L.A.'s night of agony: RFK's assassination and its long, dark shadow

Busboy Juan Romero held a dying Robert F. Kennedy after he was shot.

By Shelby GradDeputy Managing Editor

July 16, 2024 6:10 AM PT

Good morning. It’s Tuesday, July 16. I’m Shelby Grad, deputy managing editor for news, and here’s what you need to know to start your day.

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June 5, 1968, one of L.A.’s darkest nights

Political violence can cast an oppressively long shadow — as Los Angeles knows only too well.

It was here, on June 5, 1968, that Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel after being named the winner of the California presidential primary.

The killing was captured by television cameras, which made the horror even worse as it was replayed over and over. Kennedy’s killing sent Los Angeles into deep mourning; for days, the young progressive had pinged across the city, paying special attention to Black and Latino communities that politicians often passed over.

For me, the most painful photos were not of the killing itself but of the somber scenes outside Good Samaritan Hospital, where hundreds converged in darkness for a vigil for RFK that turned into a death watch.

The next morning, the crowds swelled into the thousands as his body was taken by hearse from the hospital to Los Angeles International Airport.

People sit outside Good Samaritan Hospital, two wearing shirts with "Pray for Bobby" signs attached to the backs

Why Robert F. Kennedy’s killing still haunts us

Time marched on. The grand Ambassador — a Wilshire Boulevard landmark that never got past the notoriety of that night — was torn down to make way for a learning complex in RFK’s memory complete with a Judy Baca mural. Sirhan Sirhan — who had written a manifesto three weeks before stating that “Kennedy must be assassinated June 5, 1968” — was sent to prison, where he has remained despite his attempts at parole and debunked theories that he was not the real killer (including some shared by RFK’s son, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.).

But for some, there has been no moving on.

Robert F. Kennedy addresses campaign workers moments before being shot

Juan Romero, the Ambassador Hotel busboy who cradled a dying Robert F. Kennedy, struggled for decades. He told Times columnist Steve Lopez he “always dreaded when June was coming up.”

“On far too many nights he lay awake wondering if Kennedy would still be alive if he hadn’t paused to shake a busboy’s hand,” Lopez wrote in 2016. By then, Romero said the fog of guilt and terror was beginning to lift. He died in 2018. Maria Shriver, RFK’s niece, told Lopez at the time: “God bless him. It’s kind of hard to know why someone gets put into a situation that they’re locked in forever.”

There has been much discussion over the decades about how RFK’s killer altered the course of history. Had Kennedy lived, would he have been the Democratic nominee? Would he have beaten Republican Richard Nixon, gotten the U.S. out of the Vietnam War quicker and slowed the conservative rise in America with his focus on youth and progressivism?

California ended up voting for Nixon, and the assassination left the state’s Democrats despondent. “Most of what I did that summer was sit around and cry and drink — and I didn’t cry much,” legendary Democratic powerhouse Jesse “Big Daddy” Unruh later recalled.

Pallbearers, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., carry the senator's coffin to the grave site.

RFK’s lesson for 2024

The events in Butler, Pa., leave their own questions. Donald Trump survived. But the gunman came shockingly close and left the nation stunned.

How will this latest act of political violence change the course of history?

The early pundits predict it will probably make our politics even more toxic. And the last few days have not been encouraging.

But history has a strange way of defying the conventional wisdom.

RFK’s grave at Arlington National Cemetery contains some of his words that might help us now:

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another.

Romero read those words during a visit to Kennedy’s grave site with Lopez in 2010. He said it helped lift a burden, at least a little.

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