'Tis not too late to seek a newer world

Book Three
Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years - David Talbot (2007)

David Talbot’s account of the Kennedy years begins and ends with that fateful day in November 1963.  The book is, at heart, an assassination conspiracy treatise.  The first chapter examines the events of 22 November 1963 and much of the second half of the book is dedicated to theories about possible conspirators.

However, despite being certain that there was a conspiracy, possibly involving the CIA, Talbot doesn’t offer any concrete evidence aside from multiple claims by many contemporaries of Kennedy, including his brother Bobby, that there was probably a conspiracy, alongside numerous stories of the obstructive behaviour of the CIA towards the Warren Commission and subsequent Congressional investigations during the 1970s.

Talbot saves his ace card until the last few pages – the eleventh hour confession of E. Howard Hunt, a former CIA agent, who fell from grace following his role in the Watergate scandal.  Hunt’s allegation that JFK’s assassination had been planned by the CIA is startling and compelling, but it is incomplete and still only the word of one man, who, like many of the major players who came under suspicion in connection with the assassination, is now dead.

Talbot is fiercely defensive of assassination researchers who have often been dismissed as loonies and is himself not prepared to accept that the truth behind JFK’s assassination will never be known.  He is vehemently critical of the American media, which he feels has been complicit in consistently refusing to give any credence to the possibility of a conspiracy and stringently backing the Warren Commission’s lone gunman theory.  Talbot also briefly suggests that Robert Kennedy’s death was part of the same conspiracy, though he doesn’t dwell on this or offer any reliable connection between the two assassinations.

The shadowy world of the CIA that Talbot portrays in Brothers is frightening, but in a post-Guantanamo and Snowden era, it is depressingly believable.  Talbot presents a plausible case for conspiracy, which chimes with my own beliefs, but sadly offers little in the way of solid new evidence.

By far and away the most interesting aspect of this book is its detailed examination of the brief Kennedy presidency, with the first half of the book dedicating a chapter each to the years 1961-63.  The titular brothers are not just the Kennedy brothers, but also their ‘brothers in arms’ – the group of liberal, often young, intellectuals who helped them to run the country.  (Interestingly, although by admission the book is about John and Bobby Kennedy’s relationship, there is very little mention of Ted Kennedy, the brother who survived.)

The three chapters provide a fresh interpretation of a presidency that has become mired in myth and scandal.  Particularly surprising to someone reading with over fifty years' hindsight, and in the light of the Obama administration’s normalisation of relations with the Caribbean island, is the obsession with Cuba in the Washington elite at the time.  Policy towards the Soviet Union and the wider Cold War was far overshadowed by the niggling irritation of the neighbouring island.  It is shocking to discover how many on the American right were in favour of invading Cuba purely because the existence of a communist nation a few hundred miles off the US coast was an embarrassment.   Talbot details at length the elaborate plots by the CIA to assassinate Fidel Castro during this period, the majority of which the president and his staff knew nothing about.  That Kennedy was prepared to coexist with Cuba rather than start a devastating war was abhorrent to many.

It was particularly distasteful to the military, with whom Kennedy had an especially acrimonious relationship.  Talbot has uncovered evidence highlighting the complete contempt that the top military leaders had for their commander in chief.  They had assumed that they would be able to easily sway the young president and persuade him to provide air support for the Bay of Pigs invaders once they were on the ground.  They were much mistaken.  Kennedy stood his ground.  Their resentment of Kennedy only grew from this moment onward.

Standing his ground against the Washington hawks was a key feature of JFK’s presidency.  What really shines throughout the book is how determined Kennedy was to avoid conflict because he knew there would be disastrous consequences in the nuclear age, as encapsulated by his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Talbot makes no secret of the fact that he is a lifelong Kennedy supporter and has called in the press for people to stop smearing the Kennedy legacy.  In his author’s note, he tells us he was a 16-year-old campaign volunteer on Bobby Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign, so it is unsurprising that the book paints the Kennedys in a very positive light.  Though Talbot states that he felt America was “irreparably wounded” by Bobby’s death, he offers surprisingly little about RFK’s legacy and the anti-war, civil rights and anti-poverty causes that he took up between JFK’s death and his own.  The book sticks closely to its brief and focuses instead on his clandestine investigations into his brother's murder.

Brothers is certainly a thoroughly researched account of the Kennedy presidency: Talbot interviewed over 150 Kennedy contemporaries, their family members and friends.   The book offers a plethora of fascinating new facts about JFK’s engagement with the key issues of the day - Cuba, the Cold War, Vietnam and Civil Rights.  It also scrutinises brilliantly his relationships with the key players, such as his own Vice President, Lyndon Baines Johnson, omnipresent FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover, and foreign leaders such as Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro, as well detailing his relationships with the CIA, the military and organised crime.

Talbot also presents a very real image of Bobby as a man haunted by his brother’s death, who felt an insistent duty to carry on his vision for America.  As I have argued before, Talbot also sees Bobby’s death as the end of an era of hope in US politics (coming, as it did, so soon after the death of Martin Luther King), following which the Kennedys' band of brothers was shattered.  Talbot movingly reveals how they were each crushed by Bobby’s death, never to regain the same heights in their careers again.

Brothers is a brilliantly written and meticulously researched book which fleshes out the intimate political details of the Kennedy years, but it suffers at times from relying a little heavily on assassination conspiracy speculation.  Overall, very readable and enough new information to make it well worth reading.