Keep Sirhan in prison forever

Sirhan Sirhan's attorney believes the man who assassinated Sen. Robert F. Kennedy on the night he presumably secured the 1968 Democratic nomination for president should be paroled because Sirhan doesn't remember the night's events that changed history.

Sirhan, 66. repeatedly has been examined by psychiatrists, hypnotists and a score of others, attempting to jog his memory or trick him into revealing his memory loss is merely a ruse to get out of prison. Whether Sirhan remembers the murder and his capture in a hotel kitchen as he continued to pull the trigger on his empty handgun, the world remembers it.

I was in college when Sirhan shot Bobby Kennedy and vividly remember one of the advisers in the DeMolay chapter to which I belonged talking about how as a top brain surgeon he was contacted by California medical personnel on the night Kennedy was shot, but Kennedy was declared dead before my adviser could even think about flying to California.

I remember college classmates nearly being in mourning over Kennedy's death. I remember the hours if newscasts and pages of newspaper articles about the shooting and Sirhan's capture.

When RFK died, the course of U.S. history changed forever. If Kennedy had been the nominee and had run for president, would he have defeated Richard Nixon? Many political experts believe he would have.

Would the Vietnam War have ended years sooner? Again, many believe it would have because RFK campaigned on that platform and was supported by the anti-war movement.

Obviously, the Watergate scandal would not have happened and the nation would not have been thrown into turmoil surrounding the impeachment and eventual resignation of a sitting president.

Whether Sirhan remembers his actions or not is immaterial. He was sentenced to life in prison and that's where he belongs not only for taking the life of a presidential candidate, but for his actions changing the lives of millions of Americans.