The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy

Longlisted for the People's Book Prize 2018.



At 12.16am on Wednesday, June 5, 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy was shot and mortally wounded in the kitchen service pantry of the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles. A little over 24 hours later, he was pronounced dead.



A 24-year-old Palestinian immigrant, Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, was captured in the pantry with a smoking gun in his hand. Eyewitnesses had seen him step out in front of Kennedy and begin shooting with a small calibre revolver. In April 1969, Sirhan was convicted of Robert Kennedy's murder and the wounding of five others. He was sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment. He has been in prison - often in solitary confinement - ever since.



The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy is the result of more than 25 years' painstaking forensic work that challenges some of the assumptions and conclusions around the murder. The authors have scrutinised more than 100,000 official documents, located previously unknown recordings, and conducted original new interviews with key figures in the case.



They show that Sirhan could not have fired the fatal bullets, reveal detailed evidence of a murderous conspiracy involving organised crime, and disclose CIA documents detailing successful experiments to create a hypno-programmed political assassin. The book also unmasks the likely identity of one of the most enduring mysteries in the case - the infamous 'Girl in the Polka Dot Dress'.