Ed Sanders - Broken Glory: The Final Years of Robert F. Kennedy

Arcade Publishing is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., a Delaware corporation. Visit our website at www.arcadepub.com. Visit Rick Veitchs website at www.rickveitch.com. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available. Library of Congress Control Number: 2017963142 Cover design by Erin Seaward-Hiatt Cover illustration: Rick Veitch ISBN: 978-1-62872-951-1 Ebook ISBN: 978-1-62872-952-8 Printed in China Time takes her toll and the memory fades but his glory is broken, in the magic that he made Phil Ochs, Crucifixion The wicked persecute the good with the blindness of the passion that animates them, while the good pursue the wicked with a wise discretion. St.

Augustine Ones file, you know, is never quite complete; a case is never really closed, even after a century, when all the participants are dead. Graham Greene, The Third Man I would be an historian as Herodotus was, looking for oneself for the evidence of what is said. Charles Olson Introduction by Ed Sanders What a calamity to American history was the murder of Robert Kennedy! How different would the course of the United States have been if a rogue and powerful group had not killed, and covered up his murder, and the murders of John Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. as well. I began researching and compiling files on the Robert Kennedy assassination during my work in early 1970s for my book The Family , about the Manson group, published in 1971. Then in 1972, my investigative associate, Larry Larsen, who had helped me research the book, reported from a law enforcement source about the possibility of a connection between Manson and the murder of someone, Larsen told me, because of her knowledge of something she was not supposed to overhear either in regards to Sirhan Sirhan or about Sirhan.

By 1974, I had learned even more and decided to write a poem about the final years of Robert Kennedy. I worked on and off on RFK for the next six years. Beginning in 1980, I turned to other researches and projects, setting aside the Kennedy poem, though I had collected around 4,000 pages of FBI files, and several bankers boxes of sleuthery into the case. Over the years, I always looked for, then clipped and filed whatever information and articles would appear about RFK and the ongoing investigations of his murder but busied myself with writing books such as my collected poems, Thirsting for Peace in a Raging Century , and various recording projects for my band, The Fugs, plus books such as Chekhov , 1968: A History in Verse , and The Poetry and Life of Allen Ginsberg . I also wrote two new editions of The Family , in 1990 and in 2002. Beginning in the 1980s and 1990s, much important new information has been made available to the public.

For instance, in 1988 the California State Archives received voluminous files, tapes, photos and official reports, previously unread by the public, from the Los Angeles Police Departments investigation of the RFK shooting. That same year, the large Robert F. Kennedy Assassination Archive (RFKAA) at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth was assembled by author and professor of political science Philip Melanson and the RFK Assassination Archive Committee of the University Library. Original materials, including research files, audiotape interviews, videotapes and news clippings were donated in several installments by a number of private individuals investigating the case. To this core collection were added thousands of pages of FBI documents, released by the Freedom of Information Act to the university, between 1984 and 1986. All of this voluminous information was very useful when, in 2008, for the fortieth anniversary of RFKs murder, I wrote a poem about the final day, June 4, 1968.

After that I continued work on the RFK project, which has grown over the decades to over fifteen bankers boxes of investigative files, and has resulted in the text of Broken Glory : The Final Years of Robert F. Kennedy . During these years, I also wrote a biography of the actress Sharon Tate, which was published in 2016. The noted artist Rick Veitch drew brilliant illustrations for my biography of Tate, and then Veitch began creating illustrations for Broken Glory: The Final Years of Robert F. Kennedy. Robert Kennedy was shot and killed just minutes after giving his victory speech in a hotel ballroom after winning the California Democratic presidential primary in Los Angeles.

It was a humble and positive speech. Kennedy had more campaigning to do, but he realized that the Presidency was well within his reach, and that he could then have a big impact on war and peace, on racial justice, on a fair economic shake for all the people, and to bring to justice at last to those who had killed John F. Kennedy. RFK was a remarkable American leader, forged in the Civil Rights struggle while he was US attorney general during John Kennedys administration, and then later, as a senator, involved in the eye-opening, ever-growing challenge to halt the war in Vietnam, his work against apartheid, and unselfish activism for prosperity for all humans. He was a great and inspirational candidate, forged in the tragedy and suffering about which Aeschylus wrote, in a religious context, that it would fall drop by drop upon the heart until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God. The future will bring forth the full story of RFKs martyrdom.

May this book of text and illuminating illustrations help heal this half-century wound in the body politic of the United States. I am certain that there exists out there information for further elucidation, perhaps in dusty research transfile boxes kept in the loft of a garage, or in long-unused filing cabinetsmay this book help inspire that this information be brought forward into the hard Sophoclean light. Note on Sources I have used information in the text of Broken Glory from a large number of sources, particularly from outstanding researchers such as Philip Melanson, William Turner, Jonn Christian, Lynn Mangan, and Lisa Pease. I have also utilized material from the court filings of attorneys William Pepper and Laurie Dusek on behalf of Sirhan Sirhan, particularly reports by Dr. Daniel P. Dr. Dr.

Browns reports, for instance, presented claims by Sirhan Sirhan that he had been programmed during the days leading up to Robert Kennedys assassination by a person or persons with whom Sirhan had been communicating over a ham radio set located in Sirhans home in Pasadena. Salute to RFK Researchers There have been a good number of researchers and tireless seekers after the truth about the killing of Robert Kennedy, who have done remarkable work over the years. Key among these are Philip Melanson, Greg Stone, Allard Lowenstein, William Turner, Jonn Christian; Lillian Castellano and Floyd Nelson of the CTKA (Citizens for Truth about the Kennedy Assassination); Bud Fensterwald of the Committee to Investigate Assassinations, Vincent Bugliosi, William Harper, Ted Charach, Betsy Langman, Alexander Cockburn, Shane OSullivan, Baxter Ward, Larry Larsen, Peter Noyes, Paul Schrade, William Pepper, Laurie Dusek, Dr. Daniel Brown, Alan Scheflin, Jim DiEugenio, Mary Ferrell, Donald Bain, Donald Freed, Dr. Eduard Simson-Kallas, Jim Kostman, Mae Brussell, James Lesar, Robert Blair Kaiser, Rush Harp, Walter Bowart, Robert Cutler, Richard Sprague; Jeff Cohen, Judith Farrar, Carl Oglesby, Bob Katz and Martin Lee of the Assassination Information Bureau, great researcher Lynn Mangan, Lawrence Teeter, Lisa Pease and others. Thanks Thanks to Larry Larsen, Martin Lee, Paul Fitzgerald, Peter Noyes, Miriam Sanders, Donald Freed, Tom Pacheco, Maury Terry, Bob Katz, Carl Oglesby, Alexander Cockburn, Vincent Bugliosi, William Turner, Carl George, Barry Farrell, Robert Cutler, Mae Brussell, Robert Blair Kaiser, Andrea Wyatt, Bud Fensterwald, John Rose, Rush Harp, Duncan Harp, William Pepper, Frank Morales, Judith Farrar of the RFK Assassination Archives at UMass Dartmouth, Nick Lyons and others for help in researching this book and helping its publication.