Charach has produced a full-length movie. "The Second Gun," in which he seeks to prove from the testimony of eyewitnesses that another gun was drawn and fired in the Ambassador kitchen. His suspect is a former hotel security guard, an avowed right-winger who believed that John F. Kennedy "sold us out to the Russians" and that his brother would have done the same, if elected. The guard admitted having owned a gun of the same caliber as the one which apparently killed Kennedy but claimed to have sold it six months before. Charach demonstrates that he sold it in September, 1968, one month after the assassination. Since last year, the guard has disappeared.
Though Charach's evidence is certainly less substantive than the material in the J.F.K. case, he does show fairly well that the likelihood of Sirhan having acted alone is very small. Who was the woman in the polka-dot dress who appears in photographs of the assassination scene, and who was identified as having been seen with Sirhan earlier in the week? Who is the man who mounts the platform as Kennedy is concluding his victory speech, looks around cautiously, signals to someone in the audience, and then departs? No one in the Kennedy entourage could identify him, security around the senator was very tight, and it was possible to identify everyone else on the platform. The man who, like the woman in the polka-dot dress has never been traced, had a pencil line moustache, as did a man who witnesses saw with Sirhan, also earlier that week.
The Los Angeles district attorney's office has adamantly refused to reopen the Sirhan case despite the district attorney's personal admission that the gun which supposedly killed Kennedy had been tampered with while held as evidence.
This is an auspicious time for reopening the Kennedy assassination cases. The investigations of the CIA and the FBI for illegal practices have created an atmosphere conducive to new inquiries centering on the unanswered questions surrounding the events in Dallas and Los Angeles. Lane's goal is to turn the assassination question into the dominant issue in the 1976 national campaign. He would like to see the development of a broadly-based movement which would force all candidates to address themselves to the questions he and his fellow researchers have posed. At this point, it seems highly unlikely that Lane will achieve this goal.
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It does matter who killed John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy, simply because a great deal might have been different if they had lived. The motives of the assassins, the reasons for any coverups which might have existed, are not important merely because they would satisfy basic human curiosity. Perhaps the answers to these questions can also help us to understand the sources of power in America.
Possibly no pervasive conspiracy existed, and the gray areas surrounding each of these murders, as well as that of Martin Luther King Jr. are entirely independent. The answers are important nonetheless.
No mass movement to learn the truth about the assassination of the 60s will emerge, in part because it may well be too late to arouse sufficient interest. The mysteries are already beginning to take on the same character for many people as questions like "What ever happened to Amelia Earhart?". In addition, the integration of serious research and solid evidence with pure fantasy has weakened the appeal of many legitimate investigators. But it may be possible to compel Congress to reopen the cases, just by the weight of evidence already uncovered. One Congressman, Texas Democrat Henry Gonzales, has already called for such a step. This should be the primary objective of all researchers. Independent investigations can only pose the questions. If some form of a real resolution is at all possible, it will only come from an investigation that has the cooperation of members of the national government, and the use of its resources.