In Internet discussions of the recent history of Islamic Terrorism, the name of Sirhan Sirhan, convicted assassin of Robert Kennedy, has come up. According to a straightforward and comprehensive article titled
"Sirhan Sirhan: Assassin of Modern U.S. History," by Denise Noe, writing for
Crime Magazine (
http://crimemagazine.com/04/bobbykennedy,0527.htm), Sirhan Sirhan is described thusly:
"As an Arab Christian, he was attracted to the pan-Arabism (rather than Islamic militancy) preached by Egypt's Gamal Abdal Nasser. Thus, he had a special reason to be emotionally devastated when Nasser's forces and those of his Arab allies were so easily vanquished by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War that started June 5, 1967 and was over by June 10."
Given the facts of the story, Sirhan Sirhan was likely motivated by personal and political hatred of Israel rather than religious fervor. Kennedy was supportive of Israel's right to exist and defend itself, while Sirhan Sirhan was a Palestinian refugee who had personally experienced atrocities as a child in mid-1940s to mid-1950s Jerusalem. His family fled to America when he was twelve years old.
American History changed on June 5, 1968, when Robert Kennedy was assassinated. Kennedy was a favorite to win the 1968 Democratic Nomination for President and the Presidency itself. In a swirl of events including the assassination, President Lyndon Baines Johnson's decision to drop out of the race and likely Republican favorite George Romney's decision not to run, Richard Nixon defeated Vice President Hubert Humphrey to become the thirty-seventh President of the United States. How differently the sixties and the Viet Nam War might have unraveled were it not for the assassination of Robert Francis Kennedy.
