Stephen Kinzer at the Guardian has an interesting revisionist column on the assassination of RFK. This has come up, but was never thought to be a "politically correct" thought to propose.
Decades must often pass before shattering historic events can be truly understood. So it is with the assassination of senator Robert Kennedy, which stunned the world 40 years ago this month.
The killer, Sirhan Sirhan, seemed at the time to fit the pattern of the wild-eyed lunatic that is often associated with political assassins. James Reston, the eminent New York Times columnist, called the murder "a wholly irrational act". Most Americans saw it that way.
Only now is it clear how wrong this view was. Far from being a "maniacally absurd" crime, as Newsweek concluded, the Robert Kennedy assassination was in fact an eminently political act. It was the first "blowback" attack the United States suffered as a result of its Middle East policies.
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