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David Talbot's New Book Brothers


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Jim,

It may be a good idea to start a seperate thread on your experiences surrounding the assassination. Althoug I'm 21 I'm a big fan of Phil Ochs The story about singing to Bobby is very interesting.

Would you mind starting another thread and giving us a full round up of your knowledge in this area?

All the best.

John

Thanks John we got a new thread at http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=10194

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Bill, the following is from Talbot:

"Bobby's suspicions immediately focus on the nest of CIA spies, gangsters, and Cuban exiles that had long been plotting a violent regime change in Cuba."

Anyone reading my book will find that the leaks, gossip, insider remarks and the documentation that

corroborates them points to exactly the same group of suspects. Time after time. And each year we get

more documents to corroborate the informants and sources that point in that direction.

What we don't get is any of the media types or investigative journalists that are willing to deal with it.

And we get Vince B writing off Martino's remarks as hallucination based on his medical connection...without

contacting the family or providing any data at all to support that speculation (I have; they don't).

...probably enough said from me, Larry

Hi Larry,

Many thanks for your quick comeback.

From your first edition I knew your book deals with many of the details at the bottom of the chain while David Talbot deals primarily with the top of the pyramid.

I just learned I could order your extremely important book Someone Would Have Talked from my local Borders Books, as I was under the false impression it was only available via Lancer on line.

I'm not surprised that your updated version zeros in on the same suspects mentioned in Talbot's Brothers.

While I haven't heard from them in awhile, I look forward to hearing from Newman, Rex Bradford and Stu, and I thought of another document guy in your class, Doug Horne, who has already checked in on Bugliosi. I'd like to hear from them all on Talbot.

BK

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Thanks Bill, actually the second edition takes things a bit further based on some

key new information and some new names - Henry Hecksher, Carl Jenkins, Gene

Wheaton plus considerable documentation on Werbell's relationship with CIA

circa 62-63 (not what one might suspect).

More importantly, I was able to pull together a number of documents provided me

by Larry Haapenan (who generally seems to have been everywhere I go, years before)

to develop an additional appendix titled "A Small Clique in the CIA". It is built around the

truly mysterious death of Garett Underhill - which I feel to be very significant in

understanding the network (or "nest") which allowed the conspiracy

to develop.

On a related note, the book is available though Borders, Amazon and the web site. It

has done relatively well on Amazon - nothing like "Brothers" of course but did manage

to hold in the 4 - 10,000 range for several weeks.

-- Larry

Bill, the following is from Talbot:

"Bobby's suspicions immediately focus on the nest of CIA spies, gangsters, and Cuban exiles that had long been plotting a violent regime change in Cuba."

Anyone reading my book will find that the leaks, gossip, insider remarks and the documentation that

corroborates them points to exactly the same group of suspects. Time after time. And each year we get

more documents to corroborate the informants and sources that point in that direction.

What we don't get is any of the media types or investigative journalists that are willing to deal with it.

And we get Vince B writing off Martino's remarks as hallucination based on his medical connection...without

contacting the family or providing any data at all to support that speculation (I have; they don't).

...probably enough said from me, Larry

Hi Larry,

Many thanks for your quick comeback.

From your first edition I knew your book deals with many of the details at the bottom of the chain while David Talbot deals primarily with the top of the pyramid.

I just learned I could order your extremely important book Someone Would Have Talked from my local Borders Books, as I was under the false impression it was only available via Lancer on line.

I'm not surprised that your updated version zeros in on the same suspects mentioned in Talbot's Brothers.

While I haven't heard from them in awhile, I look forward to hearing from Newman, Rex Bradford and Stu, and I thought of another document guy in your class, Doug Horne, who has already checked in on Bugliosi. I'd like to hear from them all on Talbot.

BK

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Just a reminder that David Talbot will be speaking at a meeting on Sunday 10th June in the downstairs room of The Green Man (383 Euston Road) near Great Portland Street tube station. The room will be available between 12.00 and 4.00. You can drink and eat in the room so it will be possible to talk to David informally before his presentation begins at 2.00.

Please feel free to attend this meeting. You will find details of the pub and a map of the area here.

http://www.allinlondon.co.uk/clubs_bars/venue-958.php

Oliver Burkeman of the Guardian says he will be there. The Daily Telegraph have told me that James Flint or Iain Gray will probably attend. So also will freelance journalists, Chris Lightbown and Francis Beckett.

Matthew Smith, journalist, scriptwriter, television producer will be at the meeting on Sunday. Matthew was a consultant on Central Television's The Men Who Killed Kennedy. He is also the author of JFK: The Second Plot (1992), Vendetta: The Kennedys, (1993), Say Goodbye to America: New Perspectives on the JFK Assassination (2002), Victim: The Secret Tapes of Marilyn Monroe (2003) and The Kennedys: The Conspiracy to Destroy a Dynasy (2005).

Simon & Schuster have also informed their press contacts about the meeting. Hannah Corbett of Simon & Schuster will also be at the meeting with copies of David’s book.

I believe the Sunday Telegraph Magazine will be doing something on “Brothers: Hidden History of the Kennedy Years” tomorrow.

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I trust the meeting went well today.

An interview with David Talbot was featured in the magazine section of the Irish Times yesterday, which was particularly favorable.

Brothers in Arms by Anna Mundow

http://www.ireland.com/

Newly released government documents and more than 150 interviews with administration officials, friends and family members provide the nucleus for David Talbot's reinterpretation of the Kennedy presidency, writes Anna Mundow

Even a nation afflicted with amnesia cannot forget the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, and this summer two new books testify to the crime's enduring fascination in the US. The first, Reclaiming History by Vincent Bugliosi, is hardly beach reading. More than 1,600 pages long and filled with enough autopsy photographs to satisfy the grisliest connoisseur, Bugliosi's detail-ridden doorstop concludes that Oswald did it, a verdict that has generally pleased American commentators. David Talbot's Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years has, by contrast, drawn fire from critics on all sides. "What's getting people riled up is not so much my view on the assassination as my reinterpretation of the Kennedy presidency," Talbot says. "Both the left and the right - for very different reasons - want to see Kennedy as a Cold War hawk." Talbot offers a more subversive judgment: that John F Kennedy talked tough to get elected president, but while in office he wanted to halt the US policy of massive nuclear retaliation, to establish a detente with leaders of the Soviet Union, even with Cuba and - had he been re-elected in 1964 - to withdraw American forces from Vietnam.

"At the end of his motorcade that day in Dallas, he was going to tell the people of Texas that peace is not weakness," Talbot recalls. "So who benefited from his death? In general terms, the forces that General Eisenhower warned us about: the military-industrial complex." Specifically, Talbot identifies a mainly CIA plot executed by Mafia/anti-Castro Cuban operatives.

Nothing new there, you might say. Nothing that Oliver Stone in his movie JFK, Don DeLillo in his novel Libra and numerous historians and conspiracy theorists have not already posited. Talbot, however, draws on newly released government documents and more than 150 interviews with Kennedy administration officials, friends and family members. He also constructs his narrative around a central yet often overlooked character in the operatic tragedy: Robert Kennedy, Jack's attorney general and fierce defender. "Bobby publicly accepted the Warren Commission's report [ which endorsed the lone-gunman theory]. But privately he was a man on fire to get to the bottom of the crime. A week after the funeral he told his family that it was a high-level plot involving elements of the government. But he said we can't do anything until we get back to the White House." Robert Kennedy was arguably on his way to the White House, as president, when he was assassinated in California in 1968.

Talbot was 16 years old and a volunteer in Robert Kennedy's campaign in California when the candidate was killed. Speaking today from his home in San Francisco, he admits that as a youth he was "completely taken by the Kennedy dream" but that later, as a leftist, he was equally influenced by "the anti-Kennedy backlash". Talbot became a journalist, worked as a senior editor for Mother Jones magazine, as features editor for the San Francisco Examiner and wrote for the New Yorker, Rolling Stone and other publications before founding and editing Salon.com. He is easy-going, charming and self-deprecating but not naive. "I didn't set out to redeem the Kennedys," he says. "I was really more interested in the assassination and in what Bobby Kennedy thought. But my research exposed an inescapable fact. I was 11 years old at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I'm only here today because Kennedy had the guts and the intelligence to stand up to these people. And tapes show that he was often the only person in the room doing it. His entire national-security staff was pushing him to nuclear war, and he held the line."

Brothers opens on the afternoon of November 22nd, 1963, as Robert Kennedy, at home in Virginia, hears of the president's assassination from J Edgar Hoover, the FBI chief, who hated both brothers and seemed to relish delivering the news. Kennedy first called federal marshals to secure his home, then immediately began to demand information, calling his Cuban anti-Castro contacts and even CIA headquarters. "Did your outfit have anything to do with this horror?" he roared at a CIA officer who has never been identified. "It's very tribal," Talbot comments of the circle that Kennedy drew around him that day. "He didn't get the Secret Service or the FBI to surround his home - remember, some of his aides think they're coming for him next. He got one of his Irish comrades, Jim McShane, and his federal marshals." Kennedy subsequently took possession of medical evidence (brain and tissue samples) from the autopsy; secretly visited Mexico where Oswald had travelled before the assassination (during the trip Kennedy himself was under surveillance by the CIA); and met with his arch-enemy, Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa, whose associates had Jack Ruby on their payroll.

Kennedy was, Talbot insists, collecting evidence for an investigation that would have to wait. "He knew he didn't have the power once Jack was gone. Hoover hated him. Johnson hated him. Hoover was in charge of the investigation into Dallas. So Bobby followed his own leads." Those leads, according to Talbot, reached back to the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961, when President Kennedy enraged his military and intelligence commanders by refusing to commit US forces to a full-fledged invasion of Cuba. (US attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro, however, continued.) "At that point I believe the government cracked," Talbot reflects. "The president's military and security forces perceived him as weak, not to be trusted, while Kennedy vowed to shatter the CIA. The Kennedys were at war with their own national-security apparatus; there is no way to avoid that conclusion when you do any first-hand research."

Talbot interviewed some of Kennedy's most trusted advisers, among them Ted Sorensen, Arthur Schlesinger jnr and Robert McNamara, the secretary of defence who, under President Johnson, carried out the destruction of Vietnam. "As soon as the Kennedys were removed, the generals got their war. Johnson gave them Vietnam. And that wouldn't have happened under JFK. I don't care how historians quibble. It is absolutely clear that he was going to withdraw from Vietnam - after the 1964 election, of course. He was discussing the withdrawal with McNamara and others."

In the early 1970s Sorensen told the Church Committee investigating the Dallas assassination that "Jack Kennedy was not in charge of his national-security apparatus". Last year Schlesinger told Talbot: "We were not in charge of the joint chiefs of staff either." Talbot describes Schlesinger's revelation as "the most chilling thing I've ever heard", particularly when he contemplates someone such as General Curtis LeMay (the model for General Jack D Ripper in the movie Dr Strangelove), who wanted to launch a nuclear war against the Soviet Union "sooner rather than later".

The Kennedys did not rise to power by underestimating their enemies, and Talbot notes that in 1962, when the US army appeared likely to mutiny rather than enforce racial integration at the University of Mississippi, Jack Kennedy persuaded his friend John Frankenheimer, the Hollywood director, to make Seven Days in May as a warning to the American public and possibly as a "shot across the bows" of his own security forces. (In the film, US military leaders plot to overthrow the president because he supports a nuclear-disarmament treaty.)

Later, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Robert Kennedy, representing his brother in back channel communications with Soviet representatives, reportedly declared that "the president is not sure that the military will not overthrow him and seize power. The American army is out of control". The source for that quote is Nikita Khrushchev's memoir, but for dramatic effect Talbot relies chiefly on the words of those he interviewed and those who testified before the Church Committee and the house select committee on assassinations during the 1970s. "The last time the government shed light on Dallas was during the post-Watergate period with those committees," Talbot observes, "and they were looking at the intelligence and security forces." Those forces remain vigilant. This summer the CIA will go to court to prevent the Washington Post journalist Jefferson Morley from gaining access to documents thought to be relevant to both Kennedy assassinations.

"From Dallas to Vietnam to Iraq," Talbot writes, "the truth has consistently been avoided . . . When the nation has mustered the courage to impanel commissions, those investigations soon come up against locked doors that remain firmly shut to this day. The stage for this reign of secrecy was set on November 22nd, 1963. The lesson of Dallas was clear. If a president can be shot down with impunity at high noon in the sunny streets of an American city, then any kind of deceit is possible."

Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, by David Talbot, is published by Simon & Schuster, £20 in UK

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Guest Gary Loughran
Brothers moved up three spots to 13th on The New York Times Hardcover bestseller list. The list reflects sales through

June 2, 2007.

Bugliosi's book dropped out of the top 30; in fact it is no longer ranked in the top 35.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/books/be...nonfiction.html

Hi MIchael,

I notice that is the non-fiction list, I assume it is the fiction list Bugliosi has fallen from :rolleyes:

Gary

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Brothers moved up three spots to 13th on The New York Times Hardcover bestseller list. The list reflects sales through

June 2, 2007.

Let's hope David Talbot's book sales get a boost from tonight's final episode of THE SOPRANOS.

In last week's episode Bobby, the husband of Tony's sister Janice, was murdered in a gang war. Tonight Janice tells her demented father " I have some bad news Dad, Bobby's dead."

"Of course Bobby's dead," the old man blurts out, "The Ambassador Hotel."

That one may not be entirely out of left field. I seem to recall that Tony Soprano has in the past expressed a deep admiration, almost a reverance, for JFK. The message seemed to be that a traditional crime family like the Sopranos would be impressed that a Catholic once occupied the White House.

I am saving the rest of the program for tomorrow. I will miss that big fat mean SOB and his bouncing babes at Bada Bing.

Edited by J. Raymond Carroll
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Let's hope David Talbot's book sales get a boost from tonight's final episode of THE SOPRANOS.

What should help sales is that David Talbot has been commission to write a major article for Time Magazine on JFK. Time has a circulation of 4,038,508 per week. It should be in next week's edition. Henry Luce will be turning in his grave.

David will also be on Start the Week on BBC Radio 4 this morning at 9.00. You will be able to hear it here :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/index.sh...oday&js=yes

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I urge every member to listen to David’s discussion on BBC Radio 4 this morning. It is sometime since the British media had a sensible discussion on the assassination.

I think David found Andrew Marr and bit different from Chris Matthews. You can listen, download or get the podcast of the programme here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/starttheweek.shtml

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John Simkin Posted Yesterday, 08:54 AM

I urge every member to listen to David’s discussion on BBC Radio 4 this morning. It is sometime since the British media had a sensible discussion on the assassination.

I think David found Andrew Marr and bit different from Chris Matthews. You can listen, download or get the podcast of the programme here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/starttheweek.shtml

Yes, thank you John.I listened to it last night. A very informative and good interview. One piece of information that stuck with me is Bobby Kennedy's last words, "Jack! Jack!"...
J. Raymond Carroll Posted Yesterday, 02:01 AM

QUOTE(Michael Hogan @ Jun 10 2007, 06:42 PM)

Brothers moved up three spots to 13th on The New York Times Hardcover bestseller list. The list reflects sales through

June 2, 2007.

Let's hope David Talbot's book sales get a boost from tonight's final episode of THE SOPRANOS.

In last week's episode Bobby, the husband of Tony's sister Janice, was murdered in a gang war. Tonight Janice tells her demented father " I have some bad news Dad, Bobby's dead."

"Of course Bobby's dead," the old man blurts out, "The Ambassador Hotel."

That one may not be entirely out of left field. I seem to recall that Tony Soprano has in the past expressed a deep admiration, almost a reverance, for JFK. The message seemed to be that a traditional crime family like the Sopranos would be impressed that a Catholic once occupied the White House.

I am saving the rest of the program for tomorrow. I will miss that big fat mean SOB and his bouncing babes at Bada Bing.

As I recall Tony Soprano had JFK's skipper's hat on his boat.

So long.... Bada Bing!

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Uncle Junior's cancer surgeon was ... Dr. Kennedy.

And when he was fantasizing/dreaming about his ideal future, he visualized a front-page headline, "Junior Soprano Weds Angie Dickinson."

Then there was the episode in which Tony meets his father's mistress, who also had bedded JFK.

If only there had been another season, we might have visited the Greasy Knoll.

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I urge every member to listen to David's discussion on BBC Radio 4 this morning. It is sometime since the British media had a sensible discussion on the assassination.

I think David found Andrew Marr and bit different from Chris Matthews. You can listen, download or get the podcast of the programme here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/starttheweek.shtml

Is there are transcript of this program and/or any other radio/tv program David Talbot is on in UK?

Thanks,

BK

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Yes, thank you John.I listened to it last night. A very informative and good interview. One piece of information that stuck with me is Bobby Kennedy's last words, "Jack! Jack!"...

I asked Talbot about that, if he had any more info.

And he replied in post 121:

"Myra -- the source on Bobby's last words was Goodwin's memoir "Remembering America." But he makes clear that this was told to him by a third party -- he was upstairs in a hotel room at the time."

I'd like to know who the third party was. Perhaps it says in "Remembering America."

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Bugliosi isn't stupid. He knows the state of the evidence. He knows perfectly well that Lee Harvey Oswald didn't shoot JFK. So does Gerald Posner. They made a business decision, which turned out quite well for them.

Yet David Talbot's book has easily outsold Bugliosi's contribution. David's publishers published 80,000 copies three weeks ago and have already ordered a second printing. Given the percentage of the American public who believe in a conspiracy, is there really a market for books that say the Warren Commission got it right? I don't think so. The fact that large companies are reluctant to publish conspiracy books says little about the market but a great deal about Operation Mockingbird. That is why David Talbot's book is so important. It is a breach in the wall. David's publishers took out a large advert in the New York Times. That does not come cheap. That was a calculated business decision that has been rewarded. Hopefully, film producers are taking note of the public's interest in conspiracy. Maybe other large publishers will now be willing to back "conspiracy" books. It is possible that this is a reaction to the unpopularity of George Bush. It is possible that the CIA has lost its desire to protect the establishment.

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