Speaking to a crowd in Dallas last night, the son of Robert Kennedy said what JFK assassination researchers have known for decades. "The evidence at this point I think is very, very convincing that it was not a lone gunman," he said, after revealing that his father—shot dead five years later on the eve of his own presidential campaign—believed that the Warren Commission report was a "shoddy piece of craftmanship." Kennedy also remarked that his father "supported the Warren Commission report but privately he was dismissive of it," adding that RFK quietly undertook his own investigation into the killing. Supporters of the report habitually and some might say disingenuously ask why Bobby didn't publicly question the Commission's "findings," so perhaps they'll finally shut the fuck up about that.

RFK Jr. and his sister Rory were interviewed in front of an audience at the Winspear Opera House in Dallas by Charlie Rose. According to the AP report, Rose then asked (some might say disingenuously) if their father felt "some sense of guilt because he thought there might have been a link between his very aggressive efforts against organized crime." It would be interesting to see the full transcript of Kennedy Jr's reply, beyond the links he reportedly mentions to mafia leaders found in both Oswald and Ruby's phone records. Students of the assassination know that mob figures were recruited into the CIA's anti-Castro efforts. But they also know that it was well beyond the capacity of organized crime to manipulate an Intelligence operative (Oswald), compromise Kennedy's security detail, control the autopsy, rig the FBI investigation, launch a massive and decades long cover-up, seal millions of documents for reasons of "national security," and then completely reverse Kennedy's Vietnam policy. I bet Charlie Rose knows all that, too.

Georgia Straight, January 2013