Assassination of Robert Kennedy

[Len Colby]

Sirhan worked as a groom at a racetrack, know who owned the track? Mickey Cohen.

And then there is the owner of the hotel where RFK was shot, owned by ..... Mickey Cohen! I dunno about an Ari connection, but there sure seems to be an organized crime connection.

I believe that Sirhan told the truth, he was a hynotized Manchurian Candidate.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Norman, I am intrigued by your statements. I thought Cohen had lost his money and power by 66. Mickey Cohen was also friends with Ruby's attorney, Belli. Sirhan's attorney was involved with fellow L.A. mobster Johnny Rosselli. Additionally, the man who admitted to police that he'd given Sirhan a ride, Gerry Owen, used a business partner of Cohen's as his alibi for the night of the shooting. Coincidence?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

There is a story that the Black Dahlia killer was known to police who were paid off to cover it up. Right nasty.

Norman [<especially] and Pat,

Do you have any evidence to support these claims?

Cohen was in various Federal maximum security prisons from 1961 - 1972*. Even if he did own the track and hotel, it seems doubtful he had contact with Sirhan or could have been anyway involved in the murder.

Also why would the hotel owner have to be in on the murder?

Len

* http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/new_s...6&showgroup=593

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Cohen

Edited September 29, 2005 by Len Colby

[Guest Stephen Turner]

[[<especially] and Pat,

Also why would the hotel owner have to be in on the murder?

Len

* http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/new_s...6&showgroup=593

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Cohen

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Perhaps RFK refused to stump up for the bill.

[Len Colby]

FURTHER DESTRUCTION OF EVIDENCE BY LAPD.

...2,400,Photographs burned because they were"Dulicates" in fact,

there were no lists precise enough to show that all the photo's

destroyed were indeed duplicates.

...Ceiling tiles & door frames from the pantry destroyed, because

according to then assistant chief Daryl Gates, they would'nt fit

into card files.

...In addition, LAPD records showed that they had recorded 3,470

interviews during the course of the investigation. only 301 interviews

were released. Examination by researchers showed that for 501

key " conspiracy" witnesses there were no interviews.

The LAPD were not alone in this cover up. The L.A. District Attorney's

office was also involved. The scope of this involvement was seen in

the files released in 1985, due mainly to the inclusion of a box of tapes,

videos & documents sent from the LAPD branch at Van Nuys. This box

contained evidence which went against the official version. The most

graphic examples were the video reconstructions from 1968 & 1977,

which prove that Sirhan could not have inflicted the wounds on Senator

Kennedy. However, by using selected stills from the recon's the official

version was supported......

  Source The Cover Up...http//homepages.tcp.co.uk/~dlewis/coverup.htm

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Steve there are no sources listed for this information on the site. I imagine that most of it is true but we have no way of know what is and what isn't.

[Len Colby]

Mel,

There is a giant whole in Evans' theory

Evans quotes sources as saying that Hamshari was receiving protection money from Aristotle Onassis to prevent attacks on his Olympic Airlines.

Evans alleged that Sirhan had been ordered to kill RFK by PLO official Mahmoud Hamshari. He claims to have unearthed evidence that Aristotle Onassis had given Hamshari money to direct his PLO terrorists away from his Olympic Airways airlines at a time when planes were being hijacked and that some of the money was used to hire Sirhan to kill RFK.

The first time that Palestinians hijacked a plane was, July 23, 1968 - an El Al flight from Rome to Tel Aviv, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_hijacking

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Front...on_of_Palestine

The first hijacking of a non-Israeli plane was a TWA flight from LA to Athens, August 29, 1969. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsourc.../incidents.html

The terrorist believed incorrectly that Yitzak Rabin then Israel's ambassador to the US was on board. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_840

The first attack against an airliner with no connection to Israel was some time between December 1969 and January 1970 [ http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsourc.../incidents.html see incidents 9, 11 & 12]

It seems highly unlikely that Onassis would be paying protection money for a type of crime that had not yet taken place. The El Al incident is what kicked off airline hijacking as a political tool.

Onassis, says Evans, had hated Bobby Kennedy since 1953, when Kennedy was one of the prime movers in scuppering a major deal Onassis was pushing through in Saudi Arabia. In addition, Kennedy stood in the way of his marriage to Jackie. She had promised her brother-in-law not to wed Onassis until after the 1968 election because they both knew how the American public would have reacted. She married Onassis in October 1968.

The Jackie angle doesn't make sense. Onassis would risk being executed and having to keep a secret like that from his wife so he could marry her a few months earlier?!?!

One wonders with such poor research and reasoning if anything in his book should be taken seriously. [it probably deserves a place along side another CT book about the death of another liberal Senator] I am also skeptical about the sunk shipping deal angle. How does Evans allege that happened? In 1953 RFK, 2 years out of law school, was a Senate staff attorney either for McCarthy or Kefauver [sp?] and Onassis was already one of the biggest shipping magnates in the World

So the Mickey Cohen and Aristotle Onassis theories don't hold any water. The idea that Nixon or some ultra-right wing types would want to kill him seems more plausible.

[Len Colby]

"My most enjoyable time was when I went to Muehlhausen in East-Germany and had a chance to play an organ in Bach's church where he had his second job... I have been to all of the cities he worked in. It's a hobby of mine."

Larry Teeter , Sirhan Sirhan's lawyer http://homepages.tcp.co.uk/~ dlewis /teeter.htm

My dad was born in Muhlhausen [that's the correct spelling]. The house he grew up in, which is now the post office, is across the street from "Bach's church where he had his second job". My grandfather was friends with the deacon and was allowed to play the organ there when the church was closed.

[Guest Stephen Turner]

FURTHER DESTRUCTION OF EVIDENCE BY LAPD.

...2,400,Photographs burned because they were"Dulicates" in fact,

there were no lists precise enough to show that all the photo's

destroyed were indeed duplicates.

...Ceiling tiles & door frames from the pantry destroyed, because

according to then assistant chief Daryl Gates, they would'nt fit

into card files.

...In addition, LAPD records showed that they had recorded 3,470

interviews during the course of the investigation. only 301 interviews

were released. Examination by researchers showed that for 501

key " conspiracy" witnesses there were no interviews.

The LAPD were not alone in this cover up. The L.A. District Attorney's

office was also involved. The scope of this involvement was seen in

the files released in 1985, due mainly to the inclusion of a box of tapes,

videos & documents sent from the LAPD branch at Van Nuys. This box

contained evidence which went against the official version. The most

graphic examples were the video reconstructions from 1968 & 1977,

which prove that Sirhan could not have inflicted the wounds on Senator

Kennedy. However, by using selected stills from the recon's the official

version was supported......

  Source The Cover Up...http//homepages.tcp.co.uk/~dlewis/coverup.htm

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Steve there are no sources listed for this information on the site. I imagine that most of it is true but we have no way of know what is and what isn't.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Len, agreed. I will attempt to track down the sources for these claims, but you should know that the LAPD were no less tardry in their handling of physical evidence in 1968, than the DPD were in 1963. Regards, Steve.

[Len Colby]

Len, agreed. I will attempt to track down the sources for these claims, but you should know that the LAPD were no less tardry in their handling of physical evidence in 1968, than the DPD were in 1963. Regards, Steve.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You think it was more conspiracy or incompetence? I think a lot of the stuff that was destroyed, was destroyed years later. IIRC the door frame only got chucked out in 1975.

Len

Edited September 29, 2005 by Len Colby

[Norman T. Field]

So the Mickey Cohen and Aristotle Onassis theories don't hold any water.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I never meant to suggest that Mr. Cohen or his associates originated this plot, only that they or their assets cooperated. If I want to kill someone in a hotel, it will be lots easier if management cooperates.

Edited September 29, 2005 by Norman T. Field

[Guest Stephen Turner]

Len I dont believe either police force was complicit in the actual act of assassination. But acted as a brake on full investigation. Gotta go now, will explain my thinking in greater depth tomorrow. Steve.

[Norman T. Field]

FURTHER DESTRUCTION OF EVIDENCE BY LAPD.

Len, agreed. I will attempt to track down the sources for these claims, but you should know that the LAPD were no less tardry in their handling of physical evidence in 1968, than the DPD were in 1963. Regards, Steve.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I presume most everbody has read or seen L.A. Confidential, in which the chief of police trys to takeover organized crime when Mickey Cohen went to school. Given that the author routinely created very well researched novels about actual events, I wonder how much truth there was to this plot?

Local governments attempting to 'regulate' (that is, control) 'vice' is a very old idea. My maternal grandfather, an associate of Anton Cermak, said LA in the 60's, where he had retired, was as corrupt as Chicago in the 40's. That is a staggering

amount of corruption, as the Outfit ran Chicago with total impunity in those years.

[Len Colby]

So the Mickey Cohen and Aristotle Onassis theories don't hold any water.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I never meant to suggest that Mr. Cohen or his associates originated this plot, only that they or their assest cooperated. If I want to kill someone in a hotel, it will be lots easier if management cooperates.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

So Cohen gave an order from, Atlanta Federal Penitentiary - a maximum security facility where IIRC prisoners were held incomunicado, to get a patsy from the race track and let him and others in to the hotel to kill RFK?!

Are you sure he was the owner of the racetrack and hotel in 1968?

What is your source of this information?

Did you know he'd been in prison for over seven years before RFK was killed?

If not why not?

If so why didn't you include that info in your post?

You said "Sirhan worked as a groom at a racetrack, know who owned the track? Mickey Cohen. And then there is the owner of the hotel where RFK was shot, owned by ..... Mickey Cohen! I dunno about an Ari connection, but there sure seems to be an organized crime connection."

That sure makes it sound like he was one of the plotters

Len

PS no offence I give every one a hard time

Edited September 29, 2005 by Len Colby

[Pat Speer]

Len, I also am skeptical about Cohen's involvement. I don't believe he owned the hotel or the racetrack. Sirhan Sirhan was a workout rider for a mob figure living down by San Diego--I can find his name if you like. He was also a rider for Desi Arnaz, who knew Al Capone as a child and was a regular at Ciro's, where Mickey Cohen reigned supreme, back in the forties. Arnaz was also active in the anti-Castro movement. Cohen, by the way, had been a MAJOR fundraiser for the terrorist groups that eventually formed the state of Israel. He also HATED Bobby Kennedy, and admitted as much in his memoirs. Cohen may have had Kennedy killed then for multiple reasons, for REVENGE for his being put away, and to crysalize anti-Palestinian sentiment. Cohen may have been promised a pardon from Nixon, who knows? He admits supporting Nixon. But, as I said, I'm skeptical.

My source on the Gerry Owen alibi was William Turner's book on the assassination. Owen was pals with Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom, who was a business associate of Cohen's in the forties and fifties. They owned Slapsie Maxie's together. Strangely, Rosenbloom was also pals with Mayor Sam Yorty, who made some indiscreet comments about Sirhan early in the investigation. My source on the relationship between Cohen and Rosenbloom is Cohen himself, in his memoirs, and an ex-coworker of mine who used to dance at Slapsie Maxie's named Jackie.

[Len Colby]

Len, I also am skeptical about Cohen's involvement.  I don't believe he owned the hotel or the racetrack.  Sirhan Sirhan was a workout rider for a mob figure living down by San Diego--I can find his name if you like... Cohen ... HATED Bobby Kennedy, and admitted as much in his memoirs. Cohen may have had Kennedy killed then for multiple reasons, for REVENGE for his being put away...But, as I said, I'm skeptical.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The hotel and racetrack thing don't make sense to me either

1] If it's true why hasn't this info come out earlier?

2] the guy who posted the info seemed to be unaware that Cohen had been in prison for over 7 years and hasn't replied yet.

3] I seriously doubt Cohen would have been interested in a racetrack in unglamorous San Diego.

4]According to your info some other mob type owned it. Do you remember if he was tied to Cohen?

The revenge angle is an interesting one. RFK might have gotten Cohen twice, once in 61 as AG and a few years earlier as lead council for the Kefauver committe [apperently they turned up info that got him put away]. Of course if we would consider how many mob types RFK was responsible for "sending up the river" the list of suspect would be a very long one.

Do you agree that the Onasis buissness is absurd? This guy Evans seems to be completely clueless.

Len

[Len Colby]

"never mind"

Emma Latella

[Norman T. Field]

My comment regarding Mr. Cohen came from several books I have read over the last 30 years. At this moment, I don't remember which ones, sorry.

Do I think Mikey Cohen originated the plot? Hell no. Could his resources been used? Quite likely.

Would he have surrendered control of his empire while in the big house? Not necessarily. There are numerous examples of Capone, Luciano and Gianacan running their fiefdoms from jail.

Why would a mobster want to own a race track? Same reasons Al Capone had Sportsmans Park. Aside from the fixing of races, there is all that cash to skim.

Who do I think killed RFK? The same people who killed one brother and framed the other.