Historical Photographs Captured Moments Before, During and After RFK’s Assassination in Los Angeles, 1968

On June 5, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California, and pronounced dead the following day.

Kennedy, a United States senator and candidate in the 1968 Democratic Party presidential primaries, won the California and South Dakota primaries on June 4. He addressed his campaign supporters in the Ambassador Hotel’s Embassy Ballroom. After leaving the podium, and exiting through a kitchen hallway, he was mortally wounded by multiple shots fired by Sirhan. Kennedy died at Good Samaritan Hospital nearly 25 hours later. His body was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Sirhan, a Palestinian who held strong anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian beliefs, testified in 1969 that he killed Kennedy “with 20 years of malice aforethought;” he was convicted and sentenced to death. Due to People v. Anderson, his sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1972 with a possibility of parole. His parole request has been denied numerous times. Kennedy’s assassination prompted the Secret Service to protect presidential candidates. Additionally, it led to several conspiracy theories. It was the final of four major assassinations in the United States that occurred during the 1960s.

The photographs that Bill Eppridge made before, during and after RFK’s assassination don’t require that we forget all we’ve learned about the dank underside of American politics in order to appreciate the fear, rage and anguish sparked by Kennedy’s death. On the contrary, the pictures in this gallery suggest that despite how ambitious and even cruel he could sometimes be, Bobby Kennedy obviously inspired, in countless people, the better angels of their nature.

Would Robert Kennedy have won the Democratic nomination if Sirhan had not gunned him down in that hotel kitchen? Would he have gone on to beat Richard Nixon in the general election if he had won the nomination? The measure of the man must be taken not by what he might have done, but by what he said and did during his lifetime.

We’ll never know how much he might have grown, how much further he might have deepened, had Sirhan’s bullets not silenced him.That’s where much of the tragedy of the tale lies: in the ruined promise of the man’s potential.

Robert Kennedy, June, 1968.

Sen. Robert Kennedy campaigned, June 1968.

Robert Kennedy, June 1968.

Supporters of presidential candidate Robert Kennedy watched him on TV.

Sen. Robert Kennedy conferred with an aide during his run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968.

Sen. Robert Kennedy gave a speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles before his assassination, June 1968.

Sen. Robert Kennedy gave a speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles before his assassination, June 1968.

Sen. Robert Kennedy gave a speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles before his assassination, June 1968.

Headed for his victory speech in the Ambassador Hotel ballroom, Robert Kennedy stopped in the kitchen to shake hands. A few minutes later the gunman was waiting for him in the corridor just outside the kitchen.

Robert Kennedy stopped in the kitchen to shake hands.

Robert Kennedy greeted supporters not long before his assassination, June 5, 1968.

Rigid, semiconscious, his face an ashen mask, Senator Kennedy lay in a pool of his own blood on the concrete floor, a bullet deep in his brain and another in his neck. Juan Romero, a busboy whose hand Kennedy had shaken before the shots, tried to comfort him.

A less-famous image of Sen. Robert Kennedy and Ambassador Hotel employee Juan Romero moments after RFK was shot by Sirhan Sirhan, June 1968.

A mortally wounded Robert Kennedy on the floor of the kitchen at the Ambassador Hotel, June 1968.

In the hot, jammed corridor where her husband lay behind her, Ethel Kennedy implored the crowd of shocked onlookers to move back and give him some air.

A wounded Paul Schrade, a regional director of the United Auto Workers Union, labor chair of Robert Kennedy’s campaign and one of five other people shot by Sirhan Sirhan, lay on the floor of the kitchen at the Ambassador Hotel, June 5, 1968.

A mortally wounded Robert Kennedy on the floor of the kitchen at the Ambassador Hotel, June 1968.

Robert Kennedy assassination, June 1968.

Ethel Kennedy and others surrounded Robert Kennedy in the kitchen at the Ambassador Hotel, June 1968.

Ethel Kennedy and others surrounded Robert Kennedy in the kitchen at the Ambassador Hotel, June 1968.

Ethel Kennedy and others surrounded a mortally wounded Robert Kennedy in the kitchen at the Ambassador Hotel, June 1968.

Ethel Kennedy, who had been walking beside him, crouched over her dying husband, whispering to him as he lay on the floor. Beside Ethel, waiting for the ambulance attendants to arrive, knelt her sister-in-law, Mrs. Stephen Smith and Dr. Ross Miller.

A young Robert Kennedy supporter showed disbelief after Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan, June 1968.

A Robert Kennedy supporter registered disbelief after his shooting.

The scene at the Hospital of the Good Samaritan in Los Angeles after Robert Kennedy arrived there, June 1968.

Robert F. Kennedy assassination, June 5, 1968.

The football great, and RFK bodyguard, Rosey Grier arrived at the hospital. Grier had tackled Sirhan at the scene after Sirhan shot RFK; George Plimpton walked behind Grier.

At the Hospital of the Good Samaritan in Los Angeles.

The scene at the Hospital of the Good Samaritan in Los Angeles after Robert Kennedy arrived there, June 1968.

The scene at the Hospital of the Good Samaritan in Los Angeles after Robert Kennedy arrived there, June 1968.

The scene at the Hospital of the Good Samaritan in Los Angeles, June 1968.

The scene at the Hospital of the Good Samaritan in Los Angeles, June 1968.

An aide to Sen. Robert Kennedy, Frank Mankiewicz (center, in suit and tie), prepared to address the media gathered outside the Hospital of the Good Samaritan, Los Angeles, June 5, 1968.

Edward Kennedy’s wife Joan Bennett Kennedy (left), Jackie Kennedy (center) and Sargent Shriver (right), husband of Eunice Kennedy and brother-in-law to John, Robert and Edward Kennedy, after the assassination of RFK, Los Angeles, June 1968.

Robert Kennedy’s body was loaded into a transport after his death and autopsy, prior to being shipped from Los Angeles to New York, June 6, 1968.

Robert Kennedy’s body was loaded into a transport after his death and autopsy, prior to being shipped from Los Angeles to New York, June 6, 1968.

(Photos by Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock)