Shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Having won a major victory in California, Kennedy addressed his supporters in the hotel ballroom shortly past midnight. As he walked passed a kitchen passageway as a shortcut to reach a press conference room, he was shot and sent to hospital. He died nearly 26 hours after the shooting. 24-year-old Jordanian citizen with a Palestinian background, Sirhan Sirhan, was convicted of assassinating Kennedy, and has been serving a life sentence. In May 2012, however, Sirhan’s lawyers, Pepper and Dusek filed a court brief, stating that Kennedy was shot to death by a second gunman instead of Sirhan. The attorneys’ “Second Gunman Theory” outline that Sirhan was hypno-programmed by conspirators to fire shots as a distraction, and that Sirhan’s bullets did not match the ones taken from Kennedy’s neck during the autopsy. A ruling of this case is currently pending.

     Analysis of the evidence contained in this Wikipedia article reveals that the account is generally reliable, although it would be useful to examine the sources which it is based on and to cross reference to make sure that the findings in this article can be corroborated.

     The eye-witness accounts were generally reliable although a counterclaim may be supported that partly based on the perception and emotion of the event’s eye-witnesses, it lacks reliability. An example is Juan Romero, then a 17-year-old busboy at the Ambassador Hotel who was shaking Kennedy’s hands when the Senator was shot. Romero remarked, “He shook my hand as hard as anyone had ever shaken it, making me believe I’m not just a busboy, but a human being!” Emotion as a way of knowing plays a large role in determining the validity of this knowledge issue, since Romero became emotionally involved with this event throughout his life. An on-line source from the Los Angeles Times cited by Wikipedia provides photographs of Romero four decades after the assassination. Continually haunted by this memory, Romero regarded the incident as “his own fault”. Romero visited Senator Kennedy’s grave, “wearing suit for the first time in his life” because he believed that Sen. Kennedy “deserved full respect”. The former busboy repeatedly remarked on his great respect and regret for the Senator as if he could stop the incident, without describing more details when he gets emotional. In this case, emotion plays a large role in this witness’ response to media coverage, portraying an entirely positive image of the presidential candidate during all occasions. Despite the value of this eyewitness testimony, the emotional attachment only presents a one-sided view of the assassination, lacking specificity including the exact position of the assassin, the other eyewitnesses’ response, etc. since Romero was astonished as an observer and disturbed as he recalled the experience. Romero also had limited perception as a viewer. Although Romero was so close to the Senator that he “felt a flash of heat against his face”^[1] and would have had the advantage of observing the Senator closely, Romero’s reaction time was a limitation. Romero’s comment “I thought it was firecrackers at first, or a joke in bad taste” reveals limitations of his perception. First, as a teenager, Romero lacked experience in life and perceived the first shot as a “firecracker” or “bad joke” instead of reasoning maturely. Even for an adult witness, unexpected, fast shots would hinder the reliability of his perception. During later interviews, Romero’s responses were limited due to memory, when he stated he did not recall many details^[2]. Therefore, Romero’s account was limited though overall reliable.

     The account of the convicted assassin also reflects the limitations of the Wikipedia article due to perception and emotion. In terms of perception, Wikipedia’s references point out that Sirhan cannot recall information of the assassination apart from “an intense thirst for alcohol, the commotion and a mysterious lady”. According to Sirhan’s lawyers, Sirhan was hypnotized by excessive alcohol provided by the true assassins, including the lady mentioned by Sirhan, who was heard laughing and exclaiming “We killed Kennedy!”. Sirhan’s perception thus lacks reliability due to his physically hypnotized state. There are also limitations of Sirhan’s accounts due to emotion. Sirhan revealed that for days, he was tormented to declare himself guilty and sign the legal documents. In an NBC article cited by Wikipedia, Sirhan’s parents stated the intense fear Sirhan experiences, “The guards have poisoned the minds of other prisoners. Sirhan fears they will kill him.” Sirhan’s terror may also affect the reliability his accounts, where he appears earnest in denying the assassination and respecting Kennedy.^[3]

     Secondary sources also involve perception and emotion. Overall, the sources cited in this article present a balanced point of view with no particular cultural or political bias. For instance, the secondary sources agree that Sirhan was motivated by nationalism: the Palestinian-born opposed Kennedy’s support for Israel. However, detailed descriptions vary due to the perception and emotion of the authors although they are all American sources^[4]. One source elaborates on Sirhan’s hatred for Kennedy from evidence including his diary entry “RFK must die”, while other sources describe Sirhan as innocent. Another emphasized the emotion of the American public, “Kennedy was beloved by people around the nation. Sirhan destroyed the dreams of an entire generation by killing him.” Judging by the social and political aspects in the article, a Palestinian, anti-Zionist or strongly anti-Kennedy person who comes across this article may sabotage the page to present a more one-sided view due to the perception molded by his or her education or social context. Not one source has a Palestinian origin, but after cross-referencing with articles that include Palestinian points of views, one can conclude that a Palestinian radical may rewrite the page so that it portrays Sirhan as a “national hero” and “freedom fighter”, which he is recognized as by numerous media sources in Palestine. No content of the article, however, demonstrates such bias, validating that it is generally reliable.

     Therefore, as discussed in the essay, the Wikipedia page on the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy is generally accurate, although a number of limitations can also be found due to the limitations of emotion and perception in eyewitness accounts and secondary sources.

Bibliography

"Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Jan. 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Robert_F._Kennedy>