Bobby Kennedy: Again Another Gun

As many as 100 people were crowded into the pantry of Los Angeles' Ambassador Hotel on June 5, 1968, when Sirhan Bishara Sirhan fired a 22-cal. revolver at Robert F. Kennedy. No one, as far as is known to this day, observed a second assassin. An autopsy and a far-reaching investigation by the FBI and local police persuaded authorities that Sirhan was the lone killer.

Yet challenges to that official conclusion have been building for years. In 1970 two film makers produced a feature documentary, The Second Gun, that questioned whether Sirhan fired the fatal bullet. Last May seeming conflicts in the evidence were examined at a hearing in Los Angeles conducted by County Supervisor Baxter Ward. In the past fortnight, skepticism reached a new height. Harper's, New Times, the Washington Post and the New York Times all published lengthy--and contradictory --reconsiderations of the case. Last week former New York Congressman Allard K. Lowenstein concluded his review of the assassination by calling for a new look at the murder weapon.

When stripped of suppositions and far-out conspiracy theories, the controversy turns on several apparent inconsistencies in eyewitness testimony and ballistics evidence:

-- The three bullets that hit Kennedy, including the one that entered his head, were fired from behind; witnesses have testified, however, that Sirhan was standing in front of Kennedy.

> The angle at which the bullets entered Kennedy's body suggests that the assassin fired from the floor, though witnesses say that Sirhan was standing.

-- Los Angeles County Medical Examiner Thomas Noguchi, who performed the autopsy, testified at the Ward inquiry that the fatal slug was fired from only inches away; yet Sirhan was at least 2 to 3 ft. away from Kennedy.

-- William Harper, an independent ballistics expert, has been quoted as saying that the bullet taken from Kennedy's neck could not have been fired by the same gun that wounded a bystander. At the trial, Sirhan's gun, taken from him in the pantry, was never positively tied to either bullet.

Disturbing as they appear, all but the final point were seriously undermined last week by Vincent DiPierro, a catering manager who was one of the few witnesses with an unobstructed view of the shooting. In his first public interview since the assassination, DiPierro told the Washington Post that Sirhan was indeed standing in front of Kennedy, but Kennedy had turned to shake someone's hand when Sirhan began firing.

DiPierro confirmed that Sirhan was standing, not lying on the floor, when he fired. But the witness noted that Sirhan's gun was pointed upward. Also, Sirhan was seven inches shorter than Kennedy. Those factors could account for the ascending trajectory-of the bullets. Sirhan was indeed 3 ft. away from Kennedy when he opened fire, DiPierro said, but then Sirhan lunged forward. -

The interview left the ballistics issue as the major unexplained item. The Post also located Harper and got him to qualify his earlier statement. A recognized forensic specialist, Harper prepared an affidavit for Sirhan's attorneys in 1970 noting discrepancies between markings on the bullet taken from Kennedy's neck and those on a bullet that struck a bystander. Last week, however, Harper admitted that the markings do not prove that the bullets came from separate weapons. Differences in the markings, Harper said, are too insignificant to be conclusive.

A number of lesser questions remain, and Los Angeles County District Attorney Joseph P. Busch has said that he would reopen the case only if a court directed him to do so. Sirhan's attorney has been preparing an appeal for two months, and plans to file it soon. Skeptics have long been troubled by the fact that Sirhan's trial dwelt on his motives and mental state when he pulled the trigger and not on the other evidence. But unless a new inquiry turns up facts more convincing than those that have inspired the current renaissance of doubt, Sirhan will probably retain the grim distinction of being the sole assassin of Robert Kennedy.

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