New book on RFK & J.E.HOOVER - how old Joe's stroke was the death card for the boys

[UTUSN]

*******QUOTE*******

http://www.nypost.com/seven/06122008/gossip/liz/reliving_the_kennedys_history_115191.htm?page=0

RELIVING THE KENNEDYS' HISTORY

June 12, 2008 -- 'I COULDN'T stop reading this book!" says Liz. When "Bobby and J. Edgar" by Burton Hersh first passed over my desk, my thought was, "Oh, no, not more of this stuff!" And, like most people who read a little bit and keep up with current history, I felt I already knew everything that could possibly be written.

Boy! Oh boy! Was I ever wrong? Mr. Hersh has been examining the Kennedy family for 35 years. He is a biographer of Teddy. But here he starts with the rise of old Joe Kennedy as the nation's premier bootlegger and of his close confidant/pal J. Edgar Hoover, a Depression-era dictator who helped form the FBI. Hersh brings all of the repercussions of their relationship right up to the present. What's more, he offers hundreds of acute examples, digressions and points of view I never knew or considered before - and although sometimes I quarreled with his sarcastic and unnecessary descriptions - his overall history is so compelling, so fresh, so anecdotally different from other writers that I felt I was reliving history. ....

THERE IS another interesting Hersh theory in this book - that from the moment Joe Kennedy suffered a stroke on the golf course and was left by his wife lying unattended at home for many hours - the fortunate days of his sons were numbered. Rose Kennedy supposedly said when told of Joe's fall, "Oh, my poor boys, my poor boys!" Without Daddy's firm hand, they more or less fell apart.

Hersh also gives Hoover a few good marks. J. Edgar organized the FBI into a rigid force with some silly rules about dress, etc., but better than we could have expected in that, at least, Hoover wasn't assembling power and troops to try to take over the country. He was content to be a petty tyrant and subvert justice on a personal scale that suited him. In the end, he and Bobby hated each other passionately, so that even a long friendship with old Joe could not ameliorate the situation.

Likewise, Hersh, although scathing about Bobby as compared to Jack (one was ruthless, short and short on charm, and the other seems to have had grace and common sense) - in the end gives Bobby his due. Not just as a charismatic politician with idealistic intentions, but as a person who saved the US during the Cuban missile crisis. It is the Hersh contention that JFK was sick during that crucial moment and Bobby kept the world from nuclear holocaust.

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[tsuki]

1. I just cannot believe anything from Murdock's paper. Think I'll pass

on this one.

[UTUSN]

2. Wish you had passed on the thread

Liz SMITH has billed herself for years as the only Dem working at the NY Post. That said, her two gossiper colleagues, while undeniably wingnut, are better journalists in their sourcing than many, even most, of those in the mainstream who call themselves "journalists," starting with G.E.RUSSERT and Tweety.


As for MURDOCH, he does *not* stay up nights dictating what these employees of his can or should say. As a Brit DUer posted here a few weeks ago, it's not beyond him to switch sides for the pragmatic purposes of raking in cash and cozying up to whoever is in power, the way he switched the Sun when Tony BLAIR was poised to take power for Labor. There's a rumor going around he just might fire Roger AILES, so what will you make of that?!1


I sure wish groupthinkers would just skip on down the road when they are faced with whatever it is that challenges their brain rigor mortis. I'm too old to quake when somebody throws up a flashcard with some word like "MURDOCH" on it. Maybe that's why I, more often than not, (ruefully) LAUGHED when Shrub-CHEENEE tried to scare us with terrarists on monkey bars and why I do not believe that Shrub has has anything to do with our "not having been attacked in 6 yrs."


But thanks (not) for dropping in.

[tsuki]

4. No problem. nt

[yellowdogintexas]

3. my mother if she were alive would say "AHA, I knew SOMEBODY was behind

all three assassinations" (she always believed the RFK and MLK shootings were linked )

However she always thought it was Nixon. Man did she hate Nixon.

but she loved conspiracy theories and this would have fascinated her. :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: