A Lie Too Big to Fail: The Real History of the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy

I just started reading this book and it’s everything I hoped it would be. Lisa Pease is a national treasure of an investigator/investigative reporter/journalist. If you’re unfamiliar with her work look up her talk on James Angleton, article on Freeport Sulphur etc. it’s clear she’s incisive and has a gift for finding and identifying the obscured footprints left by masters of CIA tradecraft.

I’m through the first chapter entitled “Hope” which begins with a series of vignettes that prove the axiom truth is stranger than fiction. It’s a roller coaster not unlike the intros to the movies Heat or Dark Knight. The pace is incredible and you find yourself incredulous that warning lights were going off and how did so many light up and yet no-one in real time understood what exactly was happening despite the 3 prior Assassinations providing context.

Great authors/books inspire and instruct. Lisa Pease is one of our greats and I cannot wait to dive deeper into this book and learn more about an event that derailed the country for 5 decades and counting.

EDIT: Okay, I've finished the book and have had plenty of time to think about it. This book without a doubt is one of the twin towers of truth from the past 60 years. Lisa's meticulous research encompasses every aspect of the RFK murder investigation that one can think of. I mean, let's face it, her work supercedes the LAPD (yeah, yeah, low bar there), FBI, CIA, and of course the Defense counsels for one of the victims of the crime, Sirhan Bashara Sirhan.

From the ballistics, numbers of bullet strikes/marks (doorframes, ceiling tiles, 5 separate people hit, RFK hit from behind with 4 bullets, one from 1 1/2 inches behind his right ear, while Sirhan was 2-3 feet in front), to the numerous witnesses who saw other shooters, yes, OTHER shooters, and oh yes, polka dot dress girl "we shot him! we shot him!", and hey, what's with several of the people behaving oddly wearing polka dots? (was that team colors that day?), to a penetrating look at how the CIA operates, especially through cut-outs like the vile and repugnant Robert Maheu, for whom a very good case is made that he was the operational chief behind this murder, to a deep look at hypnosis and MKULTRA. In short, this book is fastidiously researched and meticulous in its presentation. Oh yeah, go on vimeo and watch the video of LAPD looking at multiple bullet holes in the door frames! That cannot and does not add up to Sirhan single shooter.

This case needs to be re-opened stat. Sirhan is an innocent man.

Read on its own, Lisa Pease's account fills in all the nuance missing in the press accounts and thoroughly refutes the standard narrative; however, Pease fails to include a bibliography or research guide. Often she references "a photo I looked at in the Los Angeles Public Library." Why not reproduce it or at least give the reader a call number and maybe put up a website? Even to this day, it's possible to write to the California State Archives for the LAPD files and send $25 for a microfilm or buy the complete microfilm set for hundreds, because the California State Archives can afford to copy microfilms but not convert them to .pdf and stick them on their website, I guess.

That said, Pease's reads very much as a defense attorney's trial notebook for Sirhan Sirhan: a litany of contradictions ripe for cross-examination. As published, it once again makes a compelling case for a new examination but falls far short of the "Gold Standard" of assassination handbooks, which is William Pepper's "The Plot to Kill King." This is significant, as Pepper is Sirhan Sirhan's lawyer, and he gets very scant mention in Pease's text. Half of Pepper's book is devoted to reproducing photos, transcripts, and the like, and Pease's work very much needs this type of substantiation.

A red flag that Pease's account is in no way definitive is the lack of discussion of Israel and American media control, and in this sense it resembles many "controlled opposition" accounts of both the JFK assassination and the 9/11 conspiracy. Certainly the appearance of a Palestinian murdering an American presidential candidate on the day of the first year anniversary of the Six Day War is relevant to the choice of Sirhan Sirhan as a patsy and might explain motives motives of what Pease calls "suspicious others," if Pease really exposed their background, all the more so as RFK was deeply opposed to Israel's covert nuclear weapons program which was effectively enabled by the CIA agents for years diverting both nuclear material and secrets to Israel in exchange for black ops funding. Pease, for example, mentions Sirhan practicing shooting at the Corona police range, but she is completely silent about Arnan Milchan's role in Corona as the Mossad's arms agent (the US Navy developed both arms and citrus hormones in Corona/Norco and Milchan discovered these hormones which enabled West Bank settlement to be profitable and feasible). Milchan bankrolled Oliver Stone's film, which might have something to do with certain key omissions in that great work of filmmaking (such as who is Zapruder, exactly, and why was he filming right there that day - does it have anything to do with the Mayor of Jerusalem being in Dallas that day, also not in the film?). I should also state that Pease doesn't connect the CIA's nearby main education facilities in Pasadena - Fuller Seminary and PCC - to the characters in her narrative - or to the Donald Stover/RFK Club/Dobelle/PCC honey trap of 1971.

Most disheartening - and disingenuous - is to read on the first page of the preface the author was California Governor Jerry Brown's media assistant. In other words, did Pease ever attempt to use her influence on the only person with the power to pardon Sirhan, or is she part of the intelligence-agency controlled media PR mystique profiting from unsolved mysteries?

Having read Lisa Pease's two outstanding essays on Sirhan and the RFK assassination under the abbreviated titles "The Grand Illusion" and "Rubik's cube", over twenty years ago, I, and I'm sure many other researchers were waiting for follow up from Ms. Pease. She does not disappoint in supplementing many additional facts to the many topics she covered in these first two essays. She leaves no doubt that Sirhan was framed and was merely a detraction for the other shooters who were firing and wounded six bystanders in addition to the mortally wounded Senator Kennedy.

Pease spends a substantial amount of book space to demonstrate the massive deception of DeWayne Wolfer, other LAPD staff, FBI, and CIA employees in their attempt to hide (and destroy) the massive evidence indicating a conspiracy in RFK's murder. To augment this conclusion, Pease lays out the facts showing that none of the victim bullets recovered can be traced to Sirhan's gun (the one Rafer Johnson submitted). She also gives a long list of eyewitnesses that saw flames and shredded paper emanating from Sirhan's handgun - a clear indication Sirhan was firing blanks.

Pease goes on to validate her belief in the CIA's participation by establishing Thane Cesar's credentials as a CIA employee among several other incriminating facts that lead back to their doorstep. The author also corroborates her earlier facts (given in the above essays) that clearly indicate Robert Maheu played a major role in the formation of RFK's assassination team just as he had done in JFK's murder (see the book Double Cross). In addition, Ms. Pease shares a story from Steve Gaal's father who overheard stories aabout Maheu while working as an electrician in one of the L. A. police buildings. I remember Steve being an active participant of Rich Dellarosa's JFKresearch Assassination Forum group for over a decade starting in the mid 90's.

I would encourage readers to read this book, keep it as a reference tool, and join in contacting your congressional representatives in advocating a new parole hearing for Sirhan. Quoting from the book, Pease states "on December 19, 2017, Robert Kennedy, Jr. visited Sirhan in prison in the company of Sirhan's attorney Laurie Dusek. Bobby hugged Sirhan, told him he knew he hadn't killed his father, and that he considered him as much a victim as his father. "He's a sweet man," Bobby told me after his visit. Bobby took the time to learn the truth about this case. What he found moved him to action, and rightfully so." This volume should motivate all readers in a similar fashion.

Lisa Pease thoroughly details the assassination of Robert Kennedy. Among the issues she resolves beyond any reasonable doubt is whether Sirhan actually fired any bullets, if he was hypnotized and how the logistics of the crime were handled.
I really enjoyed her coverage of witness Sandra Serrano and her grilling by the LAPD in a "lie detector" test. I sensed the pain and frustration that Serrano had in knowing the truth and fighting the urge to give up under pressure.
That Sirhan still sits in prison shows that facts do not matter when institutions like the police, the CIA, the state government, etc. find the facts inconvenient. We could just wring our hands or we could listen to a suggestion that Pease makes: the very reason why RFK, JFK, MLK and others get murdered:
They want to let other nations make their own decisions. They don't want to start wars. They do not want to exploit the world's natural resources. They want rights for all people.
Only when we make these ideals the values that our nation not only preaches but practices will the killings of leaders with honor stop. When the people lead, maybe our leaders will follow.
#FreeSirhan

This is a must-read and excellent addition to any JFK/RFK assassination library.

I've been reading about the JFK/RFK assassinations since 1967. The JFK assassination has been thoroughly vetted and investigated. However, the RFK assassination was somewhat forgotten about and took a backseat to the JFK assassination, in my opinion. Maybe it was "assassination fatigue" from the 60's.

Lisa Pease has taken all of the unknown facts about the RFK assassination from the LAPD files and woven it into a very readable and believable story. She fills in all of the missing pieces that have been buried in investigative memos and reports.

The JFK assassination is like a big jigsaw puzzle and has been likened to peeling an onion. Same story for the RFK assassination. The level of corruption at all levels that Lisa has discovered is very disturbing. It is hard to believe but this case was sabotaged from the very minutes after the shots were fired in the pantry. From the initial reports of multiple assailants that were stonewalled by LAPD officers to the ones that were actually arrested immediately in the hotel and released, the cover up began. And Lisa covers it all.

Reading this book reminds me of the many similar instances with the JFK assassination where eyewitnesses were repeatedly told "you must be imagining things" because it didn't fit with the lone gunman did it scenario. Same thing with RFK. Lisa even discovers the ballistics evidence was clearly manipulated and concealed to go along with the long-held knowledge that the photos, door jams and ceiling tiles were all destroyed.

Fortunately in the RFK assassination, Lisa shows we actually had a real autopsy and a coroner who steadfastly maintained that RFK's fatal head shot was from 1" behind at point blank range eliminating Sirhan as the shooter.

The shooting scenario inside the pantry that Lisa describes will make your head spin trying to figure it all out. Lisa captures the true pandemonium and chaos that ensued and you feel like you are in the pantry. However, it's hard to follow exactly who was where inside the pantry and to clearly see the actual layout of the pantry and hotel.

Although a chart is included it is very simple and only shows RFK and Sirhan's position. A more detailed chart that showed all of the known witness locations mentioned in the book with respect to RFK and Sirhan would help. A hotel layout indicating all of the various locations would be helpful as well. The Ambassador was a huge hotel with a confusing footprint with some floors being at street level at one end and elevated at another, so a map would help with this confusion. I found searching for some of these things on the internet was helpful when reading this section.

I hope there is a reprint and maybe the maps and charts can be added. A photo section highlighting some of the key evidence and main characters would also add context to the incredibly detailed narrative. Maybe a website will be created that can go into more detail on some of these areas. Websites are a great tool to show detailed layouts and 3-d imagery. But these are minor critiques that take nothing away from the incredibly detailed and believable story.

Excellent read. You won't want to put it down and a must-read for anyone seriously interested in the truth behind the RFK assassination.

My goodness--where to begin? For those of us who lived through the murders of the Kennedys and Dr. King, this book once again reinforces the dark forces behind their elimination. Anyone who has scratched the surface of the JFK Assassination and cover-up needs to read "A Lie Too Big To Fail" by Lisa Pease. In 1968 when RFK was shot there began an immediate exclamation from the LAPD that their investigation would not be "another Dealey Plaza". They then proceeded to put forth a sham investigation which in some ways exceeded the farce known as the Warren Report. Intimidation of witnesses, distortion of ballistics evidence, failure to pursue leads that showed that Sirhan may have not been the shooter, and more makes this a frightening and depressing tale. Pease tells us that Los Angeles Coroner Thomas Noguchi was adamant in telling authorities that RFK's wounds showed the shots which killed him came from a distance of 2 to 3 inches--not the 4 to 6 feet alleged by witnesses who said Sirhan never got within inches of RFK. Wounds to RFK and nearby spectators, plus bullets in walls, door jams, and ceiling tiles numbered far more than Sirhan's 8 shot pistol was capable of firing without reloading. Pease also spends considerable time on the "girl in the polka dot dress" seen by several eyewitnesses, but discounted by the LAPD investigators. She may have been a conspirator, but authorities did all they could eliminate the "C" word at all costs. And, as we saw in the JFK investigation, virtually no one who witnessed these events saw the shootings the way investigators said they happened. There is much more to be digested in this excellent retelling of an American Tragedy. Thoroughly researched and well written, "A Lie To Big To Fail" is an important study not only of a shocking murder, but a valuable look at a shameful attempt by authorities to bury the truth.

Unfortunately, there is an appearance of confirmation bias that severely undermines the crux of the author’s argument. In an attempt to convince the reader of the existence of what increasingly becomes a convoluted and illogical plot, she either ignores or explains away the obvious contradictions and inconsistencies in witnesses’ statements and various descriptions even when clearly at odds with fact. Despite her best effort to present a thoroughly-reseasoned interpretation of evidence in support of her conclusions, in a number of instances, these conclusions seem to be based on little more than speculation and innuendo. Did the investigators make mistakes? Could witnesses have merely been mistaken in their observations? In a case this tragic and complex, it’s more than likely. I’m just not convinced it’s anything more than that.

Title says it all

I’ve read over 30 books on the JFK assassination and marching toward that number with RFK’s. This is easily one of the top two or three books I’ve read on either assassination. I won’t repeat all the accolades already stated in other reviews, nor all the reasons to put this book on your “must read” list. But this is so good, so capturing, and so thoroughly and well-presented and documented, I had to cast my vote. This is a you-can’t-go-wrong-by-reading-it book. It’s a page-turner and emotion roller coaster all in one. And it’s a must read for anyone and everyone who cares even a whit about this country and its future. Finally, if you’re like me and lived through the 1960s, this book will not only explain and cement the deep reasons why something about this country died in 1968, but why it’s been going in the same wrong direction ever since.

I had seen Ms. Pease in an online video discussing the JFK assassination. Afterward, I learned about this book and borrowed it from my local library. I had no prior exposure to any RFK literature not associated with the investigation of his brother's death, and so my thoughts are those of a reader not experienced in this narrow genre. Perhaps that's why I cannot really recommend this book. Yes, it contains a great deal of facts, but it also delves very far into flat-out conjecture, particularly in the chapters on other potential suspects and "mind games" (such as hypnosis) which Pease clearly believes could have played a role in a conspiracy. A few times, Pease gets downright politically preachy, something I abhor in books of this nature. I agree that there was probably more involved in the killing or aftermath, but I read books like this as true crime, nothing more. Give me what can be substantiated; don't give me wild theories.
At times, Pease also takes brief jaunts into completely unrelated much more recent topics, one example being the murder of the brother of Kim Jong Un. She could have used better editing. On that note, if you are new to reading about RFK's murder, I suspect you could find much more concise information on the internet.