An extraordinary archive consisting of a unique primary source audio-video-film collection complimented by a photograph collection of almost five hundred images and many negatives and monumental file boxes of legal documents. Compiled over several decades by investigative journalist Ted Charach. Charach's Golden Globe nominated documentary feature film, The Second Gun, released in 1973, is based wholly upon the interviews, legal and forensic data, firearms and ballistics studies, photographs and charts and evidential matter included in the archive. Charach continued his painstaking and meticulous investigations over the next two and a half decades, added greatly to his already subsantial body of original source material. The archive is housed in over 50 file boxes, plus about 15 large film canisters.

1968, a landmark year in twentieth century America's cycle of change, as prominent United States Senator and former US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy embarks on a fateful pursuit of the Democratic Presidential nomination. June 4th and 5th becomes a night of American drama, triumph and tragedy as RFK, the heir to Camelot, meets his untimely demise as he captures both the California and South Dakota primaries. The clock for Robert Kennedy stops at 12:15 a.m., June 5th, 1968. Broadcast journalist Ted Charach is on assignment covering the RFK victory celebration for Telecommunications News and Continental Broadcast Service inside the Ambassador Hotel Embassy Ballroom. By the early hours of June 5th, Charach is a witness to a pivotal event in twentieth century America. Caught in the eye of a traumatic human hurricane, newsman Charach begins the longest and most challenging assignment of his life, thirty-three years investigating and documenting the RFK chronicle on tape, video, film and research papers. Investigative journalist Charach is internationally recognized in the media, journalistic, legal and forensic communities for his tenacity in energizing his independent probe and organizing, developing and documenting the RFK second gun theory. Indefatigable in his independent pursuit of the truth, Charach carefully assembled the largest and most comprehensive private RFK archive in existence in his ongoing three-decade effort to reveal and document what really occurred in the Embassy Ballroom pantry, site of the Ambassador Hotel Presidential Campaign celebration. The extraordinary archive is a unique primary source audio-video-film collection complimented by a photograph collection of almost five hundred images and many negatives and monumental file boxes of legal documents. Charach's Golden Globe nominated documentary feature film, The Second Gun, is based wholly upon the interviews, legal and forensic data, firearms and ballistics studies, photographs and charts and evidential matter included in the archive. Important interviews include RFK eyewitnesses Karl Uecker, Scott Enyart and Paul Schrade, injured in the shooting, an on-the-spot taped and film segment of Continental broadcaster Jeff Brent interviewing Donald Schulman moments after the shooting in which Schulman reports observing a security guard firing his weapon, distinguished Los Angeles attorney Godfrey Isaac and former Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi, prominent American criminologists William W. Harper, Professor Herbert Leon MacDonell and Lowell W. Bradford, forensic consultants Dr. Thomas T. Noguchi, Dr. Cyril H. Wecht and Judge Robert J. Joling, police science professor Dr. William Bailey, psychologist Eduard Simpson and neutron activation expert Professor Vincent Guinn. Of primary importance for historians and researchers are two unedited audio-video taped interviews with security guard and alleged second gun suspect Thane Eugene Cesar, the first recorded by Charach in 1968 and the a second unreleased interview from 1993 after Cesar had become aware of legal developments in the case and was alleged to have renounced his American citizenship and fled to another country. Also included in the archive are professional quality broadcast video cassettes of Operation Tinker Toy, Ted Charach's search and retrieval of the second gun after it had lain for almost three decades in an Arkansas swamp. Operation Tinker Toy continues with the secret testing and authentication of the second gun, Y-13332, a weapon similar to Sirhan Bishara Sirhan's Iver Johnson Saturday night special. This highly important and pertinent evidence is available only in the Charach archive. Among the over fifty file boxes of documents are original legal writs, confidential correspondence relative to the RFK case and original affidavits signed by principals in the legal and forensic communities as well as a number of letters and declarations signed by prominent celebrities and statesmen. The large collection of photographs include a complete series of the Embassy Ballroom victory party celebrants focusing on suspects mingling with the crowd in the minutes before shots rang through the room. The numerous films contain almost 1000 feature film out-takes as well as the master theatrical reels in both 16 mm. and 35 mm. of The Second Gun and the original RFK investigative audio probe Why. Ted Charach is widely recognized as the premier archivist in the RFK tragedy, beginning at the Embassy Ballroom on June 4th, 1968, and continuing to the present day. From the perspective of today, the archive transcends the historical event inside the ballroom on June 5th, 1968, and reveals, in a highly documented examination, twentieth century stonewalling and the closing of bureaucratic ranks against perceived "outsiders" and "crusaders" for justice. Ironically, Robert Kennedy had addressed this mentality just fifteen minutes prior to his death in his California victory speech when he declared, "I think we can end the divisions within the United States. What I think is clear is that we can work together in the last analysis." The Charach archive is not only a comprehensive historical source, including enormous LAPD and FBI files, but also reveals the stark contrast between the efficiencies of modern forensic science in collision with human emotion and frailties with the resulting loss of clarity with regard to truth, integrity of evidence and fairness which has characterized many of the puzzling actions and decisions of the Robert Kennedy investigation. For information on this unique and incomparable archive, contact: Douglas Johns, PBA Galleries, San Francisco 415-989-2665 doug@pbagalleries.com