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This book was a fascinating look into the events of the Kennedy era. So much information I never knew. It should be required reading in all political science classrooms instead of the uninspiring drivel they were teaching us while this was all unfolding before our eyes and behind the scenes. It is a national tragedy that we have never demanded the truth.
In the early 60's, in Washington, there were not many people to be admired or trusted. I believe Talbot's book will stand the test of time. Post WWII, we are still seeking out conspirators (NAZI collaborators). Our country went after that conspiracy aggressively and many of the conspirators were hung. What we find at the time of JFK's election is a politically assertive military and CIA that even Eisenhower would not accept. An assassination attempt on De Gaulle.
Unless someone can conclusively debunk Talbot's characterization of RFK's contact with Krushchev after the assassination, Waldron and Hartman's claim of RFK's complicitiy in the cover-up can now be considereed a dead issue.Many have shown us the detail, Talbot asks us to see the scope, context, and breadth. Conspiracy theorists will find vindication of their suspicions and more. Waldon and Hartman's assertion created a hurdle, and allowed claims of an assassination cover-up to rest solidly on the shoulders of RFK. The author has in a real sense opened Pandora's box. There is criticism of the administration as well. military would try it too. Most assassination research has importantly and rightly focused on the details of the assassination. Here it seems to me that an even wider net is cast.
This book demolishes that claim. The author demonstrates a an unusual sensitivity to the political background inherited by the new Democratic administration. One weakness: a minor mention of LBJ's possible involvement. Into this, the new administration was thrust. Either way, today, we are left with a conspiracy that those in power have continued to cover up.
This is an important book, and it is not to be taken lightly or summarized easily. This history, as most readers will see, is here re-written for the next generation. The DP has moved to quash speculation by forcing the history channel to retract the 4th of the 4 part Nigel Turner documentary. I am reminded of an outstanding pictorial history of the Lincoln assassination (Lincoln's Assassins, by Swanson and Weinberg). This time we are left with the perpetrators in power and the lies taught to generations, including our own. Assuming that Waldron and Hartmann's information is correct, this was an assassination planned and implemented on a huge scale.
But the knowledge and silence of insiders was little known. Did this mean the U.S. And it demolishes it in a way that no one else has been able to do to date. Unfortunately (my view), even where commendable, Waldron and Hartman's attempt to blame these assassinations on the mafia rests on their own naive, anticommunistic, world view (they believe that RFK was heroic in organizing a coup in Cuba, while Talbot depicts RFK as deliberately obstructing an attempted overthrow.
Waldman and Hartman's Ultimate Sacrifice claimed that Robert's anti-Castro activities led him to participate in the cover-up for the reason that the Soviets would have pushed for war if the RFK's Cuba plans became known. Hopefully, we will not count this investigation over.This book is not uncritical. The list of bad characters is not limited to the mafia and not limited to the CIA. Who would have guessed that history from the top could reveal so much. Talbot has taken us to the Kennedys and those immediately surrounding them. Robert Kennedy's reaction to the assassination, until this book, had been a source of confusion for researchers trying to understand the relation between the assassination and cover up. It is not an ode to Camelot.
It is a history that any future academic will have to wrestle with. Dismissive of Waldron and Hartmann's lenghthy Ultimate Sacrifice, he reminds us of the important information that Waldron and Hartmann presented: there were 2 other assassination attempts in Chicago and Miami that involved similarly constituted teams, including a unique patsy, in each case, set up to take the fall. Meyer was an outlier because she was not caught up in the Cuban, or right wing, or Mafia nexus. Her murder points more to CIA or military involvement (see the Wikipedia article on Mary Meyer: esp, Cord Meyer's later statements about the murder). The constellation of forces coming out of WWII leading to McCarthy, and radical military assertiveness that pushed for war (even nuclear) against Cuba, Russia, and Vietnam, is here laid bare.
If this assassination was just a matter of mafia involvement, we would have been to the bottom of it many many years ago. There is a wealth of material describing the many who were involved in the assassination. The discussion of the murder of Mary Meyer (Pinchot) is brought in as well. Sometimes we must go to the mountain to see the word below in its full significance. Significantly, something that is equally troubling (my opinion and not extensively addressed in this story) is that this one event re-cast the Democratic Party and left it floundering and marginalized to the present.
I have already read several biographies of the two brothers. I was hoping more for an intimate view of their relationship with each other. However, the content was really just two biographies integrated into one. Slightly disappointing.
I bought this book based upon other reviews, with the hope that some new information might be gleaned from reading it. Edgar Hoover visit with President Kennedy about his affair with mobster Sam Giancana's girlfriend. I was somewhat diappointed, in that the book seems to be substantially a rehash of prior written material. The one instance that I did read a new idea was the suggestion the Robert Kennedy may have had J. The author states, at least he surmises that RFK may have done this to help provoke JFK to end the affair. WTF.If I am going to spend good money for a new book that purports to be an "inside look" into the personal interplay between two of the most prominent figures in American history during the 1960's, I want, and deserve as a reader, more "inside" information than this.However, overall the book is well written, it holds your attention quite well, and, for those not already well versed in this period of our history, should be a worthwhile read.I, though, was disapponted.
An excellent read. This book is highly recommended for anyone interested in the workings of the government. A real page turner.
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