August 28, 2018 • 40 mins
Zac goes back to Acidalia for one last interview with Bill.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Check check, check, check check. I am. I just picked
up the rental car. It's a minivan, a red minivan,
so I'm traveling in style. I'm headed back up to
Acidalia for a final interview with Bill Klaiber, my co host.
(00:28):
I think he's a little upset with me. He's not.
I don't think he's super excited about the way the
series has been turning out, and more specifically, maybe our
relationship has been turning out. So yeah, I'm a little
(00:49):
nervous about it. To be honest, Bill and I have
been working on this podcast for the past eighteen months.
When we started, I didn't know much about the assassination
of Senator Robert Kennedy and Bill was my guide. And
now I'm in the car talking to myself. I don't know.
I mean, it was all new to me. You know,
it was a journey. It was it was all this
(01:11):
sense of discovery and learning about the case. And I'm
Bill has been so generous with his time and his
contacts and his research. You know, I was I was
believing this. I was believing this stuff. He listened to
(01:33):
lo Instein. You hear the evidence of the of the
extra bullets, and he listened to those tapes of Sir
hand they hypnotize and all that stuff. I mean, it's
really difficult to buy the original story, and you could
see that the LAPD is not being totally honest about
the official story. So I could absolutely understand how you
look at this and come up with the conclusion that
(01:54):
there was a conspiracy. But right now, I'm not willing
to take that leap of faith to believe that the
government conspired to kill Robert Kennedy. I don't believe it.
(02:16):
I mean, I feel like I'm driving to like a
very religious person's house, and I'm going to try to
convince them that God doesn't exist. I'm Zack Spert Fontier.
This is the RFK tapes, the final episode. Here I go. Jesus,
(02:39):
New York City is crazy, man, It's a crazy question
why anyone wants The first time I started to question
Bill's theory, we were researching a new development in the
RFK case, a recently discovered audio recording of his shooting
at the Ambassador Hotel. Where are we gone right now?
(03:18):
We're going to someplace in Arizona where there's this guy
who has taken an audio tape. Bill and I went
to Arizona to meet an audio engineer named Philip dan
Prag who spent a lot of time analyzing this tape,
an audio tape of very poor quality. And he's taken
(03:39):
this audio tape and then has applied new computer techniques
to analyze sound and has apparently identified thirteen shot sounds
in this tape. And if that's true, if that's scientifically true,
then it proves exactly the same thing that the door
(04:01):
frames would have proved had they survived. That's two guns
were firing. We'll see if he can convince us. Hello, phil, Yeah,
how you do it good? How are you feel good
to get out of New York? Yeah, you can do
(04:24):
it all right. Zach van Prag was just the nicest guy.
He took us inside his house, made us some coffee,
and then he brought us into his lab, a giant
temperature controlled warehouse. This place is a museum. Oh yeah,
this is a museum of sound and audio. And everywhere
(04:45):
you looked was audio equipment. ARC. It's a portable radio
ways about I think about thirty eight or forty pounds,
different version of portable. Yeah, they had a unique After
a quick tour, Bill and I sat down with Van
Pragg to listen to the recording of the assassination of
Robert Kennedy. Okay, when I hear it this way, I
(05:18):
hear and that's a that would be eight shots. By
the way, the audio was captured by a reporter named
Stanislaw Przynski, and unfortunately mister Prazinski did not have very
quarter and microphone as nice as yours. He was using
what I found to be a Telefunken four zero zero one.
(05:42):
Let me played just a part of it again and
see if you catch that. So I'm sitting there leaning
in and I can barely hear the gunshots, Van Pragg describes.
I mostly hear chaos and screaming, So the first two
(06:04):
shots are very, very difficult to discern, and if you're
not looking for them with advanced means, there's no way
that you can just hear them. Van Prag says he
knew where to look for the first two shots because
of what Carl Yuker said. Yuker had been leading Kennedy
through the kitchen pantry when Sir Han Sirhan started shooting
(06:24):
Carl Yuker, the assistant maitre d had at that point
grabbed Sir Han's gun arm and hand and pinned that
down onto the steam table. So there was about a
second and a half pause after the second shot before
the shots again commenced, you know, this time with his
arm pinned down. This is a big part of the
(06:46):
conspiracy theory that Sirhan only fired two shots at Kennedy
before Yuker and others grabbed him. Then Sirhan fired the
rest of his shots with his arm pinned to the
steam table. So buy shots three and four Perzynski's a
little bit closer, and then five and six closer and closer,
and closer and closer. So shot seven and eight that
particular two shot drooping or double shot as I call it.
(07:09):
According to Van Praggue, double shots are two shots fired
so close together they couldn't have come from the same gun.
There's just no way that a person can fire and
Ivray Johnson could at fifty fives that rapidly. There's just
no way. So that was further evidence. In the end,
Van Pragge says he identified thirteen shots on the Taiters.
(07:29):
So as far as my work, as far as my
findings might discoveries are concerned, the principal finding is there
had to be two shooters. Van Pragge showed us some
technical data, but basically we had to take his word
for it that he'd found these thirteen shots. Driving back
with Bill, I was skeptical, but Bill, he wasn't. I
(07:54):
have total confidence in the guy. I think what he
found is rather remarkable. One knows what he was doing,
put in a tremendous amount of effort to seek out
the truth, and fucking found the truth. Just buy it? Yeah,
he's not the most trusting person. How can you just
buy it? What you think that guy had just made
(08:15):
that up? No? I did you see all the did
you see all the audio equipment in that room? Yeah?
He talking to Bill that day in the car, knowing
he'd heard the same tape I just heard. I started
to suspect that he believed Van prag because he wanted
to believe Van pragg And when I challenged him, Oh,
you're out of your mind? Really? Yeah, I'm out of
(08:36):
my mind, yes, because because I don't believe that for sure,
that's of course it's inaccurate that that's thirteen shot. Yeah,
I'm I'm I yeah, okay. I wanted to talk to
someone else who'd analyzed the tape. So I called up
this guy. Hi, is Philip Harrison available, audio forensic expert,
(09:00):
doctor Philip Harrison, And so how many shots did you
find on the tape? I was happy to be able
to kind of identify seven. Harrison says he found seven
shots and a few possibilities for an eighth on the tape.
So you're also familiar with Philip Van Pragge's work on
the case. Yes, yeah, he's saying he's finding many more shots.
(09:25):
He's saying thirteen. Yeah, is that possible? Depends how you're
interpreting it. He's he's not inventing sounds or creating things
that aren't there in the recording. There's something there in recording.
(09:49):
He's interpreting it as a shot, and I'm saying it's
not a shot. You found seven shots and also multiple
candidates for an eighth shot. Yeah, that's on the basis
that of my understanding that it was given that Sir
(10:11):
Hunt had fired all eight shots from his revolver. Therefore
you would expect to find eight shots on the recording
for seven of the Harrison was looking for eight shots
and found seven. Van Pragge was looking for more than
eight shots and found thirteen, I decided I needed to
(10:31):
talk to someone new who wasn't looking for anything. Can
you hear me? Yeah? Where are you? I'm on Java
Strength and green Point. I called my friend Ted, a
very talented audio geek. He knew nothing about the RFK
assassination and promised not to google it. This is what
he said about Van Pragg's analysis. A little curious that
(10:56):
he doesn't use any spectrographic and information. Talk to me,
I don't know what I'm talking about, because when you
say things like that, when I spectrographically, what I mean
is you're looking at the amplitude of all the frequencies.
Which Ted brought up something called a spectrogram, a way
to visually represent a piece of sound, like a wave form,
(11:17):
but with more information. Can you pull that image up
real quick? The image you sent me? Yeah? Yeah, Ted
made me a spectrogram of the presents. Okay, have it up? Okay,
So do you see how there's like in that image,
there's darker parts and lighter parts. Right on the image,
I can see several bright vertical lines, like so when
(11:40):
you see those lines, that's the gun shot. It's so
loud that it's it's reading on it every part of
the spectrum has a very short attack and a very
short decay. And I count eight of them. I mean
I see I mean, I don't know if I see eight.
I think I see seven, But yeah, you see seven.
(12:02):
And when you listen to it, that's scream. Do you
see that like line that kind of like starting, that's
the scream? Yeah, I mean, wow, I'm shocked. I was
shocked at how clear this was. Sure you could say
that there's other gunshots sounds in there. I guess resolution
(12:24):
is so low or like the quality of the recording
is so low that like I can see that, I
could also not see that. It's just not enough to
go on to me. Listening to Ted and after all
the work I'd done Chris Grossing in the country, examining evidence,
interviewing witnesses, I began to realize something that many of
(12:46):
the people I talked to, people asking a lot of
really good questions, Many of them were looking for answers
to confirm what they already believed. Yeah, looking for clues. Yeah,
I mean, it's just it's part of what we do
as human beings is looking for ways to fill in
(13:09):
the gaps and the signals. This is Jesse Walker. He
wrote The United States of Paranoia, a book that examines
why people come to believe so strongly in conspiracies. Conspiracy
theories have been around for as long as human beings
have been living in societies with one another. Conspiracy theories
about Native Americans from the early settlers would be an
early example of this Yellow peril stories about Asian immigrants
(13:32):
and so on. There's a sale in witch trials where
you know if someone in your own family might have
been working for the devil and you didn't even know it.
During the lead up to the Civil War, there are
a whole lot of on the one hand, Northern conspiracy
theories about the slave of power, and on the other hand,
Southern conspiracy theories about abolitionists, you know, allegedly famenting slave
(13:56):
revolts and so on. Walker explains that human beings are
basically hardwired to look for conspiracy theories. Number One, we
are a pattern seeking storytelling creature. We want to try
to make sense of the signals that are coming towards us,
(14:16):
and there are gaps in the signals, so we're going
to fill those in with stories. We're going to look
for patterns that explain what's not there. And number two,
we're afraid of things. Sometimes we're rationally afraid of things.
Sometimes we're irrationally afraid of things. But when you combine
fear with pattern seeking, you're bound to have people imagining
(14:37):
fearful patterns. And number three on top of that, sometimes
people really do conspire. Some conspiracies are real. Often conspiracy
theories that are not true still have some sort of
grain of truth. You know that people are building from
and extrapolating these larger ideas from. Even when there's no
(15:01):
truth at all to the theory, I can still tell
you something true about the people who believe in repeat it.
Check check check Okay. I am in Acidalia, driving on
(15:23):
like a tiny tiny road, trees stretch out on both sides,
absolutely gorgeous, about to arrive at Bill Claver's house. We
haven't spoken in about a week, and we haven't really
(15:44):
spoken since we had a big argument, so he knows
I'm coming. I'm not going to surprise him. He's agreed
to have a final interview. Bill and I are going
to talk about the case. I have a feeling of
(16:06):
nervousness and the pain of my stomach. It's gonna be fine, Hey, Bill,
(16:40):
what a beautiful day. Yeah, it is no rain for
a change, man has been raining, you know. Hello, Hello, Hey,
(17:03):
we'll probably have a nasty span. Bill and I talk
after the break. Thank you for thanks for letting me
(17:44):
come back to Acidelia and interview. Jean had to go
to town but earlier. But she said, so, the Mad
Prince is coming today. Yeah, that's coming. You're gonna be
here this afternoon sometime. That's a new nickname. Yeah, I
mean she didn't say the Dark Prince, the Mad Prince is.
(18:06):
I'll take it. Yeah, I figured that's okay. Um, Well,
the first thing I want to say is thank you,
and I really really mean that, um for everything, I mean,
for let it, for being my partner in this and
for letting me into this world and for introducing me
(18:27):
to everybody. And I I really I really appreciate it.
Well sure, but yeah, and um um yeah, things going
along there there. It's in a lot of ways. In
some ways, it's turned out a lot better than I thought.
(18:49):
In other ways, I think we missed a few opportunities
and we could have done a better job and putting
out the case that there was really some problems in
this and if there are no problems in this case,
if it's just the way the police said it was,
then what's the show about. And so I think I
(19:11):
think there were there were times Bill and I pick
up right where we left off and start arguing about
the case. You know, we've had this argument before. And
one of the things you said to me is you
can't take all these things and look at them all
at the same time. And I said, but no, you
have to do that because you take them individually like that.
And yeah, I can imagine Sirhand getting drunk and you know,
(19:34):
when he goes to his car and he gets his
gun and then he's there and all of a sudden,
this thing overcomes him and he said, oh my god,
and he shoots him. I can imagine that. Um, but
I don't know how he gets four bullets into the
back of Bobby Kennedy when he's not when he's in
front of him. I don't know how he gets four
bullets into the back of Bobby Kennedy when he fires
(19:56):
his gun twice in Kennedy's direction. And this wrestled down
to the steam tape. That's just what Carl Yuker said happened.
The gun. He said, the gun was right next to
my face. It went off twice. I grabbed the guy's arm.
We went down onto the table, and then he emptied
his going. This is where Carl Yuker's account of grabbing
Sir Haunt's gun arm after just two shots comes into play.
(20:17):
But let's let's let's imagine that where Carl Carl Yuker
in that moment, like, so, you're at the hotel. It's
it's probably been a tense night. Maybe it hasn't, but
there's certainly a tons of people there trying to get
to Kennedy. He's helping Kennedy off of off of the podium,
he's trying to keep people back. He as Kennedy. By
all of a sudden, there's this guy who's shooting, and
(20:38):
the whole thing is over in five or six seconds.
It bang bang. He's oh my god, he's he's shocked.
He's this, he's that he's get the guy, get the gun.
He so to me, it's like he's gone through all that.
He has blood on him. Kennedy's dying on the ground.
He goes on television set. I bought him on moments
(21:02):
after the shooting, Yuker is in total shock. He keeps saying,
I brought him out. I'm the one who brought him out.
I bought him out. I'm the bundle bottom up. What
did you hear or something? I don't know? And then
or the second shot that I thought about. Here, Uker
says that he grabs her Han after the third shot,
(21:25):
and a few hours later when he talks to the LPD,
he's even less clear. Shut and second shot it must
have been shot money after another and shilly shooting. I'm
gonna hit his hand done. I don't know how many
(21:45):
times to shut him. Won't even tell you six cents.
Then a few years later, he's talking to a journalist
and he's absolutely confident about what happened. I hit one
shot and I thought it wasn't or something, and I
heard the second shot going off, and then I realized
I saw that gun. I pushed him down and put
(22:06):
him over the steved And this is the version of
Uker's story that gets repeated by conspiracy theorists. Sir Han
got off two shots before Uker grabbed his arm. But
I point out to Bill that not everybody heard of
pause after the second shot. There's probably maybe maybe half,
maybe even less than people say they heard the two
shots than the break most most people actually hear firecrackers,
(22:29):
and not everybody hears that. All of a sudden, I
sounded what seemed just like four or five firecrackers. I'm
there with a rh tat tat sound, and it almost
sound to me like eight shot. I thought it was
a balloon. Heard the first pop, and I heard about
three or four just right after another. Zach, we have
we have a recording. Bill brings up the Prasinski recording,
(22:52):
and now there is differences of opinion as to what
that recording reveals. Does it reveal eight shots as some
people say, or does it reveal thirteen shots as some
other people say. Okay, uh No. One listening to the
tape disputes the fact that there were two shots and
then a pause and then more shots. Everyone agrees to that.
(23:16):
I don't think so well. I do because those first
two shots are from Sir Han's gun, and they are loud,
and well, I'm sorry they're not loud. Yes. The reason
that van Prag, the reason that Van Prag was able
to find those two shots is because he's relying on
the witness testimony of the two shots existing. Yep, yep,
you're right on that. He's a furry of shots, and
(23:39):
he says it a lot and many times in his interview.
I would never have seen the other two shots if
I didn't already know that these that the two shots existed.
After the second shot, Carl Yuker, the assistant maitre D
had at that point, grabbed sir Han's gun arm and
hand and pinned that down onto the steam table. So
(24:02):
the first two shots are very, very difficult to discern,
and if you're not looking for them with advanced means,
there's no way that you can just hear them. It's
really hard to get anybody who's been able to back
up what he's to me. At best, it's like a
(24:23):
bad recording and it's a wash. And at worst, it's
like he's finding the gunshots because he thinks that they're there.
It's a bit of a confirmation bias. It's like he's
using this other information. I don't think he's a bad guy.
I don't think he I just think he's using other information. Yeah,
I kind of from spending time with him, I kind
(24:46):
of disagree. I think he applied science and he found
what he found, and yes he had to look for
those first two gunshots because they were buried. I believe
he's an honest person, and I think thirteen shots is
what makes sense for me. Um, you know, you can say, well,
you know, maybe Phil van Prage doesn't know what he's doing,
(25:08):
maybe he's dishonest, maybe he's lying. But how does how
does it get the bullets in the doorframes? How how finally,
how do we get to the extra bullets in the doorframes.
It's like when you're talking about weighing the evidence, It's like,
so on the one hand, you have to have could
could the people be wrong about seeing the bullets? Is
(25:30):
it possible? You know, every time there's a witness who
sees the bullets, you know, in the doorframes or the
bullet holes, well maybe they didn't see it right, or
maybe they just were being fooled by what Walter two
thought he saw. This is from all day, some of
them from all day. Though, investigative journalist Dan moll Daa
discovered that the guy who identified the bullet holes in
(25:51):
the doorframe was Walter two, a motorcycle cop. And so
I was convinced that an uninformed person had originally marked
this so called bullet evidence, and anybody who passed by
those things thought that these were bullet holes. That's not
even what it's considering in your mind, what all of them?
(26:19):
You know? Why did this? Is? This is an important
murder case that they've supposedly done an excellent job on.
They clearly didn't do an excellent job, like we knew that.
We know that they had, sure and the excellent job
they didn't do was destroying evidence and coercing witnesses and
pretending things were true that we're not true. That's not
(26:40):
bumbling along destroying doorframes, burning door frames that were thought
to be important evidence. That's that's not an accident. That's
not a bumble. What if that's what it is? Like?
You don't think that's at least as possible as anything else.
But I think, you know, I think, well, day, I
maybe slipped you a mickey when you were down in Washington.
I really do. I maybe, because yeah, you know, and
(27:01):
you don't actually look the same. I think you may
not be the same Zack that I started out with.
It's like, um, when I think back about my own
journey through this, it is interesting because I really was
I was ready to believe it, you know, and now
(27:21):
your disbelief hangs on a series of is it possible
one chance one hundred that they were wrong? Whatever? What about?
What about we have the photograph of them looking at
the bullet in the bullet hole. Okay, So where's the
report from the criminalist Dwayne Wolfer who says, we took
that piece of wood down and by golly, it was
(27:42):
a snail, It wasn't a bullet, or it was whatever.
There was no report and there should be, well, there
should be. Okay, So is there is that a paperwork
problem or does that mean there was a bullet there
that he has to cover up. That's what it means.
It was a bullet there that had to be cut up. Um,
that's that's that's the most likely meaning of that. Maybe
(28:05):
that's a cover up. Let's say it wasn't a bullet
and they didn't write a report. Who wouldn't that look
the same way? Yeah, And you can do that with
every single piece of evidence here. But you add it
all up together, and there's an awful lot of coincidences
(28:27):
of things that they should have done but they didn't do.
And um, but the easier and more likely interpretation is
they found a bullet there, and they knew that that
bullet represented a second gun, and they weren't willing to
go there. It's a complicated thing and if you if
you look at it from the point of view, who
(28:48):
would bother to do that? And isn't there a better
way to kill Bobby Kennedy? Yeah? There might be, or
maybe this is the way they came up with, certainly
better than how they killed Jack. You know, if you're
rich enough and powerful enough to murder the president of
the United States and you get away with it, are
you gonna let his brother become president five years later?
(29:12):
I don't think so. So in terms of do I
know that's who it was? No, I don't know that that.
The evidence doesn't show who you know. You can only suppose.
It's pretty clear that we aren't going to get anywhere
arguing over the facts of the case. Sitting next to
each other in Bill's study were perhaps further apart than
we've ever been, and so we basically agree to disagree.
(29:39):
And Bill brings out some homemade lemonade. Muld be a
little tart sugar in it? M good? I asked Bill
(30:02):
if he's enjoyed work in the case all these years.
There's not a lot of good things that come to
you because of this. You know, you you stand up
in a country like this and say, you know, the
official version of how these important people died really isn't true.
It's not a lot of good things happened to you
when you do that. So it's not been a lot
(30:24):
of fun in that regard. And there's a few people
that I know and that I've come to know in
this investigation, some really strong people that I trust and
have high regard for. And I never met Alard Lohenstein
in a wish I had, but I felt like I
was a child of theirs and that I wanted to
carry on what they carried on. And when you heard
(30:46):
his voice, Alard Lohenstein, when he spoke about you know,
he didn't believe that there was a conspiracy that Robert Kennedy,
he was a friend of Robert Kennedy, he didn't believe it,
you know, he didn't how could that be? And then
he saw the evidence and he changed his mind. And
that's just anything that happened with Polshraide, and um, it's
basically what happened with me. So um, these are people
(31:07):
who I think respect what I did, and that's who
I care about. I would hope that some of the
million people listening out there would not think I'm a
crackpot um, but in a way it people who I
care about know who I am. And then I asked
(31:28):
Bill about making this podcast. I hope, I hope you
don't regret. Do you do? Um? I don't, I'm um,
I even ye know. Bill asks me to turn the
recorder off. He's done, and I get it, chick check. Well, okay,
(32:00):
I'm leaving Bills. I've had a fascination with this story
since I was a little kid driving around with my
dad listening to Bill's voice on the radio. Good Evening.
(32:23):
I'm Bill Claiber, and tonight we were going to take
another look at the assassination of Robert Kennedy. Was her
hands her hand, as we were told, really a fanatical
Arab nationalist? Or was he as something a robot assassin?
Did her hand even murder Robert Kennedy? And honestly, things
haven't turned out like I thought they might. There aren't
(32:45):
really any answers and no certainty. I hate endings like that,
So before I returned to the city. I'm going back
to where it all started, my dad, my dad's car. Oh,
(33:06):
all right, where do you want to go? Just? Yeah,
you want to go to breakfast at that diner you
like right over here? Yeah, we get it. Um. So
do you remember, like when Bill gave you that tape
of the RFKA tapes? Um, it's not really, I mean
it's not when you tell me, if you had asked
(33:29):
me about it, I would have had no memory when
you tell me that he gave me a tape. Um,
I believe you. And but it wasn't that significant in
my life. Did you have any memory of me like
listening to it or being struck by it or anything
like that. No. No, So it's funny because you know,
(33:53):
obviously it was something significant and important to you. To me,
who killed Robert Kennedy is not nearly as important as
the fact that we lost, Yeah, an incredibly powerful leader
in our country. I mean I lived in that time
(34:16):
when people were being shot. That would have changed history.
And so there's real story is Robert Kennedy. I mean,
he's amazing. No one, no matter where he lives or
what he does, can be certain who next will suffer
(34:36):
from some senseless act of bloodshed. Like a lot of
people who lived through the conflicts of the late sixties,
my dad held out hope that our country, divided by
politics in an unpopular war, struggling over issues of race,
could find a hero who would offer peace. And that
hero was Robert Kennedy. He connected and brought people together.
(35:00):
He united rather than divided. But he was gone too soon.
What is violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created?
No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet.
(35:20):
When I started this, my wife was pregnant. Now I
have a young son. One day when I share with
him when I learned about Robert Kennedy, it won't be
conspiracy theories about bullets and door frames. Some look for scapegoats,
others look for conspiracies. But this much is clear. Violence
(35:44):
breeds violence, Repression breeds retaliation, and only a cleansing can
remove this sickness from our souls. I'll share with my
son the legacy of the man and all that he
stood for, and I'll encourage him to look for his
own heroes, heroes like Robert F. Kennedy. When you teach
(36:10):
that those who differ from you threaten your freedom, or
your job, or your home or your family, and you
also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens, but
as enemies. We must admit to ourselves that our children's
(36:31):
future cannot be built on the misfortune of another's. We
must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled
or enriched by hatred or by revenge. And surely we
can begin to work a little harder to bind up
(36:54):
the wounds among us and to become in our hearts
brothers and countrymen. Once again, thank you very much, my friend.
(37:17):
Than you tell me. Where've read a lot of people,
but it seems the good they done I just drotar.
(37:41):
Thanks for listening to Crimetown Presents the RFK Tapes. This
is the last episode of the series. We keep an
eye on the feed. We're gonna drop some bonus episodes
in the coming weeks. Crimetown is me Zach Stewart Pontier
and Mark Smirling. Yark Tapes is made in partnership with
(38:01):
Cadence thirteen. For bonus content, go to RFK tapes dot com.
The show is produced by Jesse Rudoy, Bill Klaiber and
Ulla Culpa Austin Mitchell is our senior producer, editing by
Mark Smirling, fact checking by Jennifer Blackman. This episode was mixed,
sound designed and scored by Kenny Qciak, Additional music by
(38:25):
John Quciak. Our title track is Maria Tambien by Krumben.
Our credit track this week is Abraham Martin, John and Bobby,
covered by Rosaline Eastman. Music supervision by Josh Kessler and
Dylan Bostick at Heavy Duty Projects. Recording help by Donnie
(38:49):
Carlo at w TMD in Taos In, Maryland. Production assistants
by Kevin Shepherd. Our website is designed by Kurt Courtney.
Archive footage courtesy of the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth
and the California State Archives. Archival research by Brennan Reese.
(39:14):
Thanks to Emily Wiedeman, Gene Claybour, Green Card Pictures, Alesandro Santoro,
Ryan Murdoch, Max Miller, Ben Davis, Orn Rosenbaum, Ryan Nord,
Judith Ferrar, Elizabeth Benham, and the team at Caden's Thirteen.
For more information on the Robert Kennedy murder, pick up
a copy of Bill's book shadow Play. If you enjoyed
(39:38):
the art Ka Tapes. Please consider leaving us a rating
and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. It
really does help others find out about the show. You
(40:18):
can find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at the
rf K Tapes. Thanks. We're back next week kinda for
the bonus episode. Bye
Check check, check, check check. I am. I just picked
up the rental car. It's a minivan, a red minivan,
so I'm traveling in style. I'm headed back up to
Acidalia for a final interview with Bill Klaiber, my co host.
(00:28):
I think he's a little upset with me. He's not.
I don't think he's super excited about the way the
series has been turning out, and more specifically, maybe our
relationship has been turning out. So yeah, I'm a little
(00:49):
nervous about it. To be honest, Bill and I have
been working on this podcast for the past eighteen months.
When we started, I didn't know much about the assassination
of Senator Robert Kennedy and Bill was my guide. And
now I'm in the car talking to myself. I don't know.
I mean, it was all new to me. You know,
it was a journey. It was it was all this
(01:11):
sense of discovery and learning about the case. And I'm
Bill has been so generous with his time and his
contacts and his research. You know, I was I was
believing this. I was believing this stuff. He listened to
(01:33):
lo Instein. You hear the evidence of the of the
extra bullets, and he listened to those tapes of Sir
hand they hypnotize and all that stuff. I mean, it's
really difficult to buy the original story, and you could
see that the LAPD is not being totally honest about
the official story. So I could absolutely understand how you
look at this and come up with the conclusion that
(01:54):
there was a conspiracy. But right now, I'm not willing
to take that leap of faith to believe that the
government conspired to kill Robert Kennedy. I don't believe it.
(02:16):
I mean, I feel like I'm driving to like a
very religious person's house, and I'm going to try to
convince them that God doesn't exist. I'm Zack Spert Fontier.
This is the RFK tapes, the final episode. Here I go. Jesus,
(02:39):
New York City is crazy, man, It's a crazy question
why anyone wants The first time I started to question
Bill's theory, we were researching a new development in the
RFK case, a recently discovered audio recording of his shooting
at the Ambassador Hotel. Where are we gone right now?
(03:18):
We're going to someplace in Arizona where there's this guy
who has taken an audio tape. Bill and I went
to Arizona to meet an audio engineer named Philip dan
Prag who spent a lot of time analyzing this tape,
an audio tape of very poor quality. And he's taken
(03:39):
this audio tape and then has applied new computer techniques
to analyze sound and has apparently identified thirteen shot sounds
in this tape. And if that's true, if that's scientifically true,
then it proves exactly the same thing that the door
(04:01):
frames would have proved had they survived. That's two guns
were firing. We'll see if he can convince us. Hello, phil, Yeah,
how you do it good? How are you feel good
to get out of New York? Yeah, you can do
(04:24):
it all right. Zach van Prag was just the nicest guy.
He took us inside his house, made us some coffee,
and then he brought us into his lab, a giant
temperature controlled warehouse. This place is a museum. Oh yeah,
this is a museum of sound and audio. And everywhere
(04:45):
you looked was audio equipment. ARC. It's a portable radio
ways about I think about thirty eight or forty pounds,
different version of portable. Yeah, they had a unique After
a quick tour, Bill and I sat down with Van
Pragg to listen to the recording of the assassination of
Robert Kennedy. Okay, when I hear it this way, I
(05:18):
hear and that's a that would be eight shots. By
the way, the audio was captured by a reporter named
Stanislaw Przynski, and unfortunately mister Prazinski did not have very
quarter and microphone as nice as yours. He was using
what I found to be a Telefunken four zero zero one.
(05:42):
Let me played just a part of it again and
see if you catch that. So I'm sitting there leaning
in and I can barely hear the gunshots, Van Pragg describes.
I mostly hear chaos and screaming, So the first two
(06:04):
shots are very, very difficult to discern, and if you're
not looking for them with advanced means, there's no way
that you can just hear them. Van Prag says he
knew where to look for the first two shots because
of what Carl Yuker said. Yuker had been leading Kennedy
through the kitchen pantry when Sir Han Sirhan started shooting
(06:24):
Carl Yuker, the assistant maitre d had at that point
grabbed Sir Han's gun arm and hand and pinned that
down onto the steam table. So there was about a
second and a half pause after the second shot before
the shots again commenced, you know, this time with his
arm pinned down. This is a big part of the
(06:46):
conspiracy theory that Sirhan only fired two shots at Kennedy
before Yuker and others grabbed him. Then Sirhan fired the
rest of his shots with his arm pinned to the
steam table. So buy shots three and four Perzynski's a
little bit closer, and then five and six closer and closer,
and closer and closer. So shot seven and eight that
particular two shot drooping or double shot as I call it.
(07:09):
According to Van Praggue, double shots are two shots fired
so close together they couldn't have come from the same gun.
There's just no way that a person can fire and
Ivray Johnson could at fifty fives that rapidly. There's just
no way. So that was further evidence. In the end,
Van Pragge says he identified thirteen shots on the Taiters.
(07:29):
So as far as my work, as far as my
findings might discoveries are concerned, the principal finding is there
had to be two shooters. Van Pragge showed us some
technical data, but basically we had to take his word
for it that he'd found these thirteen shots. Driving back
with Bill, I was skeptical, but Bill, he wasn't. I
(07:54):
have total confidence in the guy. I think what he
found is rather remarkable. One knows what he was doing,
put in a tremendous amount of effort to seek out
the truth, and fucking found the truth. Just buy it? Yeah,
he's not the most trusting person. How can you just
buy it? What you think that guy had just made
(08:15):
that up? No? I did you see all the did
you see all the audio equipment in that room? Yeah?
He talking to Bill that day in the car, knowing
he'd heard the same tape I just heard. I started
to suspect that he believed Van prag because he wanted
to believe Van pragg And when I challenged him, Oh,
you're out of your mind? Really? Yeah, I'm out of
(08:36):
my mind, yes, because because I don't believe that for sure,
that's of course it's inaccurate that that's thirteen shot. Yeah,
I'm I'm I yeah, okay. I wanted to talk to
someone else who'd analyzed the tape. So I called up
this guy. Hi, is Philip Harrison available, audio forensic expert,
(09:00):
doctor Philip Harrison, And so how many shots did you
find on the tape? I was happy to be able
to kind of identify seven. Harrison says he found seven
shots and a few possibilities for an eighth on the tape.
So you're also familiar with Philip Van Pragge's work on
the case. Yes, yeah, he's saying he's finding many more shots.
(09:25):
He's saying thirteen. Yeah, is that possible? Depends how you're
interpreting it. He's he's not inventing sounds or creating things
that aren't there in the recording. There's something there in recording.
(09:49):
He's interpreting it as a shot, and I'm saying it's
not a shot. You found seven shots and also multiple
candidates for an eighth shot. Yeah, that's on the basis
that of my understanding that it was given that Sir
(10:11):
Hunt had fired all eight shots from his revolver. Therefore
you would expect to find eight shots on the recording
for seven of the Harrison was looking for eight shots
and found seven. Van Pragge was looking for more than
eight shots and found thirteen, I decided I needed to
(10:31):
talk to someone new who wasn't looking for anything. Can
you hear me? Yeah? Where are you? I'm on Java
Strength and green Point. I called my friend Ted, a
very talented audio geek. He knew nothing about the RFK
assassination and promised not to google it. This is what
he said about Van Pragg's analysis. A little curious that
(10:56):
he doesn't use any spectrographic and information. Talk to me,
I don't know what I'm talking about, because when you
say things like that, when I spectrographically, what I mean
is you're looking at the amplitude of all the frequencies.
Which Ted brought up something called a spectrogram, a way
to visually represent a piece of sound, like a wave form,
(11:17):
but with more information. Can you pull that image up
real quick? The image you sent me? Yeah? Yeah, Ted
made me a spectrogram of the presents. Okay, have it up? Okay,
So do you see how there's like in that image,
there's darker parts and lighter parts. Right on the image,
I can see several bright vertical lines, like so when
(11:40):
you see those lines, that's the gun shot. It's so
loud that it's it's reading on it every part of
the spectrum has a very short attack and a very
short decay. And I count eight of them. I mean
I see I mean, I don't know if I see eight.
I think I see seven, But yeah, you see seven.
(12:02):
And when you listen to it, that's scream. Do you
see that like line that kind of like starting, that's
the scream? Yeah, I mean, wow, I'm shocked. I was
shocked at how clear this was. Sure you could say
that there's other gunshots sounds in there. I guess resolution
(12:24):
is so low or like the quality of the recording
is so low that like I can see that, I
could also not see that. It's just not enough to
go on to me. Listening to Ted and after all
the work I'd done Chris Grossing in the country, examining evidence,
interviewing witnesses, I began to realize something that many of
(12:46):
the people I talked to, people asking a lot of
really good questions, Many of them were looking for answers
to confirm what they already believed. Yeah, looking for clues. Yeah,
I mean, it's just it's part of what we do
as human beings is looking for ways to fill in
(13:09):
the gaps and the signals. This is Jesse Walker. He
wrote The United States of Paranoia, a book that examines
why people come to believe so strongly in conspiracies. Conspiracy
theories have been around for as long as human beings
have been living in societies with one another. Conspiracy theories
about Native Americans from the early settlers would be an
early example of this Yellow peril stories about Asian immigrants
(13:32):
and so on. There's a sale in witch trials where
you know if someone in your own family might have
been working for the devil and you didn't even know it.
During the lead up to the Civil War, there are
a whole lot of on the one hand, Northern conspiracy
theories about the slave of power, and on the other hand,
Southern conspiracy theories about abolitionists, you know, allegedly famenting slave
(13:56):
revolts and so on. Walker explains that human beings are
basically hardwired to look for conspiracy theories. Number One, we
are a pattern seeking storytelling creature. We want to try
to make sense of the signals that are coming towards us,
(14:16):
and there are gaps in the signals, so we're going
to fill those in with stories. We're going to look
for patterns that explain what's not there. And number two,
we're afraid of things. Sometimes we're rationally afraid of things.
Sometimes we're irrationally afraid of things. But when you combine
fear with pattern seeking, you're bound to have people imagining
(14:37):
fearful patterns. And number three on top of that, sometimes
people really do conspire. Some conspiracies are real. Often conspiracy
theories that are not true still have some sort of
grain of truth. You know that people are building from
and extrapolating these larger ideas from. Even when there's no
(15:01):
truth at all to the theory, I can still tell
you something true about the people who believe in repeat it.
Check check check Okay. I am in Acidalia, driving on
(15:23):
like a tiny tiny road, trees stretch out on both sides,
absolutely gorgeous, about to arrive at Bill Claver's house. We
haven't spoken in about a week, and we haven't really
(15:44):
spoken since we had a big argument, so he knows
I'm coming. I'm not going to surprise him. He's agreed
to have a final interview. Bill and I are going
to talk about the case. I have a feeling of
(16:06):
nervousness and the pain of my stomach. It's gonna be fine, Hey, Bill,
(16:40):
what a beautiful day. Yeah, it is no rain for
a change, man has been raining, you know. Hello, Hello, Hey,
(17:03):
we'll probably have a nasty span. Bill and I talk
after the break. Thank you for thanks for letting me
(17:44):
come back to Acidelia and interview. Jean had to go
to town but earlier. But she said, so, the Mad
Prince is coming today. Yeah, that's coming. You're gonna be
here this afternoon sometime. That's a new nickname. Yeah, I
mean she didn't say the Dark Prince, the Mad Prince is.
(18:06):
I'll take it. Yeah, I figured that's okay. Um, Well,
the first thing I want to say is thank you,
and I really really mean that, um for everything, I mean,
for let it, for being my partner in this and
for letting me into this world and for introducing me
(18:27):
to everybody. And I I really I really appreciate it.
Well sure, but yeah, and um um yeah, things going
along there there. It's in a lot of ways. In
some ways, it's turned out a lot better than I thought.
(18:49):
In other ways, I think we missed a few opportunities
and we could have done a better job and putting
out the case that there was really some problems in
this and if there are no problems in this case,
if it's just the way the police said it was,
then what's the show about. And so I think I
(19:11):
think there were there were times Bill and I pick
up right where we left off and start arguing about
the case. You know, we've had this argument before. And
one of the things you said to me is you
can't take all these things and look at them all
at the same time. And I said, but no, you
have to do that because you take them individually like that.
And yeah, I can imagine Sirhand getting drunk and you know,
(19:34):
when he goes to his car and he gets his
gun and then he's there and all of a sudden,
this thing overcomes him and he said, oh my god,
and he shoots him. I can imagine that. Um, but
I don't know how he gets four bullets into the
back of Bobby Kennedy when he's not when he's in
front of him. I don't know how he gets four
bullets into the back of Bobby Kennedy when he fires
(19:56):
his gun twice in Kennedy's direction. And this wrestled down
to the steam tape. That's just what Carl Yuker said happened.
The gun. He said, the gun was right next to
my face. It went off twice. I grabbed the guy's arm.
We went down onto the table, and then he emptied
his going. This is where Carl Yuker's account of grabbing
Sir Haunt's gun arm after just two shots comes into play.
(20:17):
But let's let's let's imagine that where Carl Carl Yuker
in that moment, like, so, you're at the hotel. It's
it's probably been a tense night. Maybe it hasn't, but
there's certainly a tons of people there trying to get
to Kennedy. He's helping Kennedy off of off of the podium,
he's trying to keep people back. He as Kennedy. By
all of a sudden, there's this guy who's shooting, and
(20:38):
the whole thing is over in five or six seconds.
It bang bang. He's oh my god, he's he's shocked.
He's this, he's that he's get the guy, get the gun.
He so to me, it's like he's gone through all that.
He has blood on him. Kennedy's dying on the ground.
He goes on television set. I bought him on moments
(21:02):
after the shooting, Yuker is in total shock. He keeps saying,
I brought him out. I'm the one who brought him out.
I bought him out. I'm the bundle bottom up. What
did you hear or something? I don't know? And then
or the second shot that I thought about. Here, Uker
says that he grabs her Han after the third shot,
(21:25):
and a few hours later when he talks to the LPD,
he's even less clear. Shut and second shot it must
have been shot money after another and shilly shooting. I'm
gonna hit his hand done. I don't know how many
(21:45):
times to shut him. Won't even tell you six cents.
Then a few years later, he's talking to a journalist
and he's absolutely confident about what happened. I hit one
shot and I thought it wasn't or something, and I
heard the second shot going off, and then I realized
I saw that gun. I pushed him down and put
(22:06):
him over the steved And this is the version of
Uker's story that gets repeated by conspiracy theorists. Sir Han
got off two shots before Uker grabbed his arm. But
I point out to Bill that not everybody heard of
pause after the second shot. There's probably maybe maybe half,
maybe even less than people say they heard the two
shots than the break most most people actually hear firecrackers,
(22:29):
and not everybody hears that. All of a sudden, I
sounded what seemed just like four or five firecrackers. I'm
there with a rh tat tat sound, and it almost
sound to me like eight shot. I thought it was
a balloon. Heard the first pop, and I heard about
three or four just right after another. Zach, we have
we have a recording. Bill brings up the Prasinski recording,
(22:52):
and now there is differences of opinion as to what
that recording reveals. Does it reveal eight shots as some
people say, or does it reveal thirteen shots as some
other people say. Okay, uh No. One listening to the
tape disputes the fact that there were two shots and
then a pause and then more shots. Everyone agrees to that.
(23:16):
I don't think so well. I do because those first
two shots are from Sir Han's gun, and they are loud,
and well, I'm sorry they're not loud. Yes. The reason
that van Prag, the reason that Van Prag was able
to find those two shots is because he's relying on
the witness testimony of the two shots existing. Yep, yep,
you're right on that. He's a furry of shots, and
(23:39):
he says it a lot and many times in his interview.
I would never have seen the other two shots if
I didn't already know that these that the two shots existed.
After the second shot, Carl Yuker, the assistant maitre D
had at that point, grabbed sir Han's gun arm and
hand and pinned that down onto the steam table. So
(24:02):
the first two shots are very, very difficult to discern,
and if you're not looking for them with advanced means,
there's no way that you can just hear them. It's
really hard to get anybody who's been able to back
up what he's to me. At best, it's like a
(24:23):
bad recording and it's a wash. And at worst, it's
like he's finding the gunshots because he thinks that they're there.
It's a bit of a confirmation bias. It's like he's
using this other information. I don't think he's a bad guy.
I don't think he I just think he's using other information. Yeah,
I kind of from spending time with him, I kind
(24:46):
of disagree. I think he applied science and he found
what he found, and yes he had to look for
those first two gunshots because they were buried. I believe
he's an honest person, and I think thirteen shots is
what makes sense for me. Um, you know, you can say, well,
you know, maybe Phil van Prage doesn't know what he's doing,
(25:08):
maybe he's dishonest, maybe he's lying. But how does how
does it get the bullets in the doorframes? How how finally,
how do we get to the extra bullets in the doorframes.
It's like when you're talking about weighing the evidence, It's like,
so on the one hand, you have to have could
could the people be wrong about seeing the bullets? Is
(25:30):
it possible? You know, every time there's a witness who
sees the bullets, you know, in the doorframes or the
bullet holes, well maybe they didn't see it right, or
maybe they just were being fooled by what Walter two
thought he saw. This is from all day, some of
them from all day. Though, investigative journalist Dan moll Daa
discovered that the guy who identified the bullet holes in
(25:51):
the doorframe was Walter two, a motorcycle cop. And so
I was convinced that an uninformed person had originally marked
this so called bullet evidence, and anybody who passed by
those things thought that these were bullet holes. That's not
even what it's considering in your mind, what all of them?
(26:19):
You know? Why did this? Is? This is an important
murder case that they've supposedly done an excellent job on.
They clearly didn't do an excellent job, like we knew that.
We know that they had, sure and the excellent job
they didn't do was destroying evidence and coercing witnesses and
pretending things were true that we're not true. That's not
(26:40):
bumbling along destroying doorframes, burning door frames that were thought
to be important evidence. That's that's not an accident. That's
not a bumble. What if that's what it is? Like?
You don't think that's at least as possible as anything else.
But I think, you know, I think, well, day, I
maybe slipped you a mickey when you were down in Washington.
I really do. I maybe, because yeah, you know, and
(27:01):
you don't actually look the same. I think you may
not be the same Zack that I started out with.
It's like, um, when I think back about my own
journey through this, it is interesting because I really was
I was ready to believe it, you know, and now
(27:21):
your disbelief hangs on a series of is it possible
one chance one hundred that they were wrong? Whatever? What about?
What about we have the photograph of them looking at
the bullet in the bullet hole. Okay, So where's the
report from the criminalist Dwayne Wolfer who says, we took
that piece of wood down and by golly, it was
(27:42):
a snail, It wasn't a bullet, or it was whatever.
There was no report and there should be, well, there
should be. Okay, So is there is that a paperwork
problem or does that mean there was a bullet there
that he has to cover up. That's what it means.
It was a bullet there that had to be cut up. Um,
that's that's that's the most likely meaning of that. Maybe
(28:05):
that's a cover up. Let's say it wasn't a bullet
and they didn't write a report. Who wouldn't that look
the same way? Yeah, And you can do that with
every single piece of evidence here. But you add it
all up together, and there's an awful lot of coincidences
(28:27):
of things that they should have done but they didn't do.
And um, but the easier and more likely interpretation is
they found a bullet there, and they knew that that
bullet represented a second gun, and they weren't willing to
go there. It's a complicated thing and if you if
you look at it from the point of view, who
(28:48):
would bother to do that? And isn't there a better
way to kill Bobby Kennedy? Yeah? There might be, or
maybe this is the way they came up with, certainly
better than how they killed Jack. You know, if you're
rich enough and powerful enough to murder the president of
the United States and you get away with it, are
you gonna let his brother become president five years later?
(29:12):
I don't think so. So in terms of do I
know that's who it was? No, I don't know that that.
The evidence doesn't show who you know. You can only suppose.
It's pretty clear that we aren't going to get anywhere
arguing over the facts of the case. Sitting next to
each other in Bill's study were perhaps further apart than
we've ever been, and so we basically agree to disagree.
(29:39):
And Bill brings out some homemade lemonade. Muld be a
little tart sugar in it? M good? I asked Bill
(30:02):
if he's enjoyed work in the case all these years.
There's not a lot of good things that come to
you because of this. You know, you you stand up
in a country like this and say, you know, the
official version of how these important people died really isn't true.
It's not a lot of good things happened to you
when you do that. So it's not been a lot
(30:24):
of fun in that regard. And there's a few people
that I know and that I've come to know in
this investigation, some really strong people that I trust and
have high regard for. And I never met Alard Lohenstein
in a wish I had, but I felt like I
was a child of theirs and that I wanted to
carry on what they carried on. And when you heard
(30:46):
his voice, Alard Lohenstein, when he spoke about you know,
he didn't believe that there was a conspiracy that Robert Kennedy,
he was a friend of Robert Kennedy, he didn't believe it,
you know, he didn't how could that be? And then
he saw the evidence and he changed his mind. And
that's just anything that happened with Polshraide, and um, it's
basically what happened with me. So um, these are people
(31:07):
who I think respect what I did, and that's who
I care about. I would hope that some of the
million people listening out there would not think I'm a
crackpot um, but in a way it people who I
care about know who I am. And then I asked
(31:28):
Bill about making this podcast. I hope, I hope you
don't regret. Do you do? Um? I don't, I'm um,
I even ye know. Bill asks me to turn the
recorder off. He's done, and I get it, chick check. Well, okay,
(32:00):
I'm leaving Bills. I've had a fascination with this story
since I was a little kid driving around with my
dad listening to Bill's voice on the radio. Good Evening.
(32:23):
I'm Bill Claiber, and tonight we were going to take
another look at the assassination of Robert Kennedy. Was her
hands her hand, as we were told, really a fanatical
Arab nationalist? Or was he as something a robot assassin?
Did her hand even murder Robert Kennedy? And honestly, things
haven't turned out like I thought they might. There aren't
(32:45):
really any answers and no certainty. I hate endings like that,
So before I returned to the city. I'm going back
to where it all started, my dad, my dad's car. Oh,
(33:06):
all right, where do you want to go? Just? Yeah,
you want to go to breakfast at that diner you
like right over here? Yeah, we get it. Um. So
do you remember, like when Bill gave you that tape
of the RFKA tapes? Um, it's not really, I mean
it's not when you tell me, if you had asked
(33:29):
me about it, I would have had no memory when
you tell me that he gave me a tape. Um,
I believe you. And but it wasn't that significant in
my life. Did you have any memory of me like
listening to it or being struck by it or anything
like that. No. No, So it's funny because you know,
(33:53):
obviously it was something significant and important to you. To me,
who killed Robert Kennedy is not nearly as important as
the fact that we lost, Yeah, an incredibly powerful leader
in our country. I mean I lived in that time
(34:16):
when people were being shot. That would have changed history.
And so there's real story is Robert Kennedy. I mean,
he's amazing. No one, no matter where he lives or
what he does, can be certain who next will suffer
(34:36):
from some senseless act of bloodshed. Like a lot of
people who lived through the conflicts of the late sixties,
my dad held out hope that our country, divided by
politics in an unpopular war, struggling over issues of race,
could find a hero who would offer peace. And that
hero was Robert Kennedy. He connected and brought people together.
(35:00):
He united rather than divided. But he was gone too soon.
What is violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created?
No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet.
(35:20):
When I started this, my wife was pregnant. Now I
have a young son. One day when I share with
him when I learned about Robert Kennedy, it won't be
conspiracy theories about bullets and door frames. Some look for scapegoats,
others look for conspiracies. But this much is clear. Violence
(35:44):
breeds violence, Repression breeds retaliation, and only a cleansing can
remove this sickness from our souls. I'll share with my
son the legacy of the man and all that he
stood for, and I'll encourage him to look for his
own heroes, heroes like Robert F. Kennedy. When you teach
(36:10):
that those who differ from you threaten your freedom, or
your job, or your home or your family, and you
also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens, but
as enemies. We must admit to ourselves that our children's
(36:31):
future cannot be built on the misfortune of another's. We
must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled
or enriched by hatred or by revenge. And surely we
can begin to work a little harder to bind up
(36:54):
the wounds among us and to become in our hearts
brothers and countrymen. Once again, thank you very much, my friend.
(37:17):
Than you tell me. Where've read a lot of people,
but it seems the good they done I just drotar.
(37:41):
Thanks for listening to Crimetown Presents the RFK Tapes. This
is the last episode of the series. We keep an
eye on the feed. We're gonna drop some bonus episodes
in the coming weeks. Crimetown is me Zach Stewart Pontier
and Mark Smirling. Yark Tapes is made in partnership with
(38:01):
Cadence thirteen. For bonus content, go to RFK tapes dot com.
The show is produced by Jesse Rudoy, Bill Klaiber and
Ulla Culpa Austin Mitchell is our senior producer, editing by
Mark Smirling, fact checking by Jennifer Blackman. This episode was mixed,
sound designed and scored by Kenny Qciak, Additional music by
(38:25):
John Quciak. Our title track is Maria Tambien by Krumben.
Our credit track this week is Abraham Martin, John and Bobby,
covered by Rosaline Eastman. Music supervision by Josh Kessler and
Dylan Bostick at Heavy Duty Projects. Recording help by Donnie
(38:49):
Carlo at w TMD in Taos In, Maryland. Production assistants
by Kevin Shepherd. Our website is designed by Kurt Courtney.
Archive footage courtesy of the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth
and the California State Archives. Archival research by Brennan Reese.
(39:14):
Thanks to Emily Wiedeman, Gene Claybour, Green Card Pictures, Alesandro Santoro,
Ryan Murdoch, Max Miller, Ben Davis, Orn Rosenbaum, Ryan Nord,
Judith Ferrar, Elizabeth Benham, and the team at Caden's Thirteen.
For more information on the Robert Kennedy murder, pick up
a copy of Bill's book shadow Play. If you enjoyed
(39:38):
the art Ka Tapes. Please consider leaving us a rating
and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. It
really does help others find out about the show. You
(40:18):
can find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at the
rf K Tapes. Thanks. We're back next week kinda for
the bonus episode. Bye
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