New RFK Jr book gives big nod to research community

[Michaleen Kilroy]

RFk Jr has an interesting new book out that cites many in the JFK assassination research community, giving credence and validation to a conspiracy. 

Jim, Larry, Lisa Pease, John Newman and others’ insights are included. He disparages Helms, Harvey and Phillips pointedly and even references a personal conversation with Veciana regarding his identification of LHO with DAE in Dallas.

Also includes some heartbreaking and intimate details from the Kennedy’s family POV in the aftermath of the assassination and much more about his dad, mom and his own struggles.

The book is called ‘American Values: Lessons I Learned from My Family.’

i haven’t read it all yet but you can check it out here:

https://www.amazon.com/American-Values-Lessons-Learned-Family/dp/0062845918

Edited May 22, 2018 by Mike Kilroy

[Roy Wieselquist]

Mike, thanks for the heads-up. 

Unfortunately, the Amazon blurb right at the top of the page makes the rookiest mistake of all-time re RFK, calling him R "Fitzgerald" K.  Anyone familiar with the dude knows it's Robert Francis Kennedy.  Rose and old Joe had their boy pegged to be a priest.  Man, were they wrong.

Edited May 22, 2018 by Roy Wieselquist

[James DiEugenio]

I did not even know it was out yet.  But yeah, good.

Its the first really candid look at the murders of JFK and RFK from a member of the Kennedy family.

What guts this guy has.

[Rob Couteau]

That's a major step forward. Now let's see what the MSM does with this.

[Michaleen Kilroy]

20 minutes ago, Rob Couteau said:

That's a major step forward. Now let's see what the MSM does with this.

Though objectively it should be big news, I ain’t holding my breath!

[Rob Couteau]

Right. Objectivity and journalism are sorely lacking these days. Either they will just ignore him or attempt to tarnish him. Or perhaps both. In any case, a courageous man.

[B. A. Copeland]

3 hours ago, Rob Couteau said:

That's a major step forward. Now let's see what the MSM does with this.

Their silence will be their answer I'd imagine. Anyone have that Charlie Rose/RFK Jr. transcript yet?

[Rob Couteau]

I'm anticipating a response such as : "The poor man, in his grief, has succumb to delusions spawned by those rascals, the conspiracy theorists."

 

[James DiEugenio]

This will really be interesting on how the MSM plays this.

 

See, he has a major publisher and he is a big name.  So this should be good.

[James DiEugenio]

He was on the Today Show a few days ago.

They talked about American Values and also the reversal of his cousin Mike Skakel's conviction by the Connceticut Surpeme Court. 

His last book before this one was about that case.  Very good book by the way which exposed the circus the media made of that case.

https://kennedysandking.com/reviews/robert-kennedy-jr-framed-why-michael-skakel-spent-over-a-decade-in-prison-for-a-murder-he-didn-t-commit

I am certain it was this book that got an innocent man out.

[Paz Marverde]

On 5/22/2018 at 9:31 AM, Mike Kilroy said:

RFk Jr has an interesting new book out that cites many in the JFK assassination research community, giving credence and validation to a conspiracy. 

Jim, Larry, Lisa Pease, John Newman and others’ insights are included. He disparages Helms, Harvey and Phillips pointedly and even references a personal conversation with Veciana regarding his identification of LHO with DAE in Dallas.

Also includes some heartbreaking and intimate details from the Kennedy’s family POV in the aftermath of the assassination and much more about his dad, mom and his own struggles.

The book is called ‘American Values: Lessons I Learned from My Family.’

i haven’t read it all yet but you can check it out here:

https://www.amazon.com/American-Values-Lessons-Learned-Family/dp/0062845918

Mike, thank you very much for this

[Paz Marverde]

On 5/22/2018 at 6:31 PM, James DiEugenio said:

I did not even know it was out yet.  But yeah, good.

Its the first really candid look at the murders of JFK and RFK from a member of the Kennedy family.

What guts this guy has.

Agree, and not first time he shows guts, by the way. Really excited 

[Paz Marverde]

Chapter 7: JFK: In Pursuit of Peace

Chapter 8: A Farewell to Camelot

[Paz Marverde]

https://people.com/politics/rfk-jr-on-omens-before-jfk-and-rfk-assassinations/

According to the book, a number of friends advised JFK not to go to Dallas. During the president’s birthday party on Nov. 20, Ethel Kennedy “found Jack distant and brooding,” and he later sang a “haunting” song to a group of friends, RFK Jr. writes. The previous weekend, “Jack had made an unusual spontaneous trip to Palm Beach to say goodbye to his father,” the author adds.

While RFK was tormented by his brother’s death (he started wearing JFK’s leather flight jacket, carried his tie clip, and kept a lock of his hair in his dressing room, according to the book), RFK eventually processed his grief and focused on his own political causes. During his time as U.S. attorney general and later as U.S. senator from New York, RFK fought against organized crime and was a champion for civil rights. Months before his death, RFK joined the race for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination.

“Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope,” RFK said during his “Ripple of Hope” speech while in South Africa, “and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

Despite his hopeful conviction, omens and danger continued to circle the Kennedy family.

“My father, as ever, was fatalistic about his own destiny,” Kennedy writes. Not only did RFK refuse to be “surrounded by security” because he was afraid of being spied on by the FBI, RFK wanted to “engage and touch the crowds.”

“Often, former federal agent Billy Barry was alone with my dad in the back of a car,” Kennedy writes. “In hindsight, it was certainly reckless, given the power and determination of his many enemies. I suppose it was hubristic, too.”

According to the book, death threats were so “routine that they had become banal.” While RFK remained unfazed, others were afraid for the presidential hopeful.

“Do you know what I think will happen to Bobby if he is elected president?” Jackie Kennedy told Arthur Schlesinger at a party on April 2, 1968, according to Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis: The Untold Story by Barbara Leaming (which Kennedy also cites). “The same thing that happened to Jack. There is so much hatred in this country, and more people hate Bobby than hated Jack. That’s why I don’t want him to be president.”

The day of the California primary, RFK’s beach outing with his wife and six of his eleven children quickly turned dark when his son, David, almost drowned because of a strong undertow, according to the book. Kennedy writes that “my father pulled him out, probably saving his life.”

Shortly after, on June 5, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. His son, David, was left alone to watch his father’s murder replay on the TV for hours before he was discovered, according to the book. Kennedy writes that his brother “never got over that loss” and died of an overdose at the age of 28.

Looking back, RFK Jr. realizes he had his own portentous moment with his father.

“When I was 14, and [my father] was struggling with his decision to run for the presidency, he handed me a copy of Camus’s classic The Plague, and told me, with unusual urgency, to read it,” Kennedy tells PEOPLE. “It was the story of a doctor wandering home to home treating bubonic plague patients in a quarantined North African city. The doctor goes about this hopeless business quietly, without fanfare, knowing that his struggle against death is mainly fruitless and that his own demise is the likelihood.”

Kennedy adds, “Despite their apparent futility, [the doctor’s] small acts of moral courage give his life its purpose and somehow bring order to the larger universe.” 

Despite the threats against RFK, or perhaps because of them, RFK Jr. explains that his father continued to believe in the lessons taught by existential writers, his Catholic faith, and Greek philosophers.

“My father’s last campaign seemed, from its outset a lost cause, but he was genuinely happy for the first time since losing his brother,” Kennedy tells PEOPLE. With a reference to Sisyphus, the king in Greek mythology who is sentenced to push a rock up a hill for all eternity, Kennedy went on: “I think my father wanted me to know that satisfaction in life comes from pushing the stone up the hill, even when all the odds and the destinies oppose you. And sometimes you might prevail. He loved Emerson’s observation that ‘If a single man plant himself upon his own ideals, and there abides, the whole wide world will come round to him.’”

[James DiEugenio]

Thanks Paz.  He got some emotion and some poetry into the book.