Subject: News items
From: M. Duke Lane, 76004,2356
Date: 09-Jun-93 at 00:02

To:  Anthony Marsh,72127,2301

It's been a while since I've sent anything across from the wire services,
eh? Oh well. Here's something to keep you entertained (JFK Files, JBC
hospitalization, RFK rememberances, Bush assassination plot).... Enjoy!
 
--Duke

WP   05/31       JFK Assassination Records Caught Up in ...
 
JFK Assassination Records Caught Up in Transition; Clinton Has Yet to Name
Review Board; Aides Say Bush Camp Took Key Paperwork
 By George Lardner Jr.
 Washington Post Staff Writer
 
   President Clinton is more than four months late in complying with the law
calling for disclosure of most secret records about the assassination of
President John F. Kennedy, but aides say he will get around to it"shortly."
   The law requires Clinton to make nominations to a special five-member review
board that will be in charge of the process, especially the ticklish questions
of what constitutes an "assassination record" under the statute Congress
enacted last year and whether it can still be kept secret.
   Recommendations for the board, which must be confirmed by the Senate, first
went to the White House when George Bush was president. Since then, even
Hollywood producer-director Oliver Stone has weighed in with suggestions.
   According to the law, "the President shall make nominationsto the Review
Board not later than 90 calendar days after the date of enactment of this act."
Bush signed the measure last Oct. 26, making the deadline Jan. 24, just a few
days after Clinton's inauguration.
   It seemed unlikely Bush would make the appointments before leaving office
since he expressed so much distaste for the law when he signed it. He
complained that the measure left him too little room to prevent disclosure.
   But as Clinton moved in, aides say, the paperwork moved out. Recommendations
required by the law from the American Historical Association (AHA), the
Organiation of American Historians (OAH), the Society of American Archivists
and the American Bar Association (ABA) were boxed up for the long trip to
College Station, Tex., along with millions of other documents destined for the
future George Bush presidential library.
   "The paperwork got shipped off campus, and we had to get it resubmitted,"
said deputy White House press secretary Lorraine Voles. She confirmed that
recommendations recently went from the White House office in charge of such
appointments to the desk of presidential personnel director Bruce Lindsey, a
sign of some progres.
   "We expec to name them shortly," Voles said, noting that the White House
still has quite a few positions to fill "at every level of government."
   Under the JFK records act, however, the review board was given three years
at most from "the date of enactment" to do its work. Seven months have passed,
and the nominations must still be confirmed by the Senate.
   The law requires Clinton to "consider" recommendations from the ABA, the
archivists and the two historical organizations. According to copies of their
lists, made available to The Washington Post, the suggestions are:
  ABA - attorneys Samuel Dash of the District, Richard E. Friedman of Chicago,
Michael S. Greco of Boston, Paul F. Rothstein of the District, Neal R. Sonnett
of Miami and John R. Tunheim of St. Paul, Minn.
   Archivists - Elsie Freeman Finch, retired education branch chief at the
National Archives; Larry J. Hackman, assistant commissioner of education for
New York state and former director of special programs at the John F. Kennedy
Library; and William L. Joyce, past president of the society.
   AHA - historians Anna K. Nelson, American University; Blanche W. Cook, City
University of New York; and Athan Theoharis, Marquette University.
   OAH - historians Stephen E. Ambrose, University of New Orleans; Mary Frances
Berry, University of Pennsylvania; Kermit L. Hall, University of Tulsa; and
Richard S. Kirkendall, University of Washington.
   The legislation grew out of the controversy over Stone's movie "JFK" and its
allegations of high-level government involvement in the assassination. James H.
Lesar, president of the nonprofit Assassinations Archives and Research Center
here, said Stone sent his recommendations to the White House in April, based
largely on Lesar's suggestions.
   "My foremost concern is not with the time it's taken to get the board
appointed, but whether or not the nominees will know anything about the Kennedy
assassination," Lesar said.
   He said the Stone list includes Quinlan Shea, former head of the Justice
Department's freedom of information appeals office; Josiah Thompson, author of
"Six Seconds in Dallas"; attorney Howard Roffman, author of "Presumed Guilty",
another book on the assassination; historian David R. Wrone of the University
of Wisconsin-Stevens Point; clinical psychologist Richard Levine of Madison,
Wis.; Katherine A. Meyer, a former Public Citizen Litigation Group lawyer;
researcher Paul Hoch, author of a periodic newsletter on the JFK assassination;
Gordon Winslow, official historian for the Dade County (Fla.) courts; and
attorney Dash.
   Controversy over what constitutes an "assassination record" already is
bubbling in the courts in several lawsuits Lesar is pressing. For instance, in
one 12-year-old case for the FBI records requested by the House Assassinations
Committee in its investigation of the late 1970s, Justice Department lawyers
argued at a March 4 hearing here that records on Mafia figures that the
committee used were "not at all related to the Kennedy assassination" because
the committee determined that the crime figures in question had "absolutely no
link to the assassination at all."
   Lesar protested that this approach would rule out countless documents since
the FBI has taken the position that "nobody was involved in the assassination
but Lee Harvey Oswald." He maintained that if a record "is relevant to the
investigations of the assassination, it's a Kennedy assassination record."
 
Executive News Svc.(
 
APn  06/04 1758  Connally
 
Copyright, 1993. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
 
   HOUSTON (AP) -- Former Texas Gov. John Connally remained in critical
condition Friday, suffering from a case of pneumonia that has complicated an
existing lung problem, officials said.
   Connally, 76, was transferred to the intensive care unit at Houston's
Methodist Hospital earlier this week. He has been hospitalized since May 17.
   Hospital spokeswoman Blythe Schaffer said Friday that Connally was
transferred so doctors could keep him under closer observation.
   Ms. Schaffer said the pneumonia has complicated an existing lung problem
Connally suffers from called idiopathicpulmonary fibrosis, which is scarring
of the lung tissue.
   Connally was wounded by the gunfire that killed President Kennedy as the two
rode in the same car in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Connally, then a Democrat,
served as Texas governor from 1963 to 1969.
   After the death in 1973 of former President Lyndon Johnson, his longtime
political ally, Connally switched to the Republican Party. He served briefly as
President Nixon's treasury secretary and unsuccessfully sought the GOP
presidential nomination in 1980.

 
Executive News Svc.(
 
UPn  06/05 0958  Connally remains hospitalized, condition still crit...
 
Connally remains hospitalized, condition still critical
   HOUSTON (UPI) -- Hospital officials in Houston said Saturday that former
Texas Gov. John Connally remained in critical condition. He was admitted May 17
for treatment of pneumonia complicated by a lung condition.
   Doctors said Connally, 76, is suffering from pulmonary fibrosis -- a
scarring of the lung tissue -- that is complicating the pneumonia treatment.
   Dr. William Eschenbacher, medical director of Respiratory Care Services,
described Connally as "critically ill" and receiving treatment for the
pneumonia, "which is complicating his underlying lung problem."
   Hospital officials said there is no way to predict when Connally will be
able to return home.
   Connally, who was governor of Texas from 1963 to 1969, was wounded when
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. Connally later
changed from a Democrat to a Republican and was Richard Nixon's treasury
secretary.
   In 1987, he filed for bankruptcy and auctioned off his personal assets to
repay creditors of his crumbling Houston-area real estate empire. He emerged
from the bankruptcy in 1988.
   Connally briefly returned to public service in November 1989 when Gov. Bill
Clements appointed him to the board of the Texas High-Speed Rail Authority,
where he served until June 1, 1991.

 
Executive News Svc.
 
APn  06/05 1459  RFK'segacy
 
Copyright, 1993. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
 
By JILL LAWRENCE
 Associated Press Writer
   WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation has traveled far in the quarter-century since
Robert F. Kennedy was murdered. Yet his contributions have endured through the
turbulent 1970s, the complacent 1980s and into the current era of Democrats who
label themselves new and different.
   "The fact that 25 years after Robert Kennedy's death at the age of 42, he is
still such a vital figure in the imagination of many people, including young
people who were born after his death, shows he struck a deep chord," said
Arthur Schlesinger, a historian and author of "Robert Kennedy and His Times."
   At the heart of Kennedy's legacy -- a mix of compassion and pragmatism --
lie several principles: Society has an obligation to help and protect the
vulnerable; individuals have an obligation to try to make a difference; and
those tiny individual ripples can form a current "that can sweep down the
mightiest walls of oppression and resistance," as he put it in 1966 in Cape
Town, South Africa.
   Kennedy's causes echo in President Carter's foreign policy, which elevated
human righs to a top priority; in President Clinton's talk of personal
responsibility, racial reconciliation and the dignity of work; and in a
memorial organization dedicated to exposing injustice and aiding the needy.
   "He appealed to the best in all of us. He gave people a vision of what
America could be," said Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, a Kennedy daughter who runs the
memorial's Center for Human Rights.
   As a senator from New York and later as a presidential candidate, Kennedy
visited Indian reservations and Appalachian hollows, migrant workers in their
fields, poverty-ridden families in Brookyn, N.Y. and the Mississippi Delta.
   He judged what he had seen to be unacceptable and he worked for the rest of
his life to change it.
   "He came to view public service as his special calling to help the
disadvantaged, the poor and the victims of discrimination," Sen. Edward
Kennedy, D-Mass., said last month at a symposium on his late brother. "His
public legacy is written large in the achievements of those he inspired and who
have carried on his work."
   The spirit in which Bobby Kennedy is remembered dates largely from the last
few years of his life.
   His earlier stints asa Senate committee counsel and as his brother John's
presidential campaign manager and attorney general were highly controversial.
Many viewed him as ruthless, a perception Sen. Kennedy attributes to the
"strong will and intensity" he had inherited from their father.
   Others say Kennedy was exceptionally disciplined, determined and politically
skillful. "He combined a passion for social justice with a very hard-headed
pragmatism," said Phil Johnston, who worked on Kennedy's 1968 presidential
campaign and said it inspired him to a life of public service.
   Johnston was a state legisator and state official in Massachusetts before
becoming executive director of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial.
   The Washington-based memorial bestows awards on books and articles that are
true to Kennedy's spirit; encourages progress toward human rights around the
globe; and is undertaking a major effort to help states reform their juvenile
justice systems and reduce street violence.
   The 20-person outfit, which has a $2.2 million budget this year, also runs a
program in which college and graduate students scout tough neighborhoods for
adolescents with medical problems and steer them to appropriate services. The
program is slated for a major expansion in connection with Clinton's proposal
to let students work off loans with national service.
   There is some bitterness among Kennedy's friends and relatives about the
long stretches of Republican rule, years they see as lost because of an
assassin's bullet.
   "He might well have been elected president of the United States in 1968, and
our subsequent history would have been different and better," Sen. Kennedy said
of his brother. "A war that America never should have fought would have ended
sooner. Watergate would not have happened. We would have been spared much of
the divisiveness and polarization and confrontation ... that have plagued the
nation ever since."
   Peter Edelman, a former Senate aide to Kennedy, recently joined the Clinton
administration as counsel at the Department of Health and Human Services. He
said he's ready to resume the fight for Kennedy's principles and commitments.
   "We have to start again," Edelman said. "That's the best we can do. Now is
now."

Executive News Svc.
 
UPn  06/05 1342  25th anniversary of RFK's death
 
   WASHINGTON (UPI) -- President Clinton arranged to join America's best- known
political family Sunday to help commemorate the 25th anniversary of the
assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.
   Clinton, who embraced Robert and John Kennedy as boyhood heroes, planned to
speak at a sunset ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery where the two slain
brothers are buried.
   In his weekly radio address Saturday, the president saluted the  "short but
exceptional life" of Robert Kennedy "as one of the most candid and unifying
public servants our country has ever known."
   Robert Kennedy was shot shortly past midnight on June 5, 1968, just minutes
after delivering a victory speech in the California Democratic presidential
primary. He died the next day.
   His death came 5 1/2 years after his brother, President John Kennedy, was
killed in Dallas.
   Clinton visited their gravesites the day before he was sworn in as
president.
   He was to return Sunday with family and friends of Robert Kennedy, then
travel to Hickory Hills, a Kennedy compound in Virginia, for dinner.
   Robert Kennedy was campaign manager for John Kennedy and later his attorney
general. He stepped down shortly after his brother's death and was elected to
the Senate from New York.
   In the Senate, Robert Kennedy was a chief spokesman for liberal Democrats
and an arch critic of President Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam War policy. He also
earned a reputation as a civil rights crusader.
   Clinton came under fire from civil rights leaders last week for withdrawing
his nomination of Lani Guinier, a black law school professor, as head of the
Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.
   The president said he could not defend some of her academic writings on
civil rights, viewed as extreme by critics. He planned to ame a new nominee
this week.
   In his radio remarks, Clinton paid tribute to Robert Kennedy and said, "I
will keep fighting for a society filled with opportunity for every American,
free of discrimination, full of the hopes and dreams that Bobby Kennedy fought
for.
   "Realizing these dreams would be the greatest tribute we could offer him and
the greatest gift we could give our children," he said.

 

Executive News Svc.
 
APn  06/05 0000  RFK's Legacy
 
Copyright, 1993. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
 
By JILL LAWRENCE
 Associated Press Writer
   WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation has traveled far in the quarter-century since
Robert F. Kennedy was murdered. Yet his contributions have endured through the
turbulent 1970s, the complacent 1980s and into the current era of Democrats who
label themselves new and different.
   "The fact that 25 years after Robert Kennedy's death at the age of 42, he is
still such a vital figure in the imagination of many people, including young
people who were born after his death, shows he struck a deep chord," said
Arthur Schlesinger, a historian and author of "Robert Kennedy and His Times."
   At te heart of Kennedy's legacy -- a mix of compassion and pragmatism --
lie several principles: Society has an obligation to help and protect the
vulnerable; individuals have an obligation to try to make a difference; and
those tiny individual ripples can form a current "that can sweep down the
mightiest walls of oppression and resistance," as he put it in 1966 in Cape
Town, South Africa.
   Kennedy's causes echo in President Carter's foreign policy, which elevated
human rights to a top priority; in President Clinton's talk of personal
responsibility, racial reconciliation and the dignity of work; and in a
memorial organization dedicated to exposing injustice and aiding the needy.
   "He appealed to the best in all of us. He gave people a vision of what
America could be," said Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, a Kennedy daughter who runs the
memorial's Center for Human Rights.
   As a senator from New York and later as a presidential candidate, Kennedy
visited Indian reservations and Appalachian hollows, migrant workers in their
fields, poverty-ridden families in Brooklyn, N.Y. and the Mississippi Delta.
   He judged what he had seen to be unacceptable and he worked for the rest of
his life to change it.
   "He came to view public service as his special calling to help the
disadvantaged, the poor and the victims of discrimination," Sen. Edward
Kennedy, D-Mass., said last month at a symposium on his late brother. "His
public legacy is written large in the achievements of those he inspired and who
have carried on his work."
   The spirit in which Bobby Kennedy is remembered dates largely from the last
few years of his life.
   His earlier stints as a Senate committee counsel and as his brother John's
presidential campaign manager and attorney general were highly controversial.
Many viewed him as ruthless, a perception Sen. Kennedy attributes to the
"strong will and intensity" he had inherited from their father.
   Others say Kennedy was exceptionally disciplined, determined and politically
skillful. "He combined a passion for social justice with a very hard-headed
pragmatism," said Phil Johnston, who worked on Kennedy's 1968 presidential
campaign and said it inspired him to a life of public service.
   Johnston was a state legislator and state official in Massachusetts before
becoming executive director of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial.
   The Washington-based memorial bestows awards on books and articles that are
true to Kennedy's spirit; encourages progress toward human rights around the
globe; and is undertaking a major effort to help states reform their juvenile
justice systems and reduce street violence.
   The 20-person outfit, which has a $2.2 million budget this year, also runs a
program in which college and graduate students scout tough neighborhoods for
adolescents with medical problems and steer them to appropriate services. The
program is slated for a major expansion in connection with Clinton's proposal
to let students work off loans with national service.
   There is some bitterness among Kennedy's friends and relatives about the
long stretches of Republican rule, years they see as lost because of an
assassin's bullet.
   "He might well have been elected president of the United States in 1968, and
our subsequent history would have been different and better," Sen. Kennedy said
of his brother. "A war that America never should have fought would have ended
sooner. Watergate would not have happened. We would have been spared much of
the divisiveness and polarization and confrontation ...that have plagued the
nation ever since."
   Peter Edelman, a former Senate aide to Kennedy, recently joined the Clinton
administration as counsel at the Department of Health and Human Services. He
said he's ready to resume the fight for Kennedy's principles and commitments.
   "We have to start again," Edelman said. "That's the best we can do. Now is
now."
   End Adv Weekend Editions June 5-6

Executive News Svc.
 
APn  06/05 0000  Remembering Bobby
 
Copyright, 1993. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
 
By HARRY F. ROSENTHAL
 Associated Press Writer
   WASHINGTON (AP) -- Even after a quarter century, the entry in Sirhan
Sirhan's notebook has lost none of its chill.
   "My determination to eliminate RFK is becoming more the more (sic) of an
unshakable obsession," he wrote in a manic torrent. "RFK must die. RFK must be
killed. Robert F. Kennedy must be assassinated ... Robert F. Kennedy must be
assassinated before 5 June 1968."
   At 12:15 a.m. on that date, Sirhan, a Jordanian Arab, carried out his
threat. It was exactly one year after the start of the Six-Day War in which
Israel defeated its Arab enemies.
   ------
   The years pass and the killing of Bobby Kennedy fades in the national
memory. A third of the nation, born since then, did not feel the shock as
another Kennedy was cut down senselessly. But those who were alive remember.
   Life goes on. Ted Kennedy, the baby brother of the Kennedy family, is still
the senior senator from Massachusetts. Bobby's oldest son, Joe, is following
the Kennedy political tradition, serving his fourth term in the House of
Representatives. Ethel Kennedy, never remarried, remains a vital part of the
Washington political scene. One of their 11 children, a son, died in the dru
plague of the '80s.
   Robert Kennedy would be 67 and a grandfather.
   Sirhan Sirhan is an inmate in the high-tech, high-security Corcoran State
Prison in California, housed with the likes of Charles Manson. His dream of
being traded as a political prisoner and returning as a hero to the Middle East
has faded. If released after his ninth parole hearing next year, he will be 50
years old, having spent half his life locked up.
   Israel and the Arabs are in the midst of lumbering negotiations over the
Arabs' demand to recover lost territory and Israel's bid for a secure peace.
The atred and violence that shaped Sirhan's childhood is unchanged.
   Where would the river of history have flowed without Sirhan's insane act in
the pantry of a Los Angeles hotel?
   ------
   Robert Kennedy was born into wealth as one of Joseph and Rose Kennedy's 10
children. He was the third of four sons and the third to die violently.
   Joe Jr., was killed in the last year of World War II when the
explosives-laden bomber he was flying blew up over England. John, the second
son, was a congressman, a senator and finally America's only Catholic
president. He was assassinated in his hird year in office.
   Robert shared the family taste for public service along with a reputation
for ruthlessness. He was John Kennedy's most trusted adviser. His campaign
manager. His attorney general. And best friend.
   "Just as I went into politics when Joe died, if anything happened to me
tomorrow my brother Bobby would run for my seat," John Kennedy once said. "And
if anything happened to him, my brother Teddy would run for us."
   In the election of 1968, the country was torn by the Vietnam War and Robert
Kennedy stood with those opposed to the war -- and to the president, Lndon
Johnson, who craved victory there.
   He stood for civil rights. He stood for making cities livable. He stood for
the poor. He stood for equality of blacks.
   But first and foremost Kennedy stood for putting an end to the bloodshed --
in Vietnam and in America's cities.
   His advisers were unanimously against his running against an incumbent
president, a Democrat at that.
   The third Kennedy son announced his candidacy in the same Senate Caucus Room
where John Kennedy had launched his drive eight years earlier.
   "I run," he said, "because I am convinced that this country is on a perilous
course."
   He won some primaries, Indiana, Nebraska and the District of Columbia, but
he lost in Oregon and said it was a setback he could ill afford. He said he
would stand or fall on the results in California.
   ------
   "Kennedy was doing a lot of things behind my back," Sirhan shouted in the
courtroom at his murder trial.
   The young Sirhan had been uprooted from his home in Jordan by the
Arab-Israeli war in 1948. His dislike for Jews was no secret from those who
knew him. The Six-Day War "was all we talked about," an acquaintance said.
   He described an Arb soldier allowing him to look through binoculars at the
Jewish part of Jerusalem. "That's our land out there, our land," Sirhan
remembered being told. "I didn't understand what he meant, but now I
understand."
   He was calm throughout his testimony except when he was asked about Israel.
At those times he could barely contain his agitation.
   When he talked about his life in America, Sirhan recalled watching a
television documentary that showed Robert Kennedy, years before, as a young
reporter for the Boston Globe in Israel, helping to celebrate that country's
independence in 1948.
   Sirhan said he jotted his May 18 "RFK must die" note after hearing Kennedy
on the radio advocating sending 50 fighter planes to Israel.
   "Did you shoot Robert F. Kennedy?" asked Sirhan's attorney, Grant Cooper.
   "Yes, sir."
   "Did you bear any ill will toward Sen. Kennedy?"
   "No."
   ------
   Two thousand people were jammed into the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel,
joining Kennedy in celebrating his primary victory. "I think we can end the
divisions in the United States," he told them. "I intend to make that my basis
for running."
   Applause flooded the room.
   "S, my thanks to all of you and it's on to Chicago and let's win there."
   They were the last words Kennedy said in public. He started to leave then
suddenly turned and headed toward the kitchen.
   In a pantry he moved along, leading an adoring entourage, smiling, accepting
congratulations, shaking hands.
   One outstretched hand, Sirhan's, held a gun. He fired eight times.
   Robert Kennedy died a day later.
   ------
   Four million people a year visit the grave of John F. Kennedy in Arlington
National Cemetery. The site has an exceptional view. In a straight line, the
eye fallson the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument and in the distance,
the United States Capitol. The majestic words of the president, so well known,
are carved in granite.
   To the right and a few steps behind is a small reflecting pool and a white
cross. Robert Kennedy, as always, is at his brother's side.
   End Adv Weekend Editions Jue 5-6

Executive News Svc.
 
APn  06/04 2351  RFK's Daughter
 
Copyright, 1993. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
 
By LAURA REHRMANN
 Associated Press Writer
   BALTIMORE (AP) -- Robert F. Kennedy would often detour thrugh the streets
of Harlem when driving from New York's LaGuardia Airport to give his children a
glimpse of the lives of less privileged families.
   He took them to an Indian reservation and a playground in a poor Washington
neighborhood. He gathered them around and told them about the shacks and hungry
children with swollen bellies he saw in Mississippi.
   "He would ask us, `Do you know how lucky you are? Do something for your
country,' " recalled his daughter Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.
   It is her father's message of serving others that she wants remembered on
the 25th anniversay of his assassination today.
   It is a torch she carries and is trying to pass on to her four daughters.
   Ms. Townsend, 41, the eldest of 11 children, was 16 when her father was
assassinated June 5, 1968, in Los Angeles while celebrating his victory in the
California presidential primary.
   She won't speak of that day. Nor will she talk about his killer, Sirhan
Sirhan, who comes up for his ninth parole hearing next year.
   She would rather talk about the straightforward, compassionate father she
remembers.
   "He was able to appeal to so many Americans and bring them together, she
said. "He was honest about what was going on in our country."
   Much of what Kennedy spoke about as a senator and U.S. attorney general is
still being fought for today: adequate health care, accountability in education
and changes in a welfare system that takes away incentive and dignity.
   Ms. Townsend does not find that at all disheartening.
   "We still talk about equality, even though Thomas Jefferson talked about it
200 years ago," she said.
   To those shattered and disillusioned by her father's death, the final straw
for some after the killings of the Rev. Martin LutherKing Jr. and John F.
Kennedy, she says: "My father could have also been filled with despair after
his brother's death. He said, `There are still problems. There are still things
to do.' "
   Ms. Townsend has tried to follow his example, directing a community service
program out of a Baltimore office for students in Maryland.
   She also is active in human rights causes and established a human rights
award named for her father.
   Ms. Townsend, who lives in suburban Towson, even ran for Congress, losing to
a Republican incumbent in 1986. She does not rule out running again.
   She also encourages her children to fulfill the Kennedy call to service.
   The oldest, 15-year-old Meaghan, is her school's community service
coordinator. Thirteen-year-old Maeve has done some tutoring. And 9-year-old
Kate went door-to-door with Bill Clinton campaign posters she had colored.
   Would her father be proud?
   "I hope he would think it's great."

Executive News Svc.
 
APn  06/03 2344  RFK Remembrance
 
Copyright, 1993. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
 
By BOB THOMAS
 Associated Press Writer
   EDITOR'S NOTE -- AP Hollywood reporter Bob Thomas was assigned to cover
Robert F. Kennedy on the night of the 1968 California Presidential Primary. It
turned out to be a story he will never forget.
   ------
   LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The noise sounded like balloons popping on New Year's
Eve. Then came the screams. I ran into the kitchen and saw a hellish scene.
   "My God, he's been shot!" someone shrieked. "The senator's been shot."
   I had been assigned to cover Robert F. Kennedy on June 4, 1968, the night of
the California presidential primary.
   When I arrived at the Ambassador Hotel, Democrats in the Embassy Room were
already celebrating, even though the polls had not yet closed. A jazz band
blared George M. Cohan songs, straw-hatted party loyalists stood two-deep at
the bar. I spoke to a few of the movie celebrities, then reported to the press
room near the entrance to the ballroom.
   Throughout the long evening, I shuttled back and forth between the rooms,
always by the quickest route, the kitchen. The candidate remained in his suite
upstairs.
   Near midnight, a press aide told us that Kennedy would be coming down to
make his victory speech, then proceed directly to the press room to answer
questions.
   I decided to remain in the press room, since the AP office could cover the
speech from television. I watched the monitor as Kennedy made his cry for
healing the wounds of Vietnam, then disappeared with his group through the
bandstand curtains amid still-ringing cheers.
   Then it happened.
   The noise was deafening when I reached the kitchen. Men were shouting, women
wailing. I saw athletes Rafer Johnson and Rosey Grier pinning someone against a
table. Others stood in a circle, staring downward in absolute shock.
   I couldn't see what they were looking at, so I leaped on a table (later I
discovered it was a stack of kitchen trays). I gazed down and saw Bobby Kennedy
lying on the cement floor, blood streaming from his head, eyes staring
sightlessly into the void.
   Two courses lay open: I could stay and record history or break away and
report the news. For a wire service reporter, the latter course was obvious. I
jumped down and ran to the press room. The telephones were dead. I found a
phone booth in the lobby and dialed the AP office.
   "Kennedy has been shot!"
   "Are you sure?" the editor asked.
   "I'm serious! Kennedy has been shot!"
   "Did you see it happen?"
   "No, but I saw him lying on the floor."
   After a few more questions, he was convinced, and I dictated a bulletin. The
story was clattering on the teletypes while television reporters who had live
cameras at the hotel were still scrambling to figure out what had happened.
   As I was speaking, I heard a commotion in the lobby. Still holding the phone
I leaned around a pillar and saw a phalanx of police rushing a swarthy young
man down the marble steps directly in front of me. Now I had a description of
the presumed assassin, who turned out to be Sirhan Sirhan.
   I hitched a ride to the office and wrote the story. It was dawn before I
returned to the Ambassador to claim my car. First, I went to the Embassy Room
to gaze once more at the kitchen.
   "No admittance, crime scene," said the cop guarding the entrance. Suddenly
dazed with shock and fatigue, I stared at the spot. Then I turned and headed
home.

Executive News Svc.
 
RTw  06/05 1003  TWO ADMIT BUSH ASSASSINATION PLOT, 12 DENY IT
 
 (Eds: Continues defendant's testimony)
     By William Maclean
     KUWAIT, June 5, Reuter - Two Iraqis told a Kuwaiti court on Saturday they
were part of a plot to assassinate George Bush, but one later appeared to
backtrack, saying the conspiracy was aimed at blowing up buildings, not the
former U.S. leader.
     Raad al-Assadi said the first time he had heard Bush's name linked to the
conspiracy was in questioning after his arrest.
     Twelve other defendants, responding to charges put to them by Judge Salah
al-Fahad on the first day of the trial, denied involvement in any attempt to
kill Kuwait's Gulf War ally.
     Thegroup is accused of planning to kill Bush on his April 14-16 visit in
a bombing campaign aimed at destabilising the emirate, which was occupied by
Iraq for seven months in 1990-91.
     The charges state the group planned to kill Bush either with a car bomb or
with an explosives-laden suicide bomber.
     A car loaded with 80 kg (180 pounds) of explosives was found when members
were arrested around the time of Bush's visit.
     The accused are 11 Iraqis and three Kuwaitis. Iraq has denied any role in
the alleged plot. It has said Bush was not worth the explosives.
     The United States has said it will act against Iraq in some way if an
Iraqi assassination plot against Bush is proven.
     The two Iraqis who admitted the plot, Assadi, 33, and Wali Abdelhadi
al-Ghazali, 36, answered "Yes" when asked by al-Fahad if the charges they faced
were true.
     Lawyers later questioned whether Assadi had understood the charges --
which alleged his membership of Iraqi intelligence organs -- in view of later
testimony in which he indicated he had been forced to take part.
     Assadi said under questioning by the judge that he had been given
explosives by an Iraqi intelligence officer he named as Mohammad Jawad who was
based in the southern town of Safwan.
     At Jawad's request he had transported Ghazali, the explosives and 13 cases
of smuggled whisky to Kuwait. Jawad had told him that the bomb targets were
"shops and car show rooms."
     Asked if he approved of the plot, Assadi replied: "In Iraq, it's
different. There they say 'Let it be' and it will be.
     "Iraq's system is different. I was forced to agree with him.
     What forced you to agree? he was asked. "Fear." Fear of what? "The
authorities and the Iraqi government."
     Assadi said he was a cafe proprietor in the southern town of Basra, adding
he had been an informer for Iraqi intelligence for about 18 months but had
never provided any information and had no formal link to Iraqi intelligence.
     Asked when he first heard of a link to Bush, he replied:
     "When they (Kuwait state security) arrested him (Ghazali), he confessed
that he wanted to blow up Bush. We in the state security interrogations heard
this."
     He added Jawad had given him 5,000 dinars and five boxes of whisky as an
incentive to do the job and promised him 5,000 dinars after it was completed.
     Ten of the 14 are accused of plotting to kill Bush and two are accused of
being accomplices - both crimes punishable by death. Two others are accused of
providing shelter to plotters without knowing their intentions.
     Two people arrested along with the 14 have been charged with smuggling
alcohol and will be tried separately. A 17th person, an Iraqi, accused of
plotting to kill Bush is still at large.
     The trial ran into controversy within minutes when one of seven defence
lawyers said that none of them had been permitted to meet the 14 defendants
before the proceedings opened.
     "None of the lawyers met his defendant before today," defence advocate
Naquib al-Wugayan said during a recess.
     "For them (the defendants) to be confronted with the accusations is
illegal without the approval of the lawyers, so the admittance of the charges
is illegal and it should considered as if it never took place," he told
reporters.
     He lodged a similar protest with the judge in open court in the
proceedings' first minutes as the sombre-looking defendants looked on from a
caged area in the small state security court.
     Bush's visit was aimed at honouring his leadership during the 1991 Gulf
War in which a U.S.-led alliance of Western and Arab armies drove Iraqi troops
from the emirate.
  REUTER WM JA