Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years (No Series)
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84
The stress on the father must have been terrible: Thomas, 165.
84
“Typical Mafia killing”: Author interview with Vidal.
3: 1962
85
“When he lost his temper”: Author interview with Fred Dutton.
86
“a definite impression of [his] unhappiness”: Lawrence Houston, Church Committee testimony, June 2, 1975.
86
“I trust that if you ever do business with organized crime again”: Thomas, 171.
86
They would say that Kennedy was simply scolding the CIA: In 1975, Richard Bissell—the CIA official who initiated the Mafia plots in August 1960, in the final months of the Eisenhower administration—was quizzed about the dark pact by the Church Committee. Bissell testified that he had briefed Bobby about the CIA-Mafia partnership in spring 1961 during the Bay of Pigs postmortem review overseen by RFK and General Maxwell Taylor. But Taylor told the Senate panel that Bissell never mentioned an assassination effort against Castro. Considering Bissell’s record of shading and concealing the truth with the Kennedys, it seems likely he kept them in the dark about the murder plots.
86
Kennedy “was disgusted that he had been placed in that position”: Houston, Church Committee testimony.
86
“Bob…was absolutely furious”: Author interview with John Seigenthaler.
87
“McCone was out of the loop”: Ibid.
88
“Helms said all these stories are just the tip of the iceberg”: Quoted in Newsweek, October 12, 1998.
88
“We were caught in the reality of the Cold War”: Author interview with Seigenthaler.
89
“Are you Southerners always late?”: Quoted in Helen O’Donnell, A Common Good: The Friendship of Robert F. Kennedy and Kenneth P. O’Donnell, 134.
90
“He was completely candid with me”: Schlesinger, 190.
90
Seigenthaler decided [to do] “everything in my power”: John Seigenthaler oral history, JFK Library.
90
“It’s terrible. There’s not a cop in sight”: Quoted in Wofford, 154.
90
“Never run for governor of Alabama”: Quoted in Schlesinger, 297.
91
“I need you in this government”: Ibid., 229.
91
“You won’t have any trouble finding my enemies”: Quoted in Life, January 26,1962.
91
“It showed either…guts or no sense at all”: Quoted in Schlesinger, 23.
92
Bartlett did not see Jack’s subtlety of mind in Bobby: Charles Bartlett oral history, JFK Library.
92
He struck Sorensen as “militant”: Quoted in Thomas Maier, The Kennedys: America’s Emerald Kings, 282.
92
“I have a pretty good character”: Quoted in Smith, 306.
92
“everything was black and white for Bobby”: Salinger oral history, JFK Library.
92
“there was less hidden business with Jack”: Author interview with Benjamin Bradlee.
93
a beast of “passable intelligence”: Look, May 21, 1963.
93
Guthman realized…he was the oldest person in the room: Guthman, 94.
93
Bobby’s mandate was clear…“to murder Fidel Castro”: Hersh, 268.
93
“What would you think if I ordered Castro to be assassinated?”: Quoted in Szulc, 558.
94
“I don’t think someone as media-savvy as Kennedy”: Author interview with Goodwin.
94
“we would all be targets”: Quoted in Szulc, 558.
94
“Jack and Bobby had nothing to do with the plots”: Author interview with Robert Kennedy Jr.
94
“You could never be sure with the CIA”: Author interview with Goodwin.
94
“Tell them no more weapons”: Goodwin, 210.
95
“My idea is to stir things up on the island”: Handwritten notes, November 7, 1961, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy papers, JFK Library.
97
suggesting they go around…“the CIA palace guard”: Lansdale memo, November 24, 1961, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy papers, JFK Library.
97
Lansdale complained that the CIA’s “smash and grab” raids: Landsale memo, December 7, 1961, in U.S. State Department, Foreign Relations of the United States, Cuba 1961–1962, Vol. X, 692.
97
“Americans once ran a successful revolution”: memo, February 20, 1962, ibid., 746.
97
“When the Huks came”: Quoted in Jonathan Nashel, Edward Lansdale’s Cold War, 40.
98
the tale “makes Filipinos vomit”: Ibid., 42.
98
Goldwater was denouncing the administration’s “do-nothing policy”: Quoted in New York Times, April 19, 1962.
99
“He asked me if I thought we would have to go into Cuba”: Burke memo, July 26, 1961, Foreign Relations of the United States, Vol. X, 635.
99
“something must be done about Cuba”: Quoted in New York Times, September 5,1962.
100
“Cuba was the key to all of Latin America”: McCone memo, August 21, 1962, Foreign Relations of the United States, Vol. X, 955.
100
Bobby acknowledged that the Mongoose effort was “disappointing”: Ibid, 850.
100
the CIA man realized he didn’t have one of the “customary” autographed pictures of JFK: Richard Helms, A Look over My Shoulder: A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency, 227.
101
“There were many divorces”: Author interview with Cynthia Helms.
101
what she called his “Oriental look—totally inscrutable”: New York Times Magazine, April 18, 1971.
101
“He just had a martini on Friday nights”: Author interview with Cynthia Helms.
101
“My husband was not particularly an admirer of Robert Kennedy’s”: Ibid.
102
[a] CEO type who “stepped straight from central casting”: Quoted in Helms, 195.
102
“A former foreign correspondent, he observes much”: New York Times Magazine, April 18, 1971.
102
“there seemed to be more than a whiff of disciplinary flavor”: Helms, 207.
102
no “more than pinpricks” against Castro: Ibid, 202.
102
“getting my ass beaten”: Quoted in Evan Thomas, The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared—The Early Years of the CIA, 300.
103
“I didn’t trust Helms”: Author interview with Seigenthaler.
103
When the James Bond-bedazzled JFK: Joseph J. Trento, The Secret History of the CIA, 207.
103
Harvey called the Kennedy brothers “fags”: Ibid., 212.
104
“Bill gets chewed out by Bobby Kennedy”: Quoted in Bohning, 110.
104
“What will you teach them…Babysitting?”: Quoted in David Corn, Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA’s Crusades, 82.
105
the CIA…“relegated Cubans to the status of tools”: CIA memo, July 5, 1962, NARA record number 104-10171-10378.105 Ford reported to his CIA superiors that one of the ELC men…was tied to a suspected Castro spy: CIA memo, September 28, 1962, NARA record number 104-10171-10355.
105
“Substantial numbers of Castro’s forces would survive”: Kent memo, Foreign Relations of the United States, Vol. X, 783.
107
“We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in America”: Pentagon memo, March 13, 1962.
107
“I sure as hell would have rejected it”: Author interview with McNamara.
107
“McNamara’s arrogance was astonishing”: Quoted in James Bamford, Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency, 82.
107
“until he made the mistake of coming into the White House…in a sport jacket”: Quoted in Beschloss, 474.
107
He thought their administration “was crippled…by inexperience”: Quoted in Bamford, 82.
107
Lemnitzer was summoned by President Kennedy…for a discussion of Cuba strategy: Lansdale memo, March 16, 1962, NARA, released under JFK Act, March 28, 2005.
108
“The Joint Chiefs of Staff recommend…military intervention in Cuba”: Pentagon memo quoted in Bamford, 82.
109
He gave Rosselli the false cover of an Army colonel: Charles Rappleye and Ed Becker, All American Mafioso: The Johnny Rosselli Story, 223.
110
“I was not dealing with the Mafia as such”: Harvey testimony, Church Committee, June 25, 1975.
110
“He became best friends with Rosselli”: Author interview with Gary Hart.
110
“I told Bill Harvey…to close it down”: Helms, 202.
110
“I don’t want anybody on this committee to think I’m being slippery”: Helms testimony, Church Committee, July 17, 1975.
111
The CIA death plots against Castro preceded the Kennedy administration: Contrary to some accounts, the Kennedy brothers’ Operation Mongoose was not an assassination program but a subversion operation aimed at inciting an internal Cuban uprising. Defense Secretary McNamara did float the idea of “liquidating” Castro at a Mongoose meeting on August 10, 1962. But in an interview with the author, he dismissed this as “idle chatter,” insisting that he never seriously “proposed or would have supported assassination.” When Lansdale recorded the off-hand remark in his memorandum of the meeting, McCone strongly objected, saying the U.S. government should “not consider such actions on moral or ethical grounds.” When he phoned McNamara to emphasize this, McCone later recalled, the defense secretary “agreed with me wholeheartedly and the words were eliminated from the memorandum.” Lansdale later told the Rockefeller Commission that the Mongoose group raised the assassination idea only as a “possibility,” but quickly rejected it. He testified that the reaction against it was “quite sharp by members of the group, including the attorney general, McCone, and McGeorge Bundy, among others.” 112 “[Helms] was very clear that this was something that had been canceled”: McCone testimony, Church Committee, October 9, 1975.
112
“The fact that this happened is very disturbing to me”: McCone testimony, Rockefeller Commission, May 5, 1975.
113
Assassination…“was totally foreign to [JFK’s] character”: Sorensen testimony, Church Committee, July 21, 1975.
114
“It would have made whoever ate the sugar feel very lousy”: Author interview with Carl Kaysen.
114
the United States simply arranged for a sugar firm to buy the cargo: William Sturbitts deposition, Rockefeller Commission, April 16, 1975.
115
“I’m going to come back here and run against you”: James Donovan speech to Inland Daily Press Association, published as “Cuban Negotiator’s Own Story,” April 18, 1963, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy Papers, JFK Library.
116
“Viva Donovan!”: Bohning, 168.
116
“Bob wanted me to deal with Donovan”: Author interview with John Nolan.
116
“Castro was never irrational”: Nolan oral history, JFK Library.
117
“we should start thinking along more flexible lines”: Quoted in Bohning, 168.
117
“Before falling asleep at night”: Author interview with Nolan.
118
CIA spokesman Sam Halpern claimed it was not: Bohning, 182.
118
the former Kennedy aide…confront[ed] a CIA official: Author interview with Nolan.
118
Shackley…wrote a memo to his CIA boss: CIA memo, March 19, 1964, NARA record number 104-10072-10289. Burt, who was one of several Miami journalists given the CIA cryptonynm “AM/CARBON” (the “AM” denoted a Cuba connection and “CARBON” referred to print journalists), later denied that he knowingly served the agency as a media asset. “Calling me a propaganda outlet was bureaucratic boasting on his part,” Burt said of Shackley, in an interview for David Corn’s 1994 biography of the CIA official.
119
“She was fiercely independent”: Author interview with Nolan.
120
“do something about that son of a bitch Bobby Kennedy”: Quoted in Sheridan, 216.
121
“We know where your kids go to school”: Quoted in Warren Rogers, When I Think of Bobby: A Personal Memoir of the Kennedy Years, 53.
122
“If you want to kill a dog”: Quoted in John H. Davis Mafia Kingfish: Carlos Marcello and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy, 34. Years later, while serving prison time, Marcello launched into another of his many anti-Kennedy tirades, telling an FBI informant on December 15, 1985, “Yeah, I had that son of a bitch killed. I’m glad I did it. I’m sorry I couldn’t have done it myself.” 122 “He is going to be hit”: Ibid., 37. Like Marcello, Trafficante also confessed a role in the JFK assassination late in his life. Shortly before his death on March 17, 1987, the ailing Florida crime lord told his lawyer that he and Marcello had “fucked up in getting rid of [JFK]—maybe it should have been Bobby.” 122 Kennedy’s “soft” policies toward the Castro regime: Frank Ragano, Mob Lawyer, 358.
122
“I don’t know how Bobby Kennedy squared that”: Quoted in Hersh, 287.
123
“I’m not working with guys outside the system”: Quoted in New York magazine, April 18, 2005.
123
“whether I was directed to sally forth and initiate contact with…the underworld”: Charles Ford memo for the record, September 19, 1975, NARA record number 104-10303-10001.
124
Bobby Kennedy “has so many enemies”: Quoted in Davis, 19.
124
“You can’t touch me. I’ve got immunity.” Quoted in Waldron, 357.
125
Bobby found himself…digging in an Illinois farm field: Robert F. Kennedy, The Enemy Within, 184.
127
“They have the smooth faces and cruel eyes of gangsters”: Ibid, 88.
127
“So you’re Joey Gallo”: Quoted in Life, January 26, 1962.
128
the two men clashed with a kind of fury she had never seen: Schlesinger, 142.
128
“The old man saw this as dangerous”: Quoted in Russo, The Outfit: The Role of Chicago’s Underworld in the Shaping of Modern America, 313.
128
“I definitely know you have the goods”: Smith, 147.
128
“I wouldn’t be too discouraged”: Ibid., 549.
129
“Yes, he was amoral”: Blair interview with Arthur Krock, Blair papers, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.
130
“Bob was a little keyed up”: Ruth Watt oral history, JFK Library.
130
Bobby was “the least like his father”: Schlesinger, 97.
130
still calling Bobby her “own little pet”: Smith, 535.
130
“The scariest one” was Vito Genovese: Watt oral history, JFK Library.
131
“Two tousle-haired brothers from Boston”: U.S. News & World Report, April 12, 1957.
131
“They feel they’re above the law,” Kennedy told Paar’s audience: Hoffa later filed a $2 million libel suit against Kennedy
and The Tonight Show host. Kennedy laughed off Hoffa’s showboating tactic, but he couldn’t help needling Paar, who took the lawsuit seriously. “What are we going to do? We are in trouble,” a nervous Paar phoned Bobby. “We certainly are in trouble,” Kennedy told him, “if you don’t have your half.” 132 “We’re exempting everyone but hoodlums”: Newsreel footage featured in the 1992 PBS Frontline documentary, “JFK, Hoffa and the Mob.” 132 “We were like flint and steel”: Quoted in G. Robert Blakey and Richard N. Billings, Fatal Hour: The Assassination of President Kennedy by Organized Crime, 220. 133 “he directed the same shriveling look at my brother”: Kennedy, The Enemy Within, 74.
133
“All this hocus-pocus…is a smoke screen:” Quoted in Ronald Goldfarb, Perfect Villains, Imperfect Heroes: Robert F. Kennedy’s War Against Organized Crime, 188.
134
“A Saturday night ice cream”: Ragano, 181.
134
“for real debauchery he turns to chocolate ice cream”: Life, January 26, 1962.
134
“I’m no damn angel”: Quoted in Richard D. Mahoney, Sons & Brothers: The Days of Jack and Bobby Kennedy, 38.
134
“It just killed him”: Ibid., xv.
135
“Henry the Fourth. That’s my father”: Ibid., 376.
135
the FBI was “the greatest organization in the Government”: Smith, 680.
135
“every gangster chief in the United States was there”: Quoted in Anthony Summers, The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover, 310.
136
Kennedy [met] with Chicago godfather Sam Giancana: Hersh, 135.
136
“The Republicans stole as many votes”: Salinger oral history, JFK Library.
137
“He challenged them”: Author interview with William Daley.
137
“Jack’s hair would have turned white”: Quoted in Russo, The Outfit, 366.
137
“the old man is hurting you”: Ibid.
138
he “was in the soup worse than ever”: Quoted in Dan E. Moldea, The Hoffa Wars: Teamsters, Rebels, Politicians and the Mob, 109.
138
“My boss, Jack Miller, called me in one day”: Author interview with Goldfarb.
139
“He was burning the candle at both ends”: Ibid.
140
“They treat him like a whore”: Quoted in Rappleye, 235.
140
“Why, oh why, did Joe get that fucking stroke?” Quoted in Summers, Sinatra: The Life, 287.
141
“Christ, how can I silence that voice?” Quoted in Russo, 243.