During WWII, John Bates, Sr. served in the United States Navy. While serving, the young sailor met and befriended the future President of the United States. Both Johns, Bates and Kennedy, became members of a San Franciscan host committee to assist with the formation of the United Nations. Although the senior Bates was a Republican, his character was such that, after America elected John Kennedy its 35th president, the new Commander in Chief invited his attorney friend to serve as an assistant to the attorney general. The senior Bates declined: he was deeply committed to the prestigious law firm of Pillsbury Madison and Sutro. Still, Bates, Sr. remained friends with John and Robert Kennedy and the entire Kennedy clan.

The preceding small amount of biography leads to this: the exact location of Robert Kennedy during the 1962 weekend of Marilyn’s death, specifically on Saturday, August the 4th, while debated even to this day, has been known for decades: Robert Kennedy and a portion of his family were in Gilroy, California, visiting the John Bates family at their ranch. The Kennedy visit began on Friday afternoon, the 3rd of August, and ended on Sunday morning, August the 5th. What I just stated is an established fact; but over the passing years, many conspir­acist writers have questioned the validity of Robert Kennedy’s alibi along with the validity of the first-hand, eye-witness testimony provided by John Bates, Sr. and his wife, Nancy; and my research into the lives of both John and his wife confirmed that they were exemplary individuals with impeccable reputations. I asked Donna Morel, herself a licensed California attorney, if she knew any­thing about attorney Bates. Only, she replied, that he had an outstanding reputation. Despite that evident reputation, following the lead of his conspiracist brethren, Mark Shaw doubted the senior Bates’ honesty; and the author based his doubt on a false allegation. According to Shaw, during the 1957 McClellan hearings, John Bates, Sr. represented the mobster, Sam Giancana. Thus, Shaw proclaimed:

Muddying the waters regarding RFK’s alibi on the fourth of August is the fact that John Bates served as an attorney for mobster Sam Giancana, RFK’s mortal enemy, during the same McClellan hearings where RFK served as chief counsel. That Bates covered up the truth as to Bobby’s whereabouts on the day Marilyn died would have certainly crossed the mind of Dorothy Kilgallen (Shaw 484).

The McClellan government hearings included both Robert and his brother, then senator John Kennedy, with Robert acting as lead counsel, which Shaw correctly noted; but he failed to note the following: the interaction between Robert Kennedy and various mobsters who testified, including Giancana, can best be described as acutely adversarial. In fact, Robert Kennedy ridi­culed Giancana, needled him, referred to the dangerous mobster as a little girl, which must have humiliated the Mafioso. That being the case, if John Bates, Sr. was Giancana’s attorney, had allied himself with the MOB against his Kennedy friends and in so doing, had betrayed them, why would John Kennedy then immediately invite that attorney to join and serve in a Kennedy Administration, invite an unprincipled and untrustworthy MOB lawyer to work alongside his brother, the attorney general? What illogical nonsense to even suggest that the preceding is exactly what transpired.

Again, with assistance from Donna Morel, I contacted John Bates, Jr. on July the 26th via email and posed this question: was your father ever associated with Sam Giancana or the MOB in any capacity? He responded as follows:

Thank you for your inquiry.
My father was a civil attorney. My father never practiced criminal law. At all times he was exclusively a civil trial lawyer. His entire career was with the prestigious San Francisco law firm of Pillsbury Madison & Sutro, where he ultimately rose to managing partner. Never during his legal career did he appear before any legislative committee for anyone. He never represented a member of the Mob, organized crime, or Sam Giancana. Any assertions to the contrary are incorrect.

Mark Shaw failed to provide a source for his ridiculous and false accusation about the senior Bates’ involvement with Sam Giancana. In his source notes for the chapter in which the false accusation appeared, chapter 32, Shaw vaguely referenced a 1985 New York Times interview with John Bates, Sr.; and during my research into the character of the senior Bates and the issue of Robert Kennedy’s location on August the 4th, I located only one New York Times article involving John Bates, Sr: that article did not contain a single word about Sam Giancana or the senior Bates’ involvement with the mobster. Moreover, Mark Shaw did not provide any additional information or evidence to support his transformation of John Bates, Sr. into Frank Ragano, none whatsoever. Very odd but also revealing. A reasonable person could only conclude that Mark Shaw did not know anything at all about John Bates, Sr.; and he did not endeavor to learn anything about the respected attorney, either.

Still, Shaw covered himself and asserted that the attorney general’s appearance in Brentwood at Marilyn’s hacienda was not the important issue. O No. The important issue, what really mattered was Bobby’s dumping rejection of Marilyn, just like JFK’s rejection, and if the second rejection by Bobby caused a confrontation and Marilyn’s threat to reveal their affairs publicly. Shaw then noted: If he [Robert Kennedy] was truly in the San Francisco area, arguably the second most powerful man in America could have orchestrated her death with a telephone call from afar (all quotations from page 485). Interesting, is it not, even if Robert Kennedy was not in Brentwood, and even if he did not visit Marilyn that Saturday―and he obviously was not and did not―he still killed the world’s most famous actress with a lethal telephone call.