Breaking Down the FBI Kennedy Documents

The FBI today released over 2,000 pages from its files on the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. Here are some portions of the files that stand out:

The files include a detailed report about how a person in his "late teens" gained accessed to Kennedy's house in Washington and was chased off by a caretaker. (Presumably Kennedy was not there at the time). The man kept saying he was on his Senate staff. He also tried to get on a plane from Washington to Boston but was stopped. (Kennedy was not on the flight). The man was first described as a "pest," but after the behavior continued, they said he was "more of a problem."

The other files detail a wide range of threats, many by people who were deemed mentally ill or drunk; most of the threats were reported by people who heard them being made over the phone, either at a payphone or in an office such as the Palm Beach newspaper.

In other cases, people reported members of their own families. In one instance, a mom reported her teenage son, saying he wanted to "simulate an assassination of Ted Kennedy with a wooden gun." The FBI report described the boy as 5 feet, 3 inches tall and 120 pounds. Another person attending a reception reported that the father of the bridegroom launched into an anti-Kennedy harangue saying: "Kennedy, King, Kennedy, only one to go."

On June 11, 1968, a sociology professor whose name is redacted writes a letter to the U.S. Secret Service that says "the kind of mind that thinks about political assassinations is likely to find Edward Kennedy, the last Kennedy, particularly alluring. I hope you'll consider providing him some protection, at least for awhile".

One threat came in via pay phone from the New England Oysterhouse in Coral Cables - from somebody identified as Sonny Capone. The FBI says "he may be identical with Francis Capone, Jr., the son of the late notorious Chicago hoodlum, Al Capone."