The American Spectator

Just in time for the release of the star-studded ensemble exploration of the RFK assassination Bobby, AlterNet reprints a Guardian story pinning the murder on the CIA’s Manchurian Candidate Office:

Sirhan’s notebooks show a bizarre series of “automatic writing” - “RFK must die RFK must be killed - Robert F Kennedy must be assassinated before 5 June 68” - and even under hypnosis, he has never been able to remember shooting Kennedy. He recalls “being led into a dark place by a girl who wanted coffee”, then being choked by an angry mob. Defence psychiatrists conclude he was in a trance at the time of the shooting and leading psychiatrists suggest he may have be a hypnotically programmed assassin.

Only a moment previously, however, author Shane O’Sullivan argued “autopsy report suggests Sirhan could not have fired the shots that killed Kennedy. Witnesses place Sirhan’s gun several feet in front of Kennedy, but the fatal bullet is fired from one inch behind. And more bullet-holes are found in the pantry than Sirhan’s gun can hold, suggesting a second gunman is involved.”

Now, granted, I’ve never been part of a CIA plot to overthrow or undermine the United States government, but I’ve always operated under the assumption that the entire premise behind brainwashing/hypnotizing an assassin would be A) so that CIA agents don’t have to take the shot, B) to make sure some poor sap without any connection to the conspiracy takes the fall, and C) not waste valuable appropriation dollars on magic bullets. I can’t imagine a “We’ll Hypnotize A Faux Killer So Various On-Scene, Photographed, Well-Known CIA Agents Can Get Off A Clean Shot” plan would have been popular even in the darkest smoke-filled rooms at Langley.

As a secondary thought, if the CIA really had been able to “disappear” politicians it didn’t like so easily and without those conspiracies ever coming to light, it seems to me we would have seen quite a few other politicians brutally murdered over the years. It’s not like foresight and restraint were standard issue attributes of the 60s, 70s, or even 80s CIA.