Series
Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.
Episode Number
S0181
Episode
Who Killed Bobby Kennedy?
Producing Organization
Southern Educational Communications Association
South Carolina Educational Television Network
Contributing Organization
Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University (Stanford, California)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/514-nz80k2798d
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Description
Episode Description
The Warren Commission report was still being hotly debated, and Jesse Jackson had just announced that it was the FBI and the CIA that had killed Martin Luther King Jr. Mr. Lowenstein, in his fourth appearance on Firing Line, passes along his wife's worry that instead of being known as "former congressman" he will become known as "current kook," but he has come to believe that Sirhan Sirhan may not have fired the bullet that killed Bobby Kennedy. The problem arises, as Mr. Lowenstein explains, because "the trial... didn't deal with these [ballistics] issues because Sirhan's attorney announced that he had murdered Kennedy and that the issue was his sanity.... So none of this evidence was entered in the trial at all." Why does it matter? As Mr. Buckley works through it, "It strikes me as unlikely, given the fact that everybody agrees, including yourself, that Sirhan Sirhan was trying to kill Kennedy, that merely identifying somebody else who was also trying to kill him is going to excite the sort of inquisitive appetites of our people. But if that other person is himself just the tip of an iceberg ..."
Series Description
The television series Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. was a venue for debate and discussion on political, social, and philosophical issues with experts of the day. Firing Line broadcasts from 1966 through March 1971 were produced and syndicated by WOR-TV, a commercial station in New York, but some of them were also broadcast on noncommercial television stations. Starting in April 1971, Firing Line broadcasts were produced by the Southern Educational Communications Association, an arm of South Carolina Educational Television. Hoover Institution Library & Archives' Firing Line collection guide can be found at: https://www.hoover.org/library-archives/collections/firing-line.
Date
1975-04-11
Asset type
Episode
Genres
Talk Show
Topics
Public Affairs
Subjects
Kennedy, Robert F., 1925-1968; assassination; Sirhan, Sirhan Bishara, 1944 -
Rights
Copyright held by Stanford University. This copy is provided for educational and research purposes only. No publication, further reproduction, or reuse of copies, beyond fair use, may be made without the express written permission of the Hoover Institution Library & Archives on behalf of Stanford University.
Media type
Moving Image
Embed Code
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Credits
Guest: Lowenstein, Allard K.
Host: Buckley, William F., Jr.
Producing Organization: Southern Educational Communications Association
Producing Organization: South Carolina Educational Television Network
AAPB Contributor Holdings
Stanford University
Identifier: 80040.423 (Hoover Institution)
Generation: Proxy
Duration: 0:58:51
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Citations
Chicago: “Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.; S0181; Who Killed Bobby Kennedy?,” 1975-04-11, Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed May 20, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-514-nz80k2798d.
MLA: “Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.; S0181; Who Killed Bobby Kennedy?.” 1975-04-11. Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. May 20, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-514-nz80k2798d>.
APA: Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.; S0181; Who Killed Bobby Kennedy?. Boston, MA: Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-514-nz80k2798d