Remembering Robert F. Kennedy

Robert F. Kennedy, Ambassador Hotel, June 5, 1968.

I pulled together a series of posts in 2008 for the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel. Here’s an index to the Daily Mirror’s coverage: June 1, 1968: Robert Kennedy and the 1968 presidential campaign. June 2, 1968: Kennedy debates Eugene McCarthy. June 3, 1968: Kennedy leads McCarthy in state poll; Arab nations are in a sober mood before the first anniversary of the Six-Day War. June 4, 1968: Kennedy to watch election returns at Ambassador Hotel. June 5, 1968: Kennedy shot. June 6, 1968: Kennedy dies. The late Times reporter Eric Malnic recalls the Kennedy assassination. Former City News Service reporter Sandi Gibbons recalls the Kennedy assassination. Remembering Robert F. Kennedy Sirhan B. Sirhan on the Daily Mirror

From the Stacks – 'Dancing Bear' (1968)

Out of curiosity, I picked up Gladwin Hill’s “Dancing Bear” at the Southern California Library’s book sale.  I never met Hill (d. 1992), the New York Times bureau chief in Los Angeles, but I had heard about him at luncheon gatherings of Times retirees who call themselves the Old Farts.    I tend to avoid reading about politics in my spare time. I get a healthy dose of it at work, and the minute dissection of old political intrigues – stiffly written prose about half-remembered names and long-forgotten battles  – isn’t terribly interesting to anyone but the most confirmed political junkie. With expectations that “Dancing Bear” would be nothing but a stale time capsule, I was quite pleasantly surprised by Hill’s engaging account of California politics, and his insights not only on the state’s curious history, but especially his perspective on the early career of Ronald Reagan.

Kennedy Mystery Photo

Robert F. Kennedy at the Ambassador, June 5, 1968, photo courtesy of Howard Decker Robert F. Kennedy in an undated photo by Paul Jacobs L.A. Observed recently posted a photo – from Chip Jacobs’ blog -- of Robert F. Kennedy outside the Biltmore Hotel during his 1968 presidential campaign. Jacobs’ older brother Paul snapped the photo and the question arose of when it was taken. Jacobs believed it was from June 5, 1968, the day Kennedy was shot at the Ambassador. According to L.A. Observed, Kennedy aides, including  Paul Schrade, who was wounded in the shooting, said Kennedy didn’t go to the Biltmore that day. A comparison of a photo taken by Daily Mirror reader Howard Decker (alias Fibber McGee) the night Kennedy was shot and Jacobs’ photo shows a number of differences, including the length of Kennedy’s hair. Kennedy’s tie is similar in both photos, but the stripes are angled in different directions.  One possible date is April 19, 1968, when Kennedy made a Town Hall appearance at the Biltmore Bowl. The story, by Carl Greenberg, notes that Kennedy arrived at Burbank Airport and had a private security escort rather than the LAPD. It’s unclear whether the LAPD’s absence was due to ill feelings between Mayor Sam Yorty and Kennedy,  but Kennedy said: "It was nice of Mayor Yorty to provide me with a police escort -- it was just when I started to go through Pomona." ALSO Robert F. Kennedy on the Daily Mirror

Huntington Beach Jane Doe, 1968

My Google alert for “Black Dahlia” sent me to Tori Richards’ piece on an unsolved 1968 homicide being reopened by the Huntington Beach Police Department. Taking the case to the Internet has already dispelled decades of speculation that a purse and some photographs found the same day as the killing might have belonged to the victim. Police say that they have been contacted by the people in the pictures, which are completely unrelated to the killing. The unidentified victim was found by three boys March 14, 1968, in a drainage ditch separating two plowed fields about 150 yards south of Yorktown Avenue and Newland Street, The Times said. Police describe the victim as a white or Latino woman 20 to 25 years old, 5-foot-3 to 5-foot-4 and 140 pounds, with dark, shoulder-length hair and brown eyes. She was missing several back upper and lower teeth and her front teeth were somewhat crooked, police say.  She was wearing a multi-colored flower print blouse, purple Capri-style pants, a black imitation leather three-quarter-length coat and flat, loafer-type shoes. She was wearing a ring with a square, light-blue stone in a silver metal setting.  "Her clothing had been torn open, she had been raped and her throat had been cut," The Times said in 1968. In 2001, the Orange County crime lab obtained a DNA profile from evidence recovered in 1968, but no match has been found in the FBI Combined DNA Index System, police say.  In 1969, The Times reported that a woman named Jacqueline Smay had identified the victim as an acquaintance named Rhonda Fisher. At the time, detectives said the identification hadn't been confirmed. "We think we have found the person Miss Smay thought she knew," Det. Sgt. Monty McKennon said. In 1972, The Times reported that a former friend had tentatively identified the victim as Teresa Marie Tippet, 29, formerly of Long Beach, who was also known as Mattie Meeker. "The description she gave us was fairly close to our Jane Doe, and so was her description of a ring the victim was wearing," Det. John Cale said. Still, detectives said the identification wasn't conclusive and continued to consider the victim a Jane Doe, The Times said. Curiously enough, The Times referred to Jane Doe as 68-0745 and the Huntington Beach Police Department refers to Jane Doe 68-006079. Anything with further information should call Det. Mike Reilly (714) 536-5940. The Huntington Beach police news release is here. Postscript: I’m unable to find any details on a solution to the other puzzling 1968 homicide in Huntington Beach, that of Marine Staff Sgt. Cecil T. Caldwell, who was shot in the back with a .30-30 while working in a gas station at Bolsa Avenue and Springdale Street.