In a recent thread on hypnosis, the question arose whether anything really happens when someone is hypnotized, or if it’s all bunkum. I brought up the question of how Sirhan Sirhan allegedly “hypnotized himself” as was reported in the press back in 1968, supposedly using a candle and mirror in a darkened room. This is going to be GD material.
Sirhan said in prison that he was not capable of killing anyone, it went against his religious upbringing, and he had no memory of planning to kill Kennedy, no memory of pulling the trigger. I once heard a conspiracy theory that Sirhan’s mind had been controlled, as though he were a real life Manchurian Candidate. The report of self-hypnosis seems germane to that theory, since both accounts agree that he was just a nice boy with no killer instinct. So: do you think all the pieces of this puzzle have been found, and all fit together?
No matter what horrific event happens, people will find questions and possibly a conspiracy.
It has been quite some time for this one; not all that much has been discussed of it.
Were I to go out to kill someone, I would try to “steel my nerves”, maybe staring in a dark mirror helps, I don’t know.
Is he still alive?
Next chance for parole in 2011. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but some things in the story just don’t add up. Color me skeptical. How did his memory blank out? I’ve never seen a satisfactory explanation.
He started Diary Entries six months before the Assination the two most telling:
31 Jan 1968 Diary entry: “RFK must die.”
16 May 1968 Diary entry: “My determination to eliminate RFK is becoming more of an unshakable obsession.”
1 Jun 1968 Purchases two boxes, .22 hollow point ammunition.
4 Jun 1968 Waits in the kitchen for RFK, then fires a gun repeatedly at the candidate. From here the just the fact-est site I could find.
Sirhan was a nut who thought he was going to be a Palestinian hero.
To me though this is a must read Interview with Sirhan from a guy who believed and wrote about Conspiracies …This is where he turns on Sirhan
Sirhan believes that he would be a welcome figure in Palestine and it is where he has said that he intends live out his life if permitted to do so under Parole.
Prosecutors apparently to some extent agree with his assessment of his welcome:
Prosecutors have opposed such a plan, suggesting Sirhan would become a political lightning rod in the Middle East. *
Frankly, I doubt anyone remembers him, or even heard of him to begin with. RFK’s assasination was strictly an American affair - part of the series of assasinations that hit the U.S. in the 60’s, unrelated to the whole Mideast “narrative.”
Are we? It seems pretty one-sided so far. Who’s advocating for the “Someone besides Sirhan killed RFK” end of this debate? They seem to be slacking off considerably.
Who’s advocating it is that crimininology site linked to from the Wikipedia article. I read it and without subscribing to its conclusions, or to any conclusions yet, I was wondering what are the answers to some of the questions it raises. The transcript of eyewitness Sandra Serrano being bullied by the LAPD really got to me, not so much because of the assassination, but the attitude assumed by the cop. He was forcing Serrano to change her story, literally ordering her what to say. I recognize this pretty well, and it was often taken for granted back in those days, that women are expected to shut up and obey men who give them orders.
Police suspected the stories told by Serrano and DiPierro. According to Houghton, Serrano made a long-distance phone call to her mother immediately after the shooting but never mentioned the polka-dot dress. Houghton also wrote, “Captain Cecil R. Lynch of the Los Angeles Fire Department had been making the rounds of various stairways and exits from the Embassy Ballroom to check for possible fire-law violations that evening of June 4. He had personally inspected the outside flight of stairs on which Sandra Serrano claimed to have been seated during Sen. Kennedy’s victory speech. Lynch saw no one on the stairs at that time.”
Both DiPierro and Serrano took polygraph tests. Both flunked and admitted they had fabricated their stories. The police discounted the theory that Sirhan had a polka-dot dress-wearing accomplice but she continues to haunt conspiracy scenarios
From this site which also has the best fairly breif straight on-line talk about Sirhan and his life
Alessan you are on the spot & know better than I would- I have no first hand knowledge and was merely reporting what each side thought.