight, tell us, because that'll also prove that Bigfoot is real.
But it descends into this level of speculation. There's still there is hard evidence of discrepancy. Sirahn's gun held only eight bullets. Someone else was firing, right. We just don't know the context.
It does feel at the same level of weirdness as what surrounded JFK's assassination. We know something fishy was going on there, especially with now we've got this whole the magic bullet theory kind of solved by that that CIA agent who came out and said he found this other bullet lodged, you know, in the in the seat and
didn't talk about it for years. That and of itself is weird, but what a strange thing to have the literal relative of this highest profile assassination of a public figure, probably in the history of the world, with with the most questions around it, leading to equal numbers of questions and having equal amounts of suspicious details the.
Court had to answer to. The court eventually had to respond to something they had originally dismissed as hogwash. They had to respond to the second shooter allegations. So Sirhan Sirhan, after rest, after trial, after conviction, makes multiple appeals, as many appeals as possible, and in one of the rejections of those appeals, a magistrate judge named Andrew J. Wistrich said, I don't love this, but the judge said, maybe there
was a second shooter. It doesn't matter. Quote even if the second shooter's bullet was the one that killed Senator Kennedy, Siirhan would still be liable for murder as an aider and a better Yeah, convenient says like, remember that thing we said was a conspiracy. Well, even if it's true, whatever.
Move on, guys, that's crazy.
But they also note h the idea of a second gunman shooting Kennedy a close range with the same type of gun and same ammunition as sir Han also escaping a crowded room without notice in a room full of witnesses. Say it lacks any evidentiary support, But I don't know. I feel like in that kind of chaos, it's kind of easy to do. What irish goodbye?
Like, just get the heck out of there?
Ghost.
Yeah, no, if you're not you know, a prominent member of the thing, you know well.
And what of the idea of whether or not sear Hand was actively colluding with another shooter and it was aware of his or her or their presence. That's another thing that's been dismissed as doesn't matter.
Right yet, he said, and he again says now, And for some time he's maintained that his memory of the events is fuzzier, nonexistent in a way that perhaps coincidentally jibes with de Toro poisoning. Be quite honest with you, that does it? Again not proven, We don't know. But there are a lot of pieces here where you can. You can already see, folks, how easy it is to
string that red thread along from point to point. Sirhan recently lost his seventeenth parole hearing on March first, twenty twenty three, and he got really close this time, but it was shut down, and as we record today it's April nineteenth, twenty twenty four. He is eighty years old. He is alive, like most people in their eighties, he is not in the best of health. To all official accounts and conclusion, he is served in life for a successful, high profile, politically motivated assassination.
Yeah. Well, let's just note here that one of the reasons, at least one of the large reasons that his parole was denied for the seventeenth time back in March was because of the words of rfk's son, Christopher Kennedy. I just wanted to read just a couple of the things that he said, because I think it strikes at the heart of why, at least the Kennedy family parts of it, want him to stay in prison forever. But it also points to I think a larger like a larger statement
about conspiracy theories and why they form. I really like these words. These are the words of Christopher Kennedy speaking against the being granted parole siance here and being granted pearl. He says, quote, this is a man who has never admitted to killing my father, never said he was sorry for having ended his life, he's refused truth, thereby forfeiting reconciliation. His repeated denial of his crimes have been devastating. His lack of remorse soul crushing. And this is the important
part here. We don't want vengeance, we want justice. We want to offer forgiveness, but we need to see repentance. It's the oldest bargain in history. One side admits and the other side forgives. One side offers truth and the other side offers reconciliation. Basically saying that if Sirhan Syirhan came forward and said, yes, I killed your father and
I'm terribly sorry that I did that. I can't believe I did that that kind of thing, then I guess Christopher Kennedy and others in his family would forgive him and say, Okay, this man needs pearled, but he hasn't done that. But if Sirhan Syirhan wasn't actually the person that killed Robert Kennedy, then how do you go about, you know, offering that it's just a sticky situation. And I do think that whole it goes back to the statement, Ben, what do you always say about when there's murkiness?
In the absence of transparency, speculation thrives.
I think it goes right back to that man.
And yeah, you know, Richard is agreeing with again, to be fair, the majority of the world, majority of public opinion, but to others, a persistent group of questions. Sarah and Sarad is one of the last pieces of a multi decade conspiracy, living evidence of something whoever they are, something they don't want you to know. And you know, we're
Indie with a question here too. I think we came with some great recommendations if you want to read more, if you want to learn more about this specific instance, this period in time. There are some great podcasts out there. We can say it because we didn't make all of them, but there are some fantastic things out there, and we'd love to hear your thoughts, folks, especially if you were around when this occurred. If you happen to have any or involvement, or you have a different take, let us know.
We try to be easy to find online.
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