根据特朗普的命令，10,000 页有关罗伯特·F·肯尼迪 1968 年遇刺事件的记录被公开
【中美创新时报2025 年 4 月 19 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）周五，大约 10,000 页与 1968 年参议员罗伯特·F·肯尼迪遇刺案有关的记录被公布，其中包括枪手的手写笔记，枪手表示“必须除掉”这位民主党总统候选人，并承认自己执着于杀死他。美联社记者乔什·芬克和哈亚·潘杰瓦尼对此作了下述报道。
其中许多文件此前已公开，但其他一些文件尚未数字化，在联邦政府存储设施中存放了数十年。这些文件的公开是特朗普总统下令披露历史调查文件的延续。
1968年6月5日，肯尼迪在洛杉矶大使酒店（Ambassador Hotel）发表庆祝自己在加州总统初选中获胜的演讲后不久遭枪击身亡。刺客西尔汉·西尔汉（Sirhan Sirhan）被判一级谋杀罪，目前正在服终身监禁。
这些文件包括 Sirhan 手写笔记的图片。
“罗伯特·肯尼迪必须像他的哥哥一样被处理掉”，一封空信封的外面写着这样一句话，指的是肯尼迪的哥哥，约翰·F·肯尼迪总统，他于 1963 年遇刺身亡。回信地址是洛杉矶国税局地区主管写的。
西尔汉还在帕萨迪纳城市学院的一本笔记本上写了满满一页“罗伯特·肯尼迪必须死”和“罗伯特·肯尼迪必须被杀”之类的字眼。在1968年5月18日的一张便条上，他写道：“我消灭罗伯特·肯尼迪的决心，正变得越来越坚定不移。”
在另一份文件中，刺客称他主张“推翻现任总统”。罗伯特·F·肯尼迪去世时，民主党人林登·约翰逊正在白宫。
“我目前还没有明确的计划，但很快就会制定出来，”承诺支持共产主义俄罗斯和中国的西尔汉写道。
这些文件还包括对西尔汗的采访记录，采访对象来自形形色色的人，包括同学、邻居和同事。有些人形容他“友善、善良、慷慨”，而另一些人则将他描绘成一个深沉而“易受影响”的年轻人，他对自己的政治信念坚定不移，并曾短暂地信仰过神秘主义。
根据档案，西尔汉告诉他的垃圾收集员，他计划在 1968 年 4 月 4 日马丁·路德·金遇刺后不久杀死肯尼迪。这名环卫工人是一名黑人，他说他计划投票给肯尼迪，因为他会帮助黑人。
“好吧，我不同意。我打算枪毙这个混蛋，”该男子告诉调查人员，西尔汉回答道。
联邦调查局文件描述了对一群游客的采访，这些游客在肯尼迪去世前几周曾听到过肯尼迪遭枪击的传闻。几位曾在1968年5月访问过以色列的游客表示，一位导游告诉他们肯尼迪曾遭枪击。其中一人称，他听说在密尔沃基曾有人试图暗杀肯尼迪。还有一人称，肯尼迪在内布拉斯加州遭枪击。
美国国家档案和记录管理局在其公共网站上发布了包含这些页面的 229 份文件。
这份文件发布前一个月，一些与肯尼迪总统遇刺案相关的未删节文件被披露。这些文件让好奇的读者更多地了解冷战时期美国在其他国家的秘密行动，但最初并没有为长期流传的关于肯尼迪遇刺案的阴谋论提供可信度。
共和党人特朗普一直以透明度的名义倡导公布与备受瞩目的暗杀和调查相关的文件。但多年来，他也一直对政府情报机构深感怀疑。他的政府公布曾经隐藏的文件，为公众进一步审查中央情报局和联邦调查局等机构的运作和结论打开了大门。
特朗普于一月份签署了一项行政命令，要求公布与罗伯特·F·肯尼迪和金遇刺事件有关的政府文件，两人在两个月内相继遇刺。
几十年来，肯尼迪凶手的律师一直坚称，他不太可能再次犯罪或对社会构成危险。2021年，假释委员会裁定西尔汉适合释放。但州长加文·纽森在2022年驳回了这一决定，将他留在州监狱。2023年，另一个委员会拒绝释放他，称他仍然不清楚自己枪杀肯尼迪的原因。
肯尼迪仍然是自由派的偶像，他们视他为人权捍卫者，并致力于消除贫困、种族和经济不公。他们常常将肯尼迪遇刺事件视为一系列重大悲剧中的最后一起，这些悲剧使美国及其政治走上了更加黑暗、更加保守的道路。
他在世时曾是一位颇具争议的人物。一些批评人士认为，他反对越南战争的举动有些迟钝，直到1968年新罕布什尔州民主党初选暴露了约翰逊总统的政治弱点后，他才开始竞选总统。
尽管肯尼迪的竞选活动激发了一些民主党人的希望，但在赢得加利福尼亚州初选后，他在党内总统候选人提名方面仍然落后于明尼苏达州参议员休伯特·汉弗莱。
肯尼迪的哥哥任命他为美国司法部长，他一直是肯尼迪的亲密助手，直到肯尼迪在达拉斯遇刺身亡。1964年，他赢得了纽约州的美国参议院席位，被视为家族政治遗产的继承人。
他的儿子小罗伯特·F·肯尼迪（Robert F. Kennedy Jr.）现任卫生与公众服务部部长。他赞扬了特朗普和国家情报总监图尔西·加巴德为公布这些文件所展现的“勇气”和“坚持不懈的努力”。
卫生部长在一份声明中表示：“揭开罗伯特·肯尼迪文件的面纱是恢复人们对美国政府信任的必要一步。”
题图：1968年6月5日，参议员罗伯特·F·肯尼迪在洛杉矶大使酒店向竞选工作人员发表讲话。他的妻子埃塞尔（左）以及加州竞选经理兼加州议会议长杰西·昂鲁在一旁观看。图片来源：美联社
附原英文报道：
10,000 pages of records about Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 assassination are released, on Trump’s order
About 10,000 pages of records related to the 1968 assassination of Sen. Robert F
By JOSH FUNK and HAYA PANJWANI The Associated Press,Updated April 18, 2025
Senator Robert F. Kennedy spoke to campaign workers, June 5, 1968, as his wife Ethel, left, and California campaign manager and speaker of the California Assembly, Jesse Unruh, look on, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.Uncredited/Associated Press
WASHINGTON — About 10,000 pages of records related to the 1968 assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy were released Friday, including handwritten notes by the gunman, who said the Democratic presidential candidate “must be disposed of,” and acknowledged an obsession with killing him.
Many of the files had been made public previously, but others had not been digitized and sat for decades in federal government storage facilities. Their release continued the disclosure of historical investigation documents ordered by President Trump.
Kennedy was fatally shot on June 5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, moments after giving a speech celebrating his victory in California’s presidential primary. His assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, was convicted of first-degree murder and is serving life in prison.
The files included pictures of handwritten notes by Sirhan.
“RFK must be disposed of like his brother was,” read the writing on the outside of an empty envelope, referring to Kennedy’s older brother, President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963. The return address was from the district director of the Internal Revenue Service in Los Angeles.
Sirhan also filled a page of a Pasadena City College notebook with variations of “R.F.K must die,” and “R.F.K must be killed.” In a note dated May 18, 1968, he wrote: “My determination to eliminate R.F.K. is becoming more of an unshakable obsession.”
In another of the documents, the assassin said he advocated for “the overthrow of the current president.” Democrat Lyndon Johnson was in the White House at the time of Robert F. Kennedy’s death.
“I have no absolute plans yet, but soon will compose them,” wrote Sirhan, who pledged support for communist Russia and China.
The files also included notes from interviews with people who knew Sirhan from a wide variety of contexts, such as classmates, neighbors, and coworkers. While some described him as “a friendly, kind, and generous person,” others depicted a brooding and “impressionable” young man who felt strongly about his political convictions and briefly believed in mysticism.
According to the files, Sirhan told his garbage collector that he planned to kill Kennedy shortly after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. The sanitation worker, a Black man, said he planned to vote for Kennedy because he would help Black people.
“Well, I don’t agree. I am planning on shooting the son of a bitch,” Sirhan replied, the man told investigators.
FBI documents describe interviews with a group of tourists who had heard rumors about Kennedy being shot weeks before his death. Several people who visited Israel in May 1968 said a tour guide told them Kennedy had been shot. One person said he heard that an attempt on Kennedy’s life had been made in Milwaukee. Another heard that he was shot in Nebraska.
The National Archives and Records Administration posted 229 files containing the pages to its public website.
The release comes a month after unredacted files related to the assassination of President Kennedy were disclosed. Those documents gave curious readers more details about Cold War-era covert US operations in other nations, but did not initially lend credence to long-circulating conspiracy theories about who killed JFK.
Trump, a Republican, has championed in the name of transparency the release of documents related to high-profile assassinations and investigations. But he hasalso been deeply suspicious for years of the government’s intelligence agencies. His administration’s release of once-hidden files opens the door for more public scrutiny of the operations and conclusions of institutions such as the CIA and the FBI.
Trump signed an executive order in January calling for the release of government documents related to the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and King, who were killed within two months of each other.
Lawyers for Kennedy’s killer have said for decades that he is unlikely to reoffend or pose a danger to society, and in 2021, a parole board deemed Sirhan suitable for release. But Governor Gavin Newson rejected the decision in 2022, keeping him in state prison. In 2023, a different panel denied him release, saying he still lacks insight into what caused him to shoot Kennedy.
Kennedy remains an icon for liberals, who see him as a champion for human rights and who also was committed to fighting poverty and racial and economic injustice. They often regard his assassination as the last in a series of major tragedies that put the US and its politics on a darker, more conservative path.
He was a sometimes divisive figure during his lifetime. Some critics thought he came late to opposing the Vietnam War, and launched his campaign for president in 1968 only after the Democratic primary in New Hampshire exposed President Johnson’s political weakness.
While Kennedy’s campaign inspired hope among some Democrats, he still trailed Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey for the party’s presidential nomination after winning the California primary.
Kennedy’s older brother appointed him US attorney general, and he remained a close aide to him until JFK’s assassination in Dallas. In 1964, he won a US Senate seat from New York and was seen as the heir to the family’s political legacy.
One of his sons, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now serves as health and human services secretary. He commended Trump and Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, for their “courage” and “dogged efforts” to release the files.
“Lifting the veil on the RFK papers is a necessary step toward restoring trust in American government,” the health secretary said in a statement.
