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Kennedy, Robert F. (1923-1968)
Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1968 Jun 6 p. 1, 3
Birth date: 1923
text of obituary:
California's tense primary election was climaxed Tuesday with the shocking news than an unrecognized gunman mingling with the crowd of celebrants had made an assassination attempt on Sen. Robert F. Kennedy a few minutes after he had made a victory speech in the Los Angeles Ambassador Hotel.
The attack occurred shortly after 12 midnight, California time.
The 45-year-old Kennedy, considered a frontrunner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, was shot once in the shoulder and a second bullet went through the lower base of his skull.
After an immediate, three-hour operation he was declared still in critical condition but with a chance of recovery. The alleged assailant was promptly apprehended and put under heavy police guard.
The shooting again brought nationwide expressions of concern over the growing insecurity which nowadays surrounds the lives of U. S. public officials.
Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1968 Jun 13 p. 1, 3
text of obituary:
The nation and world last week mourned the violent death of one of the leading contenders for the presidency of the United States — Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.
Kennedy, in an incredible twist of history, died in a manner similar to that of his later brother, President John F. Kennedy, who also was brought down by an assassin's bullet about four and a half years ago, in Dallas, Tex. His death also followed by only a few weeks the fatal shooting of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, Tenn.
Death came to the 42-year-old Robert Kennedy 25 hours after a gunman emptied an eight-shot .22 caliber revolver at him in a kitchen corridor of the Los Angeles Ambassador Hotel, where he had just been acclaimed winner in the California Democratic presidential primary. One of the bullets had caused massive injury to the brain. Charged in the slaying was Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, 24, a Jordanian from Jerusalem but in recent years a resident of Pasadena, Calif.
The body, accompanied by Mrs. Kennedy and three older children, was flown by Airforce jet to New York, where it lay in state all day Friday at St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Cathedral. Thousands of mourners passed the bier, hour after hours, the procession continuing far into the night.
More than 2,000 dignitaries and invited friends attended the requiem mass on Saturday forenoon, at which Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, youngest and only remaining survivor among four brothers, read an eloquent and moving eulogy on behalf of the family. Thousands more, perhaps as many as a half million, lined the long miles of railroad track as the special funeral train carried the body to Washington, D. C. for burial in Arlington National Cemetery.
The train, slowed by the pressing crowds, arrived in Washington five hours late and the 10 p.m. graveside services under floodlights added to the of the occasion. The grave was placed just 47 feet from that of his brother, John F. Kennedy.
Robert Kennedy, a sharp critic of U. S. policy in Vietnam, was campaigning on an anti-war platform and was believed to be a popular favorite for nomination on president on the Democratic ticket in Chicago in August.