The NYT Review of Talbot's "Brothers" Book

[Benjamin Cole]

With leading JFKA researcher David Talbot in distress, now is a good time to honor him, and gauge establishment media reaction to his insightful works. 

This book review is from the NYT in 2007, and it shows just how cunning and underhanded the establishment media could be in dealing with the JFKA.  

---30---

 

Conspiracy?

 

By ALAN BRINKLEY

Published: May 20, 2007

Within minutes of learning of President John F. Kennedy’s murder on Nov. 22, 1963, Robert F. Kennedy was working the phones, looking for answers to how his brother had died. “There’s so much bitterness,” he told a colleague that day. “I thought they would get one of us.” But who were “they”? Robert Kennedy gravitated immediately to a shadowy nexus of forces he believed were at odds with the policies of his brother’s administration. Was it the C.I.A.? he asked John McCone, the director of central intelligence. Was the assassination the work of anti-Castro Cubans? Was it the American Mafia? Or was it — since there were hidden but important connections among these groups — a combined effort by them all? Before he had ever heard the name Lee Harvey Oswald, Robert Kennedy was considering scenarios that would eventually become the foundation of the myriad conspiracy theories that have haunted the American imagination for more than 40 years; according to David Talbot, he continued to explore those scenarios until his own death in 1968, even while publicly denying his belief in a conspiracy.

 

Wes Duvall

 

BROTHERS

The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years.

By David Talbot.

Illustrated. 478 pp. Free Press. $28.

 

Talbot, the founder and former editor of Salon, the online magazine, is the latest of many intelligent critics who have set out to demolish the tottering credibility of the Warren Commission and draw attention to evidence of a broad and terrible conspiracy that lay behind the assassination of John Kennedy — and perhaps the murder of Robert Kennedy as well. “Brothers” is a fearless, passionate, often angry book that both summarizes much of the vast conspiracy literature and attempts to add new evidence that Talbot himself amassed through dogged interviews with many people connected — directly or indirectly — with the Kennedy years.

But this is not just a book about assassination. It is also a story of how the Kennedy brothers tried to change the world. “There was a heroic grandeur to John F. Kennedy’s administration that had nothing to do with the mists of Camelot,” Talbot argues. “It was a presidency that clashed with its own times, and in the end found some measure of greatness.” Indeed, it was the courage and vision of Kennedy’s presidency — and the dangers it posed to many entrenched interests in and out of government — that Talbot believes was the reason for his death. Kennedy had angered the C.I.A. by refusing adequately to support the Bay of Pigs invasion and by considering a rapprochement with Communist Cuba. He had infuriated some of the hard-core anti-Castro émigrés for the same reason. He and his brother had antagonized the Mafia through the Justice Department’s relentless efforts to break its power. At the same time, the president had made bitter enemies of conservative Southerners because of his embrace of the civil rights movement; he had invited the contempt of the military by his cautious response to the Cuban missile crisis; and he had alarmed much of the intelligence, military and foreign policy establishments with his plan to end the Vietnam War. John Kennedy, in Talbot’s view, had challenged virtually all the premises that were at the heart of the cold war — that an unremitting conflict with Communism was inevitable as long as the Soviet Union survived; that compromise was tantamount to surrender; that domestic upheaval was a threat to the nation’s international interests; and that almost any means could be justified in the struggle with the nation’s many enemies. Kennedy had offered an alternative path, one that rejected reckless military action and sought to find common ground for peace, justice and conciliation. Little wonder, Talbot suggests, that so many potent forces were eager to see him dead.

The “heroic grandeur” of the Kennedy presidency, and of Robert Kennedy’s later effort to revive it, is central to almost all the conspiracy theories that have emerged in the last four decades. But few writers have made as strong a connection as Talbot has between that grandeur and the forces he believes were determined to destroy it. There were no petty motives behind the killing of the Kennedys, he says. The future of the world was at stake. “History cracked open” that day in Dallas, Talbot maintains, quoting the playwright Tony Kushner. Solving the mystery of Kennedy’s world-changing death, therefore, is essential to any hope of putting history back on track. It is a powerful story. But is it true?

Talbot’s interpretation of the Kennedy years is at odds even with many of the most sympathetic accounts. Kennedy did show signs in the last months of his life of reconsidering some of the premises of the cold war and of doubting the wisdom of Vietnam. But few historians would describe his presidency as a radical challenge to the status quo. Kennedy declined to escalate the Bay of Pigs invasion and the missile crisis, to be sure, but his differences with the hard-liners who opposed him were mostly tactical, not strategic. He wavered between bold, liberal visions of the future and conventional cold war thinking. His inspiring American University speech in the spring of 1963, calling for peaceful cooperation with the Soviet Union, was followed weeks later by a bellicose denunciation of Soviet power in Berlin. His private suggestions that he wanted to end the Vietnam War were accompanied by public actions that made terminating the conflict far more difficult for his successors. He and his brother were skeptical, at times even contemptuous, of the C.I.A. But as Talbot himself makes clear, that did not stop Robert Kennedy (presumably with the support of his brother) from continuing to encourage the C.I.A. to undertake covert actions to undermine Castro. John Kennedy was a smart, ambitious and capable president, with moments of greatness. If he had lived, he might well have become the heroic figure Talbot claims he was. But the reality of his foreshortened presidency was much more complex and inconsistent than Talbot acknowledges.

 

Within minutes of learning of President John F. Kennedy’s murder on Nov. 22, 1963, Robert F. Kennedy was working the phones, looking for answers to how his brother had died. “There’s so much bitterness,” he told a colleague that day. “I thought they would get one of us.” But who were “they”? Robert Kennedy gravitated immediately to a shadowy nexus of forces he believed were at odds with the policies of his brother’s administration. Was it the C.I.A.? he asked John McCone, the director of central intelligence. Was the assassination the work of anti-Castro Cubans? Was it the American Mafia? Or was it — since there were hidden but important connections among these groups — a combined effort by them all? Before he had ever heard the name Lee Harvey Oswald, Robert Kennedy was considering scenarios that would eventually become the foundation of the myriad conspiracy theories that have haunted the American imagination for more than 40 years; according to David Talbot, he continued to explore those scenarios until his own death in 1968, even while publicly denying his belief in a conspiracy.

Talbot, the founder and former editor of Salon, the online magazine, is the latest of many intelligent critics who have set out to demolish the tottering credibility of the Warren Commission and draw attention to evidence of a broad and terrible conspiracy that lay behind the assassination of John Kennedy — and perhaps the murder of Robert Kennedy as well. “Brothers” is a fearless, passionate, often angry book that both summarizes much of the vast conspiracy literature and attempts to add new evidence that Talbot himself amassed through dogged interviews with many people connected — directly or indirectly — with the Kennedy years.

But this is not just a book about assassination. It is also a story of how the Kennedy brothers tried to change the world. “There was a heroic grandeur to John F. Kennedy’s administration that had nothing to do with the mists of Camelot,” Talbot argues. “It was a presidency that clashed with its own times, and in the end found some measure of greatness.” Indeed, it was the courage and vision of Kennedy’s presidency — and the dangers it posed to many entrenched interests in and out of government — that Talbot believes was the reason for his death. Kennedy had angered the C.I.A. by refusing adequately to support the Bay of Pigs invasion and by considering a rapprochement with Communist Cuba. He had infuriated some of the hard-core anti-Castro émigrés for the same reason. He and his brother had antagonized the Mafia through the Justice Department’s relentless efforts to break its power. At the same time, the president had made bitter enemies of conservative Southerners because of his embrace of the civil rights movement; he had invited the contempt of the military by his cautious response to the Cuban missile crisis; and he had alarmed much of the intelligence, military and foreign policy establishments with his plan to end the Vietnam War. John Kennedy, in Talbot’s view, had challenged virtually all the premises that were at the heart of the cold war — that an unremitting conflict with Communism was inevitable as long as the Soviet Union survived; that compromise was tantamount to surrender; that domestic upheaval was a threat to the nation’s international interests; and that almost any means could be justified in the struggle with the nation’s many enemies. Kennedy had offered an alternative path, one that rejected reckless military action and sought to find common ground for peace, justice and conciliation. Little wonder, Talbot suggests, that so many potent forces were eager to see him dead.

The “heroic grandeur” of the Kennedy presidency, and of Robert Kennedy’s later effort to revive it, is central to almost all the conspiracy theories that have emerged in the last four decades. But few writers have made as strong a connection as Talbot has between that grandeur and the forces he believes were determined to destroy it. There were no petty motives behind the killing of the Kennedys, he says. The future of the world was at stake. “History cracked open” that day in Dallas, Talbot maintains, quoting the playwright Tony Kushner. Solving the mystery of Kennedy’s world-changing death, therefore, is essential to any hope of putting history back on track. It is a powerful story. But is it true?

Talbot’s interpretation of the Kennedy years is at odds even with many of the most sympathetic accounts. Kennedy did show signs in the last months of his life of reconsidering some of the premises of the cold war and of doubting the wisdom of Vietnam. But few historians would describe his presidency as a radical challenge to the status quo. Kennedy declined to escalate the Bay of Pigs invasion and the missile crisis, to be sure, but his differences with the hard-liners who opposed him were mostly tactical, not strategic. He wavered between bold, liberal visions of the future and conventional cold war thinking. His inspiring American University speech in the spring of 1963, calling for peaceful cooperation with the Soviet Union, was followed weeks later by a bellicose denunciation of Soviet power in Berlin. His private suggestions that he wanted to end the Vietnam War were accompanied by public actions that made terminating the conflict far more difficult for his successors. He and his brother were skeptical, at times even contemptuous, of the C.I.A. But as Talbot himself makes clear, that did not stop Robert Kennedy (presumably with the support of his brother) from continuing to encourage the C.I.A. to undertake covert actions to undermine Castro. John Kennedy was a smart, ambitious and capable president, with moments of greatness. If he had lived, he might well have become the heroic figure Talbot claims he was. But the reality of his foreshortened presidency was much more complex and inconsistent than Talbot acknowledges.

One would expect such an important historical argument to be accompanied by substantial evidence. Talbot has relied heavily on his own extensive conversations with Kennedy friends and colleagues and their widows, sons and acquaintances. He has immersed himself in the published literature on the assassination. And he has prowled through the various archival records that have slowly been opened to scholars. But he has uncovered little that conclusively challenges or fully confirms the many previous conspiracy theories. He does provide a thorough account of the many efforts to uncover the truth of the Kennedy assassination — summarizing the theories of Mark Lane, Jim Garrison, Oliver Stone, Anthony Summers and many others — and he sees these efforts, however flawed, as heroic contributions to the search for the truth. He assembles the suspicions of countless Warren Commission skeptics; provides substantial circumstantial evidence that appears to support one or another theory; and ridicules the dwindling but still significant band of believers in the Warren Commission story, which he sees as a corrupt and politicized attempt to transform a great historical tragedy into a tawdry and trivial crime. To his credit, Talbot does not choose among the many theories he dutifully describes. All of them are credible, he implies. None of them have been definitively proved. Talbot concludes his book with a powerful plea for a new effort to uncover the truth — a task that would, he says, be akin to the “truth and reconciliation” efforts that have helped heal terrible wounds in countries like Chile, South Africa and Argentina. “It is not too late, even at this remote date, to revive the J.F.K. investigation,” he insists. “The trail has not receded entirely into history’s far horizons.”

An argument that offers multiple theories without having real proof for any of them is in some ways not an argument at all. Talbot has not resolved the debate over the assassination, and he has brought relatively little credible new evidence to the task of resolving it. But in fairness, that is not really his goal. Although he clearly believes deeply in the existence of a conspiracy, his purpose is to raise enough questions and doubts to inspire others to demand the truth. In doing so, he is largely preaching to the convinced. Well over half the American public (and much of the rest of the world) already shares his belief in a conspiracy without being sure what the conspiracy was. His book is evidence of why this important argument will most likely remain an argument without end.

---Alan Brinkley is the Allan Nevins professor of history and the provost at Columbia University.

[Robert Burrows]

Thank you for posting this, Mr. Cole, I missed the news about David Talbot's "severe stroke." Prayers for his recovery, and for his family. IMHO one of the best authors on the JFK assassination. 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Robert Burrows said:

Thank you for posting this, Mr. Cole, I missed the news about David Talbot's "severe stroke." Prayers for his recovery, and for his family. IMHO one of the best authors on the JFK assassination. 

 

RB-

Thank you for your collegial comments RB.

I have some reservations about Talbot's books, but to paraphrase an old song, "too few to mention." (Song: I Did It My Way ) 

As some say, "Growing old is not for sissies." 

 

 

[Matt Cloud]

The most important passage in Talbot's book is loosely summarized here:

"Talbot then builds an argument that this early conclusion is what caused Robert Kennedy to take control of the president's autopsy exhibits, specifically the brain and tissue slides. Further, Talbot adduces evidence that RFK actually thought of taking the limousine also. After Oswald is killed by Ruby, Bobby begins to focus on the Mob and has labor lawyer Julius Draznin submit a report on Ruby's labor racketeering activities. RFK then told his friend Pat Moynihan to investigate the Secret Service while Bobby interviewed agent Clint Hill himself.

This chapter closes with a review of William Walton's mission to Moscow in the wake of President Kennedy's assassination. This extraordinary tale first surfaced in 1997 in one of the two best books on the Cuban Missile Crisis, One Hell of a Gamble. (The other volume being The Kennedy Tapes, published the same year.) Talbot goes into the background of Walton and why he was sent by RFK and Jackie Kennedy to send a secret message via Georgi Bolshakov who the Kennedys had used previously during the Missile Crisis as a back channel."

https://www.kennedysandking.com/robert-f-kennedy-reviews/review-david-talbot-s-brothers

See also The Rebel magazine, Feb. 13, 1984. by Bill Turner, "Farewell America: How French Intelligence Wrote a Book about the Kennedy Assassination" (reviewing Farewell America by James Hepburn), p. 29: 

"In due time, Moynihan submitted a confidential report, concluding hat Hoffa was not involved, and the Secret Service had not been bribed. ... Through "personal friendships" with Kennedy insiders ... the report was delivered into the hands of French intelligence. ... This pretty well explained a cryptic passage in the chapter: 'Only Daniel [P]. Moynihan, a former longshoreman, had some idea of such things."

And see:

https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/assistant-labor-secretary-daniel-patrick-moynihan-and-news-photo/103417307

Daniel Patrick Moynihan and William Walton leave the White House after learning that President Kennedy had died. WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 22, 1963.

See also:

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1967/3/25/moynihan-foresaw-oswald-death-warned-officials/

Moynihan Foresaw Oswald Death, Warned Officials of Dallas Danger

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED

March 25, 1967

The day after the assassination of John F. Kennedy '40, Daniel P. Moynihan, now director of the Harvard-M.I.T. Joint Center for Urban Studies, sensed the possible murder of alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald if he remained in Dallas.

The then Under Secretary of Labor pleaded futilely with Washington officials to move Oswald from the city, William Manchester revealed in this week's issue of Look magazine.

"He had been the one member of the subcabinet who had foreseen disaster in the jail basement," Manchester said, in an article describing his struggle to write and publish The Death of a President, his controversial history of the assassination.

When contacted yesterday, Moynihan confirmed the events described by Manchester, but declined further comment.

[Matthew Koch]

I have this book, but my copy is packed away and currently is unavailable to me.

Can someone please refresh my memory about what the Che Guevara Bobby/JFK part was about and what Talbots sources for that are?  

Thank you! 

[Benjamin Cole]

7 hours ago, Matt Cloud said:

The most important passage in Talbot's book is loosely summarized here:

"Talbot then builds an argument that this early conclusion is what caused Robert Kennedy to take control of the president's autopsy exhibits, specifically the brain and tissue slides. Further, Talbot adduces evidence that RFK actually thought of taking the limousine also. After Oswald is killed by Ruby, Bobby begins to focus on the Mob and has labor lawyer Julius Draznin submit a report on Ruby's labor racketeering activities. RFK then told his friend Pat Moynihan to investigate the Secret Service while Bobby interviewed agent Clint Hill himself.

This chapter closes with a review of William Walton's mission to Moscow in the wake of President Kennedy's assassination. This extraordinary tale first surfaced in 1997 in one of the two best books on the Cuban Missile Crisis, One Hell of a Gamble. (The other volume being The Kennedy Tapes, published the same year.) Talbot goes into the background of Walton and why he was sent by RFK and Jackie Kennedy to send a secret message via Georgi Bolshakov who the Kennedys had used previously during the Missile Crisis as a back channel."

https://www.kennedysandking.com/robert-f-kennedy-reviews/review-david-talbot-s-brothers

See also The Rebel magazine, Feb. 13, 1984. by Bill Turner, "Farewell America: How French Intelligence Wrote a Book about the Kennedy Assassination" (reviewing Farewell America by James Hepburn), p. 29: 

"In due time, Moynihan submitted a confidential report, concluding hat Hoffa was not involved, and the Secret Service had not been bribed. ... Through "personal friendships" with Kennedy insiders ... the report was delivered into the hands of French intelligence. ... This pretty well explained a cryptic passage in the chapter: 'Only Daniel [P]. Moynihan, a former longshoreman, had some idea of such things."

And see:

https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/assistant-labor-secretary-daniel-patrick-moynihan-and-news-photo/103417307

Daniel Patrick Moynihan and William Walton leave the White House after learning that President Kennedy had died. WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 22, 1963.

See also:

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1967/3/25/moynihan-foresaw-oswald-death-warned-officials/

Moynihan Foresaw Oswald Death, Warned Officials of Dallas Danger

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED

March 25, 1967

The day after the assassination of John F. Kennedy '40, Daniel P. Moynihan, now director of the Harvard-M.I.T. Joint Center for Urban Studies, sensed the possible murder of alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald if he remained in Dallas.

The then Under Secretary of Labor pleaded futilely with Washington officials to move Oswald from the city, William Manchester revealed in this week's issue of Look magazine.

"He had been the one member of the subcabinet who had foreseen disaster in the jail basement," Manchester said, in an article describing his struggle to write and publish The Death of a President, his controversial history of the assassination.

When contacted yesterday, Moynihan confirmed the events described by Manchester, but declined further comment.

MC-Thanks for your collegial commentary. 

Interesting that Talbot thought the RFK1A and JFKA were connected.