June 6, 1968

[MRM]

Sometimes it does seem as though there is a synchronicity of fate. June 6, 1968 is the date of RFK's assassination. Today is the 50th anniversary.

Look Back: The last years of Robert F. Kennedy's life on the 50th anniversary of his death | Post-Dispatch Archives | stltoday.com

Especially in light of the other June 6 threads I thought it was worth posting and wondering.

[Baz]

Thank you, MRM. Hard to believe it's already been 50 years! Watched a documentary on the man last night that was pretty good. Lot of video on YT for those interested. Time capsule stuff.....

[tabs]

To quote a relative of mine who knew him, "He was a real dog." Two faced from what she told me.

[KFC911]

I was only eight years old and think this was my first "ingrained forever" TV memory....

...and the aftermath.

Just a kid back then, but I remember it well...

[sammyg2]

[MRM]

I took a continuing education course on internet searching yesterday and decided to test my new knowledge in searching the images Sammy posted. I was able to successfully do an image search (which is elementary to anyone who knows how to use a keyboard but which was new information to me) and found that these are officially know as pictures of The Woman in the Polka Dot Dress. Presumably she's called that because she is a woman and is wearing a polka dot dress. Note that the name is The Woman in the Polka Dot Dress, not just a woman or some woman in a polka dot dress.

It turns out that there were reports of a mysterious woman in a polka dot dress at RFK's assignation and she has been the center of some conspiracy theories. The pictures Sammy posted were of her found in news film archives and still photos from reporters and news organizations there at the time.

While it may be fun to speculate whether this mysterious woman hypnotized Sirhan into shooting Kennedy, it is more likely that she is Kennedy campaign worker Valerie Schulte. https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/38496 And there is no evidence that Manchurian candidate-style brainwashing or control by hypnotism actually works.

1968 was an inflection point in US history - more violent than any year since the Civil War - and with social divisions as traumatic as those that fueled the Civil War that was barely 100 years earlier at that point. Now more than 150 years since the start of Reconstruction we are on the 50th anniversary of its historical echo in 1968. It would do us all well to take a moment and remember and think and try to make some sense of it all.

[jcommin]

From MRM " 1968 was an inflection point in US history - more violent than any year since the Civil War - and with social divisions as traumatic as those that fueled the Civil War that was barely 100 years earlier at that point. Now more than 150 years since the start of Reconstruction we are on the 50th anniversary of its historical echo in 1968. It would do us all well to take a moment and remember and think and try to make some sense of it all. "


I graduated HS in 1968. A pivotal year for me. The country was on fire. From Tet in January to the landing on the moon in December, I have never seen a year as turbulent than 1968.

well said MRM!

[speeder]

And here I thought that man landed on the moon in July of '69 and that RFK was shot on June 5th of '68, (though he did die the next day on June 6th).

Pretty sure that June 5th was the assassination date, at least from what I've always read. The LA Times had quite a bit of archival reporting and the Ambassador Hotel, now a giant public school, is less than a mile from me. I ride or drive past it almost daily.

I wish that the actual hotel was still there. I understand that the RE is too valuable to have preserved it for historical reasons but I like old buildings and historical sites. That was truly a case of one bullet changing history, RFK would have been president from 1968-'76.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by MRM

I took a continuing education course on internet searching yesterday and decided to test my new knowledge in searching the images Sammy posted. I was able to successfully do an image search (which is elementary to anyone who knows how to use a keyboard but which was new information to me) and found that these are officially know as pictures of The Woman in the Polka Dot Dress. Presumably she's called that because she is a woman and is wearing a polka dot dress. Note that the name is The Woman in the Polka Dot Dress, not just a woman or some woman in a polka dot dress.

It turns out that there were reports of a mysterious woman in a polka dot dress at RFK's assignation and she has been the center of some conspiracy theories. The pictures Sammy posted were of her found in news film archives and still photos from reporters and news organizations there at the time.

While it may be fun to speculate whether this mysterious woman hypnotized Sirhan into shooting Kennedy, it is more likely that she is Kennedy campaign worker Valerie Schulte. https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/38496 And there is no evidence that Manchurian candidate-style brainwashing or control by hypnotism actually works.

1968 was an inflection point in US history - more violent than any year since the Civil War - and with social divisions as traumatic as those that fueled the Civil War that was barely 100 years earlier at that point. Now more than 150 years since the start of Reconstruction we are on the 50th anniversary of its historical echo in 1968. It would do us all well to take a moment and remember and think and try to make some sense of it all.

Well done.
My post was done mostly tongue in cheek to fuel the conspiracy theorists out there, and in that way it could be construed as trolling.

I have a standing rule to never argue with MRM as he's better at it than I, and in most cases better informed.
But I have a hard time associating Robert's murder with social changes or developments that were going on at the time.
I would argue that the most recent decade saw as much social division and social violence as the 60's, maybe more.
Keep in mind that there were seven presidential assassination attempts before 1963, and have been eight more since 1968.

FEBRUARY 22, 1974
Richard Nixon
Samuel Byck, an unemployed former tire salesman, tried to hijack a plane out of Baltimore-Washington International Airport to crash it into the White House, but his plans were foiled. He shot the pilot and co-pilot and eventually shot himself. Sean Penn starred in a dramatization of the events in the 2004 film “The Assassination of Richard Nixon.”


SEPTEMBER 5, 1975
Gerald Ford
President Ford survived two assassination attempts in the same month. On Sept. 5, 1975, Lynette Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson, fired a pistol at the president in a crowd in Sacramento, but Ford was unharmed. On Sept. 22, Sara Jane Moore pulled a revolver on Ford in San Francisco. Both were sentenced to life in prison.


MARCH 30, 1981
Ronald Reagan
John Hinckley Jr. shot and wounded President Reagan and three others outside a hotel in Washington. Hinckley said his motivation was to show his feelings for actress Jodie Foster. He was found insane and committed to a mental hospital. He is seeking more time outside the facility.


APRIL 13, 1993
George H.W. Bush
President George H.W. Bush was not in office when 16 men plotted to kill him with a car bomb while he was at a speaking engagement at Kuwait University. Kuwaiti officials found the bomb and arrested the would-be assassins.

NOVEMBER 1996
Bill Clinton
President Clinton escaped a bombing attempt in November 1996 while visiting the Philippines for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. The Secret Service was able to divert his motorcade. It was later revealed that terrorist Osama bin Laden was behind the plot.

FEBRUARY 7, 2001
George W. Bush
Robert Pickett, an accountant from Evanston, Ind., shot at the White House when the president was inside. President Bush was unharmed. A Secret Service officer shot Pickett, who was later sentenced to three years in prison.

NOVEMBER 11, 2011
Barack Obama
Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez was arrested and charged with the attempted assassination of President Obama near the National Mall. Obama was not at the White House at the time. The Idaho man, still detained, said he believed Obama was “the devil” and had to be “taken care of.”

http://timelines.latimes.com/us-presidential-assassinations-and-attempts/


I contribute the Kennedy assassinations to daddy making a deal with the devil(s) to continue the family's power-dynasty.
But the boys had a different idea and turned on the aforementioned devil(s).
The boys were taken out as direct retribution for daddy not keeping his word and for betraying devils on both sides after a botched attempt against castro.
I am convinced that is why John was assassinated, not as sure with Bobby.
Can i prove any of it? of course not. Just theories.
Another note worthy of mention, I was very young in 1968 so most of the memories or knowledge I have were a result of or influenced by what i have read or seen since. It wouldn't surprise me if my recollection was significantly different than others who were older.

Santos Trafficante - It Should Have Been Bobby

Santos Trafficante was a Tampa-based crime boss who was among those who lost out on gambling revenues when Castro took power in Cuba, and Trafficante was jailed there and eventually deported. He subsequently became involved in the CIA-Mafia plots to assassinate Castro, along with Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana.

Trafficante is believed to be responsible for the murder of rival Albert Anastasia in 1957. When Johnny Roselli was brutally murdered in 1975 during the time of his Church Committee appearances, Trafficante was suspected by some.

Anti-Castro exile Jose Aleman told HSCA investigators that in late 1962, Trafficante had told him that Kennedy would not be re-elected, because "he is going to be hit." Aleman believed that from the context of the conversation, Trafficante meant that the "hit" would come from Jimmy Hoffa.

In the early 1990s', Frank Ragano told journalists a story, repeated in his book Mob Lawyer, that Ragano had taken a message from Hoffa to Trafficante and Carlos Marcello to carry out the murder of the President. Ragano wrote that in 1987 a seriously-ill Trafficante told him that he and Marcello had carried out the other, but that he had misgivings - "I think Carlos f**ked up in getting rid of Giovanni (John) -- maybe it should have been Bobby."

While some including HSCA Chief Counsel Robert Blakey find Ragano's account persuasive, others do not. Ragano was contacted by the Assassination Records Review Board to see if his sole-sourced story could be corroborated. He produced handwritten notes regarding the assassination referred to in his book as contemporaneous, but as the Review Board wrote "he could not definitively state whether he took them during the meetings of the 1960s or later when he was working on his book in the 1990s." Secret Service tests did not settle the matter.

[pwd72s]

Originally Posted by tabs

To quote a relative of mine who knew him, "He was a real dog." Two faced from what she told me.

We now know that the Kennedys were far from the "Camelot" image the press was giving us. I found it weirdly Ironic that Bobby campaigned in Oregon, was booed over his position on gun control, and lost the primary. Then to California where he was cheered and won. Then...

[KFC911]

Sammy, my memory of the summer of '68 is quite vivid....no comparison to recent years....not here, and not even close imo. But that's just me....the recent "media fueled bs" is just that, and I've only seen it on TV. '68 was a different time, and was as real as it gets here...jmho.

MRM does have mad skilz however ....

[jcommin]

Oops. Dec 1968 appollo 8 obited the moon. I got ahead of myself