Dream Died in Hotel Pantry 25 Years Ago : Assassination: Robert Kennedy was killed after winning the California Democratic presidential primary. Slayer Sirhan Sirhan had dreams of returning to Middle East, but remains behind bars.

WASHINGTON —  Even after a quarter century, the entry in Sirhan Sirhan’s notebook has lost none of its chill.

“My determination to eliminate RFK is becoming more the more (sic) of an unshakable obsession,” he wrote in a manic torrent. “RFK must die. RFK must be killed. Robert F. Kennedy must be assassinated. . . . Robert F. Kennedy must be assassinated before 5 June 1968.”

At 12:15 a.m. on that date, Sirhan, a Jordanian Arab, carried out his threat. It was exactly one year after the start of the Six-Day War in which Israel defeated its Arab enemies.

*

The years pass and the killing of Bobby Kennedy fades in the national memory. A third of the nation, born since then, did not feel the shock as another Kennedy was cut down senselessly. But those who were alive remember.

Life goes on. Ted Kennedy, the baby brother of the Kennedy family, is still the senior senator from Massachusetts. Bobby’s oldest son, Joe, is following the Kennedy political tradition, serving his fourth term in the House of Representatives. Ethel Kennedy, never remarried, remains a vital part of the Washington political scene. One of their 11 children, a son, died in the drug plague of the ‘80s.

Robert Kennedy would be 67 and a grandfather.

Sirhan Sirhan is an inmate in the high-tech, high-security Corcoran State Prison in California, housed with the likes of Charles Manson. His dream of being traded as a political prisoner and returning as a hero to the Middle East has faded. If released after his ninth parole hearing next year, he will be 50 years old, having spent half his life behind bars.

Israel and the Arabs are in the midst of lumbering negotiations over the Arabs’ demand to recover lost territory and Israel’s bid for a secure peace. The hatred and violence that shaped Sirhan’s childhood is unchanged.

Where would the river of history have flowed without Sirhan’s insane act in the pantry of a Los Angeles hotel?

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Robert Kennedy was born into wealth as one of Joseph and Rose Kennedy’s 10 children. He was the third of four sons and the third to die violently.

Joe Jr. was killed in the last year of World War II when the explosives-laden bomber he was flying blew up over England. John, the second son, was a congressman, a senator and finally America’s only Catholic President. He was assassinated in his third year in office.

Robert shared the family taste for public service along with a reputation for ruthlessness. He was John Kennedy’s most trusted adviser, his campaign manager, his attorney general and his best friend.

“Just as I went into politics when Joe died, if anything happened to me tomorrow my brother Bobby would run for my seat,” John Kennedy once said. “And if anything happened to him, my brother Teddy would run for us.”

In the election of 1968, the country was torn by the Vietnam War and Robert Kennedy, by then a senator from New York, stood with those opposed to the war--and to the President, Lyndon B. Johnson, who craved victory there.

Bobby Kennedy stood for civil rights. He stood for making cities livable. He stood for the poor. He stood for equality of blacks.

But first and foremost Kennedy stood for putting an end to the bloodshed--in Vietnam and in America’s cities.

His advisers were unanimously against his running against an incumbent President, a Democrat at that.

The third Kennedy son announced his candidacy in the same Senate Caucus Room where John Kennedy had launched his drive eight years earlier.

“I run,” he said, “because I am convinced that this country is on a perilous course.”

He won some primaries, Indiana, Nebraska and the District of Columbia, but he lost in Oregon and said it was a setback he could ill afford. He said he would stand or fall on the results in California.

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“Kennedy was doing a lot of things behind my back,” Sirhan shouted in the courtroom at his murder trial.

The young Sirhan had been uprooted from his home in Jordan by the Arab-Israeli war in 1948. His dislike for Jews was no secret from those who knew him. The Six-Day War “was all we talked about,” an acquaintance said.

Sirhan described an Arab soldier allowing him to look through binoculars at the Jewish part of Jerusalem. “That’s our land out there, our land,” Sirhan remembered being told. “I didn’t understand what he meant, but now I understand.”

He was calm throughout his testimony except when he was asked about Israel. At those times he could barely contain his agitation.

When he talked about his life in America, Sirhan recalled watching a television documentary that showed Robert Kennedy, years before, as a young reporter for the Boston Globe in Israel, helping to celebrate that country’s independence in 1948.

Sirhan said he jotted his May 18 “RFK must die” note after hearing Kennedy on the radio advocating sending 50 fighter planes to Israel.

“Did you shoot Robert F. Kennedy?” asked Sirhan’s attorney, Grant Cooper.

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you bear any ill will toward Sen. Kennedy?”

“No.”

*

Two thousand people were jammed into the ballroom of Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel, joining Kennedy in celebrating his victory in the California primary. “I think we can end the divisions in the United States,” he told them. “I intend to make that my basis for running.”

Applause flooded the room.

“So my thanks to all of you and it’s on to Chicago and let’s win there (at the Democratic convention).”

They were the last words Kennedy said in public. He started to leave, then suddenly turned and headed toward the kitchen.

In a pantry he moved along, leading an adoring entourage, smiling, accepting congratulations, shaking hands.

One outstretched hand, Sirhan’s, held a gun. He fired eight times.

Robert Kennedy died 25 hours later.