July 31, 2018 • 31 mins
Zac sets out on his own to talk with former aides to Senator Robert F. Kennedy about what that 1968 campaign was like, and what they believe happened the night of the California primary.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Intensive sky. I'll be bugging at the County Albuquerque by morning.
You iron your shirt this morning, I do. I'm impressed
this is your traveling shirt. You're telling me two pockets.
Over the last year and a half, Bill Claybour and
I have spent a lot of time traveling across the
country together talking to people who believe there was a
(00:21):
conspiracy to assassinate Senator Robert F. Kennedy. And the son
of the theory is basically that Sir Han is there
as a distraction to dry everybody's attention away from the
real assassin who is going to shoot Kennedy in the back. Yeah, basically, yeah,
I think it's fair to say that's the interpretation that
makes the most sense out of the evidence as we
(00:43):
know it. Right. But the more I questioned Bill's interpretation,
the more our conversations started to sound like this, And
how did the bullets get into Bobby Kennedy's back, And
how did the bullets get into the ceiling tiles aboves
her hand's head? None of those things, None of them
makes sense by what you're saying. But you have to
judge these things. You I don't know that putting them
(01:05):
all together, Yes, you have to put them together. That's
the whole point that that's how you get into the
situation of mind control, being that no, this is you know,
I'm gonna I'm not going to talk about mind control
then for you, I mean, you probably have all you
need to make me look really stupid, but I am.
Do you acknowledge that mind control is part of the theory,
That's what I mean, that's part And I'm having trouble
(01:26):
connecting the dots. Now. I'd like to examine some other theories.
The nation of the extra bullets is really strong. It
doesn't add up, Yeah, And I'm trying to come up
with possible other reasons and why it doesn't add up,
But you're not open to even consider because your ideas
for why it doesn't add up are are totally off
the wall. That's how you know that check check check.
(01:55):
So I'm off to do some digging on my own,
and I'm going to start by speaking to people who
knew Kennedy on the campaign trail and who are at
the Ambassador Hotel that terrible night. What are the chances
that there is some sort of conspiracy. I don't see
any evidence of a conspiracy, but I do. There is
(02:21):
certainly motive. I mean, if you're looking at a murder case,
there was motive, but I don't buy it. It's just
too complicated. I'm Zack Stewart Pontier and you're listening to
the RFK tapes. So what was it like to write
(02:50):
for him on that campaign? That's what a campaign is.
All you have is your words word our first stop.
One of Kennedy's speech writers, Adam Willinski, you know, his
Colorado home is filled with the memorabilia of a life
spent in politics, and all around our framed photos of
(03:12):
him and Robert Kennedy. Willinsky remembers one campaign speech in particular,
our growth national product now is over eight hundred billion
dollars a year. Lyndon Johnson had been bragging about the
GNP numbers, which I think at that point had gotten
to eight hundred billion, and so how terrific this was.
(03:36):
It really bothered Robert Kennedy didn't like it, and it
bothered the hell out of me. So we worked out
a little a little homily about what really counts in life.
But that growth national product, if we judge the United
States of America by the ass that growth national product
(03:59):
county air pollution and cigarette advertise. The gross national product.
That counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, to clear our ambulances,
to clear our highways of carnage, count special lock for
our doors. It counts special locks for our doors in
(04:23):
the jails for the people to break them, and jails
for the people who break them. Willinski isn't reading this speech.
He's sitting in front of me, eyes closed and reciting
word for word for memory. It counts the destruction of
the redwoods and the loss of natural wonder and chaotic springing.
(04:53):
It counts napalm. It counts napalm and nuclear war heads.
Absolutely a warhead and armored cars for the police to
put down riots in our city. And television programs that
(05:14):
glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children,
and the television programs which war by violence in order
to sell toys to our children. And he said, if
it includes all this, there is much that it does
not count. If the growth national product does not allow
(05:35):
for the health of our children, the quality of their education,
or the joy of their play, it does not include
the beauty of our poetry, or the strength of our marriages,
the intelligence of our public debates for the integrity of
our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage,
(06:01):
neither our compassion nor our devotion to country. It measures everything,
in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it
can tell us everything about America except why we are
(06:29):
proud to be Americans. And it can tell us everything
about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.
(06:54):
And the thing about that was that was the past
that he used in speeches more than any other during
the rest of that campaign. And I would be hesitant
often to put that into the speech, because you know,
(07:16):
we've just done it so much. And I'd give him
the draft and he would write little notes with a
black pen, and he would just put down GNP and
underline it, so I would put it back in because
(07:43):
those were the things that to him were important about
the country and important about the way we should live.
Who else is there who talks like that? He was
(08:06):
just so inspiring. He said everything that you you know
that you wanted to hear. Any I met Murray Richtel
in a bricktown house on a narrow cobblestone street in Philadelphia.
And why do you decide to get involved with the
Kennedy campaign because of the war, you know, mainly mainly
(08:27):
because of the war. I vividly remember the Tet offensive vividly.
I mean I remember hearing it on the radio. Two
hundred and thirty two gis killed and nine hundred wounded
makes one of the heaviest weeks of the Vietnam War.
And it is not a week, is just over two days.
The past two days two of the worst we have
(08:48):
known in Vietnam Americans since the South Vietnamese were losing.
I vividly, vividly remember that. It will be difficult now
to believe the United States has been doing as well
as officials have said. And they were just massive crowds
against the war everywhere, and that was just, you know,
(09:11):
it was our generation. I was twenty seven. That felt right.
I mean. So Murray Richtel and his law partner showed
up one day at the Kennedy campaign headquarters and volunteered.
And we said, you know, we're two young lawyers. We
want to work. We'dn't want to steph envelopes. Two days
later they called us. It was amazing. Murray Richtel became
(09:32):
one of Kennedy's advancement making sure everything ran smoothly. Plane
lands at such and such a time. Each is at
such and such a place, move him from the airport
to his speech. You had to arrange for what the
routes would be, who was going to be on a
podium with him, and who would introduce him to present
(09:55):
to you the great senator from the state of New York.
Now you're gonna get to work on the campaign. What
was that like? Uh, it's like working on a campaign sentence. Um,
you don't get much sleep. I talked to Peter Edelman,
one of Senator Kennedy's senior aids, in his office at
(10:17):
Georgetown Law School. Phenomenal, phenomenal crowds places you wouldn't think of. Kansas,
Kansas State, twenty thousand and twenty five thousand peoples to
offer your hells across the state of Argus state. I'm
(10:37):
delighted to be here. San Diego. Sham. It is sham
for us to get room. Steve Eisenberg was another campaign aide,
and he's reaching out and people are The car is surrounded.
It's surrounded by people, screams of touch me, touch me.
(11:00):
There's no secret service. His bodyguard has his hands around
Bobby's waist. I'm holding Bobby around the knees. How are
you feeling? Are you are you excited? This is your
big shout? Are you nervous? Are you confident? You're working?
That's what you're doing, is you're working. You don't have
(11:22):
time for all about bullshit. You're just working. You know,
you just do it. And there's no sort of bright
line between yesterday and today and tomorrow. You just keep
on keeping on. So will you give me your vote?
How will you give me your hand? Everything's operating at
a very high pitch, very high temperature, very very very high,
(11:46):
and will win the election in Novabo. And you always
had to have a six pack of Heineken's beer in
the car for the end of the day with ice also, yes,
as I remember after that, for a while I drank
Hyaken beer with ice in it. I had it almost
(12:10):
a sense of fear. It was going too fast, it
was too explosive. Sixty eight was of triple in a
year's any we had in the twentieth century. William van
den Huvel was a close Kennedy adviser, and as the
campaign criss crossed the country, he said he began to
detect something darker reclosive. There was too much violence. There
(12:30):
was hatred everywhere, and I had a great deal of
concern about it, as many people did. There was violence
in the air. We were in the lead car of
the motor Craterage advanced man Murray Richtel I was the passenger.
(12:53):
My law partner was the driver, and he saw someone
with a gun. Larry said, there's a guy with a gun.
There's a guy with a gun. I don't know what
I was thinking, but I jumped out of the car
and I ran back. Murray raced to warn the senator.
(13:13):
His card stopped. It was the first communion for some
little girls that were on the front steps of the church,
and he'd gotten out of the car to go talk
to them. Then he came back to the car. By
then I was in the backseat of this white Catalog
convertible and I said, get down, Senator, get down, Get down.
(13:35):
Kennedy didn't move. He just stared at Murray. I always
thought that he knew why I was saying that, and
he just was going to ignore me. Had a very
just a strange look on his face, is all I
(13:57):
can say. The gun turned out to be fake, but
Kennedy's look gave Murray Richtel a bad feeling, this sense,
you know, this sense of foreboding that hungover. That's too
strong to say a sense of foreboding, and maybe not.
(14:19):
It was on everybody's mind. He was on his mind. Yes,
I do, because that's what that look was to me.
Adam Wilinsky says that Kennedy knew he had enemies, powerful enemies.
(14:44):
I think it was while we were in Indiana. Robert
Kennedy's in the bathtub. Usual he did die a fair
amount because you know, he didn't get to soak that often.
Time was bread. Wallinski was working on his speech with
Kennedy when he said a campaign worker knocked on the
(15:05):
bathroom door with a message from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters,
a notoriously mobbed up union. He said, Senator, I said, I,
you know, I don't really want to bother you with
something like this, but you have to know about it.
He said, The Teamsters came to us, and you know
Jimmy is by this time he was in prison. Jimmy
(15:26):
as in Teamster Boss Jimmy Hoffa, the Jimmy Hoffa who
would go missing in nineteen seventy five and whose body
has never been found. You see, Jimmy and Bobby had
some history. He was in the good A Journey jungle.
He in all probability be a worst senator. I would
hate to think, well would happen if he became cousin
(15:47):
of the United States. We have shown that mister Haffa
has made colusive deals with employers, that he's betrayed the
union membership, that he sold out the union membership, that
he's put the gangsters and racket tis in important positions
of power within the teams to hunion, that he's missed.
In fact, Kennedy was the Attorney General who was finally
(16:08):
able to put Jimmy Hoffa behind bars. He's in the prison.
I think he was working in the laundry and he
said it's really bothering him because the lint gets into
his lungs, and you know, when he coughs a lot,
it's very uncomfortable. And so the teamsters want you to
(16:29):
know that if you would get Jimmy transferred from the
laundry to the farm where he could be outdoors and
breed some fresh air, they'll contribute five hundred thousand dollars
to your campaign. Now five hundred thousand dollars fifty years ago.
(16:51):
It's a lot of money, Robert Kennedy says, quizzically, really
they said that, he says, You go back to the
teamsters and you tell them that not only am I
not going to get Jimmy transferred to the farm, he says,
you tell them, if I get to be president, he's
never getting out of prison. You know, from time to
(17:17):
time somebody would show up, one of his gangster people,
and sometimes we would get word that, you know, halfa
had idly talked about blowing up Robert Kennedy and his
whole family or something like that. There was a fair
amount of that, he said a number of times, he said,
(17:42):
when they would say to him, you know you're going
to be president, it's going to work, he's there are
a lot of guns between me and the White House.
He knew that he wasn't some Pollyanna, and he didn't
think that he was bulletproof. There were a lot of
guns between me and the White House. After the break
(18:08):
the Ambassador Hotel, What do you remember about that day?
And California Primary must have been a busy day. Not
for me. I didn't have to write a speech that day.
(18:30):
The day of the California primary was quiet for Kennedy
speech writer Adam Willinski. You didn't have to write a
victory speech or no, I mean there were the victory speeches.
Weren't new speeches. He wasn't going to get up there
and give a half hour speech or a twenty minute speech.
He was going to say a few words, and I
didn't have to do those. From that standpoint, I got
(18:55):
to relax a little bit, a little bit. But when
it was clear that RFK would go all the way,
at least in California. Willinski was there with the Senator
in his suite at the Ambassador Hotel, Candicades and Senator
Robert and yeah, you know, everybody was, you know around
(19:16):
there was a lot of good feeling. I remember Robert
Kennedy sitting there on the floor of the room where
a few of us were talking, and a cigar lit.
At moments like that, he would he would light the
light the cigar. I said to him, you know, Senator,
I want you to know you should you should really
(19:40):
understand this wind was yours. This was really yours. Wasn't
about any of these people, It wasn't about your staff.
Was nobody else did this. You did it. So he
sort of patted my arm. Thanks at him. Then the
(20:03):
rest is just the rest is just something else entirely.
We were going to lead the motorcade to the Factory,
(20:25):
which was a nightclub where the victory party was going
to take place, advanced man Murray Richtel. And so we
waited in front of the hotel and the lead car.
And when speech was over that we heard on the radio,
(20:48):
I thank you. When I got out of the car
to line up the rest of the motorcade, Larry yelled,
getting the car, getting the car, getting the car. Kennedy
had just been shot, and we just left. We drove
(21:15):
right out of the front entrance as the Ambassador Hotel
under Wilshire Boulevard, and the cops just waved us by.
They didn't ask us who we were, like we'd gone
there for dinner, to a wedding. They just they just
waved us out. I mean, we could have been the killers.
It was crazy. Where'd you go home? I know? I
(21:37):
drank a bottle of scotch. We were lying on the
floor at three am here and we heard a kind
of a commotion. Senior aide Peter Edelman was back in Washington, DC,
preparing for the upcoming New York primary when he heard
the terrible news. There's a television was on, have got
(22:01):
That's how we found on And what did you think
fell apart? That's one of those things where you have
the numbness. So I have a a picture in my
mind of being at Saint Patrick. My brother need not
(22:23):
be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was
in life. It's really a series of its simply photos
rather than a film. You saw wrong and tried to
write it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw
war and tried to stop him. Robert Kennedy's funeral was
(22:45):
held at Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. I
have a blank. I'm on the train. Kennedy's coffin was
loaded onto a train and taken to Arlington National Cemetery
just outside Washington, d C. People line the tracks to
pay their final respects, seeing the people on the outside, deeply,
(23:11):
deeply moving. People were standing right next to the railroad track.
I mean they were grounds and Mary Richtel was also
on the train. They were crying, just crying people. I
remember mostly the African American faces, and I'll tell you
(23:32):
when I was emotional. I think it was in Baltimore,
the Baltimore train station, and they were singing and you
could hear them the battle him with the Republic. It
was amazing, amazing, And then I remember being at the
(23:57):
side of where he's going to be married Will. It
just changed my life. I mean it both made my
life and changed my life without him. But then at
some level you get through the grief. In another way,
you never get over. It still hurts. Did you follow
(24:23):
the trial or sir Han? No, I'm not into that.
Steve Eisenberg, What was it like to have a conspiracy
of it all? Like trying to linger? I'm not a conspiracist.
Sir Han was just a mad dog. William van den Huvel.
Did you ever question the official report of what had happened?
(24:48):
I did not. Murray Richtel, what are the chances that
there is some sort of conspiracy? And I don't see
any evidence of a conspiracy. It's just too complicated. None
of these men believe there was any sort of conspiracy
to kill Robert Kennedy except Adam Willinsky. It's pretty clear
(25:14):
that sire Han did not fire a single bullet that
had anything to do with the death of Robert F. Kennedy.
The question is who shot the bullets that did kill him?
And that's pretty clearly a very well worked out scheme,
And as with John Kennedy's murder, the real key to
(25:41):
it was the cover up afterwards. And Willinski says that
whoever murdered Robert Kennedy murdered his brother John in Dallas
five years earlier. Anybody who knew Robert Kennedy knew that
if he could find the people who killed his brother,
you wouldn't want to be that person, and you wouldn't
(26:04):
want to be that agency. So you think they're going
to sit still and let Robert Kennedy become President of
the United States and come looking for him. But that's
the once you start into that, you're really going down
the rabbit hole. I've heard Bill suggests the same motive
(26:28):
for the murder of Robert Kennedy using very similar language.
So for a moment, except the fact that there were
some dark forces that murdered the president of the United States,
are they now going to sit still five years later
and watch his brother listen to the presidency? Where have
all the livers of power at his disposal. I don't
think so. It's hard to believe that people like the
(26:53):
President of the United States or senator who is prominently
running could be the victims of sin. Are to believe
that William vanden Huvelle spoke to Robert Kennedy about the
official government report on his brother John's assassination, a report
that concluded Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone. Can you
tell me about that my recollection of that, he accepted
(27:17):
the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone. Now,
some people say he changed his mind later in life,
that maybe he didn't. To me, my attitude towards those
things is, both the President's assassination and Bombay's murder were
(27:38):
events that were the most highly scrutinized events to American history.
I mean, there's when you have of any event like that,
there's so many things. Everybody looked so intensely at every
blade of grass. These events probably couldn't have happened except
for the very simplistic way they did happen. I mean,
(28:00):
who whatever expects Sir Hans Shun to be an assassin.
It was all fateful circumstance, and fate is the word
that you have to associate with the Kennedy family. Maybe
(28:31):
it was fate. Maybe this whole thing is a lot
simpler than it seems. Maybe all I've been doing with
Bill is studying every blade of grass and coming up
with connections that don't really exist. But then, how do
you explain the problems with the evidence that Bill's based
his theory on, the discrepancies between eyewitness accounts of Sir
(28:54):
Haun's distance from Kennedy with the autopsy that says he
was shot at point blank range. How do you playing
the photos of cops standing next to possible extra bullet holes.
How do you explain the lap D keeping the entire
police file secret for decades and even destroying crucial pieces
of evidence. How did you explain all that the LAPD
(29:15):
knew they had screwed up. And I think that's one
of the reasons why they kept the files secrets for
so long, as they knew they screwed up, but they
didn't know how they screwed up. I showed how they
screwed up, And this is why I say they may
have solved the murder, but goddamn it, I solved this case.
That's next week so Crimetown is me Zack Spirit Pontier
(29:55):
and Mark Smirling. The RK Tapes is made in partnership
with Cadence. Their team. The show is produced by Jesse Rudoy,
Bill Claiber, Ulla Kulpa and Max Miller. Austin Mitchell is
our senior producer, editing by Mark Smirling, fact checking by
Jennifer Blackman. This episode was mixed and sound designed by
(30:19):
Robin Shore, with a score by Kenny Kusiak and additional
music by John Kuciak. Our title track is Maria Tambien
by Krungman. Our credit track this week is Everybody Got
a Baby by Sylvia Terry. Music supervision by Josh Kessler
and Dylan Bostick at Heavy Duty Projects. Archival footage courtesy
(30:41):
of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Archival
research by Brennan Reese. Production assistants by Kevin Shephard. Our
website is designed by Kurt Courtney, thanks to Emily Wiedeman,
Gene Claver, Green Card Pictures Alesandro Santoro, Chris and Steve
Eisberg and the team at Caden's Thirteen. For more information
(31:03):
on the Robert Kennedy Murder pick up a copy of
Bill's book shadow Play from Saint Martin's Press. If you
like the show, consider leaving us a rating and review
on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. It really helps
others find out about the show. You can find us
on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at the RFK Tapes, and
for bonus content, check out our website rfkatapes dot com.
(31:27):
This week, we've got a lot of cool photos from
the campaign. Thanks
Intensive sky. I'll be bugging at the County Albuquerque by morning.
You iron your shirt this morning, I do. I'm impressed
this is your traveling shirt. You're telling me two pockets.
Over the last year and a half, Bill Claybour and
I have spent a lot of time traveling across the
country together talking to people who believe there was a
(00:21):
conspiracy to assassinate Senator Robert F. Kennedy. And the son
of the theory is basically that Sir Han is there
as a distraction to dry everybody's attention away from the
real assassin who is going to shoot Kennedy in the back. Yeah, basically, yeah,
I think it's fair to say that's the interpretation that
makes the most sense out of the evidence as we
(00:43):
know it. Right. But the more I questioned Bill's interpretation,
the more our conversations started to sound like this, And
how did the bullets get into Bobby Kennedy's back, And
how did the bullets get into the ceiling tiles aboves
her hand's head? None of those things, None of them
makes sense by what you're saying. But you have to
judge these things. You I don't know that putting them
(01:05):
all together, Yes, you have to put them together. That's
the whole point that that's how you get into the
situation of mind control, being that no, this is you know,
I'm gonna I'm not going to talk about mind control
then for you, I mean, you probably have all you
need to make me look really stupid, but I am.
Do you acknowledge that mind control is part of the theory,
That's what I mean, that's part And I'm having trouble
(01:26):
connecting the dots. Now. I'd like to examine some other theories.
The nation of the extra bullets is really strong. It
doesn't add up, Yeah, And I'm trying to come up
with possible other reasons and why it doesn't add up,
But you're not open to even consider because your ideas
for why it doesn't add up are are totally off
the wall. That's how you know that check check check.
(01:55):
So I'm off to do some digging on my own,
and I'm going to start by speaking to people who
knew Kennedy on the campaign trail and who are at
the Ambassador Hotel that terrible night. What are the chances
that there is some sort of conspiracy. I don't see
any evidence of a conspiracy, but I do. There is
(02:21):
certainly motive. I mean, if you're looking at a murder case,
there was motive, but I don't buy it. It's just
too complicated. I'm Zack Stewart Pontier and you're listening to
the RFK tapes. So what was it like to write
(02:50):
for him on that campaign? That's what a campaign is.
All you have is your words word our first stop.
One of Kennedy's speech writers, Adam Willinski, you know, his
Colorado home is filled with the memorabilia of a life
spent in politics, and all around our framed photos of
(03:12):
him and Robert Kennedy. Willinsky remembers one campaign speech in particular,
our growth national product now is over eight hundred billion
dollars a year. Lyndon Johnson had been bragging about the
GNP numbers, which I think at that point had gotten
to eight hundred billion, and so how terrific this was.
(03:36):
It really bothered Robert Kennedy didn't like it, and it
bothered the hell out of me. So we worked out
a little a little homily about what really counts in life.
But that growth national product, if we judge the United
States of America by the ass that growth national product
(03:59):
county air pollution and cigarette advertise. The gross national product.
That counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, to clear our ambulances,
to clear our highways of carnage, count special lock for
our doors. It counts special locks for our doors in
(04:23):
the jails for the people to break them, and jails
for the people who break them. Willinski isn't reading this speech.
He's sitting in front of me, eyes closed and reciting
word for word for memory. It counts the destruction of
the redwoods and the loss of natural wonder and chaotic springing.
(04:53):
It counts napalm. It counts napalm and nuclear war heads.
Absolutely a warhead and armored cars for the police to
put down riots in our city. And television programs that
(05:14):
glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children,
and the television programs which war by violence in order
to sell toys to our children. And he said, if
it includes all this, there is much that it does
not count. If the growth national product does not allow
(05:35):
for the health of our children, the quality of their education,
or the joy of their play, it does not include
the beauty of our poetry, or the strength of our marriages,
the intelligence of our public debates for the integrity of
our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage,
(06:01):
neither our compassion nor our devotion to country. It measures everything,
in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it
can tell us everything about America except why we are
(06:29):
proud to be Americans. And it can tell us everything
about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.
(06:54):
And the thing about that was that was the past
that he used in speeches more than any other during
the rest of that campaign. And I would be hesitant
often to put that into the speech, because you know,
(07:16):
we've just done it so much. And I'd give him
the draft and he would write little notes with a
black pen, and he would just put down GNP and
underline it, so I would put it back in because
(07:43):
those were the things that to him were important about
the country and important about the way we should live.
Who else is there who talks like that? He was
(08:06):
just so inspiring. He said everything that you you know
that you wanted to hear. Any I met Murray Richtel
in a bricktown house on a narrow cobblestone street in Philadelphia.
And why do you decide to get involved with the
Kennedy campaign because of the war, you know, mainly mainly
(08:27):
because of the war. I vividly remember the Tet offensive vividly.
I mean I remember hearing it on the radio. Two
hundred and thirty two gis killed and nine hundred wounded
makes one of the heaviest weeks of the Vietnam War.
And it is not a week, is just over two days.
The past two days two of the worst we have
(08:48):
known in Vietnam Americans since the South Vietnamese were losing.
I vividly, vividly remember that. It will be difficult now
to believe the United States has been doing as well
as officials have said. And they were just massive crowds
against the war everywhere, and that was just, you know,
(09:11):
it was our generation. I was twenty seven. That felt right.
I mean. So Murray Richtel and his law partner showed
up one day at the Kennedy campaign headquarters and volunteered.
And we said, you know, we're two young lawyers. We
want to work. We'dn't want to steph envelopes. Two days
later they called us. It was amazing. Murray Richtel became
(09:32):
one of Kennedy's advancement making sure everything ran smoothly. Plane
lands at such and such a time. Each is at
such and such a place, move him from the airport
to his speech. You had to arrange for what the
routes would be, who was going to be on a
podium with him, and who would introduce him to present
(09:55):
to you the great senator from the state of New York.
Now you're gonna get to work on the campaign. What
was that like? Uh, it's like working on a campaign sentence. Um,
you don't get much sleep. I talked to Peter Edelman,
one of Senator Kennedy's senior aids, in his office at
(10:17):
Georgetown Law School. Phenomenal, phenomenal crowds places you wouldn't think of. Kansas,
Kansas State, twenty thousand and twenty five thousand peoples to
offer your hells across the state of Argus state. I'm
(10:37):
delighted to be here. San Diego. Sham. It is sham
for us to get room. Steve Eisenberg was another campaign aide,
and he's reaching out and people are The car is surrounded.
It's surrounded by people, screams of touch me, touch me.
(11:00):
There's no secret service. His bodyguard has his hands around
Bobby's waist. I'm holding Bobby around the knees. How are
you feeling? Are you are you excited? This is your
big shout? Are you nervous? Are you confident? You're working?
That's what you're doing, is you're working. You don't have
(11:22):
time for all about bullshit. You're just working. You know,
you just do it. And there's no sort of bright
line between yesterday and today and tomorrow. You just keep
on keeping on. So will you give me your vote?
How will you give me your hand? Everything's operating at
a very high pitch, very high temperature, very very very high,
(11:46):
and will win the election in Novabo. And you always
had to have a six pack of Heineken's beer in
the car for the end of the day with ice also, yes,
as I remember after that, for a while I drank
Hyaken beer with ice in it. I had it almost
(12:10):
a sense of fear. It was going too fast, it
was too explosive. Sixty eight was of triple in a
year's any we had in the twentieth century. William van
den Huvel was a close Kennedy adviser, and as the
campaign criss crossed the country, he said he began to
detect something darker reclosive. There was too much violence. There
(12:30):
was hatred everywhere, and I had a great deal of
concern about it, as many people did. There was violence
in the air. We were in the lead car of
the motor Craterage advanced man Murray Richtel I was the passenger.
(12:53):
My law partner was the driver, and he saw someone
with a gun. Larry said, there's a guy with a gun.
There's a guy with a gun. I don't know what
I was thinking, but I jumped out of the car
and I ran back. Murray raced to warn the senator.
(13:13):
His card stopped. It was the first communion for some
little girls that were on the front steps of the church,
and he'd gotten out of the car to go talk
to them. Then he came back to the car. By
then I was in the backseat of this white Catalog
convertible and I said, get down, Senator, get down, Get down.
(13:35):
Kennedy didn't move. He just stared at Murray. I always
thought that he knew why I was saying that, and
he just was going to ignore me. Had a very
just a strange look on his face, is all I
(13:57):
can say. The gun turned out to be fake, but
Kennedy's look gave Murray Richtel a bad feeling, this sense,
you know, this sense of foreboding that hungover. That's too
strong to say a sense of foreboding, and maybe not.
(14:19):
It was on everybody's mind. He was on his mind. Yes,
I do, because that's what that look was to me.
Adam Wilinsky says that Kennedy knew he had enemies, powerful enemies.
(14:44):
I think it was while we were in Indiana. Robert
Kennedy's in the bathtub. Usual he did die a fair
amount because you know, he didn't get to soak that often.
Time was bread. Wallinski was working on his speech with
Kennedy when he said a campaign worker knocked on the
(15:05):
bathroom door with a message from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters,
a notoriously mobbed up union. He said, Senator, I said, I,
you know, I don't really want to bother you with
something like this, but you have to know about it.
He said, The Teamsters came to us, and you know
Jimmy is by this time he was in prison. Jimmy
(15:26):
as in Teamster Boss Jimmy Hoffa, the Jimmy Hoffa who
would go missing in nineteen seventy five and whose body
has never been found. You see, Jimmy and Bobby had
some history. He was in the good A Journey jungle.
He in all probability be a worst senator. I would
hate to think, well would happen if he became cousin
(15:47):
of the United States. We have shown that mister Haffa
has made colusive deals with employers, that he's betrayed the
union membership, that he sold out the union membership, that
he's put the gangsters and racket tis in important positions
of power within the teams to hunion, that he's missed.
In fact, Kennedy was the Attorney General who was finally
(16:08):
able to put Jimmy Hoffa behind bars. He's in the prison.
I think he was working in the laundry and he
said it's really bothering him because the lint gets into
his lungs, and you know, when he coughs a lot,
it's very uncomfortable. And so the teamsters want you to
(16:29):
know that if you would get Jimmy transferred from the
laundry to the farm where he could be outdoors and
breed some fresh air, they'll contribute five hundred thousand dollars
to your campaign. Now five hundred thousand dollars fifty years ago.
(16:51):
It's a lot of money, Robert Kennedy says, quizzically, really
they said that, he says, You go back to the
teamsters and you tell them that not only am I
not going to get Jimmy transferred to the farm, he says,
you tell them, if I get to be president, he's
never getting out of prison. You know, from time to
(17:17):
time somebody would show up, one of his gangster people,
and sometimes we would get word that, you know, halfa
had idly talked about blowing up Robert Kennedy and his
whole family or something like that. There was a fair
amount of that, he said a number of times, he said,
(17:42):
when they would say to him, you know you're going
to be president, it's going to work, he's there are
a lot of guns between me and the White House.
He knew that he wasn't some Pollyanna, and he didn't
think that he was bulletproof. There were a lot of
guns between me and the White House. After the break
(18:08):
the Ambassador Hotel, What do you remember about that day?
And California Primary must have been a busy day. Not
for me. I didn't have to write a speech that day.
(18:30):
The day of the California primary was quiet for Kennedy
speech writer Adam Willinski. You didn't have to write a
victory speech or no, I mean there were the victory speeches.
Weren't new speeches. He wasn't going to get up there
and give a half hour speech or a twenty minute speech.
He was going to say a few words, and I
didn't have to do those. From that standpoint, I got
(18:55):
to relax a little bit, a little bit. But when
it was clear that RFK would go all the way,
at least in California. Willinski was there with the Senator
in his suite at the Ambassador Hotel, Candicades and Senator
Robert and yeah, you know, everybody was, you know around
(19:16):
there was a lot of good feeling. I remember Robert
Kennedy sitting there on the floor of the room where
a few of us were talking, and a cigar lit.
At moments like that, he would he would light the
light the cigar. I said to him, you know, Senator,
I want you to know you should you should really
(19:40):
understand this wind was yours. This was really yours. Wasn't
about any of these people, It wasn't about your staff.
Was nobody else did this. You did it. So he
sort of patted my arm. Thanks at him. Then the
(20:03):
rest is just the rest is just something else entirely.
We were going to lead the motorcade to the Factory,
(20:25):
which was a nightclub where the victory party was going
to take place, advanced man Murray Richtel. And so we
waited in front of the hotel and the lead car.
And when speech was over that we heard on the radio,
(20:48):
I thank you. When I got out of the car
to line up the rest of the motorcade, Larry yelled,
getting the car, getting the car, getting the car. Kennedy
had just been shot, and we just left. We drove
(21:15):
right out of the front entrance as the Ambassador Hotel
under Wilshire Boulevard, and the cops just waved us by.
They didn't ask us who we were, like we'd gone
there for dinner, to a wedding. They just they just
waved us out. I mean, we could have been the killers.
It was crazy. Where'd you go home? I know? I
(21:37):
drank a bottle of scotch. We were lying on the
floor at three am here and we heard a kind
of a commotion. Senior aide Peter Edelman was back in Washington, DC,
preparing for the upcoming New York primary when he heard
the terrible news. There's a television was on, have got
(22:01):
That's how we found on And what did you think
fell apart? That's one of those things where you have
the numbness. So I have a a picture in my
mind of being at Saint Patrick. My brother need not
(22:23):
be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was
in life. It's really a series of its simply photos
rather than a film. You saw wrong and tried to
write it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw
war and tried to stop him. Robert Kennedy's funeral was
(22:45):
held at Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. I
have a blank. I'm on the train. Kennedy's coffin was
loaded onto a train and taken to Arlington National Cemetery
just outside Washington, d C. People line the tracks to
pay their final respects, seeing the people on the outside, deeply,
(23:11):
deeply moving. People were standing right next to the railroad track.
I mean they were grounds and Mary Richtel was also
on the train. They were crying, just crying people. I
remember mostly the African American faces, and I'll tell you
(23:32):
when I was emotional. I think it was in Baltimore,
the Baltimore train station, and they were singing and you
could hear them the battle him with the Republic. It
was amazing, amazing, And then I remember being at the
(23:57):
side of where he's going to be married Will. It
just changed my life. I mean it both made my
life and changed my life without him. But then at
some level you get through the grief. In another way,
you never get over. It still hurts. Did you follow
(24:23):
the trial or sir Han? No, I'm not into that.
Steve Eisenberg, What was it like to have a conspiracy
of it all? Like trying to linger? I'm not a conspiracist.
Sir Han was just a mad dog. William van den Huvel.
Did you ever question the official report of what had happened?
(24:48):
I did not. Murray Richtel, what are the chances that
there is some sort of conspiracy? And I don't see
any evidence of a conspiracy. It's just too complicated. None
of these men believe there was any sort of conspiracy
to kill Robert Kennedy except Adam Willinsky. It's pretty clear
(25:14):
that sire Han did not fire a single bullet that
had anything to do with the death of Robert F. Kennedy.
The question is who shot the bullets that did kill him?
And that's pretty clearly a very well worked out scheme,
And as with John Kennedy's murder, the real key to
(25:41):
it was the cover up afterwards. And Willinski says that
whoever murdered Robert Kennedy murdered his brother John in Dallas
five years earlier. Anybody who knew Robert Kennedy knew that
if he could find the people who killed his brother,
you wouldn't want to be that person, and you wouldn't
(26:04):
want to be that agency. So you think they're going
to sit still and let Robert Kennedy become President of
the United States and come looking for him. But that's
the once you start into that, you're really going down
the rabbit hole. I've heard Bill suggests the same motive
(26:28):
for the murder of Robert Kennedy using very similar language.
So for a moment, except the fact that there were
some dark forces that murdered the president of the United States,
are they now going to sit still five years later
and watch his brother listen to the presidency? Where have
all the livers of power at his disposal. I don't
think so. It's hard to believe that people like the
(26:53):
President of the United States or senator who is prominently
running could be the victims of sin. Are to believe
that William vanden Huvelle spoke to Robert Kennedy about the
official government report on his brother John's assassination, a report
that concluded Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone. Can you
tell me about that my recollection of that, he accepted
(27:17):
the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone. Now,
some people say he changed his mind later in life,
that maybe he didn't. To me, my attitude towards those
things is, both the President's assassination and Bombay's murder were
(27:38):
events that were the most highly scrutinized events to American history.
I mean, there's when you have of any event like that,
there's so many things. Everybody looked so intensely at every
blade of grass. These events probably couldn't have happened except
for the very simplistic way they did happen. I mean,
(28:00):
who whatever expects Sir Hans Shun to be an assassin.
It was all fateful circumstance, and fate is the word
that you have to associate with the Kennedy family. Maybe
(28:31):
it was fate. Maybe this whole thing is a lot
simpler than it seems. Maybe all I've been doing with
Bill is studying every blade of grass and coming up
with connections that don't really exist. But then, how do
you explain the problems with the evidence that Bill's based
his theory on, the discrepancies between eyewitness accounts of Sir
(28:54):
Haun's distance from Kennedy with the autopsy that says he
was shot at point blank range. How do you playing
the photos of cops standing next to possible extra bullet holes.
How do you explain the lap D keeping the entire
police file secret for decades and even destroying crucial pieces
of evidence. How did you explain all that the LAPD
(29:15):
knew they had screwed up. And I think that's one
of the reasons why they kept the files secrets for
so long, as they knew they screwed up, but they
didn't know how they screwed up. I showed how they
screwed up, And this is why I say they may
have solved the murder, but goddamn it, I solved this case.
That's next week so Crimetown is me Zack Spirit Pontier
(29:55):
and Mark Smirling. The RK Tapes is made in partnership
with Cadence. Their team. The show is produced by Jesse Rudoy,
Bill Claiber, Ulla Kulpa and Max Miller. Austin Mitchell is
our senior producer, editing by Mark Smirling, fact checking by
Jennifer Blackman. This episode was mixed and sound designed by
(30:19):
Robin Shore, with a score by Kenny Kusiak and additional
music by John Kuciak. Our title track is Maria Tambien
by Krungman. Our credit track this week is Everybody Got
a Baby by Sylvia Terry. Music supervision by Josh Kessler
and Dylan Bostick at Heavy Duty Projects. Archival footage courtesy
(30:41):
of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Archival
research by Brennan Reese. Production assistants by Kevin Shephard. Our
website is designed by Kurt Courtney, thanks to Emily Wiedeman,
Gene Claver, Green Card Pictures Alesandro Santoro, Chris and Steve
Eisberg and the team at Caden's Thirteen. For more information
(31:03):
on the Robert Kennedy Murder pick up a copy of
Bill's book shadow Play from Saint Martin's Press. If you
like the show, consider leaving us a rating and review
on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. It really helps
others find out about the show. You can find us
on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at the RFK Tapes, and
for bonus content, check out our website rfkatapes dot com.
(31:27):
This week, we've got a lot of cool photos from
the campaign. Thanks
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