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Reviews
| The Forgotten Terrorist: Sirhan Sirhan and the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, by Mel Ayton. Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2007. 356 pages. $29.95, cloth.
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| The list of publications seeking to "close the books" on the political assassinations in the United States is truly staggering. Author after determined author has promised readers that no doubts will remain after they, once again, wend their way through the forest of information, facts, reports, theories, misinformation, and agendas that inhabit the popular imaginations of Americans. The irony of such endeavors is that the murder of public figures, especially politicians, forever intrigues and engages the American public, especially when the authorities charged with uncovering the truth of these horrible events stumble and produce conclusions that raise more questions than they answer. Thus, Mel Ayton set a formidable task for himself when he chose to chronicle the life of Sirhan Sirhan, the convicted assassin of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. He was determined to show that the resolution of the case, decided in a California courtroom in 1968, was justified, and that Sirhan did murder Kennedy for his own murky reasons. |
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Ayton is an excellent writer, and his text bristles and probes, leading the reader on a fascinating, if ultimately depressing journey detailing the assassin's many obsessions and final fatal decision to silence Sen. Kennedy during the deeply troubled 1968 presidential election season. The strength of The Forgotten Terrorist is the degree to which Ayton, who has spent two decades producing books and documentaries about political assassinations, offers a detailed portrait of Sirhan, showing him as a frustrated, angry, and depressed social misfit who failed at virtually everything he turned his hand to. He probes trial transcripts, police reports, eyewitness testimony, and interviews to construct a compelling review of both well-known and obscure material associated with the Kennedy assassination. Others have covered this ground before, notably Dan Moldea and Robert Kaiser, but Ayton both reviews established ideas, and gives the reader an in-depth analysis of Sirhan's state of mind (as much as can be determined) leading up to and following the assassination. It is a riveting enterprise that history students will find intriguing, especially in seminars devoted to analyzing the use of evidence. |
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It is true, as Ayton makes clear, that much of the literature that focuses on a possible conspiracy in the death of Sen. Kennedy is based on unsubstantiated rumor, misunderstandings, or the failures of responsible authorities, such a the Los Angeles Police Department, to run down and investigate all possible leads. Ayton lists many of these theories and ideas, and then effectively debunks them. He also demonstrates that Sirhan himself put several of these theories into play through the many interviews he has granted in prison over the years. And there lies a fascinating aspect of this tragedy: Sirhan has become, through attrition mainly, one of the leading sources of information, opinion, and speculation about the assassination. Imagine John Wilkes Booth sitting in a federal prison for decades after 1865, granting interviews to those who sought his views on the Lincoln murder. The only instance in which Ayton undermines his well-argued position is when he tries to link Sirhan to Lee Harvey Oswald in a rather specious manner, in order to bolster his portrait of Sirhan as motivated by envy and desire for recognition. |
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The Forgotten Terrorist is a well-written and detailed analysis of a major national tragedy—the murder of a leading presidential candidate who might have taken the United States in a very different direction after 1968. Mel Ayton presents a compelling examination of the convicted assassin's motivations, his state of mind, and the mountain of evidence used to denounce and imprison him. Students will find this an intriguing story to read, and in an advanced level seminar devoted to analyzing the use of evidence, very instructive. |
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| Long Beach City College, CA |
Craig Hendricks |
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