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.

[5][6] He dismissed the possibility of the Jewish state becoming communist as "fantastically absurd",[7] and called it the "only stabilizing factor remaining in the near and middle East".

[4] According to author Matthew A. Hayes, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Robert acted as a "de-facto Chief of Staff, Presidential Agent and Intermediary for his brother" and was an "indispensable partner" in its successful resolution.

[4] Eugene McCarthy, a U.S. senator from Minnesota, then emerged as the leader of the "Dump Johnson" movement and entered several state presidential primaries.

[23] In late January 1968, the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, in the view of historian Lloyd Gardner, "shattered hopes that the war could be won within a reasonable period of time—if ever—and broke open the cracks in the Democratic coalition".

[35][36] At approximately 12:02 a.m. PDT[37] the next day, Kennedy addressed his campaign supporters in the Embassy Ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel, in the Mid-Wilshire district of Los Angeles.

[39] Kennedy's only security personnel were former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent William Barry and two unofficial bodyguards: Olympic decathlon gold medalist Rafer Johnson[40] and former football player Rosey Grier.

"[44] Barry and Dutton began clearing a way for Kennedy to go left, through swinging doors, to the kitchen corridor, but he was hemmed in by the crowd and followed maître d'hôtel Karl Uecker through a back exit.

[50] Kennedy fell to the floor; others, including writer George Plimpton and Grier, tried to disarm Sirhan, as he continued firing his gun in random directions.

"; Romero responded, "Yes, everybody's OK." Kennedy then turned away and said, "Everything's going to be OK."[56] The moment was captured by Boris Yaro of the Los Angeles Times and became the iconic image of the assassination.

[62] Kennedy's campaign manager, his brother-in-law Stephen Edward Smith, promptly appeared on television and asked for a doctor.

[69] At 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, spokesman Frank Mankiewicz announced that Kennedy's doctors were "concerned over his continuing failure to show improvement"; his condition was critical.

[51] Despite extensive neurosurgery to remove the bullet and bone fragments from his brain, he was pronounced dead at 1:44 a.m. on June 6, nearly 25 hours after the shooting.

[75] Kennedy's younger brother, Senator Ted Kennedy, delivered the eulogy, saying: My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it ... As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him: "Some men see things as they are and say why.

[78] The procession stopped in front of the Lincoln Memorial, where residents of Resurrection City joined the group, and the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" was sung.

[80] At the time of his death, Kennedy was substantially behind Humphrey in convention delegate support,[81] but many believe that, following his victory in the California primary, he would have ultimately secured the nomination.

He ultimately lost the general election to Republican candidate Richard Nixon by a narrow popular vote margin of 0.7 percent.

[86] He witnessed various other violent incidents during his childhood, including physical abuse by his father and the death of his older brother at the hands of a military truck that was trying to avoid sniper fire.

[87] During his late-teenage years, Sirhan's father abandoned the family,[89] his sister died, two of his brothers were arrested, and he was expelled from Pasadena City College.

[91] A diary was found during a search of his home, where he wrote on May 18: "Robert Kennedy must be assassinated ... My determination to eliminate RFK is becoming more and more of an unshakable obsession.

[94] Loren Coleman suggested that the date of the assassination is significant because it was the first anniversary of the start of the Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

[112] Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, denied the parole in January 2022, asserting that "Sirhan has not developed the accountability and insight required to support his safe release into the community.

[117] This has led to the suggestion that a second gunman fired the fatal shot, a possibility supported by Thomas Noguchi, the Chief Medical Examiner and Coroner for the County of Los Angeles, who stated that the fatal shot was behind Kennedy's right ear and had been fired at a distance of approximately 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) to 3 inches (7.6 centimeters).

Johnson gave the tapes to the audio engineer Philip Van Praag, who analyzed and found 13 shots fired even though Sirhan's gun held only eight rounds.

[126][better source needed] Kennedy Jr. further cited the Noguchi autopsy which noted that his father suffered four contact wounds from the discharge of a gun and that all four shots came from behind him.

[128] Some scholars view the assassination as one of the first major incidents of political violence in the United States stemming from the Arab–Israeli conflict in the Middle East.

In 1987, the LAPD donated the entire evidence collection (except for Kennedy's clothes) to the California State Archives in Sacramento, for permanent preservation.

[131] In 2010, controversy arose when Kennedy's clothing was transported to the California Homicide Investigators Association conference in Las Vegas, where they were included in a temporary public display.

[135] In 2023, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s wife, Cheryl Hines, called for President Joe Biden to grant her husband Secret Service protection for his presidential campaign, citing his family's history of successful assassinations.[136][better source needed].

Robert F. Kennedy Jr's request for Secret Service protection would not be granted until July 15, 2024; two days after former President and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump was wounded in an assassination attempt during a speech in Butler, Pennsylvania.