Author of American History and True Crime books
MEL AYTON
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NEW BOOK RELEASE 2024/2025
The Making of an Assassin is a sequel to The Forgotten Terrorist (Second Edition 2019, With a Foreword by Harvard Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz) The book traces Sirhan’s development as a political assassin from his time as a young boy growing up amidst the turmoil of the Arab/Israeli conflict of the late 1940s and early 1950s to the tragic day in June 1968 when he assassinated one of America’s most charismatic leaders. The book examines Sirhan’s quest for freedom in the years following his guilty verdict and subsequent life sentence and his battle in seeking parole in the ensuing half-century.
The Making of an Assassin includes numerous new revelations about the assassin including:
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How conspiracy writers fooled the American public into believing Sirhan had no political motive for his crime.
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How Arab political organisations in the US influenced Sirhan in his decision to strike out at the United States after the 1967 Six Day War.
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Why Sirhan chose Senator Robert Kennedy as his target.
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Why Sirhan’s claims to suffer amnesia during the assassination are bogus. The author provides documentary evidence proving the assassin lied about not remembering the shooting.
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Why Sirhan lied to his lawyers and defence investigators about the circumstances surrounding the assassination – but not to his mother. New revelations about Sirhan’s mother and her racist and Antisemitic sentiments voiced to her son’s closest friend.
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How Sirhan had been influenced by his mother in his embrace of Antisemitism.
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Why Sirhan took a ‘two-track’ approach (admitting to the crime but denying he was the main shooter) in his attempts to secure his freedom.
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How Sirhan admitted shooting Robert Kennedy on numerous occasions throughout his time in prison.
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How Sirhan repeatedly contradicted himself during his numerous parole hearings.
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The story of how the author and America’s leading authority on the assassination, Dan Moldea, assisted the California Attorney General in challenging and debunking the claims made by Sirhan and his conspiracy-minded defenders that he was a hypnotised assassin recruited by the CIA to kill Kennedy.
“Of all the authors who have tackled the RFK case British author Mel Ayton most likely got closer to the truth than any of the others in his 2008 book The Forgotten Terrorist – Sirhan Sirhan and the Assassination of Robert F Kennedy. In his book he argues that Sirhan had clear and defined motives in wanting to murder Robert Kennedy and the hatred that spewed forth from his gun ultimately can be traced back to one cause – Palestinian nationalism. Sirhan was a political actor and a political assassin – the first Palestinian terrorist to strike at the heart of America....”. Journalist Lori Spencer
PBS AMERICA 2024
THE 100 DAYS THAT DEFINED MODERN HISTORY - The Assassinations of Martin Luther King & Robert F. Kennedy. Excerpts from the documentary
PBS AMERICA 2024 THE 100 DAYS THAT DEFINED MODERN HISTORY - The Assassinations of Martin Luther King
Why did Martin Luther King's assassin declare his innocence until the day he died?
Civil rights leader Martin Luther King was killed on a Memphis motel balcony leading to an international manhunt.
By MEL AYTON
Tue, Mar 14, 2023
Praise for Mel Ayton's JFK and RFK Articles
‘Mel Ayton’s research on this difficult question: “Who was responsible for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy?” is excellent.’ – Colonel Manuel Chavez, Former US Air Force Intelligence Officer assigned to the CIA’s office in Miami from 1960–4
‘Mel Ayton has a well-deserved reputation for doing the near-impossible: writing about controversial history (including conspiracy theories) in a sober but imaginative way, combining reliable accounts with intellectually stimulating arguments. I highly recommend his work’ – Rick Shenkman, publisher, History News Network
‘[Mel Ayton] is doing a fabulous job of setting history right’ – David Aaronovitch, columnist for The Times and author of Voodoo Histories – The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History
‘Mel Ayton [is] one of the few analysts who has fully grasped the crime’s Middle East connection. . . . Far from being a “maniacally absurd” crime, as Newsweek concluded, the Robert Kennedy assassination was in fact an eminently political act. It was the first “blowback” attack the United States suffered as a result of its Middle East policies’ – Stephen Kinzer, ‘Shot Heard Round the World’, The Guardian
‘The greatest riddle in any of these high-profile assassinations is motive. Thanks to Mel Ayton, the RFK killing can now be removed from that list of mysteries’ – Gus Russo, author of The Outfit and Supermob
‘Mel Ayton has accomplished something that no one writing about the RFK assassination has ever achieved before. By combining a judicious review of the forensic and eyewitness evidence with a firm grasp of the historical context, Ayton has finally made sense of the 1968 killing’ – Max Holland, author of The Kennedy Assassination Tapes and publisher of Washington Decoded
‘Mel Ayton presents a compelling examination of the convicted [RFK] assassin’s motivations, his state of mind, and the mountain of evidence used to denounce and imprison him’ – Craig Hendricks, The History Teacher, Vol. 41, No. 2
‘I have read some of your . . . articles about Sirhan’s many conspiracy theories, which demonstrate the wealth of your research as to the RFK murder.’ – California Deputy Attorney General Jaime Fuster
Mel Ayton [is] a writer I’ve found to be a valuable debunker of unwarranted conspiracy theorizing. He reminds us with copious quotations in [his articles] how repeatedly and explicitly Sirhan made clear why he targeted R.F.K.: because Sirhan hated the state of Israel and hated R.F.K.’s support for Israel.’ – Ron Rosenbaum, the New York Observer
‘Important and extensively documented. . . . especially pertinent to understanding current lone wolf terrorists, as it discusses leading forensic psychology theories to explain Sirhan’s possible mental state and motivations.’ – Joshua Sinai, Perspectives on Terrorism
The 1968 assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy by Sirhan Sirhan may well be one of the most transforming events of the last third of the 20th century. . . . Mel Ayton documents the elements that contributed to Sirhan’s hatred of anyone or anything associated positively with Israel or Jews.’ – Harvard Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz, Foreword to the 2019 edition of The Forgotten Terrorist
Washington Decoded
Assassination: As American as Apple Pie? by Mel Ayton, 11 April 2022
REVIEWS
“There are a handful of investigative historians, like author Mel Ayton, who are best known for their unique insights into American history. What is particularly remarkable about Ayton is that he is a British scholar who is widely admired and respected as one of the top experts in the world on the protection of U.S. presidential candidates. His latest work, Protecting the Presidential Candidates: From JFK to Biden, is the third in his wonderfully researched and brilliantly written series of books about this fascinating subject. And it is Ayton’s best and most important work to date.” Dan E. Moldea, author of The Hoffa Wars and The Killing of Robert F. Kennedy
“With Protecting the Presidential Candidates, Mel Ayton takes a deep dive into the intersection between law enforcement and politics. Through meticulous research and compelling, character-driven stories, Ayton shows us that both running for President of the United States, and protecting those who do, are among the riskiest and most unpredictable pursuits in modern American life. An important contribution to the literature of the Secret Service and presidential politics”. John Douglas and Mark Olshaker, Authors of Mindhunter and The Killer’s Shadow, http://mindhuntersinc.com/about-us/
Hunting The President (2014)
"The only book of its kind and certainly the best book of its kind...A fascinating and very important book which I heartily recommend.... it's easy to figure out why Mel Ayton's writing has drawn nearly universal praise in the past and for his present volume Hunting The President... Even for people who know American history; even for people who have a special expertise in the history of presidential assassinations; you're going to learn a great deal from (this) new book.........." Michael Medved
“Mel Ayton has a well-deserved reputation for doing the near-impossible: writing about controversial history (including conspiracy theories) in a sober but imaginative way, combining reliable accounts with intellectually stimulating arguments. I highly recommend his work.” — Rick Shenkman, Publisher, History News Network
Plotting To Kill The President is an eye-opener into a buried part of presidential history. Would-be assassins have stalked every U.S. president from George Washington forward. Mel Ayton reveals the numerous never-before-told incidents about how a wide array of presidents survived near-fatal assassination attempts -- J. Patrick O’Connor, editor of Crime Magazine and the author of The Chino Hills Murders and the Framing of Kevin Cooper.
“Mel Ayton reveals that attempts to assassinate the president are not the exception but the rule—almost as old as the republic itself. [Plotting to Kill the President] also helps us understand better those infrequent occasions when attempts succeed”. Max Holland, Editor of Washington Decoded and author of Leak: Why Mark Felt Became Deep Throat
