 The
Girl in the Polka Dot Dress
"She practically stepped on me, and she said, "We?ve shot
him. We?ve shot him." Then I said, "Who did you shoot?" And she
said, "We shot Senator Kennedy." And I says, "Oh, sure." She
came running down the stairs, very fast, and then the boy in the
gold sweater came running down after her, and I walked down the
stairs."
L.A.P.D Interview of Sandy
Serrano, 2:35 a.m., June 5, 1968, p. 27.
The girl was described in the APB (All Points Bulletin) as
follows: "Prior to the shooting, suspect observed with a female
cauc., 23/27, 5-6, wearing a white viole dress, ? inch sleeves,
with small black polka dots, dark shoes, bouffant type hair.
This female not identified or in custody."
L.A.P.D. Sergeant Paul Shraga.
APB from SUS files. This one was dated 6/5/68, and was not
cancelled until 6/21/68
So Who was the Girl in the
Polka Dot Dress?
EXCERPT:
By Lisa Pease, (May-June 98 issue) Probe
The Girl Revealed?
A former New York Police Department detective
named Sid Shepard, then working at CBS-TV in New York as Chris
Borgen, happened upon Sander Vanocur?s 5:00 A.M. (Eastern time)
interview of Sandy Serrano. He recalled a couple of people who
seemed to fit the description of the polka dot dress girl. In
fact, he had observed them at a protest demonstration in New
York at the United Nations building which had been captured on
16mm film. He felt so strongly about the match that he put the
film, along with a couple of blowups made from the film, onto a
TWA flight for Martin Steadman of the WCBS-TV affiliate in Los
Angeles. Steadman brought the film and two photos made to
Rampart detectives L. J. Patterson and C. J. Hughes. These items
were booked into evidence as items #69 and 70 in the evidence
log for the case as follows:
#69 1 Film ? 16mm roll on gry plast reel
#70 1 Photo ? 8" x 10" of female (1) protest
demo (taken from abv film)
Photo ? 3" x 4" of female "Shirin Khan" with
writing on back "Shirin Khan DOB 4/22/50 daughter of Khaibar
Khan Goodarzian, presented flowers & court order to Shah of Iran
in NY 6/1964."
That Shepard/Borgen would identify Shirin Khan
as a likely candidate for the girl was positively uncanny. He
could hardly have known at that point that her father had
reportedly been seen with Sirhan at Kennedy headquarters just
two days before the assassination, and that some campaign
workers had identified Khan as a suspicious person in the
Kennedy camp.
Khaibar Khan at Kennedy Headquarters
Bernard Isackson, a Kennedy campaign
volunteer, had been at the Ambassador in the Embassy room at the
time of the shooting. His interview summary contains this
interesting tidbit:
Mr. Isackson was asked if anything or
anyone acted strange or out of place around the
headquarters. He stated the only thing that stood out as
being unusal [sic] was the actions and statements of Khaibar
Khan (I216). He stated Khan would never fill out cards or
write on anything from which the handwriting could be
positively ID as Khan. He also stated to Mr. Isackson he was
from Istanbul, Turkey and currently living in England. Mr.
Isackson stated Khan was very overbearing when it came to
the point of trying to impress someone.
Mr. Isackson recalled one incident when
Khan asked one of the office girls if she had seen a [sic]
unidentified volunteer, when the office girl started to page
the volunteer Khan became very nervous and told the girl to
never mind. Khan would often meet volunteers entering the
headquarters and escort them to the information desk to
register them as if they were personal friends of his; this
was evidence[d] by many of them using his address and phone
number.
Khan was from Iran, not Turkey, and had been
living in New York before he came to Los Angeles. He filled out
over 20 volunteer cards (present in the SUS files) with names of
"friends", always using his own address as their contact
information. For this, and a more sinister reason, Isackson was
not the only one suspicious of Khan. Several campaign workers
said they had seen him with Sirhan.
Eleanor Severson was a campaign worker for
RFK. She told the LAPD that on May 30, 1968, a man named Khaibar
Khan came into Headquarters to register for campaign work. Khan
claimed to have come to California from back East to help the
campaign. From that day, Khan came into Headquarters every day
until the election. The Sunday before the election, June 2, he
brought four other foreigners (of Middle Eastern extraction) in
to work as volunteers. Severson and her husband both said that
Sirhan was one of these men. She remembered this group in
particular because while she was registering the men, Kennedy?s
election day itinerary was taken from her desk. Her husband
thought Sirhan may have taken it. Severson reported seeing
Sirhan again early in the afternoon of June 3, standing near the
coffee machine.
Larry Strick, another Kennedy worker,
confirmed this account. He said he had spoken to Sirhan in the
company of Khan. When Sirhan?s picture was finally shown on TV,
he and Mrs. Severson called each other nearly at the same
instant to talk about the fact that this was the man they both
remembered from Headquarters. Strick positively ID?d Sirhan from
photos as the same man he had seen on June 2nd to both the LAPD
and the FBI in the days immediately following the assassination.
Estelle Sterns, yet another Kennedy volunteer,
claimed to have seen Sirhan at Headquarters on Election Day
itself. He was with three other men of Middle Eastern extraction
and a female who was wearing a white coat or dress and who had
dark hair that was nearly shoulder length. Sterns said Sirhan
offered to buy her a cup of coffee (a typical Sirhan act), which
Sterns declined. Sterns said that Sirhan and another of the men
were carrying guns. The day after the assassination, Sterns
claimed to have received a phone call from a man who sounded
muffled, as though he was speaking through a towel, telling her
"Under no circumstances give out any information to anybody as
to the number of people or their activities at your desk on
Tuesday."
The LAPD loved this. They "discredited" the
whole Sirhan-at-headquarters sighting by focusing solely on
Sterns? account. They even used Severson to discredit this
story, although the LAPD buried Severson?s interview where she
stated she too had seen Sirhan at Headquarters. The LAPD also
claimed Strick had retracted his identification of Sirhan.
Surprisingly, Khan himself, as well as his
"sister" (who was really his personal secretary/consort) Maryam
Koucham both claimed they saw Sirhan at Headquarters. Khan
claimed to have seen Sirhan standing in Headquarters on June 4th
at around 5:00 p.m. in the company of a girl in a polka dot
dress. The question is, did he really see a girl with Sirhan and
was he trying to help, or was he instead helping to muddy the
waters about a girl who may have been his own daughter? Khan
also claimed to have seen Sirhan with the woman on June 3rd, the
same day he brought his daughter Shirin Khan into headquarters.
(On this day, he also met Walter Sheridan and Pierre Salinger at
the Ambassador Hotel.) But did he bring his daughter Shirin into
Headquarters, or his other daughter Rose, or some other woman,
or no woman at all? Did he see a girl with Sirhan, or did Khan
just say he did to deflect suspicion away from both himself and
his daughter? How are we to know which statements of his are to
be believed?
He refused to take a polygraph or to attend a
showup to identify Sirhan more positively. He was illegally in
the country, having overstayed his visa. He told the police he
was on the run from the Shah of Iran?s goons. But Khan had
previously had a working relationship with the Shah. Khan wasn?t
using his real name, but was going by the alias of Goodarzian,
as was his ex-wife and daughter Shirin. He had a prior arrest
recorded with the LAPD (1/13/67), at which time he had been
using the alias of Mohammad Ali. And when the LAPD checked the
names of the volunteers whom he had registered under a single
address, the LAPD stated that "Records show that none of these
persons entered the U.S. between the period of June 1968 through
December 1968."46
(As an aside, thirteen Iranians suspected of participating in a
political assassination in 1990 came under suspicion when it was
found that they had all listed the same personal address. The
address in that case turned out to be an intelligence-ministry
building.47)
The address Khan used belonged to Khan?s
ex-wife and Shirin?s mother, Talat Khan. Talat had lived there
with sons Mike and Todd and daughter "Sherry". (After the
assassination, "Shirin Goodarzian" went by the name of "Sherry
Khan".) Although housing three children and herself, according
to the LAPD records Talat had no source of employment. Her son
Mike was working as a manager at a small pizza outlet in Santa
Monica. Her daughter Shirin showed two different places of
employment for the same dates. She had only just graduated from
University High and allegedly worked for either or both
"University Ins. Co." and "Pacific Western Mtg. Co." in Los
Angeles. Despite her working status, Sherry had no social
security number.
Talat told the LAPD that she was divorced from
Khan. She initially told them she did not know his whereabouts,
but then was able to contact him to tell him the police wanted
to talk to him. The LAPD recorded that Talat was not involved in
politics. She may have been involved with Khan and Koucham in a
bank fraud scheme in 1963, after having divorced Khan in 1961,
but the evidence in that regard is far from clear.48
Khaibar Khan, Maryam Koucham and Talat Khan became political
targets when Khaibar Khan brought some astounding information to
the attention of Senator McClellan?s Committee on Government
Operations in May of 1963. Khan had accused several prominent
Americans, including David Rockefeller and Allen Dulles, of
receiving payoff money from the Shah of Iran from funds received
through an American aid program. In short, Khan was no ordinary
Iranian. He was master over a powerful intelligence network that
had worked for and against the Shah of Iran at various points in
time.
Khaibar Khan?s father had been executed by the
Shah when he was only a boy of eight. Khan might have been
killed as well, but a British couple named Smiley, who worked
for oil interests, had taken pity on him and removed him from
the country. Khan was educated in Scotland, and in 1944 joined
British military intelligence. In 1948 his Iranian title was
restored, and he ran a fleet of taxicabs, trucks and operated a
repair shop. He also worked for the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company
and maintained ties with British and American missions there.
Fred Cook, who wrote about Khan?s life in detail in The Nation
(4/12/65 & 5/24/65), dropped this interesting piece of
information:
The Khaibar Khan?s role in the
counter-coup that toppled Mossadegh is not quite clear, but
indications are that he helped.
Was Khan working with the CIA
in that operation?
Despite the Shah?s role in his father?s death,
Khan and the Shah became friends. The Shah even provided Khan a
villa on the palace grounds. Their friendship took a turn for
the worse, however, when Khan wanted to use some of the
plentiful American foreign aid coming into the country for a
sports arena. The Shah and his family, however, had other plans
for the land and the money, leading to a falling out between
Khan and the Shah. One day, the Shah discovered that Khan?s
large and lavishly equipped Cadillac El Dorado was wiretapped to
the hilt, and realized that he had a major spy in his midst.
Khan was warned of the Shah?s discovery, and fled the country.
But Khan had spent years building up a powerful spy network. As
Khan later told the Supreme Court:
...we put engineers, doctors, gardeners
and as servants and as storemen; all educated people working
in several different places. And we put a lot of
secretaries; a lot of people who was educated in England.
And we put them as secretaries.
Through this network, Khan noticed something
interesting. Some $7 million of the sports arena?s funds had
been redirected to the Pahlavi Foundation, the Shah?s family?s
personal fund. He directed his spies to find out where the money
was going, to whom and what for. What his agents found was
rather astonishing, and led to a most peculiar congressional
investigation. He found that just days before the Shah was to
have an audience with President Kennedy in the U.S., six and
seven figure checks had been cut from the Pahlavi Foundation
account to a number of prominent and influential Americans.
Kennedy had no great love for the Shah or his operations, and
was not planning on granting the largesse the Shah was seeking.
Was the Shah feathering the nest before his arrival by spreading
money around? Khan?s agents photocopied a batch of checks from
the Shah?s safe. The checks included payments to the following:
Allen Dallas [sic]: $1,000,000
Henry Luce: $500,000
David Rockefeller: $2,000,000
Mrs. Loy Henderson: $1,000,000
George V. Allen: $1,000,000
Seldin Chapin: $1,000,000
Henderson, Allen and Chapin had all served at
some point as Ambassador to Iran, a role Richard Helms would
later play when removed from the CIA by Richard Nixon. (Richard
Helms, by the way, had been a childhood friend of the Shah; they
had attended the same Swiss school in their youth.) David
Rockefeller, Allen Dulles and Henry Luce had contributed to
Mossadegh?s overthrow, an effort double-headed by the CIA and
British intelligence. The Shah?s family members also received
checks ranging from six to eight figures in length, the highest
being a $15,000,000 check paid to Princess Farah Pahlavi.
Princess Ashraf, the Shah?s twin sister, came in second at
$3,000,000. High level British officials were also on the list.
Needless to say, when this news was given to
Congress, the earth began to rumble. According to Cook:
The Khaibar Khan?s disclosures [of May and
June, 1963] were called to the attention of President Lyndon
B. Johnson in late December by one of the President?s
closest advisers, Washington attorney Abe Fortas. Since
then, there have been these seemingly significant
developments: the American Ambassador to Iran has been
relieved of his duties; the Iranian Ambassador in Washington
has been recalled?and for the past year there has been a
stoppage on all economic (i.e. non-military) aid to Iran....49
From the look of it, it appeared Khan?s
revelations were being taken seriously. Khan?s credibility was
enhanced when a secret Treasury report provided solely to
McClellan?s committee was photocopied from within the Iranian
embassy and given to Khan, who showed the copy to the committee.
His copy proved that 1) someone on McClellan?s committee was
providing information to the Iranian embassy, and 2) Khan had
agents so sensitively placed within the embassy as to be able to
intercept this highly sensitive information. Khan?s credibility
became something that needed to be destroyed at all costs. Who
in Congress dared accuse David Rockefeller, Henry Luce and Allen
Dulles of receiving payoffs from a foreign government? Someone
had to be taken down, and the spotlight focused on Khan. An
attempt was made to physically assault Khan, but the attempt was
performed in a public arena and was quickly stopped. A more
violent attack was made upon Maryam Koucham in an effort to
scare her into revealing Khan?s sources within the Embassy.
The publication of Cook?s article about these
events in The Nation seems to have been the impetus for a sudden
and furious turnaround from McClellan?s committee. After two
years of pursuing evidence of what the committee had termed
"gross corruption" in the use of American aid money to Iran, the
committee suddenly launched an all-out assault on Khan.
McClellan suddenly surfaced a letter (dated a year earlier) from
the bank in Geneva from which the records of payoffs had
surfaced. The letter from the bank managers stated that the
records Khan had submitted were false, citing typeface
difference, differing account number systems and so forth. But
were this true, why did McClellan?s committee continue to
investigate Khan?s allegations for a full year? Clearly the
committee knew no one would buy the letter, at least at that
point. But once Cook made the issue public, then anything had to
be used, no matter how ill-supported, to discredit Khan. It was
at this point that Khan, his ex-wife and Koucham were accused of
bank fraud.
What had started as Khan?s crusade to regain
money that was to be used for Iran turned into an ugly, losing
battle. Khan was a very resourceful man, and knew how to play on
a winning team. It seems highly unlikely that he continued
forever his fight against the Shah, and more likely that he gave
in to the old adage of "if you can?t beat ?em, join ?em." And a
man with Khan?s sources could not be allowed to become an enemy
of American intelligence. He had too powerful a network. One
can?t help but wonder if the CIA took an interest in protecting
the actions of their own (Dulles, Rockefeller, the Shah et. al.)
while using Khan for their own purposes.
Khan appeared out of the blue at RFK
Headquarters, was seen with Sirhan, lied about his background,
raised suspicion by his secretiveness, and may have fathered the
girl in the polka dot dress. But perhaps his most suspicious act
was giving a ride on election night to a man who was arrested
while running out of the pantry immediately after the shots had
been fired: Michael Wayne.
Michael Wayne
Mr. Wayne was in the kitchen when Kennedy
was shot, and was the subject of reports by Patti Nelson,
Tom Klein and Dennis Weaver of a man running through the
lobby with a long object in his hand, which appeared to be a
rifle.? SUS supplement to Wayne?s interview (I-1096)
Michael Wayne, whose real name was Wien, was a
twenty-one year old from England who the LAPD wrote "professes
to be of Jewish background, but not from the mid-east."50
Wayne worked at the Pickwick Bookstore on Sunset Boulevard.
Wayne had gained entry to the pantry by obtaining a press
button, and even managed to get into Kennedy?s suite on the 5th
floor. When Kennedy went down to the Embassy room to make his
speech, Wayne followed. He was loitering in the kitchen, was
asked to leave, and returned shortly before the shooting took
place. Cryptic references in the extant files on Wayne seem to
indicate that Wayne made some comment indicating foreknowledge
of the assassination to a man in the electrician?s booth shortly
before the shooting. In fact, the first question on the proposed
list of questions to be asked of Wayne under a polygraph was
this:
Did you have prior knowledge that there
might be an attempt on Senator Kennedy?s life?
Curiously, that question does not appear on
the actual list of questions asked.51
Right after the shots were fired, Wayne, who
bore a resemblance to Sirhan, although taller and with
sideburns, ran out of the East end of the Pantry and then out
through the Embassy room. William Singer described this event to
the LAPD:
I was in the lobby of the Ambassador Hotel
right next to the ballroom. Senator Kennedy had just walked
away from the podium after his victory speech. Several
moments before the commotion started a man came running and
pushing his way out of the ballroom past where I was
standing. I would describe this man as having Hebrew or some
type mid-eastern features, he was approx 18/22 5-10 thin
face, slim, drk swtr or jkt, drk slacks, no tie, firy [sic]
neat in appearance, nice teeth, curly arab or hebrew type
hair. He may have been wearing glasses, I?m not sure. I can
ID him. He isn?t one of the men in the pictures you showed
me (Saidallah B. Sirhan or Sirhan Sirhan) this man was in a
big hurry and was saying, "Pardon me Please" as he pushed
his way out of the crowded ballroom. He was carrying a
rolled piece of cardboard, maybe a placard. This placard was
approx 1? yards long and 4-6" in diameter. I think I saw
something black inside. Just as he got pst [sic] me I heard
screaming and shouting and I knew something bad had
happened. Two men were shouting to "Stop that man." these
two men were chasing the first man. I don?t know if they
caught him.52
Gregory Ross Clayton also reported this
incident to the LAPD, adding that it was a newsman who yelled
"Stop him." Clayton then tackled the man and held him while a
hotel security guard handcuffed and removed the man. Clayton
reported having seen this man standing with a girl and three
other men, one of which resembled Sirhan, earlier that night at
the hotel.53
Clayton identified Michael Wayne as the man he had seen. The
LAPD confirmed that Ace Security guard Augustus Mallard had
arrested and handcuffed Wayne because of his suspicious behavior
running from the scene of the shooting.
The press man was evidently Steve Fontanini, a
photographer for the Los Angeles Times. Thinking Wayne was a
suspect, he ran after him. Fontanini didn?t buy Wayne?s
explanation that he was running to a telephone because he was
running out of the press room (adjacent to the pantry), a room
full of phones. That fact bothered neither the LAPD nor Robert
Kaiser, who accepted Wayne?s explanation as the truth.
Joseph Thomas Klein, Patti Nelson and Dennis
Weaver had seen Wayne run by with something rolled up in his
hand. Klein originally described the roll as larger at one end
than at the other. Weaver remembered Patti had yelled "He?s got
a gun," although Weaver did not see a gun. Weaver said he only
saw Wayne for several seconds. A month later, when questioned
again, the LAPD recorded the following interesting comments,
begging the question of what had given rise to them:
The man was carrying a blue poster, rolled
up in his left hand. It could have been a cardboard tube, or
rolled up posters. Mr. Weaver states he had a clear view of
the object and states that there was no gun sticking out of
the roll.
This investigator questioned Mr. Weaver
additionally concerning the object being carried by the man
crossing the lobby. Weaver states he is absolutely sure
there was no gun protruding from the object. He states the
object was blue, but was not wood colored at the one end, or
even resembling a gun stock.
Patti Nelson?s interview appears to no longer
exist. Joseph Klein?s, however, contained the interesting
notation:
Klein states that as he pursued Wayne, he
passed Nelson and Weaver and said, to them; "my God, he had
a gun, and we let him get by." (Klein states this is the
first time since the incident he can recall making the
statement.)
What happened after Wayne was arrested and
handcuffed by Ace Security Guard Mallard is unclear, and
troubling. An LAPD supplemental report to Michael Wayne?s
interview states:
This investigator received information
that the business card of Keith Duane Gilbert was in the
possession of Wayne, at the time of his apprehension after
Sen. Kennedy was shot. Gilbert is reported to be an
extremist and militant who has been involved in a dynamite
theft, previously.
Wayne, however, denied any knowledge of
Gilbert, and did not remember ever having his card. But in the
SUS files, yet another problem cropped up. Gilbert?s file, when
checked, contained a business card as well. The card belonged to
Michael Wayne.
Sgt. Manual Gutierrez of SUS spent a great
deal of time trying to find out whether there was some sinister
association between Wayne and Gilbert, a radical Minuteman
activist. Gutierrez did not believe Wayne?s denials of a
relationship, and ultimately pushed to have Wayne polygraphed.
Unfortunately, the polygraph was operated by Hernandez, whose
record of truth in this case is so poor as to make his tests
worthless. Not surprisingly, Hernandez determined Wayne was
"truthful" about not knowing Gilbert. Gutierrez, a fitness buff,
died in 1972 at the young age of forty. Turner and Christian
wrote, "It was said that he [Gutierrez] had privately voiced
doubts about the police conclusion [that Sirhan alone had killed
Kennedy]." SUS ended up claiming that that the Michael Wayne
card in Gilbert?s file referred to a different Michael Wayne.
They never did explain the reverse possession.
Wayne is an interesting person. He was seen in
a group that allegedly included Sirhan. He obtained a ride from
the suspicious Khaibar Khan. A couple of people thought he had a
gun as he ran out of the pantry. And he was apprehended by a
guard from the service that employed one of the most famous
alternate suspects in this case, Thane Eugene Cesar.
Thane Eugene Cesar
Thane Eugene Cesar was just behind and to the
right of Kennedy at the time the shots were fired. If Cesar is
telling the truth about his position, then either he was the
shooter, or the shooter had to be between himself and Kennedy.
Cesar denies that he shot Kennedy, and denies that anyone else
in that position shot him either. Cesar?s proximity to Kennedy
is graphically demonstrated by the presence of his clip-on tie
just beyond Kennedy?s outstretched hand as he lay on the floor.
Cesar has made many statements that he has later contradicted,
adding to the suspicion of sinister involvement. For example, he
told police he had sold his.22 before the assassination, and
that he had lost the receipt. But the police found the receipt,
and found that he had sold the gun after the assassination.
Cesar was also one of the first to accurately
pinpoint where Kennedy was shot. Most people thought Kennedy was
shot in the head. Cesar, on the other hand, in an interview
immediately following the shooting, reported that Kennedy was
shot in the head, the chest and the shoulder. He also said he
was holding Kennedy?s arm when "they" shot him. Asked if Sirhan
alone did all the shooting he said, "No, yeah. One man."54
Paul Hope of the Evening Star also obtained early comments from
Cesar. Hope recorded Cesar?s comments as follows:
I fell back and pulled the Senator with
me. He slumped to the floor on his back. I was off balance
and fell down and when I looked up about 10 people already
had grabbed the assailant.55
Cesar told the LAPD that he ducked and was
knocked down at the first shot, hardly the same report he gave
the press. Richard Drew witnessed something similar to Cesar?s
original version, as he reported in a separate article in the
Evening Star that same day (6/5/68):
As I looked up, Sen. Kennedy started to
fall back and then was lowered to the floor by his aides.
In Drew?s LAPD interview, he reduced the
plural to the singular, saying "Someone" had lowered Kennedy to
the floor. Since Kennedy was shot in the back at a range of 1-2
inches, anyone lowering him to the floor should have been an
immediate suspect.
Equally important was Eara Marchman?s report
to the LAPD of what she witnessed prior to the assassination.
Thane Eugene Cesar had been assigned to guard the pantry area
that night. The LAPD recorded the following information from
Marchman:
She walked out towards the kitchen area
and observed a man in a blue coat, dark complexion, possibly
about 5-3/6 wearing lt. colored pants, standing talking to,
and possibly arguing with, a uniformed guard who was
standing by swinging kitchen doors (after showing mugs susp
Sirhan was pointed out, although she only saw the man from
the side position).
Was Cesar arguing with Sirhan earlier that
night? Cesar claims he never saw Sirhan in the pantry before the
shooting, despite his having been sighted there by several other
witnesses. But is Cesar to be believed?
Anyone wishing to look into the involvement of
Cesar eventually runs into Dan Moldea. (See
DiEugenio?s article on Moldea in this issue.) It?s almost as
if Moldea has become Cesar?s handler, deciding who will get
access to his prize.
Moldea spends a great deal of his book on the
case discussing Cesar. Cesar was standing immediately behind and
to the right of Kennedy?exactly the spot from which the gun had
to have been fired, according to the autopsy report. While many
researchers have felt (and continue to feel) that Cesar was the
top suspect for the actual assassin of RFK, Moldea has not.
Moldea, curiously, has been a defender. In his first published
article on the case in Regardie?s, Moldea concluded with the
following statement about Cesar:
Gene Cesar may be the classic example of a
man caught at the wrong time in the wrong place with a gun
in his hand and powder burns on his face?an innocent
bystander caught in the cross fire of history.
Whatever Moldea?s motives may have been in
1987, when the above quotes were published, by 1997 he was
singing an even more disturbing tune:
To sum up, Gene Cesar proved to be an
innocent man who since 1969 has been wrongly accused of
being involved in the murder of Senator Kennedy.
What would cause a man to state such a thing,
in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, some of
which he dug up himself?
Moldea tells us that Cesar had secret
clearance to work on projects at Lockheed?s Burbank facility,
and at Hughes Aircraft. Note that Robert Maheu, Roselli?s
partner in assassination plots, was overseeing a great deal of
Hughes? operations in 1968. Note too that the CIA has had a long
and admitted relationship with Hughes. A CIA document dated 1974
but not released until 1994 relates the following:
DCD [Domestic Contacts Division] has had
close and continuing relationships with the Hughes Tool
Company and Hughes Aircraft Company since 1948. Both
companies have been completely cooperative and have provided
a wealth of information over the years....It should be
noted...that in the case of Hughes Aircraft, DCD has
contacted over 250 individuals in the company since the
start of our association and about 100 in Hughes Tool over
the same period. The substance of the contacts ranged from
FPI collection to sensitive operational proposals. In
addition, there is some evidence in DCD files that both
companies may have had contractual relationships with the
Agency. In the context of such a broad range in Hughes/CIA
relationships, it is difficult to state with certainty that
the surfacing of the substance of a given action would not
cause Congressional and/or media interest.56
He also reveals that at a lunch with Cesar,
Cesar casually mentioned that he had purchased some diamonds
from a businessman who was a Mafia associate. Despite these
points, Moldea writes:
For years, numerous conspiracy theories
have alleged that Cesar worked for the Mafia, the CIA,
Howard Hughes, or even as a freelance bodyguard, leg
breaker, and hit man.
There is no evidence to support any of
these allegations.
While one could argue that there is no proof,
there is plenty of evidence to support such allegations. Moldea
even provided some of it, but did so in a sneaky fashion. For
example, the Burbank Lockheed facility is the famous
"Skunkworks" facility that housed the CIA?s U-2 program. And
Howard Hughes owned Hughes Aircraft. The CIA also had a stake in
Hughes Aircraft (and the entire Hughes operation), a non-secret
at this point. Why did Moldea leave out such salient points?
The denouement of Moldea?s exploration of
Cesar comes in the form of a much-touted polygraph test, which
Cesar passed. Cesar had offered to take a polygraph in the past,
but LAPD consistently avoided all opportunities to do so. Moldea
claims that had Cesar failed his test, he would have pursued him
to the ends of the earth. But since he passed, he concludes that
Cesar is credible. He could have passed some of the questions he
was asked whether he was the shooter or not. Consider the
following:
Between the ages of twenty-eight and
forty-five, other than your kids, did you ever hurt anyone?
No.
One can?t help but wonder, from the wording,
just what Cesar did do to his kids between those ages! But
worse, Cesar was twenty-six at the time of RFK?s assassination,
not twenty-eight! That question and a similar one had no
relevance to June 5th at all!
Examine the semantic trick in the next
question:
Did you fire a weapon the night Robert
Kennedy was shot?
No.
Kennedy was shot at about 12:15 AM in the
morning, so "the night" he was shot would have been the night of
the 5th, long past the point at which the shooting took place.
No assassin fired a gun that "night".
The wording of this next question was
interesting.
Were you involved in a plan to shoot
Robert Kennedy?
No.
Note how the question was limited specifically
to shooting, and not to any other broader kind of involvement in
a plan to kill Robert Kennedy. What if Cesar was not the
shooter, but was protecting the shooter?s identity by saying he
was the only one in the shooter?s position? He might do this if
he knew it could never be proved that he was the shooter. And if
he didn?t fire any shots into the Senator, it would be
difficult, despite circumstantial evidence, to link him in a
court of law to the crime. But by saying he was there and that
no one was between them, possibly he could be lying to protect
someone else. If that were true, his next answer could very well
be true:
Regarding57
Robert Kennedy, did you fire any of the shots that hit him
in June of ?68?
No.
The following question and answer either
supports this theory, or proves Cesar to be inaccurate or lying
about his position relative to Kennedy:
Could you have fired at Kennedy if you
wanted to?
No.
By his own account, he had been practically
touching Kennedy, and did have a gun with him that night. So it
would seem that his answer is inaccurate, unless someone was
physically between him and Kennedy.
There are, of course, other possibilities to
the postulations I have just suggested. He might have truly had
no involvement, and genuinely told the truth. Another
possibility is that he faked his way through the test. No less
than former CIA Director William Colby said this was doable if
you knew the tricks of the trade. A third possibility is that
the operator, Edward Gelb, altered the machine and/or results to
achieve the desired results. And these suggestions are not
mutually exclusive.
Whatever the results, Moldea was not justified
in basing his sole conclusion as to the question of Cesar?s
guilt or innocence upon a test that is not even admissible in
court. Moldea?s unquestioning credence casts as many doubts
about Moldea as Cesar?s conflicting statements continue to cast
upon himself.
Lastly, there is the question of Ace Guard
Services. Ace was only formed in the beginning of 1968 by Frank
J. and Loretta M. Hendrix. And Cesar was only hired in May of
1968, just days before the assassination. Years after the
assassination, DeWayne Wolfer, the criminalist in Sirhan?s case,
became president of Ace under its newer name of Ace Security
Services. Is this all just coincidence?
Lining Up the Squares
Like a Rubrick?s cube, this case seems to
involve many small, separate players. But as you get closer to
solving the puzzle, you find there are really only a few planes,
all of which connect in a single, logical fashion. The
conspiracy is obvious; the players semi-obvious; but the motive
is considerably less obvious. The question of Cui Bono remains
all-important: Who Benefits?
Once a supporter of Red hunter Joe McCarthy,
Bobby had grown a great deal since his brother?s death. He
became the champion of the disenfranchised. He marched for civil
rights, and lashed out at the inefficiencies in our social
system. He was not a supporter of welfare handouts but of jobs
for all. He was often accused of being "angry", and retorted "I
am impatient. I would hope everyone would be impatient." "I
think people should be angry enough to speak out." Another
favorite: "It is not enough to allow dissent. We must demand
it." As Richard Goodwin has written, it was the very qualities
that people most appreciated that caused the establishment to
loathe and fear him. The people loved a Senator who would stand
up and tell it like it was, without fear, without softening
rhetoric. The establishment wanted him to go away.
Bobby Kennedy had more enemies it would seem
then his brother. Where John Kennedy played the politician,
Bobby Kennedy played the populist. A famous episode recounted by
Richard Goodwin shows how radical Bobby had become. The State
Department had threatened to cut off aid to Peru over a dispute
Peru had with the International Petroleum Company, a Standard
Oil subsidiary. Kennedy had been outraged at the State
Department, saying, "Peru has a democratic government. We ought
to be helping them succeed, not tearing them down just because
some oil company doesn?t like their policies." But when Kennedy
was confronted with what he considered excessive
anti-Americanism from a Peruvian audience, Kennedy turned the
tables on them. Goodwin recounts what transpired as follows:
Irritated by the attacks, Kennedy turned
on his audience. "Well, if it?s so important to you, why
don?t you just go ahead and nationalize the damn oil
company? It?s your country. You can?t be both cursing the
U.S., and then looking to it for permission to do what you
want to do. The U.S. government isn?t going to send
destroyers or anything like that. So if you want to assert
your nationhood, why don?t you just do it?"
The Peruvians were stunned at the boldness
of Kennedy?s suggestion. "Why, David Rockefeller has just
been down here," they said, "and he told us there wouldn?t
be any aid if anyone acted against International Petroleum."
"Oh, come on," said Kennedy, "David
Rockefeller isn?t the government. We Kennedys eat
Rockefellers for breakfast."
Bobby had outraged the CIA by exercising heavy
oversight after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Richard Helms, the
friend of the Shah and a key MKULTRA backer, held a special
animosity for Bobby Kennedy. And Bobby was the one who asked,
immediately after the assassination, if the CIA had killed his
brother. What might Bobby have uncovered had he been allowed to
reach the office of the Presidency? Powerful factions hoped
they?d never have to find out.
Kennedy himself expected tragedy for his
efforts. "I play Russian roulette every time I get up in the
morning," he told friends. "But I just don?t care. There?s
nothing I could do about it anyway," the fatalist explained,
adding, "This isn?t really such a happy existence, is it?"58
The assassination of both Kennedys guaranteed
the elongation of our involvement in Vietnam, a war that
personally brought Howard Hughes and everyone involved in
defense contracts loads of money. Killing Bobby prevented any
effective return to the policies started under John Kennedy, and
prevented Bobby from opening any doors to the truth about the
murder of his brother. And killing Bobby removed a thorn in the
side of many in the CIA who felt he had treated them unkindly
and unfairly.
Who killed Bobby? One man gave me an answer to
that. I interviewed John Meier, a former bagman for Hughes and
by association the CIA. Meier was one of the tiny handful of
people in direct contact with Howard Hughes himself. His
position gave him entr?e to circles most people will never see.
Meier had worked for Hughes during the
assassination, and saw enough dealings before and after the
assassination to cause him to approach J. Edgar Hoover with what
he knew. For example, he knew that Thane Eugene Cesar had an
association with Maheu. (Maheu also had an extensive working
relationship with the LAPD. This partnership produced a porno
film pretending to show Indonesian president Sukarno in a
compromising position with a Soviet agent.59)
According to Meier, Hoover expressed his frustration, saying
words to the effect of "Yes, we know this was a Maheu operation.
People think I?m so powerful, but when it comes to the CIA,
there?s nothing I can do."
People will choose what they will believe. But
the evidence is still present, waiting to be followed, if any
entity has the fortitude to pursue the truth in this case to
wherever it leads. And so long as Sirhan remains in jail, the
real assassins will never be sought. ?
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