The RFK1A Disappeared Photos Tale

[Benjamin Cole]

The following story has alway stuck in my head, as I had a passing acquaintance with one of the actors, a Skip Miller, then and even yet a big-shot L.A. lawyer.  

Here is the short story, ala Spartacus:

"Jamie Scott Enyart was born in 1953. On 6th June, 1968, Enyart, a 15 year old high school student, a high-school student, was taking photographs of Robert F. Kennedy as he was walking from the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel to the Colonial Room where the press conference was due to take place. Enyart was standing slightly behind Kennedy when the shooting began and snapped as fast as he could.

As Enyart was leaving the pantry, two LAPD officers accosted him at gunpoint and seized his three, 36-exposure rolls of film. Later, he was told by Detective Dudley Varney that the photographs were needed as evidence in the trial of Sirhan Sirhan. The photographs were not presented as evidence but the court ordered that all evidential materials had to be sealed for twenty years.

In 1988 Scott Enyart requested that his photographs should be returned. At first the State Archives claimed they could not find them and that they must have been destroyed by mistake. Enyart filed a lawsuit which finally came to trial in 1996. During the trial the Los Angeles city attorney announced that the photos had been found in its Sacramento office and would be brought to the courthouse by the courier retained by the State Archives. The following day it was announced that the courier’s briefcase, that contained the photographs, had been stolen from the car he rented at the airport. The photographs have never been recovered and the jury subsequently awarded Scott Enyart $450,000 in damages.

Scott Enyart now works as a special effects director and has worked on the films, The Granny (1995) and House of Yes (1997).

---30---

Skip Miller was already high profile lawyer back in the day, and oddly the City of Los Angeles, despite having a large on-staff City Attorney's Office, hired Miller to defend the city against an Enyart lawsuit regarding the stolen negatives or photographs.  

From Los Angeles Times 1/18/96

The negatives of some photographs taken in the moments surrounding the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy are missing.

That is not a matter of debate.

But almost everything else about the pictures is.

Did they show the crucial seconds when bullets felled the presidential candidate in a pantry at the Ambassador Hotel on June 5, 1968, as claimed by the photographer, Jamie Scott Enyart? Or did they show nothing of the assassination, as alleged by the city attorney's office?

Could they have been destroyed, along with other evidence, after the official assassination investigation, as suggested by Enyart? Or were they simply misplaced, only to turn up in state archives more than 25 years later, as claimed by city and state officials?

And was a manila envelope containing the recently rediscovered negatives stolen from a courier's car in Inglewood last Friday, as claimed by the courier? Even attorneys for the city, who may soon have to mount a defense in Enyart's $2-million lawsuit over the missing negatives, admit that the circumstances surrounding the alleged theft are "highly unusual."

Enyart's attorney, Alvin Greenwald, hinted darkly at a conspiracy--a suggestion, never substantiated, that has haunted every investigation of the New York senator's death.

"Somebody, for some reason, is making sure those photos do not reach public view," Greenwald said.

Louis "Skip" Miller, an attorney for the city, conceded that the incident in Inglewood was strange, but he scoffed at Greenwald's suggestion.

"What happened here is just a petty theft," Miller said. "A run of bad luck."

---30---

Ok, if you have followed this, Enyart took photos of the RFK1A, that no member of the public has ever seen. Even if the photos do not capture the actual moment, they might reveal who was near RFK or other vital information.  

When at long last the Enyart negatives were found, they are given to a courier to deliver to a Los Angeles courthouse and Enyart---but the courier gets robbed of the photos. You might think the whole point of hiring a courier, rather than, say, Federal Express or UPS, is make double-double sure the photos get where they are supposed to. As in the internet meme, "The courier had one job." 

So who is Miller? I do not like the guilt by association game. But his former law firm, Christensen, Miller, Fink, Jacobs, Glaser, Weil & Shapiro, played hardball. 

If you see Shapiro and Los Angeles, you probably think "OJ Simpson's attorney" and you would be right. 

Then this tidy little event: "Miller left the (his old) firm not long after firm leader Terry Christensen was indicted in the federal wiretapping case against private investigator Anthony Pellicano. On Aug. 29, a federal jury in Los Angeles convicted Christensen of conspiring with Pellicano to wiretap an opponent of one of Christensen's clients."

Oh, wiretapping opponents of one's clients. 

In 2000, a CA State Bar prosecutor tried to have Skip Miller suspended for two years for improperly contacting a juror, but it is the State Bar (an organization of lawyers) who decides who get barred. Miller kept his license. https://dailyjournal.com/article/255896-court-will-not-suspend-louis-r-skip-miller

So...how did those couriered photographs disappear? 

And Sirhan was just a lone wolf nobody? 

But there is more! It turns out Miller (he says unwittingly)  had engaged in  jury tampering in the Enyart case.  

Lawyer Faces Charge of Jury Tampering

 

By JOSH MEYER--Los Angeles Times

Aug. 10, 1999 12 AM PT

Louis “Skip” Miller, known as one of the most hard-nosed and aggressive attorneys in Los Angeles, is often hired to defend the city and its Police Department from accusations of wrongdoing.

But did he engage in wrongdoing himself--possibly tampering with a jury--in a high-profile case involving missing photos of the Robert F. Kennedy assassination?

That was the question raised Monday during a high-stakes courtroom drama of its own, as Miller found himself on trial before a State Bar of California judge.

The litigator, aided by a legal team that includes former state Supreme Court Justice Armand Arabian, was fighting to avoid disciplinary action that could be as severe as losing his license to practice law in the state.

In their legal filings, Miller and his attorneys have steadfastly denied that he acted improperly. On Monday, Miller, who is 52 and works out of a Century City-based firm, had no comment.

In a day’s worth of testimony in the wood-paneled state bar courtroom in downtown Los Angeles, the state bar representative accused Miller of willfully violating the code of professional conduct by contacting a juror in a 1996 civil case in which he was representing the LAPD.

The LAPD had been accused in a $2-million civil suit of losing the valuable film negatives of the Robert F. Kennedy assassination that a high school newspaper photographer had snapped as the presidential candidate was gunned down in the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel in 1968.

After lawyers for the photographer, Jamie Scott Enyart, hinted darkly that the loss of the negatives was part of some assassination-related conspiracy, Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn hired Miller--at $225 an hour--to make sure the city did not lose the case.

During the 1996 trial, jurors were at war with one another as they deliberated over whether the LAPD acted negligently, or with malice. The jury foreman, Robert Pinger, even wrote the judge a note saying he was concerned about juror misconduct, before asking to be excused from the jury so he could get back to his job as a schoolteacher.

The day after Pinger was excused, Miller called him and asked to meet and discuss whether fellow jurors had engaged in any improprieties that could result in a mistrial, which would help Miller’s client, the LAPD. In testimony Monday, Pinger recalled that the two met at a restaurant and discussed the jury’s deliberations.

Miller soon petitioned for a mistrial in the photo case, using a declaration from Pinger as a foundation.

The judge denied the petition, and said Miller may have acted inappropriately by talking with Pinger and that she would report the attorney to the state bar.

Enyart, now a special effects artist, ended up winning the case and a $450,600 award, which remains on appeal.

Until 1992, lawyers were permitted to discuss a pending case with jurors who had been excused from the trial. State statutes were amended in 1992 to specifically outlaw such contact with jurors discharged from a pending case.

But in his defense, Miller says that he relied on law firm associate Kevin Leichter to determine whether contacting an excused juror was legal, and that Leichter failed to notice that the law had been amended.

Leichter supported Miller’s contention during his testimony Monday. Miller is set to testify today.

Miller, a graduate of UCLA Law School who has been in practice since 1972, has represented City Councilman Nate Holden in a sexual harassment case filed against him. In other city cases, he defended Mayor Richard Riordan in various public matters and the city in a series of civil rights and police brutality cases.

---30---

Well, all on all, I would say something fishy happened to the Enyart photographs of the RFK1. Maybe Miller made it happen. Maybe not. 

Edited June 2 by Benjamin Cole

[Robert Morrow]

1)    The Blatant Conspiracy Behind Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s Assassination| Countercurrents

 [My little ole opinion is that there was no conspiracy in the RFK assassination. - Robert Morrow]

Edward Curtin: 

QUOTE

 While such pseudo-innocence prevailed then and is still very widespread, perhaps no one epitomized the twisted mind games played by intelligence agencies more than James Jesus Angleton, the notorious CIA Counterintelligence Chief for so many years, in whose safe were found gruesome photos of Robert Kennedy’s autopsy.  Why, one may ask, were those photos there, since Angleton allegedly had no connection to the RFK killing and since Sirhan was said to be the assassin?  Was Angleton’s work as CIA liaison with Israel in any way connected?

 UNQUOTE

[“The Blatant Conspiracy behind Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s Assassination,” Edward Curtin, Countercurrents.org, May 30, 2018.]

[Nick Bartetzko]

8 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

The following story has alway stuck in my head, as I had a passing acquaintance with one of the actors, a Skip Miller, then and even yet a big-shot L.A. lawyer.  

Here is the short story, ala Spartacus:

"Jamie Scott Enyart was born in 1953. On 6th June, 1968, Enyart, a 15 year old high school student, a high-school student, was taking photographs of Robert F. Kennedy as he was walking from the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel to the Colonial Room where the press conference was due to take place. Enyart was standing slightly behind Kennedy when the shooting began and snapped as fast as he could.

As Enyart was leaving the pantry, two LAPD officers accosted him at gunpoint and seized his three, 36-exposure rolls of film. Later, he was told by Detective Dudley Varney that the photographs were needed as evidence in the trial of Sirhan Sirhan. The photographs were not presented as evidence but the court ordered that all evidential materials had to be sealed for twenty years.

In 1988 Scott Enyart requested that his photographs should be returned. At first the State Archives claimed they could not find them and that they must have been destroyed by mistake. Enyart filed a lawsuit which finally came to trial in 1996. During the trial the Los Angeles city attorney announced that the photos had been found in its Sacramento office and would be brought to the courthouse by the courier retained by the State Archives. The following day it was announced that the courier’s briefcase, that contained the photographs, had been stolen from the car he rented at the airport. The photographs have never been recovered and the jury subsequently awarded Scott Enyart $450,000 in damages.

Scott Enyart now works as a special effects director and has worked on the films, The Granny (1995) and House of Yes (1997).

---30---

Skip Miller was already high profile lawyer back in the day, and oddly the City of Los Angeles, despite having a large on-staff City Attorney's Office, hired Miller to defend the city against an Enyart lawsuit regarding the stolen negatives or photographs.  

From Los Angeles Times 1/18/96

The negatives of some photographs taken in the moments surrounding the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy are missing.

That is not a matter of debate.

But almost everything else about the pictures is.

Did they show the crucial seconds when bullets felled the presidential candidate in a pantry at the Ambassador Hotel on June 5, 1968, as claimed by the photographer, Jamie Scott Enyart? Or did they show nothing of the assassination, as alleged by the city attorney's office?

Could they have been destroyed, along with other evidence, after the official assassination investigation, as suggested by Enyart? Or were they simply misplaced, only to turn up in state archives more than 25 years later, as claimed by city and state officials?

And was a manila envelope containing the recently rediscovered negatives stolen from a courier's car in Inglewood last Friday, as claimed by the courier? Even attorneys for the city, who may soon have to mount a defense in Enyart's $2-million lawsuit over the missing negatives, admit that the circumstances surrounding the alleged theft are "highly unusual."

Enyart's attorney, Alvin Greenwald, hinted darkly at a conspiracy--a suggestion, never substantiated, that has haunted every investigation of the New York senator's death.

"Somebody, for some reason, is making sure those photos do not reach public view," Greenwald said.

Louis "Skip" Miller, an attorney for the city, conceded that the incident in Inglewood was strange, but he scoffed at Greenwald's suggestion.

"What happened here is just a petty theft," Miller said. "A run of bad luck."

---30---

Ok, if you have followed this, Enyart took photos of the RFK1, that no member of the public has ever seen. Even if the photos do not capture the actual moment, they might reveal who was near RFK or other vital information.  

When at long last the Enyart negatives were found, they are given to a courier to deliver to a Los Angeles courthouse and Enyart---but the courier gets robbed of the photos. You might think the whole point of hiring a courier, rather than, say, Federal Express or UPS, is make double-double sure the photos get where they are supposed to. As in the internet meme, "The courier had one job." 

So who is Miller? I do not like the guilt by association game. But his former law firm, Christensen, Miller, Fink, Jacobs, Glaser, Weil & Shapiro, played hardball. 

If you see Shapiro and Los Angeles, you probably think "OJ Simpson's attorney" and you would be right. 

Then this tidy little event: "Miller left the (his old) firm not long after firm leader Terry Christensen was indicted in the federal wiretapping case against private investigator Anthony Pellicano. On Aug. 29, a federal jury in Los Angeles convicted Christensen of conspiring with Pellicano to wiretap an opponent of one of Christensen's clients."

Oh, wiretapping opponents of one's clients. 

In 2000, a CA State Bar prosecutor tried to have Skip Miller suspended for two years for improperly contacting a juror, but it is the State Bar (an organization of lawyers) who decides who get barred. Miller kept his license. https://dailyjournal.com/article/255896-court-will-not-suspend-louis-r-skip-miller

So...how did those couriered photographs disappear? 

And Sirhan was just a lone wolf nobody? 

But there is more! It turns out Miller (he says unwittingly)  had engaged in  jury tampering in the Enyart case.  

Lawyer Faces Charge of Jury Tampering

 

By JOSH MEYER--Los Angeles Times

Aug. 10, 1999 12 AM PT

Louis “Skip” Miller, known as one of the most hard-nosed and aggressive attorneys in Los Angeles, is often hired to defend the city and its Police Department from accusations of wrongdoing.

But did he engage in wrongdoing himself--possibly tampering with a jury--in a high-profile case involving missing photos of the Robert F. Kennedy assassination?

That was the question raised Monday during a high-stakes courtroom drama of its own, as Miller found himself on trial before a State Bar of California judge.

The litigator, aided by a legal team that includes former state Supreme Court Justice Armand Arabian, was fighting to avoid disciplinary action that could be as severe as losing his license to practice law in the state.

In their legal filings, Miller and his attorneys have steadfastly denied that he acted improperly. On Monday, Miller, who is 52 and works out of a Century City-based firm, had no comment.

In a day’s worth of testimony in the wood-paneled state bar courtroom in downtown Los Angeles, the state bar representative accused Miller of willfully violating the code of professional conduct by contacting a juror in a 1996 civil case in which he was representing the LAPD.

The LAPD had been accused in a $2-million civil suit of losing the valuable film negatives of the Robert F. Kennedy assassination that a high school newspaper photographer had snapped as the presidential candidate was gunned down in the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel in 1968.

After lawyers for the photographer, Jamie Scott Enyart, hinted darkly that the loss of the negatives was part of some assassination-related conspiracy, Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn hired Miller--at $225 an hour--to make sure the city did not lose the case.

During the 1996 trial, jurors were at war with one another as they deliberated over whether the LAPD acted negligently, or with malice. The jury foreman, Robert Pinger, even wrote the judge a note saying he was concerned about juror misconduct, before asking to be excused from the jury so he could get back to his job as a schoolteacher.

The day after Pinger was excused, Miller called him and asked to meet and discuss whether fellow jurors had engaged in any improprieties that could result in a mistrial, which would help Miller’s client, the LAPD. In testimony Monday, Pinger recalled that the two met at a restaurant and discussed the jury’s deliberations.

Miller soon petitioned for a mistrial in the photo case, using a declaration from Pinger as a foundation.

The judge denied the petition, and said Miller may have acted inappropriately by talking with Pinger and that she would report the attorney to the state bar.

Enyart, now a special effects artist, ended up winning the case and a $450,600 award, which remains on appeal.

Until 1992, lawyers were permitted to discuss a pending case with jurors who had been excused from the trial. State statutes were amended in 1992 to specifically outlaw such contact with jurors discharged from a pending case.

But in his defense, Miller says that he relied on law firm associate Kevin Leichter to determine whether contacting an excused juror was legal, and that Leichter failed to notice that the law had been amended.

Leichter supported Miller’s contention during his testimony Monday. Miller is set to testify today.

Miller, a graduate of UCLA Law School who has been in practice since 1972, has represented City Councilman Nate Holden in a sexual harassment case filed against him. In other city cases, he defended Mayor Richard Riordan in various public matters and the city in a series of civil rights and police brutality cases.

---30---

Well, all on all, I would say something fishy happened to the Enyart photographs of the RFK1. Maybe Miller made it happen. Maybe not. 

Yes, I've wondered about those Enyart photos for years. Knowing how these folks operate, I would have hired couriers myself and accompanied them. If there were truly any photos of substance, they were likely destroyed years before the batch of courier photos. There is a photo taken by another photographer and he makes a point that Enyart was not standing where he said he was. I don't know enough about the case to conclude one way or the other, but I suspect that Enyart's account is quite accurate and we have more destruction of evidence in a Kennedy murder. 

[Benjamin Cole]

5 hours ago, Robert Morrow said:

1)    The Blatant Conspiracy Behind Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s Assassination| Countercurrents

 [My little ole opinion is that there was no conspiracy in the RFK assassination. - Robert Morrow]

Edward Curtin: 

QUOTE

 While such pseudo-innocence prevailed then and is still very widespread, perhaps no one epitomized the twisted mind games played by intelligence agencies more than James Jesus Angleton, the notorious CIA Counterintelligence Chief for so many years, in whose safe were found gruesome photos of Robert Kennedy’s autopsy.  Why, one may ask, were those photos there, since Angleton allegedly had no connection to the RFK killing and since Sirhan was said to be the assassin?  Was Angleton’s work as CIA liaison with Israel in any way connected?

 UNQUOTE

[“The Blatant Conspiracy behind Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s Assassination,” Edward Curtin, Countercurrents.org, May 30, 2018.]

If Angleton really had such photos...why? 

[Benjamin Cole]

26 minutes ago, Nick Bartetzko said:

Yes, I've wondered about those Enyart photos for years. Knowing how these folks operate, I would have hired couriers myself and accompanied them. If there were truly any photos of substance, they were likely destroyed years before the batch of courier photos. There is a photo taken by another photographer and he makes a point that Enyart was not standing where he said he was. I don't know enough about the case to conclude one way or the other, but I suspect that Enyart's account is quite accurate and we have more destruction of evidence in a Kennedy murder. 

NB--

Thanks for your collegial comments. 

Verily, the LAPD did destroy thousands of photos and other evidence, claiming they lacked sufficient storage, but not giving the evidence away to RFK1A researchers or others who would have been glad to rent a store-it-yourself facility or whatnot. 

I am with you, we could expect the Enyart negatives to be destroyed too, way back when. 

But maybe Enyart photographs were destroyed by the LAPD, but somehow the negatives were overlooked. Perhaps even a sympathetic or earnest staffer inside the LAPD stuffed the negatives into a box headed for the state archives.  Maybe deliberately or maybe by mistake. If you have ever worked at a large organization...you know mistakes do get made. 

In any event, the "robbing" of the Enyart courier stretches credulity, and for me, to the breaking point. 

Seeing the Miller law firm involved.... oooof. 

I would bet about 5 to 1 the negatives were seized...but not by a petty criminal. 

 

 

 

[Robert Morrow]

10 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

If Angleton really had such photos...why? 

Maybe he hated Robert Kennedy and liked looking at dead pictures of him? I expect the same regarding Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover in regards to both JFK and RFK. There is no proof that Lyndon Johnson saw the Zapruder film, but the odds are he did and he watched it over and over again with enjoyment. 

[Benjamin Cole]

On 6/3/2024 at 6:57 AM, Robert Morrow said:

Maybe he hated Robert Kennedy and liked looking at dead pictures of him? I expect the same regarding Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover in regards to both JFK and RFK. There is no proof that Lyndon Johnson saw the Zapruder film, but the odds are he did and he watched it over and over again with enjoyment. 

Thanks for your views.

In nutshell, I guess I coming to this view:

The RFKA1 is even more important than I thought. 

Why?

1. No matter what anyone believes about the JFKA, there are always uncertainties. Maybe it was a Lone Nut, or maybe the LBJ gang. I look at the Miami-CIA-Cuban exiles and cast suspicion (without excluding higher-ups), but others suspect Russians. 

2. But when we look at the suppression and destruction of evidence in the RFK1---that tends to connect the RFK1A to the JFKA. Russians could get to lawyer Skip Miller and get the Enyart photos disappeared? Seems unlikely. And did the Russians care that much about RFK1? The RFK1A suggests an organization, U.S.-based, with some staying power and depth. Why destroy evidence, if Sirhan was a Lone Nut? 

3. One could say the Mob did both the JFKA and the RFK1A, but the strange mental state of Sirhan seems to suggest programming, although that is hardly certain. But generally beyond what the Mob could do. And could the Mob get Cesar to shoot RFK1? The CIA can reasonably promise they will compromise a true investigation into the RFK1A, comforting Cesar.  Maheu was a possible cut-out link to the CIA. 

4. Is the RFK1A something LBJ could pull off? He hated RFK1, or that is the lore.  

---30---

Nothing is certain in JFKA-land. A wilderness of mirrors indeed.  IMHO, the RFK1A tends to underline that Deep State elements were involved in the JFKA. They felt compelled to follow up with the RFK1A, and had enough resources and cut-outs to make it work. 

Side note: Sometimes people ask, "But what if RFK1 had not walked through the pantry where he was shot? Wasn't that just random luck?"

Maybe Cesar picked the route, or maybe there were yet other gunsels at other locations. Or maybe the assassins would have been foiled on that night, and tried elsewhere. 

 

 

 

Edited June 4 by Benjamin Cole

[Robert Morrow]

54 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

4. Is the RFK1A something LBJ could pull off? He hated RFK1, or that is the lore.  

Oh really? The hated between Robert Kennedy before during and after the 1960 Democratic convention, during the JFK assassination and after the JFK assassination is some sort of "lore?"

Mutual Contempt by Jeff Sheshol vastly underestimates the hatred between LBJ and Robert Kennedy: Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, and the Feud that Defined a Decade: Shesol, Jeff: 9780393318555: Amazon.com: Books

Lyndon Johnson was acutely aware of and highly agitated about Robert Kennedys real time attempts to utter destroy Lyndon Johnson in November, 1963. It was real time, current, ongoing, highly advanced, imminent and Lyndon Johnson knew all about it. That is like threatening LBJ's life. He would respond violently to that.

Lyndon Johnson would be the very top suspect in any murder of Robert Kennedy. Except that there is no evidence that LBJ murdered RFK. But LBJ was definitely happy Robert Kennedy was dead. LBJ kept asking "Is he dead yet? Is he dead yet" in reference to RFK.

Lyndon Johnson canceled Air Force plane for top Boston brain surgeon for a dying RFK

[C. David Heymann,  RFK: A Candid Biography Of Robert F. Kennedy,  p. 505]

 QUOTE

      Ted Van Dyk: “In the middle of the night I was shaken awake by David Gartner, a personal aide to the vice president. And Dave said, ‘Humphrey says get up, Robert Kennedy's been shot.’ And I said, ‘David, that's a sick joke.’ He said, ‘No, no, Robert Kennedy's been shot.’

     “So I got up and Humphrey was absolutely distraught, he was just absolutely beside himself with anxiety and concern. And we then received a telephone  call from Steve Smith and Pierre Salinger in California. They said, ‘There's a brain surgeon we trust in Boston. Could you arrange for a private plane to fly him to Los Angeles? Because Robert Kennedy's still alive and there's a possibility of saving him.’

     Humphrey called up the commanding general of the air force, who happened to be there at the academy. And Humphrey said, ‘Will you please dispatch this plane?’ The general said, "I surely will."

     “Ten minutes later we received a call from an aide in the White House: President Johnson had canceled the plane because Humphrey had no authority to send it. The fact was, Johnson preferred Robert Kennedy dead.

     “It was one of the most heinous acts I've ever experienced in my life, and it all but broke Humphrey's heart.”

 UNQUOTE

 [C. David Heymann,  RFK: A Candid Biography Of Robert F. Kennedy,  p. 505]

--Ted Van Dyk, Aide to then Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey

 Bio: Ted Van Dyk has been active in national policy and politics for more than 30 years. He began active military duty in 1957 as a U.S. Army intelligence analyst. His subsequent jobs have included Soviet specialist and intelligence analyst at the Pentagon; senior assistant to Vice President Hubert Humphrey and coordinator of foreign assistance programs in the Carter Administration, to name just a few. He also served as a senior political and policy advisor to seven Democratic presidential candidates. Since early 2001, he has been an editorial-page columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and has continued writing periodically for national publications.

 http://www.washington.edu/alumni/clubs/communication/newsletter/200609/halloffame.html 

 Pat Speer on LBJ nixing a plane for a brain surgeon for a dying RFK

 June 7, 2014 post at Education Forum: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=21239#entry287534

 Although Heymann is a serial fibber, there may be some truth to this one. No less than Ramsey Clark has admitted that Johnson's buddy Hoover deliberately timed the release of info about James Earl Ray's arrest to interfere with TV coverage of RFK's funeral. If you've ever taken a peak at the FBI file of Robert Kennedy, moreover, you'll find that Hoover sent agents to a gathering in RFK's honor, not to honor Kennedy, but to report on who was there and whether they were crying, etc. In other words, he wanted to know who was loyal to Kennedy, and thus, who he should consider an "enemy." Johnson was of the same mind-set. It is still little-appreciated in academic circles, but Johnson was completely obsessed with the thought RFK was gonna get him, and find some way to blame him for the JFK assassination. Johnson made at least three phone calls to Fortas in which he claimed Bobby was behind Mark Lane, etc, and that they were all out to get him.

Wednesday night July 13, 1960 – a shirtless Lyndon Johnson with his pants’ fly open in the Biltmore hotel hallway, having lost the Democratic presidential nomination, was drunk as a skunk and cursing the Kennedys

QUOTE

          Advance word of Kennedy’s upcoming invitation did not sweeten Lyndon Johnson’s temperament as the convention proceeded. And late Wednesday night, whether angry at Bobby and his family over slurs traded between camps or suspicious that RFK opposed Jack’s decision, or perhaps simply chagrined at his own second-place finish in the just-completed presidential balloting – he’d gotten only half as many delegates at the victorious upstart from Massachusetts – LBJ was in a foul mood. “As I went up to the seventh floor of the Biltmore where Johnson was staying,” reported Gene Scherrer, then head of VIP security for the Los Angeles Police Department. “Johnson was in the hallway, ranting and raving about the Kennedys, saying things like, ‘Those motherxxxxers’ and ‘I’d like to piss on Bobby.’ He didn’t have his shirt on and his fly was open. He was very drunk and very obscene. Of course, the next day, he was named John Kennedy’s vice presidential candidate.”

UNQUOTE

[C. David Heymann, RFK, pp. 167-168]

Arthur Schlesinger on Robert Kennedy being convinced at one point that Lyndon Johnson had murdered John Kennedy

 

"We tried to perpetuate the myth by convincing ourselves that we were good and that LBJ was evil. I remember one time Bobby telling me he was convinced that Lyndon was behind his brother's death. 'Come on Bob. Get real.' I said. His other theory had it that Richard Nixon and Howard Hughes were somehow involved. He hated them both. 'Nixon's a true slimebucket,' he said. 'And I should have investigated Hughes years ago.'"

 [C. David Heymann, RFK, p. 365]

Ethel Kennedy in 1963 was 100% for dumping Lyndon Johnson and replacing him as VP with her husband Robert Kennedy. She advocated this repeatedly

 QUOTE

           At the time of JFK’s death (November 1963), there was talk among Kennedy insiders of dumping LBJ as a running mate in the 1964 election. Ethel Kennedy made repeated recommendations that there be a Kennedy-Kennedy ticket, RFK to fill the vice-presidential slot. It is doubtful, however, that such a plan would have passed muster with either the president of the attorney general.

 UNQUOTE

 [David Heymann, RFK, p. 542]

Robert Kennedy, Jr. on how Lyndon Johnson was presented as a nemesis to the Kennedy family when he was a kid

 QUOTE

 “Lyndon Johnson was rather a nemesis to the family while we were growing up,” reminisced Bobby, Jr. “In retrospect, he was one of the best presidents we ever had, but during the heat of battle, the kids all regarded him as some kind of ogre.”

 UNQUOTE

 [David Heyman, RFK, p. 367]

 

 

Edited June 3 by Robert Morrow

[Robert Morrow]

50 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

4. Is the RFK1A something LBJ could pull off? He hated RFK1, or that is the lore.  

LYNDON JOHNSON HAD A MURDEROUS ATTITUDE TOWARDS ROBERT KENNEDY

 "I'll cut his throat if it's the last thing I do."

 Robert Caro describes the LBJ-RFK relationship post 1960 Democratic convention, where RFK had moved heaven and earth attempting to keep LBJ off the 1960 Democratic ticket. Caro:

 John Connally, who during long days of conversation with this author was willing to answer almost any question put to him, no matter how delicate the topic, wouldn't answer when asked what Johnson said about Robert Kennedy. When the author pressed him, he finally said flatly: "I am not going to tell you what he said about him." During the months after the convention, when Johnson was closeted alone back in Texas with an old ally he would sometimes be asked about Robert Kennedy. He would reply with a gesture. Raising his big right hand, he would draw the side of it across the neck in a slowing, slitting movement. Sometimes that gesture would be his only reply; sometimes, as during a meeting with Ed Clark in Austin, he would say, as his hand moved across his neck, "I'll cut his throat if it's the last thing I do."  [Robert Caro, The Passage of Power, p. 140]

David Oshinsky’s review of Jeff Sheshol’s book Mutual Contempt about the hatred LBJ and Robert Kennedy had for each other
   https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/10/26/reviews/971026.26oshinkt.html?source=post_page---------------------------

October 26, 1997

Fear and Loathing in the White House

---

Why couldn't L.B.J. and Bobby Kennedy just get along?

By DAVID M. OSHINSKY

QUOTE

 

Shortly after Kennedy announced his candidacy for President in 1968, Johnson withdrew from the race. While convinced he could win re-election, the President no longer relished the prize. The White House had become his prison, surrounded by demonstrators chanting Kennedy's name. ''I'm tired of feeling rejected by the American people,'' he said, ''tired of all these personal attacks on me.'' Johnson blamed Kennedy for spreading ''lies'' about him, in league with ''those bomb-throwing . . . fuzzy-headed Georgetown liberals.'' In June 1968, Robert Kennedy was shot by a deranged Arab nationalist in Los Angeles. As the Senator lay dying, Johnson went on national television to express his ''shock'' and ''dismay.'' That evening, Johnson repeatedly phoned the Secret Service to ask if Kennedy had died. He paced the floor for hours, phone in hand, muttering: ''I've got to know. Is he dead? Is he dead yet?''

This, sadly, was not the end of it. Though Johnson promised Kennedy's family to do ''anything I can do to help,'' he delayed their lone request -- to finance a permanent grave site for the Senator at Arlington National Cemetery, next to his brother John's. In 1969, a new President took the appropriate steps. As he signed the final authorization, Richard Nixon, who knew a thing or two about political grudges, must have smiled.

UNQUOTE

---

[Benjamin Cole]

8 hours ago, Robert Morrow said:

LYNDON JOHNSON HAD A MURDEROUS ATTITUDE TOWARDS ROBERT KENNEDY

 "I'll cut his throat if it's the last thing I do."

 Robert Caro describes the LBJ-RFK relationship post 1960 Democratic convention, where RFK had moved heaven and earth attempting to keep LBJ off the 1960 Democratic ticket. Caro:

 John Connally, who during long days of conversation with this author was willing to answer almost any question put to him, no matter how delicate the topic, wouldn't answer when asked what Johnson said about Robert Kennedy. When the author pressed him, he finally said flatly: "I am not going to tell you what he said about him." During the months after the convention, when Johnson was closeted alone back in Texas with an old ally he would sometimes be asked about Robert Kennedy. He would reply with a gesture. Raising his big right hand, he would draw the side of it across the neck in a slowing, slitting movement. Sometimes that gesture would be his only reply; sometimes, as during a meeting with Ed Clark in Austin, he would say, as his hand moved across his neck, "I'll cut his throat if it's the last thing I do."  [Robert Caro, The Passage of Power, p. 140]

David Oshinsky’s review of Jeff Sheshol’s book Mutual Contempt about the hatred LBJ and Robert Kennedy had for each other
   https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/10/26/reviews/971026.26oshinkt.html?source=post_page---------------------------

October 26, 1997

Fear and Loathing in the White House

---

Why couldn't L.B.J. and Bobby Kennedy just get along?

By DAVID M. OSHINSKY

QUOTE

 

Shortly after Kennedy announced his candidacy for President in 1968, Johnson withdrew from the race. While convinced he could win re-election, the President no longer relished the prize. The White House had become his prison, surrounded by demonstrators chanting Kennedy's name. ''I'm tired of feeling rejected by the American people,'' he said, ''tired of all these personal attacks on me.'' Johnson blamed Kennedy for spreading ''lies'' about him, in league with ''those bomb-throwing . . . fuzzy-headed Georgetown liberals.'' In June 1968, Robert Kennedy was shot by a deranged Arab nationalist in Los Angeles. As the Senator lay dying, Johnson went on national television to express his ''shock'' and ''dismay.'' That evening, Johnson repeatedly phoned the Secret Service to ask if Kennedy had died. He paced the floor for hours, phone in hand, muttering: ''I've got to know. Is he dead? Is he dead yet?''

This, sadly, was not the end of it. Though Johnson promised Kennedy's family to do ''anything I can do to help,'' he delayed their lone request -- to finance a permanent grave site for the Senator at Arlington National Cemetery, next to his brother John's. In 1969, a new President took the appropriate steps. As he signed the final authorization, Richard Nixon, who knew a thing or two about political grudges, must have smiled.

UNQUOTE

---

RM-

Just to be clear, do you think, in truth without sensationalism, that LBJ might have really had just a few small tiffs with RFK1? This sort of thing happens in politics like beer-drinking at a biker rally. Then little feuds get blown out of proportion. 

Edited June 3 by Benjamin Cole

[Mark Ulrik]

Call me an old crank, but I'm not a fan of enumerating the RFKs the way Ben does. I'd like to think of RFK as more than an early version of his idiot son.

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Mark Ulrik said:

Call me an old crank, but I'm not a fan of enumerating the RFKs the way Ben does. I'd like to think of RFK as more than an early version of his idiot son.

I do not call you an old crank. I like the enumeration for clarity and brevity. Like the JKFA or TSBD6. 

 

[Mark Ulrik]

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

I do not call you an old crank. I like the enumeration for clarity and brevity. Like the JKFA or TSBD6.

Surely, RFK is clearer and briefer than RFK1?

[Benjamin Cole]

9 hours ago, Mark Ulrik said:

Surely, RFK is clearer and briefer than RFK1?

MU--

I will deeply and carefully consider this august issue of "RFK" v. "RFK1." 

Note: we are pretty much banned from mentioning RFK2 here, so the use of "RFK1"  clearly signals I am not discussing what is verboten.