Denise Noe

Denise Noe

Denise Noe has written on true crime for Gauntlet, Ménage, Comrades, Chrysalis Quarterly, Crime Library, and The Lizzie Borden Quarterly.<br><br>

She is the community editor for The Caribbean Star, a monthly magazine. She has also published articles in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Humanist, Newcomer, The Brookhaven Buzz, Georgia Journal, Exquisite Corpse, The Gulf War Anthology, and Light.

Sirhan Sirhan: Assassin of Modern U.S. History

May 27, 2004

Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated
on the first anniversary of the Six-Day War in 1968.

Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Robert Kennedy on the first anniversary of the Six-Day War "willfully, premeditatively, with 20 years of malice aforethought." He also assassinated modern U.S. history.

by Denise Noe

Sirhan Sirhan did not set out with any grand plan to change U.S. history. He simply wanted to kill Robert F. Kennedy in revenge for Kennedy's support of Israel. As it turned out, Sirhan's assassination of Robert F. Kennedy -- on June 5, 1968, the first anniversary of the Six Day War -- would do more to alter the flow of U.S. history than even the assassination of President John Kennedy accomplished four years earlier. Although both assassinations would have profound and untold impact for decades to come, Sirhan's killing of Robert Kennedy would lead in a matter of months to the election of Richard Nixon as president, the escalation of the Vietnam War and eventually to the national nightmare of Watergate.

Kennedy, who was gunned down within minutes of winning the California Democratic presidential primary, would have gone on to win the Democratic presidential nomination and would, with little doubt, have soundly defeated Nixon in the general election in November. It is impossible to know what Kennedy would have accomplished as president, only that the next four to eight years and beyond would have unraveled in a far different manner.

Sirhan did not just assassinate Robert Kennedy. He assassinated modern U.S. history.

The Attempted Assassination of George Wallace

Sept. 14, 2003 Updated Sept. 24, 2007

Gov. George Wallace

Arthur Bremer tried to fill the void in his miserable life by taking the life of Gov. George Wallace in 1972. He failed on both counts.

by Denise Noe

(Editor's Note: Arthur Bremer is scheduled for release from prison by the end of 2007.)

"Send them a message"

When Alabama Gov. George Wallace ran for the presidency in 1972, he did not expect to win. His goal was summed up in the slogan he used to urge his supporters to vote for him: "Send them a message!" The "them" referred to was the Washington D.C. establishment that Wallace claimed had sold out white working-class people to cater to racial minorities and a privileged liberal elite. The flamboyant, folksy Wallace denounced school busing for integration, courts he called soft on crime, and a tax system that he claimed bled the average American without making the rich pay its fair share. He won many loyal, even fanatical followers by claiming to champion the "taxi driver, little businessman, beautician or barber or farmer" against the "pointy-headed pseudo-intellectual."

The campaign was Wallace's second bid for the presidency. He had run four years previously on the American Independent Party (now called the American Party) ticket but in 1972 he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination. His candidacy was doing remarkably well, a development that disheartened critics who thought his victories and strong showings in state primaries were symptomatic of racism. They believed the "law and order" he habitually called for was code for an anti-black agenda.