 |
From
the May-June, 1998 issue (Vol. 5 No. 4) |
Sirhan and the RFK Assassination
Part II: Rubik's Cube
By Lisa Pease
In
Part I of this article, we saw that Sirhan could not
have shot Kennedy. Indeed, there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that Sirhan was
firing blanks. If Sirhan did not shoot Kennedy, who did? Why? And how is it that
Sirhan’s own lawyers did not reveal the evidence that he could not have committed the
crime for which he received a death sentence?
Before one considers the above issues, one larger issue stands out. If Sirhan did not
kill Kennedy, how has the cover-up lasted this long? In the end, that question will bring
us closer to the top of the conspiracy than any other. No matter who was involved, if
there were a will to get to the bottom of this crime, the evidence has been available. The
fact that no official body has ever made the effort to honestly examine all the evidence
in this case is nearly as chilling as the original crime itself, and points to a high
level of what can only be termed government involvement. In the history of this country
and particularly the sixties, one entity stands out beyond all others as having the means,
the motive, and the opportunity to orchestrate this crime and continue the cover-up to
this very day. But the evidence will point its own fingers; it remains only for us to
follow wherever the evidence leads.
Cover-Up Artists
It has often been said that a successful conspiracy requires not artful planning, but
rather control of the investigation that follows. The investigation was controlled
primarily by a few key LAPD officers and the DA. Despite Congressman Allard
Lowenstein’s efforts, no federal investigation of this case has ever taken place. In
other words, a small handful of people were capable of keeping information that would
point to conspirators out of the public eye. The Warren Commission’s conclusions were
subjected to intense scrutiny when their documentation was published. Evidently the LAPD
wanted no such scrutiny, and simply refused to release their files until ordered to do so
in the late ’80s.
SUS members predominantly came from military backgrounds.
1 Charles
Higbie, who controlled a good portion of the investigation, had been in the Marine Corps
for five years and in Intelligence in the Marine Corp. Reserve for eight more. Frank
Patchett, the man who turned the Kennedy "head bullet" over to DeWayne Wolfer
after it had taken a trip to Washington with an FBI man, had spent four years in the Navy,
where his specialty was Cryptography. The Navy and Marines figured prominently in the
background of a good many of the SUS investigators. The editor of the SUS Final Report,
however, had spent eight years of active duty with the Air Force, as a Squadron Commander
and Electronics Officer.
Two SUS members were in a unique position within the LAPD to control the investigation
and the determination of witness credibility: Manuel Pena and Hank Hernandez. Pena had
quite the catbird seat. A chart from the LAPD shows that all investigations were funneled
through a process whereby all reports came at some point to him. He then had the sole
authority for "approving" the interviews, and for deciding whether or not to do
a further interview with each and every witness. In other words, if you wanted to control
the flow of the investigation, all you would have to do is control Lt. Manuel Pena.
In a similarly powerful position, Sgt. Enrique "Hank" Hernandez was the
sole
polygraph operator for the SUS unit. In other words, whether a witness was lying or
telling the truth was left to the sole discretion of Hernandez. Some people mistakenly
think that a polygraph is an objective determiner of a person’s veracity. But a
polygraph operator can alter the machine’s sensitivity to make a liar look like a
truth teller, or a truth teller look like a liar. In addition, the manner of the polygraph
operator will do much to assuage or create fear and stress in the person being
polygraphed. In addition, no less than William Colby himself said it is possible to beat
the machine with a few tricks. For these and other reasons, no court in America allows the
results of polygraph tests to be used as evidence. But Hernandez’s polygraph results
were given amazing weight in the SUS investigation. Indeed, his tests became the sole
factor in the SUS’s determination of the credibility of witnesses.
Because of their prominent roles in the cover-up, the background of Pena and Hernandez
has always been of special interest. Pena has an odd background indeed. His official SUS
information states he served in the Navy during WWII and in the Army during the Korean
War, and was a Counterintelligence officer in France. According to Robert Houghton, he
"spoke French and Spanish, and had connections with various intelligence agencies in
several countries."
2 Pena also served the CIA for a long time.
Pena’s brother told the TV newsman Stan Bohrman that Manny was proud of his service
to the CIA. In 1967, Pena "retired" from the LAPD, leaving to join AID, the
agency long since acknowledged as having provided the CIA cover for political operations
in foreign countries. Roger LeJeunesse, an FBI agent who had been involved in the RFK
assassination investigation, told William Turner that Pena had performed special
assignments for the CIA for more than ten years. LaJeunesse added that Pena had gone to a
"special training unit" of the CIA’s in Virginia. On some assignments Pena
worked with Dan Mitrione, the CIA man assassinated by rebels in Uruguay for his role in
teaching torture to the police forces there. After his retirement from the LAPD (and a
very public farewell dinner) in November of 1967, Pena inexplicably returned to the LAPD
in 1968.
3
Hernandez had also worked with AID. During his session with Sandy Serrano, he told her
that he had once been called to Vietnam, South America and Europe to perform polygraph
tests. He also claimed he had been called to administer a polygraph to the dictator of
Venezuela back when President Betancourt came to power.
One of Hernandez’s neighbors related to
Probe how Hernandez used to live in
a modest home in the Monterey Park area, a solidly middle-class neighborhood. But within a
short time after the assassination, Hernandez had moved to a place that has a higher
income per capita then Beverly Hills: San Marino. He came into possession of a security
firm and handled large accounts for the government.
Another all-important position in the cover-up would necessarily have been the office
of the District Attorney, then occupied by J. Evelle Younger. Evelle Younger had been one
of Hoover’s top agents before he left the FBI to join the Counterintelligence unit of
the Far East branch of the OSS.
4
Under these three, credible leads were discarded. Younger wrote off the problem of
Sirhan’s distance as a "discrepancy" of an inch or two, when in fact the
problem was of a foot or more. Truthful witnesses were made to admit to impossible lies
under Hernandez’s pressure-cooker sessions. Pena took a special interest in getting
rid of the story of the girl in the polka dot dress. But no investigation could be
considered fully under control if one did not also have control over the defense
investigators. Sirhan’s defense lawyers could not be allowed to look too deeply into
the contradictory evidence in the case.
The "Defense" Team
Despite the late appearance of the autopsy report (after the trial had already
commenced), its significance
was noted and reported to Sirhan’s lead attorney,
Grant Cooper by Robert Kaiser. Why did Cooper not act on this very important information?
Was Cooper truly serving Sirhan, or was Cooper perhaps beholden to a more powerful client?
What of the others on Sirhan’s team? Just what kind of representation did Sirhan
receive?
Several people were key to Sirhan’s original defense. These were—in order of
their appearance in the case—A. L. "Al" Wirin, Robert Kaiser, Grant Cooper,
Russell Parsons, and Michael McCowan. Who were these people?
Upon Sirhan’s arrest, he asked to see an attorney for the ACLU. Al Wirin showed
up. In 1954, Wirin had brought a suit against the LAPD over the legality of some of the
department’s wiretapping methods.
5 Most people might expect that a
lawyer for the ACLU would care a great deal about the rights of the accused; that’s
what the American Civil Liberties Union is supposed to be all about. But that evidently
wasn’t Abraham Lincoln Wirin’s style. Consider the following information from
Mark Lane:
On December 4, 1964, when I debated in Southern California with Joseph A. Ball... [of
the Warren Commission and] A. L. Wirin....Wirin made an impassioned plea for support for
the findings of the commission....He said, his voice rising in an earnest plea:
"I say thank God for Earl Warren. He saved us from a pogrom. He saved our nation.
God bless him for what he has done in establishing that Oswald was the lone
assassin."
The audience remained silent. I asked but one question: "If Oswald was innocent,
Mr. Wirin, would you still say, ‘Thank God for Earl Warren’ and bless him for
establishing him as the lone murderer?" Wirin thought for but an instant. He
responded, "Yes. I still would say so."6
Wirin has made a number of claims, including that Sirhan confessed the assassination to
him. Given the evidence, such a confession is of little value, since no matter what Sirhan
thought, he could not have been the shooter. But more troubling is the fact that an ACLU
lawyer would share a comment made by a prisoner in confidence to what he thought was a
legal representative there to help him. And when Sirhan requested a couple of books
relating to the occult shortly after his arrest, Wirin felt the need to report this to the
media.
How Robert Blair Kaiser entered the case is a bit fuzzy. According to Melanson and
Klaber, Wirin commissioned Kaiser to approach Grant Cooper. But according to Kaiser, he
had injected himself into the case right after the assassination. Upon hearing of the
assassination, he claimed he "choked, cried, cursed, and, instead of sitting there
weeping in front of the TV, tried to do something." His something was to call
Life
magazine’s LA Bureau, where he "found that the bureau needed [his] help and
tried to get on the track of the man who shot Kennedy."
7
One of Kaiser’s first acts on the case was to interview Sirhan’s brother
Saidallah in his Pasadena apartment on the night of June 5th, less than 24 hours after RFK
had been shot. Kaiser brought along
Life photographer Howard Bingham, who tried to
take Saidallah’s picture. Saidallah did not want his picture taken.
8
Saidallah later filed a police report detailing an incident later that night after
Kaiser’s visit. The LAPD record states:
At approximately 11:30 p.m. he heard someone kick on his front door. He answered the
door and just as he unlocked the screen, the door was kicked open. A man rushed through
the door and struck [Saidallah] Sirhan in the cheek with his fist and stated, "Damn
it, we’re gonna kill all you Arabs."...The man stated, "If you don’t
give your photograph to Life, we’re going to take it from you." He took a
photograph of Sirhan from a small table and walked out of the apartment. Another man was
with the one who entered Sirhan’s apartment, but he did not enter.
Kaiser claims this event never happened. But how could he know? On a strange note,
Kaiser gave Sirhan a copy of
Witness, the book detailing Whittaker Chambers’
account of "exposing" Alger Hiss.
9
Kaiser initiated contact with Sirhan by calling Wirin to ask if he could get him in to
see Sirhan. During the call, Kaiser mentioned that he had discussed the case with Grant
Cooper, a well-known Los Angeles criminal attorney. When Wirin heard Kaiser knew Cooper,
Wirin asked Kaiser to urge Cooper to help Sirhan. Curiously, Sirhan had also picked out
Cooper’s name when shown a list of lawyers. It seemed everyone wanted Cooper in this
case, including Cooper himself.
Cooper had an interesting background. He had, but a year earlier, gone all the way to
Da Nang, Vietnam to defend a Marine corporal on a murder charge before a military court.
Why would a Los Angeles lawyer fly all the way to Vietnam to defend a man in military
court? Answered Cooper, "I’d never been asked to defend a man before a military
court before."
10 This highly paid lawyer with no reported
proclivities for lost causes nonetheless agreed to take on Sirhan’s case, even though
the family had virtually no money to offer for Sirhan’s defense. He couldn’t do
so immediately, however, as he was busy defending an associate of Johnny Roselli in the
Friar’s Club card cheating scandal. Roselli was hired by Robert Maheu to head up the
CIA’s assassination plots against Castro. Roselli spent time at JMWAVE, the
CIA’s enormous station in Miami, training snipers among other activities.
11 Cooper’s client was also accused by another associate of
Roselli’s, of having passed him money to pay for a murder.
12
As
Probe readers saw in Jim DiEugenio’s landmark piece about how the CIA
worked hand in hand with Clay Shaw’s attorneys to undermine New Orleans District
Attorney Jim Garrison’s investigation of John Kennedy’s murder, the CIA
maintained a "Cleared Attorneys’ Panel" from which they could draw
trustworthy, closemouthed representation as needed.
13 When someone as
knowledgeable as Roselli of the CIA’s innermost secrets is being defended, one would
assume that the CIA would go to great lengths to provide him legal assistance. Cooper was
in direct and extensive contact with Roselli’s lawyer James Cantillion. In connection
with this case, Cooper himself obtained stolen grand jury transcripts by bribing a court
clerk, a very serious (not to mention illegal) offense. In addition, Cooper had twice lied
to a federal judge. Frankly, Cooper sounded more like a candidate for the CIA’s
Cleared Attorneys’ Panel than for the role of a justice crusader. The notion that he
would volunteer to defend Sirhan at a time when his own legal troubles were raging around
him is preposterous. Something besides pity for a penniless, guilty-looking client was
likely motivating Cooper.
While Cooper was waiting to finish the Friar’s Club case, Wirin showed Cooper a
list of attorneys that included the names of Joseph Ball and Herman Selvin. Curiously, it
was Ball and Selvin who had participated with Wirin in the debate with Mark Lane (all
three defending the Warren Report against the attacks of Mark Lane). Ball and Selvin were
Cooper’s first choices, but they turned him down.
14 Two others on
the list included Russell E. Parsons and Luke McKissack. Cooper chose Parsons, saying he
did not know McKissack, but that he had " worked with Russ before."
15 (McKissack was later to become a lawyer for Sirhan.
16)
Parsons immediately accepted defending this "poor devil in trouble," as he
characterized Sirhan.
17 For whatever strange reason, LAPD files record
Russell Parsons as having an alias: Lester Harris.
18 Perhaps that was a
remnant from his days as a Mob lawyer.
19
Parsons, in turn, brought Michael McCowan into the case as a private investigator.
McCowan was an ex-Marine, an ex-cop and an ex-law student.
20 Michael
McCowan had been expelled from the LAPD in the wake of his dealings with David Kassab and
others who were running a land scam deal in the San Fernando Valley in 1962. In the SUS
files, there are continual references to the "Kassab Report", a report of an
investigation into "alleged ties between the J.F.K. and the R.F.K.
assassinations." The report itself is nowhere to be found. Listed as being in the
report are names such as Clay Shaw, Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Jim Braden,
Russell Parsons, and many others of interest to assassination researchers. The report is
over 900 pages long, according to page references scattered among these files. Why was
such a massive report compiled? Why do so many references to it appear in the SUS files?
And why has the full Kassab report been suppressed
to this day?
McCowan had other problems to bring to the table beyond the Kassab deal. A former
girlfriend of his notified the police that he kept a large stash of weapons in his
residence. The police issued an order to investigate whether the weapons represented
"loot" from other crimes, but asked that the investigation be kept quiet. At the
time McCowan entered the Sirhan case, he was on a three-year probation, having appealed a
five-year sentence he received in conjunction with theft and tampering with U.S. mail.
Following his involvement in the Sirhan case, McCowan worked as a defense investigator
for peace activists Donald Freed and Shirley Sutherland. Freed and Sutherland had been set
up by a self-proclaimed former CIA Green Beret named James Jarrett. In March of 1969,
Freed and Sutherland helped organize "Friends of the Black Panthers." Jarrett
had infiltrated the group by offering training in the area of self-defense, as members of
the group had experienced assaults and even rape. Freed asked Jarrett to buy him a
mace-like spray to use for defensive purposes. Jarrett instead presented Freed a
brown-paper wrapped box of explosives while wearing a wire and attempting to get Freed to
say that the "stuff" was for the Panthers. Minutes after the exchange, agents of
the FBI, LAPD and Treasury raided Freed’s home. Freed was charged with illegal
possession of explosives. McCowan was hired by the defense as an investigator. McCowan in
turn hired Sam Bluth to assist the defense. But Bluth worked instead as a police
informant, stealing defense files and witness lists and proffering them to the police.
21
Cooper had originally secured an initial agreement from yet another lawyer to
participate in the case: the famous Edward Bennett Williams. Williams had represented the
Washington
Post during its Watergate coverage while also representing the target of the break-in,
the Democratic National Committee. He had defended CIA Director Richard Helms when he was
charged with perjury in the wake of the revelations about the CIA’s participation in
the events surrounding the assassination of Allende in Chile. Williams in fact defended a
number of CIA men.
Williams had also defended Jimmy Hoffa when Robert Kennedy was aggressively pursuing
him. And he had the gall to ask Robert Kennedy’s personal secretary Angie Novello,
recipient of the John Kennedy autopsy materials, to work for him after Robert was killed.
Novello refused until Williams convinced her (rightfully or wrongly) that he and Bobby had
made up in the wake of the Hoffa pursuit. In addition, Williams had defended Joseph
McCarthy when he was under attack from the Senate. (Perhaps that is why Kaiser gave Sirhan
Witness to read!) Lastly, and perhaps importantly, Williams had become good friends
with Robert Maheu, the man who had hired Roselli to kill Castro on behalf of the CIA.
Maheu himself appears to play a larger and more interesting role in the story of the RFK
assassination, a point to which we’ll return. All in all, Williams was a most curious
choice of Cooper’s, and one wonders what moved Williams to make even a tentative
agreement to represent Sirhan.
When Williams bowed out, Cooper turned to Emile "Zuke" Berman. Berman’s
biggest case had involved defending a Marine drill instructor who had led his troop into a
fast-rising estuary. Six drowned in this incident. Berman was able to get the man’s
sentence reduced to six months, and then obtained a full reversal from the Secretary of
the Navy. Berman was later accused by Cooper of leaking the story of a proposed plea
bargain (in which Cooper would plead Sirhan guilty to 1st degree murder in the hopes of
avoiding a death sentence) to the press during the trial. (Judge Walker claimed he had
been told the source was Kaiser.
22) Berman was distressed that the
Israeli/Palestinian battles were being given focus by the defense team during the case,
and Kaiser was later to say Berman was "there in name and body only; his spirit
wasn’t there."
23
Now if you temporarily throw out any questions raised by the evidence that has just
been presented, and focus solely on how well these people served Sirhan, the picture is
grim indeed. On the key point of the lack of a clear chain of possession of the bullets,
Cooper met with the prosecuting attorneys in Judge Walker’s chamber on February 21,
1969. The way Cooper gives in on an issue he has every reason to fight goes to the heart
of the credibility of how well he defended his client. Here is the relevant section:
Fitts (Deputy DA): Now, there is another problem that I’d like to get to with
respect to the medical. It is our intention to call DeWayne Wolfer to testify with respect
to his ballistics comparison. Some of the objects or exhibits that he will need
illustrative of his testimony will...not have adequate foundation, as I will concede at
this time.
Cooper: You mean the surgeon took it from the body and this sort of thing?
Fitts: Well, with respect to the bullets or bullet fragments that came from the alleged
victims, it is our understanding that there will be a stipulation that these objects
came from the persons whom I say they came from. Is that right?
Cooper: So long as you make that avowal, there will be no question about that.
Fitts: Fine. Well, we have discussed the matter with Mr. Wolfer as to those envelopes
containing those bullets or bullet fragments; he knows where they came from; the envelope
will be marked with the names of the victims....24 [Emphasis added.]
Cooper would make many strange moves, allegedly in "defense" of Sirhan. He
kept the autopsy photos from being presented in court under the notion that they would
cause sympathy for Kennedy and arouse even more ire against his client. But that was the
evidence that could have been used to absolve Sirhan of guilt in the case. But Cooper
wasn’t looking for evidence of Sirhan’s innocence. In addition, Sirhan’s
notebooks were found during an illegal search (a search authorized by Adel, but Adel had
no legal authority to give such authorization) of Mary Sirhan’s house, where Sirhan
was living at the time. Cooper had every reason to bar these notebooks from being admitted
into evidence, but he chose not only to admit them into evidence, but even had Sirhan read
portions of them from the stand. And it was Cooper who supplied Sirhan the motive he
lacked, claiming that Sirhan was angry that RFK was willing to provide jets to Israel.
Sirhan, lacking any memory of the crime or why he was there with a gun, readily accepted
this in lieu of the only other explanation suggested to him, that he was utterly insane.
Kaiser involved himself with Sirhan’s defense team by negotiating a book contract,
claiming that a portion of the proceeds could be used to pay the lawyers. In return for
his access, he would work as an investigator for Sirhan. It was Kaiser who brought the
distance problem regarding Sirhan’s position relative to Robert Kennedy’s powder
burns to the attention of Sirhan’s defense team, albeit late in the game. Yet Kaiser
believes that Sirhan and Sirhan alone fired all the bullets in the pantry. Kaiser was also
the first to bring attention to the strange behavior of Sirhan during the crime that so
strongly suggested to Kaiser that he was under some sort of hypnotic influence.
This issue is all-important to the question of Sirhan’s guilt. The ballistics and
forensic evidence indicates clearly that there was a conspiracy. So wasn’t Sirhan a
conspirator? Not necessarily. The question has always been this: did Sirhan play a
witting, complicit role; or was he guided in some manner by others to the point where he
was not in control of his actions and their consequences? This most serious issue was
never brought up during Sirhan’s only trial.
The Question of Hypnosis
The defense team hired Dr. Bernard Diamond to examine Sirhan to ascertain his mental
state, and to find out if Sirhan could be made to remember what happened under hypnosis.
As soon as Diamond hypnotized Sirhan, he found that Sirhan was an exceedingly simple
subject. In fact, Sirhan "went under" so quickly and so deeply that Diamond had
to work to keep him conscious enough to respond. Kaiser recorded that the very first words
that Sirhan spoke to Diamond when put under hypnosis were "I don’t know any
people."
25 Such rapid induction generally indicates prior
hypnosis.
The tapes of Diamond’s hypnosis sessions reveal a man that sounds like he is more
interested in implanting memories than recovering them. This has been well detailed in the
literature elsewhere so I will not focus on it here. Diamond, however, argued against
Kaiser’s notion that Sirhan had been somehow hypnotically in the control of another,
and claimed Sirhan had hypnotized himself. But self-hypnosis rarely (if ever) results in
complete amnesia. In addition, Sirhan "blocked" when asked key questions under
hypnosis, such as "Did you think this up all by yourself?" (five second pause),
and "Are you the only person involved in Kennedy’s shooting?" (three second
pause).
26 In hypnosis, blocks are as important as answers, in that they
can indicate some prior work in that area. Skilled hypnotists can place blocks into the
subject’s mind that prevent memory of actions undertaken and associations made while
under hypnosis.
Dr. Eduard Simson-Kallas, the chief psychologist when Sirhan was at San Quentin Prison,
remains convinced that Sirhan was hypnoprogrammed. He spent hours getting to know Sirhan,
and when Sirhan talked about the case Simson-Kallas said it was as if he was
"reciting from a book", without any of the little details most people tell when
they are recounting a real event. Sirhan came to trust the psychologist, and asked him to
hypnotize him. At this point, the psychologist was stopped by prison authorities who
claimed he was spending too much time on Sirhan. Simson-Kallas resigned from his job over
the Sirhan case. Simson-Kallas also said he had no respect for Diamond, who claimed both
that Sirhan was schizophrenic, and that he was self-hypnotized. Schizophrenics cannot
hypnotize themselves.
27
The evidence that Sirhan was in some mentally altered state on the night of the
assassination is plentiful. By his own account he had about four Tom Collinses. But not
one person reported him as appearing drunk. Sandy Serrano, who had seen him walk up the
back steps into the Ambassador had described him as "Boracho" but specifically
explained that by that she didn’t mean drunk, but somehow out of place. Yosio Niwa,
Vincent DiPierro and Martin Patrusky all saw Sirhan smiling a "stupid" or
"sickly" smile while he was firing. Mary Grohs, a Teletype operator, remembered
him standing and staring at the Teletype machine, nonresponsive, saying nothing, and
eventually walking away. And then there was the issue of his incredible strength. Sirhan
was a fairly small man, and he was able to hold his own against a football tackle and
several other much larger men in the pantry. George Plimpton recalled that Sirhan’s
eyes were "enormously peaceful". Plimpton’s wife said Sirhan’s
"eyes were narrow, the lines on his face were heavy and set and he was completely
concentrated on what he was doing." Joseph Lahaiv reported Sirhan was strangely
"very tranquil" during the fight for the gun. Some have claimed Sirhan was
simply tranquil because he was fulfilling his quest to kill Kennedy. But he didn’t
kill Kennedy, and even if he did, such a premise would have required at least a
recollection of having finally completed successfully the planned act, if not an
exclamation of "Sic Semper Tyrannus". Sirhan, like the other "lone nut
assassins" of the sixties, was neither jubilant nor remorseful. But he could not
claim that he hadn’t shot Kennedy, because he truly didn’t remember anything
from that moment.
Even at the police station, Sirhan’s conversation could only be termed bizarre. He
would not tell his name, didn’t talk about the assassination, and was interested only
in engaging in small talk with the frustrated officers around him. These trained officers
tried every tactic they knew to get him to talk, but Sirhan remained silent on anything
relating to his identity. When he was arraigned before the judge, he was booked only as
"John Doe" until his identity was eventually discovered. This point worried the
police; usually when a subject didn’t divulge his identity, it was a ruse to protect
confederates, giving them a chance to get away.
An Arab doctor spoke Arabic to Sirhan, but obtained no response in recognition. Sheriff
Pitchess would say of Sirhan that he was a "very unusual prisoner...a young man of
apparently complete self-possession, totally unemotional. He wants to see what the papers
have to say about him."
28 At the station in the middle of a hot
Los Angeles June night, Sirhan got the chills. He exhibited a similar reaction every time
he came out of hypnosis from Diamond.
Sirhan’s family and friends insisted that Sirhan had changed after a fall from a
horse at a racetrack where he was working as an exercise jockey. One of his friends from
the racetrack, Terry Welch, told the LAPD that Sirhan underwent a complete personality
change; that he suddenly resented people with wealth, that he had become a loner. After
the fall, Sirhan was treated by a series of doctors. It’s possible that one of these
doctors saw Sirhan as a potential hypnosis subject, and started him down a path that would
end at the Ambassador hotel. Curiously, renowned expert hypnotist Dr. George Estabrooks,
used by the War Department after Pearl Harbor, suggested planting a "doctor" in
a hospital who could employ hypnotism on patients.
29
The strange notebook entries, if they were indeed written by Sirhan, show certain
phrases repeated over and over, including "RFK must die" and "Pay to the
order of". Other words that pop up with no explanation, scattered throughout the
writing, are "drugs" and "mind control". Diamond once hypnotized
Sirhan and asked him to write about Robert Kennedy. Out came "RFK must die RFK must
die RFK must die" and "Robert Kennedy is going to die Robert Kennedy is going to
die Robert is going to die." When asked who killed Kennedy, Sirhan wrote "I
don’t know I don’t know I don’t know."
Just hours after the assassination, famed hypnotist Dr. William Joseph Bryan was on the
Ray Briem show for KABC radio, and mentioned offhandedly that Sirhan was likely operating
under some form of posthypnotic suggestion. Curiously, in the SUS files there is an
interview summary of Joan Simmons in which the following is listed:
Miss Simmons was program planner for a show on KABC radio and was contacted regarding
allegations of Sirhan belonging to a secret hypnotic group. She stated that she knew
nothing of a Doctor Bryant [sic] of the American Institute of Hypnosis or Hortence
Farrchild. She was acquainted with Herb Elsman [the next few words are blacked out but
appear to say "and considered him some right-wing extremist."]
Dr. Bryan was the President of the American Institute of Hypnosis, the headquarters of
which were located on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Bryan was famous for having
hypnotized Albert De Salvo, the "Boston Strangler" and claimed to have
discovered De Salvo’s motive under hypnosis. There is good reason to doubt that De
Salvo was in fact the killer, according to Susan Kelly in her recent, heavily documented
book
The Boston Stranglers.
30 And if he was not, that throws a
more sinister light on Bryan’s overtly coercive involvement with De Salvo. Curiously,
De Salvo was the topic of one of Sirhan’s disjointed post-assassination ramblings at
LAPD headquarters, and references to "Di Salvo" and appear in Sirhan’s
notebook.
Bryan, by his own account, had been the "chief of all medical survival training
for the United States Air Force, which meant the brainwashing section."
31
He also claimed to have been a consultant for the film
The Manchurian Candidate,
based on Richard Condon’s famous novel about a man who is captured by Communists and
hypnotically programmed to return to the United States to kill a political leader.
Condon’s novel was itself based upon the CIA’s ARTICHOKE program, which sought
to find a way to create a programmed, amnesiac assassin. ARTICHOKE became MKULTRA.
Bryan bragged to prostitutes that he had performed "special projects" for the
CIA, and that he had programmed Sirhan. Publicly, Bryan denied any involvement with
Sirhan. Bryan was a brilliant but sometimes insufferable egotist who seems to have had a
ready opinion on nearly any subject. But whenever Sirhan came up, with the exception of
that first night, he uncharacteristically shut down and refused to discuss the case. It
would appear that if Bryan was not himself directly responsible, he had some inside
knowledge perhaps as to who was, and chose not to reveal it. Ultimately, the case for
hypnosis does not rest on Bryan, and whether or not he worked on Sirhan has no bearing on
the overall issue of Sirhan having been hypnotized.
After seeing the movie
Conspiracy Theory, many people wondered if MKULTRA was
indeed a real government program. Yes, Virginia, there was a sinister mind control program
in which people were made to undergo hideous, obscene mental and physical tortures in the
CIA’s quest for a way to create a Manchurian Candidate. It should be noted that Allen
Dulles, Richard Helms, and surprisingly, the Rockefeller Foundation were instrumental in
developing, supporting and funding the CIA’s various mind control programs.
32
Most CIA doctors and hypnotists will claim that they never found success, that they
could never program someone to do something against their will. Not true, argue others. On
the latter point, the simple way to get someone to do something against their will is to
alter their reality. Estabrooks had salient comments in relation to this point:
There seems to be a tradition that, with hypnotism in crime we hypnotize our victim,
hand him a club, and say, "Go murder Mr. Jones." If he refuses, then we have
disproven the possibility of so using hypnotism. Such a procedure would be silly in the
extreme. The skillful operator would do everything in his power to avoid an open clash
with such moral scruples as his subject might have.33...
Will the subject commit murder in hypnotism? Highly doubtful—at least without long
preparation, and then only in certain cases of very good subjects....Yet, strange to say,
most good subjects will commit murder....For example, we hypnotize a subject and tell him
to murder you with a gun. In all probability, he will refuse....But a hypnotist who really
wished a murder could almost certainly get it with a different technique....he hypnotizes
the subject, tells the subject to go to [the victim’s place], point the gun...and
pull the trigger. Then he remarks to his assistant that, of course, the gun is loaded with
dummy ammunition [even though it is not].34
Under such a scenario, Estabrooks and other hypnotists are certain that creating a
murderer is possible.
But even more to the point is a note John Marks makes in his book
The Search for the
Manchurian Candidate, which details the CIA’s efforts in this regard. He quotes a
veteran CIA officer who says that while it would be highly
impractical to program
an assassin, due to the unpredictable number of independent decisions the subject might
encounter which could lead to exposure before the deed was done, creating an assassin in
this manner is also
unnecessary, as mercenaries have been available since the dawn
of time for this heinous act. Marks then adds the following:
The veteran admits that none of the arguments he uses against a conditioned assassin
would apply to a programmed "patsy" whom a hypnotist could walk through a
series of seemingly unrelated events—a visit to a store, a conversation with a
mailman, picking a fight at a political rally. The subject would remember everything that
happened to him and be amnesic only for the fact the hypnotist ordered him to do these
things. There would be no gaping inconsistency in his life of the sort that can ruin an
attempt by a hypnotist to create a second personality. The purpose of this exercise is
to leave a circumstantial trail that will make the authorities think the patsy committed a
particular crime. The weakness might well be that the amnesia would not hold up under
police interrogation, but that would not matter if the police did not believe his
preposterous story about being hypnotized or if he were shot resisting arrest. Hypnosis
expert Milton Kline says he could create a patsy in three months; an assassin would take
him six.35 [Emphasis added.]
Sirhan exhibited behavior during the trial that also appeared to indicate post-hypnotic
suggestion. One day, two girls showed up in court that Sirhan identified as Peggy
Osterkamp (a name that appeared frequently in the notebook) and Gwen Gumm. Sirhan became
enraged at their presence and demanded a recess, asking to talk to the judge in chambers.
The judge refused to hear Sirhan in chambers, and Sirhan, visibly fighting for
self-control, said "I, at this time, sir, withdraw my original please of not guilty
and submit the plea of guilty as charged on all counts." Asked what kind of penalty
he wanted, Sirhan answered "I will ask to be executed," Asked why he was doing
this, Sirhan replied, "I killed Robert Kennedy willfully, premeditatedly, with twenty
years of malice aforethought, that is why." This ridiculous "confession"
that a four-year old Sirhan was contemplating the murder of a man not yet famous almost
half a world away strains credulity past the breaking point.
Making this even more bizarre is the fact that the two girls were
not the two
girls Sirhan said they were, but in fact two other people, identified by Kaiser as Sharon
Karaalajich and Karen Adams. Sirhan’s extreme reaction to two people who were not the
people he thought they were forced Kaiser to conclude that "Sirhan was in a kind of
paranoid, dissociated state there and then...."
36 It follows that
if someone programmed Sirhan to be the perfect patsy, they would likely also have
programmed a seemingly spontaneous "confession" that could be spouted at the
appropriate time, triggered by some person or event.
In an interesting little book named
254 Questions and Answers on Practical Hypnosis
and Autosuggestion, author Emile Franchel put forth some very interesting and relevant
information on hypnosis. For example, asked how long a person could be held in a hypnotic
state, Franchel replied: "With sufficient knowledge and skill on the part of the
hypnotist, indefinitely." Asked whether the hypnotic state could always be detected,
Franchel said no, not in all cases. Franchel referred to hypno-espionage without further
explanation, and when asked what official government agencies he worked for, Franchel
declined to answer. He stated that he felt he was a bit of a "black sheep" among
associates, explaining, "I help the innocent as well as convict the guilty."
The following question and answer pair seemed particularly relevant to Sirhan’s
case. Recall that Sirhan kept firing his gun, even while six big men were pounding him,
causing a sprained foot and a broken finger.
Q: Reading about an assassination attempt recently, the report described how it took
six or more bullets to stop each assassin. Could these assassins have been
"conditioned" with hypnosis not to feel any pain?
A: Well, I am not sure who is going to like or dislike my answer to your question, but
I read the same reports that you did. Unfortunately, I do not have access to any more
official information. From what I read, I would conclude that they not only had been
hypnotically conditioned to feel no pain, but in all probability were working, perhaps
partly of their own free desires, but also under hypnotic compulsion, to complete a given
mission.
The reports seem to clearly indicate that the assassins had to have a bullet placed in
a vital organ to stop them. Bullets that hit anywhere else did not apparently deter them
in any way.
For whatever reason, in this 1957 book, Franchel felt compelled to offer a warning
regarding hypnosis and its usage:
[A:] The hypnotic techniques being employed at present make the hypnotic technicians of
the ex-Nazi regime look like well meaning psychiatrists....
Q: Do I understand correctly, that you are saying that hypnotism is being abused,
completely without regard to human rights?
A: You understand correctly. I am fully satisfied that hypnotic techniques are being
used on a vast scale, both criminally and for other terrible reasons. Perhaps one day I
might be permitted to tell you.
Q: I have heard you say many times during your television programs [Adventures in
Hypnosis] that a subject under hypnosis "cannot be made to do anything that is
against his moral or religious beliefs." How can you say that now?
A: I am afraid you have not been listening too closely to what I was saying. The only
similar remark I have made is, "IT IS SAID that a person under hypnosis cannot be
made to do anything that is against their religious or moral beliefs." I trust that
the implication is clear.
It should be noted that hypnosis is considered dangerous enough that it is illegal to
broadcast a hypnotic induction on television.
If Sirhan was indeed programmed, then his statements at the trial, his appearance at
the shooting range hours before the assassination and his firing of a gun in the pantry
may all have been actions carried out without the intervention of will. There is a strong
possibility that Sirhan was not only hypnotized but additionally drugged by alcohol or
some stronger substance. Frankel warned that drugs could shut down the conscious mind,
preventing it from filtering what reaches the subconscious, adding:
With the conscious filter action removed, anything can be forced into the subconscious
mind, which must obey it in one way or another, as the subconscious cannot argue but must
believe all information reaching it, and use it.
Had Sirhan had a real trial, the possibility of his having been hypnotized may have
provided reasonable doubt on the question of his guilt. But if Sirhan wasn’t guilty,
then who was?
....
The rest of this article can be found in
The Assassinations, edited by Jim DiEugenio and Lisa Pease.
Notes
1. The SUS files begin with biographies of all the SUS members,
including military service information.
2. Robert A. Houghton with Theodore Taylor,
Special Unit Senator (New
York: Random House, 1970), pp. 102-3.
3. Jonn Christian and William Turner,
The Assassination of Robert
F. Kennedy (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1978), pp. 64-66.
4. Richard Harris Smith,
OSS: The Secret History of America’s
First Central Intelligence Agency (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), p.
20.
5. Frank Donner,
Protectors of Privilege, p. 249. For his
efforts, Wirin, a native-born Russian, was branded a Communist. One can only wonder at the
effect that had on his career or his subsequent actions.
6. Mark Lane,
Plausible Denial (New York: Thunder’s Mouth
Press), p. 52.
7. Robert Blair Kaiser,
R. F. K. Must Die (New York: E. P.
Dutton & Co., 1970) p. 102.
8. Kaiser, pp. 103-104.
9. In Kaiser’s own book, he writes that he had been the one to
recommend the book to Sirhan (p. 239). But in his January 17, 1969 article for
Life magazine,
Kaiser writes that Sirhan "requested" the book
Witness. Similarly, in
RFK
Must Die Kaiser writes that Eason Monroe, the president of the ACLU, had called A. L.
Wirin after the assassination with the suggestion that Wirin approach Sirhan (p. 60). But
in the
Life article, Kaiser implies that Adel Sirhan brought Wirin into the case.
10. Kaiser, p. 124.
11. Brad Ayers,
The War That Never Was (Indianapolis:
Bobs-Merrill, 1976) and private correspondence.
12. Klaber and Melanson,
Shadow Play: The Murder of Robert F.
Kennedy, the Trial of Sirhan Sirhan, and the Failure of American Justice (New York:
St. Martin’s Press, 1997) p. 43.
13. CIA document dated 3/18/68 referencing the "cleared
attorneys’ panel", quoted in
Probe(7/22/97), p. 18.
14. Kaiser, p. 128.
15. Kaiser, p. 129.
16. McKissack was later removed from the Sirhan defense team and
replaced with Godfrey Isaac.
17. Klaber and Melanson, p. 26.
18. SUS Files, Index Card under Russell E. Parsons.
19. Kaiser, p. 245. "In the forties...Russell Parsons was
defending some well-known members of what is sometimes called The Mob...." See also
the SUS final report (unredacted version), p.1430.
20. Kaiser, p. 152.
21. Frank Donner,
Protectors of Privilege (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1990), pp. 261-263.
22. Klaber and Melanson, p. 72.
23. Klaber and Melanson, p. 72.
24. A copy of this transcript is provided by Lynn Mangan in her
monograph on the case on p. 214 (p. 3967 of the original trial transcript). Sirhan
was not present in chambers when this agreement was reached.
25. Kaiser, p. 296.
26. Kaiser, pp. 302-303.
27. Alan W. Scheflin and Edward M. Opton, Jr.
The Mind
Manipulators (New York: Paddington Press Ltd., 1978), p. 439.
28. Kaiser, p. 86.
29. Walter H. Bowart,
Operation Mind Control (New York: Dell
Publishing Co., 1978), p. 58.
30. Kelly makes a good case for De Salvo’s innocence, and the
guilt of his closest associate, George Nasser. The lawyer in that case was F. Lee Bailey,
a friend of Bryan’s. Bryan helped Bailey on two other famous cases. F. Lee Bailey was
later to defend a mind control victim named Patty Hearst. (Curiously, her father’s
first two choices for a lawyer for her defense were Edward Bennett Williams and Percy
Foreman, the notorious lawyer who coerced James Earl Ray into pleading guilty, an act Ray
forever after regretted.)
31. Turner & Christian, p. 226, quoting Bryan’s KNX Radio
Interview of February 12, 1972.
32. Allen Dulles’ and Richard Helms’ participation in these
programs is well documented. Lesser known has been the role the Rockefeller family funds
played in developing these horrific programs. The Rockefeller Foundation, for example, set
up the infamous Allen Memorial Institute at McGill University in Montreal. See
Thy Will
be Done by Gerard Colby (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995), p. 265.
33. George H. Estabrooks,
Hypnotism (New York: Dutton, 1948),
p. 172.
34. Estabrooks, p. 199.
35. John Marks,
The Search for the "Manchurian
Candidate" (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1979), 1991 paperback edition,
p. 204.
36. Kaiser, p. 407.
37. Kaiser, p. 114 and SUS I-613.
38. Kaiser, p. 19.
39. Noted in the interview of Samuel Strain, SUS I-62.
40. Kaiser, p. 46.
41. Kaiser, p. 305.
42. The following account is taken from the SUS file on John Henry
Fahey. This document is marked S.F.P.D. which presumably stands for the San Fernando
Police Department. The interviewer is listed as "Fernando" and "Fdo",
and is likely Fernando Faura, a journalist who was hot on the trail of the polka dot girl.
43. Kaiser, p. 174. This drawing is shown in Ted Charach’s video
The Second Gun.
44. Kaiser, p. 175. Gugas is a past president of the American
Polygraph Association.
45. Kaiser, p. 225.
46. Supplemental Report Khaibar Khan Investigation, SUS Files,
prepared by R. J. Poteete.
47. "The Tehran Connection",
Time 3/21/94.
48. Fred Cook, "Iranian Aid Story: New Twists to the
Mystery",
The Nation (5/24/65), pp. 553-4.
49. Cook,
The Nation (4/12/65), p. 384.
50. SUS Interview of Michael Wayne (I-1096).
51. SUS files contain both proposed questions and actual
questions/responses. There are several differences between sets of questions.
52. SUS Interview of William Singer (I-58-A).
53. SUS Interview of Gregory Ross Clayton (I-4611).
54. Turner and Christian, pp. 167-168, sourcing a KFWB transcript.
55. "Senator Felled in Los Angeles; 5 Others Shot",
The
Evening Star (6/5/68).
56. CIA memo to the Inspector General regarding DCD’s response
to the Agency-Watergate File Review. Dated 24 April 1974; released 1994, CIA Historical
Review Program.
57. "Regarding" may also have been used in the sense of
"While looking at". In other words, Cesar may have shot Kennedy while not
"regarding" him.
58. "Kennedy Expected Tragedy to Strike",
Dallas Times
Herald (6/6/68)
59. William Blum,
Killing Hope (Monroe, ME: Common Courage
Press, 1995), p. 102.
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Posts
’Blackout,’ by John J. Nance. [Source: Pan Books]Blackout,
the new novel by aviation thriller writer John J. Nance, includes
scenes which appear to predict aspects of the 9/11 attacks, such as a
character suggesting the possibility of a Boeing 747 crashing into the
World Trade Center because its pilots have been incapacitated by
terrorists. [Nance, 2000, pp. 251, 320, 344-345; Associated Press, 8/24/2003]
The novel’s storyline involves its two central characters, FBI agent
Kat Bronsky and Washington Post reporter Robert MacCabe, investigating
what has caused two American passenger jets to crash. It appears that
terrorists are using a special ray gun stolen from the government to
kill or blind pilots in midair, resulting in their planes crashing. [Publishers Weekly, 1/31/2000; Los Angeles Times, 4/16/2000] 
