by Ed Sanders
The Kennedys slept in the Frankenheimers’ own bedroom. RFK at age forty-two had the wiriness of a coiled spring and the stamina of a star athlete in his rounds of campaigning. They said he slept only four hours a night but the nonstop weeks had sapped him. You know how it is—you boing awake, mind pulsing with stuff to do, calls to make, issues to jot down, and plans to polish.
Plus eating at the craw of his psyche, the death of his brother and the stomach-churning desire for vengeance on those who had done it.
Ethel was pregnant with their eleventh child. She too had bundles of energy, which she brought to the campaign with friend-rousing grace.
Richard Sylbert and Sarah Hudson
Living in a house on the beach near the Frankenheimers were set designer Richard Sylbert and actress Sarah Hudson, who had met Sylbert when both were living at the Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles, in 1965. Sylbert was then busy designing Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, which would win Sylbert an Academy Award. Not long after meeting, according to Sylbert’s autobiography, he and Sarah, a stunning young woman striving for a career in acting, began living together.
They were still together in the late spring of 1968, and were staying at a beach house in Malibu near the beachfront house of John and Evans Frankenheimer. Sylbert had just completed designing Rosemary’s Baby for Roman Polanski, and was about to begin work on Mike Nichols’s production of Catch-22. That spring, Sylbert had been assisting Frankenheimer in filming Robert Kennedy campaign events in California, and there was a dinner apparently in late May of 1968 at which Robert personally thanked Richard Sylbert for his work helping the campaign.
The morning of June 4, Robert Kennedy was up early after his tiring campaign trek of the previous days, and according to Sylbert’s widow, took a walk in the company of Sarah Hudson along the Malibu beach. It was a vitally important morning for Kennedy, since voters in California were beginning to show up at election precincts to cast their ballots in the Democratic Primary.
Tate Family Website Maintains that Sharon Had Dinner with Kennedy on the Evening of June 3
Robert and Ethel would have arrived at Malibu late at night on June 3 after the exhausting day and evening campaigning. I would guess around 10 or 11 p.m., or maybe even at midnight. Could they have had a dinner at that time with Sharon Tate? The Sharon Tate website has it as follows: “Sharon had become very interested in the Presidential campaign of Robert Kennedy. She went to fund raising dinners in support of Kennedy and on June 3rd, 1968 attended a dinner at the home of John Frankenheimer. At the dinner was Robert Kennedy and his wife Ethel. Sharon was thrilled to be able to spend some time with Kennedy and felt even more convinced that he would make a wonderful president. However, the next day Kennedy was assassinated. Sharon was devastated not only over the death of an incredible man but also for the loss to the country.” (The problem with June 3 was that RFK followed a super-busy almost nonstop final day of campaigning which did not stop till late in the evening in San Diego after which he and Ethel flew to Los Angeles, and then were driven to the Frankenheimer house in Malibu. They couldn’t have arrived much before midnight, or perhaps even after.)
Robert Kaiser, in his book, R.F.K. Must Die, contends that Sharon and Roman, along with other guests, actually had dinner with Senator Kennedy in the early evening of June 4, California primary day. (I contacted Mr. Kaiser who was residing in Rome, and he replied that it was John Frankenheimer himself who claimed that the dinner on June 4 had actually occurred.)
Robert and Ethel Kennedy Spend Election Day in Malibu
First RFK, Ethel, and six of their ten children had lunch. Joining them was writer Theodore White in the midst of his research for a book on the 1968 race.
It was too cold to swim at Malibu, in the skin-chilling surf and a ten-mile-per-hour wind, but Robert Kennedy donned trunks and went with twelve-year-old David and three-year-old Max to the water’s edge where he helped build a sand castle. He spotted David being pulled down by an undertow and dashed into the churn to save him, with father and son both a bit bruised from the saving.
After swimming in the ocean, there was more fun in the Frankenheimers’ pool. RFK then changed, leaving his flashy pink and green Hawaiian trunks in the bedroom lavatory sink, where they remained till after the shooting, when some aides early in the morning arrived to retrieve his personal items.
That same day in London, at the studio on Abbey Road, John Lennon rerecorded the lead vocal for “Revolution” lying flat on his back. Also the same day Soviet tanks and troops shoved inward into Czechoslovakia ostensibly for maneuvers but excuses were found for leaving them there.
A couple of close RFK aides bought themselves bright-hued hippie attire to wear to the victory party that night at a discotheque called The Factory owned by Pierre Salinger and other well-known Democrats (such as Sammy Davis Jr.).
Senator Edward Kennedy, RFK speechwriter Richard Goodwin, and key RFK aide Fred Dutton arrived, and there was a bit of political talk, after which the candidate took a nap. Goodwin was getting some food from a buffet when he noticed RFK spread out across two chairs by the pool getting a restless shuteye.
Richard Goodwin Recalls June 4
Richard Goodwin had been a high official in the government of John F. Kennedy, and worked now as a speechwriter for his brother. In his memoir, Remembering America, (pp. 535–536), he recalled that after breakfast Bobby called him, telling him he was spending the day at the Frankenheimers’ beach house in Malibu, and asking would Richard come out and join him.
When Richard arrived, he noted that there was a swimming pool and a broad patio separated by a glass wall from the living room and an adjoining dining room. He could see the “gentle-surfed” beach nearby. In the living room, Ethel Kennedy was talking with Theodore White and Evans Frankenheimer, but RFK was not on hand.
“Going into the next room for the buffet lunch,” he writes, “I turned casually toward the pool. Robert Kennedy was stretched out across two chairs in the sunlight, he head hanging limply over the chair frame; his unshaven face was deeply lined, and his lips slightly parted. There was no movement. I felt a sudden spasm of fear. But it swiftly receded. He was sleeping, only sleeping.”
Sometime later a telephone call had provided the first vote projections. By that time Robert and his assistant Fred Dutton were present in the living room. CBS television had surveyed voters in two hundred precincts as they left the polling places, and predicted RFK would win 49–41 over McCarthy. “They were pretty accurate in the other primaries,” Kennedy remarked.
“But not in Oregon,” replied Dutton.
Kennedy remarked how he had lost all the undecideds in Oregon, then also said, “Maybe they won’t break away from us here. If only we can push up our percentage a point or two.”
Goodwin commented how those in the room thought that, because of the Oregon defeat, Kennedy had to win big in California, “and that meant more than 50 percent of the vote, with 40 percent or less going to McCarthy. . . .
“We talked idly, reminisced, discussed future strategy, as if the big victory were already in—not because we were sure, but because that’s the only way politicians can talk. But Kennedy was so tired that even the easily familiar shoptalk came haltingly, and he soon went back to the bedroom for a nap while I drove to my hotel to draft the victory statement.”
RFK Restless in the Late Afternoon of June 4
RFK took a further nap (apparently in the bedroom) and then toward afternoon’s end, around 6 p.m., was eager to head for the Ambassador Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. At around 6:30 p.m. John Frankenheimer himself drove RFK in his Rolls Royce to victory headquarters. Apparently Ethel was not quite ready, and went to the hotel a bit later. The children were to be transported to a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
Problems of History: Figuring Out the Trip to the Ambassador
1. Evan Thomas, in his book Robert Kennedy, His Life (p. 387), wrote “At 6:30 it was finally ti
me to head back into Los Angeles. . . . Frankenheimer daubed Kennedy’s scraped and bruised forehead with some actor’s makeup and Kennedy put on a blue pin-striped suit and a white shirt that made him look dashing.” (There was no mention of Ethel on the trip.)
2. Jules Witcover, in 85 days (p. 254), says RFK and key assistant Fred Dutton, but not Ethel, were driven to the Ambassador by “about 6:30.” Kennedy was eager to get to the hotel, “but Ethel wasn’t ready,” so Frankenheimer wheeled them in the Rolls.
3. According to Lester David (Ethel, p. 196), “John Frankenheimer drove the Kennedys and the children down to town in his big car over back roads at speeds that made Ethel gasp. . . . At 7:15, they drew up before the Ambassador.”
4. Robert Blair Kaiser, in R.F.K. Must Die (p. 15), mentions only RFK being driven by Frankenheimer to the Ambassador; but does not write that only RFK and Frankenheimer were in the Rolls.
The Dinner
Apparently John Frankenheimer had planned an early dinner and invited some guests over. According to R.F.K. Must Die, the guest list included director Roman Polanski, whose movie Rosemary’s Baby was just about to open, and his wife, Sharon Tate.
Other guests, in Kaiser’s recounting, were future head of Disney Pictures Frank Wells and his wife, Luanne, plus actress Anjanette Comer, nightclub owner Brian Morris, set designer Richard Sylbert, and Sarah Hudson. (I e-mailed Mr. Kaiser a few years ago, and he replied that Frankenheimer himself told him about the guest list and the early meal at his Malibu house.)
However, Evans Frankenheimer, widow of John Frankenheimer, informed me by e-mail during the writing of this book that there was no dinner served to Sharon Tate, Roman Polanski, Richard Sylbert, Sarah Hudson, and the others. She writes: “There was no dinner scheduled at our house in Malibu on the evening of the Democratic Primary, June 4th, 1968. The Kennedys wanted privacy during their stay at our house. There was, however, a large party scheduled at The Factory after the primary. The people you mentioned in your letter were on that guest list. It was not our private party and Sharon and Roman had been invited as guests of Dick Sylbert the set designer.”
In preparation for this book, Richard Sylbert’s widow, Sharmagne Leland-St. John (Richard Sylbert passed away in 2002), checked his day books, and reported the following entry by Sylbert: “On the afternoon of June 5th [actually the 4th], 1968 we all got into our respective Limousines outside the Frankenheimer’s house and drove cautiously downtown to the Ambassador Hotel and walked into the Presidential Suites. One group disappeared with Bobby, while myself and Sarah (Hudson), along with several others went into a nearby suite. There were several old friends already ensconced there, Budd Schulberg, and as I remember, George Plimpton along with the mob of the faithful, chatting and watching the returns on the TV sets in each room.” Sylbert does not mention Sharon and Roman.
(It may be that the invited guests appeared at the Frankenheimers’ but then when RFK wanted to go early to the Ambassador, at least some of the guests in the “afternoon,” as indicated by Sylbert’s journal, piled into limousines and also drove to the hotel. It’s murky.)
What is the answer? The past can be like quicksand.
Robert Kennedy’s Drive to the Hotel
As we have noted, Kennedy was nervous and eager to get downtown, so John Frankenheimer wheeled his Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud rather rapidly on the Santa Monica Freeway toward the Ambassador Hotel. Since the last week of March, Frankenheimer had shot hours upon hours of film for a documentary on RFK to help him win in the fall. Frankenheimer missed the Vermont off ramp, and got mixed up in the Harbor Freeway interchange. He cursed angrily as he tried to get the Rolls headed back toward the hotel. “Take it easy, John,” said Bob Kennedy. “Life is too short.”
Kennedy’s Suite at the Ambassador
The polls closed at 8 p.m., and it became certain that a huge Los Angeles pro-RFK vote was surging him to victory! Shortly after 9 p.m., Senator George McGovern called with good news from South Dakota, where Bobby had won the primary with more votes than Humphrey and McCarthy combined. A call came in from Richard Daley (mayor of Chicago and a Big Shaker in the party. He’d run the Democratic Convention in Chicago in August.) He was now an official RFK supporter. Pierre Salinger was standing next to RFK when Daley called: “Bobby & I exchanged a look that we both knew meant only one thing—he had the nomination.”
Sirhan Sirhan That Day and Night
Three days previous, on Saturday, June 1, twenty-four-year-old Sirhan Sirhan had gone to the Corona Police Firing Range, where he later recalled that the range master showed him how to shoot at human targets and vital organs. Then, on the afternoon of June 4, while the polls were still open for the primary, Sirhan went target shooting in the company of a pretty young woman, quick-firing three hundred to four hundred rounds with a .22 at the San Gabriel Valley Gun Club in Duarte, outside Los Angeles.
In recent years, Sirhan has been examined and hypnotized for sixty hours over a three-year period, beginning in 2008, by a Harvard University memory expert, Dr. Daniel Brown. Half of the interviews involved hypnosis, and Dr. Brown has reported, in a court filing in 2011, the following about Sirhan Sirhan’s memories of what he did on June 4, 1968:
“Mr. Sirhan freely recalled going to the gun range during the day of the assassination.” Sirhan claimed he arrived at the Ambassador later that evening, looking for a party. Dr. Brown states that Sirhan recalled: “Now I’m going to another area . . . I don’t know the name. . . . Later I heard it was the Embassy Room . . . it’s like a huge hallway . . . tremendous lights . . . no tables . . . the brightness . . . a lot of people . . . I’m getting tired . . . I wasn’t expecting this . . . It’s getting hot . . . very hot . . . I want to get a drink. A make-shift bar area . . . I see a bartender . . . a white smock . . . he looked Latin . . . we just nodded . . . I told him what I wanted . . . it’s like I have a relationship with this guy . . . Tom Collins . . . I drink it while I’m walking around . . . this bartender . . . he wasn’t looking for a sale . . . he wasn’t talkative . . . it is like he’s communicating with gestures . . . a nod after I paid for it.
Sirhan’s .22
“I’m still looking around . . . he didn’t make it (the drink) right in front of me . . . he made it and brought it over . . . after that I came back again . . . it was like a routine between us . . . like I’m more familiar . . . like I’m a regular customer of his . . . I don’t remember seeing him before . . . it seemed like he was a professional . . . he never initiated a conversation but after a second time it was like there was a communication between us . . . he knew what I wanted . . . it’s hard to figure out if he’s targeting me or I’m targeting him . . . I don’t remember him saying anything like ‘shoot Kennedy’ or anything like that . . . he’s just very quiet . . . I begin to get tired . . . I sat down on one of the couches . . . I remember feeling that I had to go home . . . very bright lights . . . like under the sunlight . . . I want to go home . . . I’ve seen the party.”
Dr. Brown: “It is notable that at this point in time Mr. Sirhan can only think about going home. Again, his expressed desire to leave the party and go home does not suggest the motivation of an assassin ready to kill a presidential candidate shortly thereafter.”
Sirhan did attempt to go home: “I get in the car . . . I couldn’t think about driving the car . . . it was late . . . I sit in the car . . . I couldn’t make myself drive it. . . . There was no way I could drive the car . . . I don’t want to chance it . . . I wanted to sleep . . . I wanted to sleep . . . sleep . . . sleep . . . sleep. Then I go back to the hotel to get some coffee.”
According to Brown, “Mr. Sirhan recalled re-tracing his steps to the same bar. When Mr. Sirhan arrived at the bar he asked the same bartender for coffee. The bartender told him that there was no coffee at the bar. An attractive woman with a polka dot dress was sitting at the bar talking to the bartender. She overheard Sirhan asking for coffee and she said that she knew where coffee was.”
Sirhan does not recall b
ringing his .22 from his DeSoto into the hotel. Dr. Brown: “Mr. Sirhan is adamant in his belief that he never brought the gun into the Ambassador Hotel. When asked to explain how he might have gotten a gun, he recalled being bumped up against and pushed around in the crowd on his way back to the bar to get coffee. He speculated, without specific recall, that the gun might have been placed in his waist band without his knowing it. It is also possible that the girl in the polka dot dress handed him the gun, but he does not remember so.”
The Kennedy Suite Toward Midnight
The place was packed with favored friends and campaigners. Toward midnight, just before going down to the ballroom, RFK was talking with a close assistant and whispered that he thought they should tell Senator McCarthy that if he were to withdraw and support him, “I’ll make him secretary of state.”
In the final minutes in his suite Kennedy chatted with writer Budd Schulberg and some of his staff on what to say. Kennedy was speaking with civil rights hero John Lewis: “You let me down today,” he joked. “More Mexican-Americans voted for me than Negroes.” Those who heard laughed. “Wait for me,” Kennedy said to Lewis, “I’ll be back in fifteen or twenty minutes.” To Lewis, RFK looked so happy “he could have floated out of the room.”
He had a gulp of ginger ale, scanned himself in a mirror, then he was urged to go down. As he departed he asked that Al Lowenstein (organizer of the 1967 Dump Johnson movement) be telephoned in New York to say that RFK’d call him right after the victory speech.
RFK wanted to use the same path downward as back in Oregon a few days previous. There was a sort of gridlock in the hallway headed for the elevators. He encountered his eleven-year old daughter, Courtney, and paused a couple of minutes asking her about what her day had been like. They went down a freight elevator and through the kitchen, then up a ramp, then turning left, up through a curtain festooned with bunting with the candidate appearing on an utterly packed stage overlooking the ultrapacked Embassy Room.
