Burton Hersh's New Book [Author of The Old Boys]

[Robert Howard]

Students of JFK Research will agree that Burton Hersh's The Old Boys: The American Elite & The Origins of the CIA is an essential work for the aforementioned. [bTW, the updated version 2002; original version 1992 is worth having for the extra additions, also it is one of the few books that mentions Cord Meyer]

Now he has just released, Bobby & J. Edgar.......The Bitter Faceoff Between the Kennedys and Hoover

Carroll & Graf 2007

While I only have an advance copy, [ I am hoping that someone named Karen at Avon.....might float me a new copy.....] my personal perception is that this is a typical Hersh book, which means about as perfect research as you can get.....I would imagine John Simkin will back me up on this if he get's a chance to read it......

See

http://www.amazon.com/Bobby-J-Edgar-Histor...d/dp/0786719826

Who Loves Ya Baby......

I feel like Kojak sitting in a Cadillac

I gotta eat, I gotta eat a Flapjack

a stack, a rack, a six-pack Jack

just call me Jack Kerouac

click-clack open up the hatchback

I could eat a Bubble car or a packamack

pattacake, pattacake Big Mac

good God it's a snack attack

[Michael Hogan]

Students of JFK Research will agree that Burton Hersh's The Old Boys: The American Elite & The Origins of the CIA is an essential work for the aforementioned. [bTW, the updated version 2002; original version 1992 is worth having for the extra additions, also it is one of the few books that mentions Cord Meyer]

Now he has just released, Bobby & J. Edgar.......The Bitter Faceoff Between the Kennedys and Hoover

Carroll & Graf 2007

While I only have an advance copy, [ I am hoping that someone named Karen at Avon.....might float me a new copy.....] my personal perception is that this is a typical Hersh book, which means about as perfect research as you can get.....I would imagine John Simkin will back me up on this if he get's a chance to read it......

See

http://www.amazon.com/Bobby-J-Edgar-Histor...d/dp/0786719826

It's mildly surprising that Robert's post received no comments. Has anyone read Hersh's book Bobby and J Edgar?

It's a very earthy and salty account of the Kennedy era. Like Talbot, Hersh interviewed many people - Gary Aguilar, Bobby Baker, James Bamford, Robert Blakey, Deke DeLoach, Nicholas Katzenbach, Senator Edward Kennedy, Jerry McKnight, Priscilla McMillan, Robert Maheu, Dan Moldea, Jefferson Morley, Ruth Paine, John Seigenthaler, Arthur Schlesinger Jr, Peter Dale Scott, Anthony Summers, David Talbot, and many more.

In addition, Hersh borrows heavily on previous authors, all well-known to students and researchers of the Kennedys and Hoover.

This book paints a much different picture of the Kennedy brothers than David Talbot's Brothers. It is darker and much less flattering to the late President and his brother. Naturally, there is a lot on Marilyn Monroe, the Mob, the CIA and Hoover's associates. The book is definitely not for readers with delicate sensitivities.

To me, it was a compelling read but in today's day and age, with so much written on the Kennedys, it seems easy to pick and choose from the record and paint almost any kind of picture an author wants to.

From the inside dust jacket:

Hersh reveals Joe Kennedy's successful plot to push Lyndon Johnson into the vice presidential nomination by secretly helping Hoover manipulate JFK and RFK, as well as RFK's scheme to drive Roy Cohn out of the McCarthy Committee, which ultimately helped destroy the controversial senator. The story extends through a web of alliance and deceit, adultery and sexual unorthodoxy, encompassing major figures from Joe McCarthy to Martin Luther King and Marilyn Monroe, from organized crime leaders Frank Costello, Johnny Rosselli, and Carlos Marcello to President Richard Nixon.

With compelling new research, Burton Hersh, a historian and author of The Old Boys, sheds light on this complex relationship, from their early years in politics and their parallel rise to power, to their controversial deaths.

[Tim Gratz]

As most of you may know, Mr. Hersh will speak at the JFK Lancer conference in November.