brothers

Our book today is "Brothers - The Untold History of the Kennedy Years" by David Talbot, and it must be said up front that this is a disturbingly silly work of psuedo-history. The disturbing part and the silly part both merit their own discussions, naturally.

The king of a sunlit country appoints his younger brother to be his justiciary. The king is then killed, and the justiciary swears a vow of inhuman intensity to avenge his brother's death. It's the stuff that Greek tragedies, medieval morality plays, and Stan Lee comic books are based on.

Talbot has such a scenario in mind when he asks the animating question of his book about the relationship between John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy before and especially after the former's assassination in Dallas: what steps, if any, did Robert Kennedy take to avenge - or even investigate - is brother's murder?

Robert Kennedy didn't become Doctor Doom; the answer to the above question is, damningly and unhelpfully, nothing.
The truth of the matter is simple, though equally unhelpful: Bobby Kennedy, despite the depth of his fierce intellect (a personality trait pumped up by his various biographers as a way to differentiate him from his more famous brother, although in reality JFK was all along the smarter of the two; the 'fierce intellect' of RFK was ever and always overcompensation), partook in full measure of his family's ingrained Irish fatalism. In that medium, the violent death of his brother melded into the violent deaths of so many of the rest of his family before him, most especially his eldest brother young Joe and his older sister Kathleen.

This is where the problem seeps in, for Talbot and anybody else who hasn't grown up in an Irish Catholic family: the concept of a family's DOOM pursuing it, regardless of anything anybody can do. Regardless, that is, of anything anybody can commission or investigate. Bobby Kennedy publically endorsed the Warren Commission and refused to talk about the subject beyond that.

David Talbot comes smack up against that wall, and he seems to know that the book he wants to write is on the other side of it. Not ANY book on the relationship between the Kennedy brothers - far from it, several very good books have been written in part or in whole on that subject (although since Talbot refers to their relationship as a 'life partnership' and that they were 'best friends,' both concepts laughably wide of the mark, he himself was never in any danger of writing such a book). No, HIS book - the one about Doctor Doom clenching his mailed fist to the sky and vowing to hunt down his brother's killers.

'Killers' because Talbot dismisses out of hand what he calls the Warren Commission's conclusion that Oswald acted alone (it bears pointing out here that Vincent Bugliosi, in his crushingly long book 'Reclaiming History,' is correct when he says this wasn't, in fact, the conclusion of the commission - what they really said was that there was no conclusive evidence that Oswald DIDN'T act alone, i.e. no evidence of anybody else acting WITH him). Talbot starts there, which, as Bones McCoy would say, is a Hell of a time-saver.

He has Bobby Kennedy start there too, though he has not a scrap of evidence to do so. Talbot, it turns out, isn't really big on evidence - he prefers innuendo and badgering octogenarians with leading questions, and when he's adjusted the truth's rabbit-ears long enough, he gets just the picture he wants:

"[Robert] Kennedy was trapped in an impossible position. Privately, he contemptuously dismissed the Warren Report as nothing more than a public relations exercise designed to reassure the public. But unwilling at this point to publically challenge it, he was stuck with supporting it. Perfunctorily giving the report his stamp of approval was his way of deflecting any further press inquiries about the assassination. You know my position, let's move on. In 1964, he was in no political - or emotional - condition to do anything more. 'He always stood by the Warren Commission in public - he thought that was the right political thing to do,' said RFK aide Frank Mankiewicz, who knew that Kennedy privately harbored very different views about Dallas. 'He didn't want to talk about it. I think he was physically unable to talk about it.'"

We're still counting - anybody have a quick tally of all he separate suppositions going on in that one paragraph? Not one syllable of it rests on any documentation, except for the quote from Mankiewicz (the requisite badgered octogenarian), and that quote a) is a recollection made fifty years after the fact, and b) speaks only to public behavior. For the rest of it - that RFK 'contemptuously dimissed' the Warren Report in private, that he thought it was a 'public relations exercise,' that he ever thought or implied anything like 'you know my position, let's move on,' that anything is knowable about his emotional state in 1964, etc., etc. - there is no actual historical evidence at all. Talbot's just making it up.

In the end, he offers no 'hidden history,' nor does he offer any insights into the relationship between these two complicated men (readers wanting that had best go to Arthur Schlesinger's 'Robert Kennedy and His Times'), nor does he offer any kind of intelligent assassination conspiracy theory, or any kind of helpful gloss on existing theories.

What he does offer is an excitedly written pile of bootless speculation, third-hand gossip, and sentimental fantasy. And surely, no matter what we think of the Kennedys, we can agree that there's been far too much of all three of those things already?

in memoriam: arthur schlesinger

We raise a glass, then, to Arthur Schlesinger.

He died last week. One minute sitting at a restaurant, telling stories and enjoying himself, and practically the next minute, he was gone. This was tragic but entirely fitting, the kind of end he'd have certainly wanted, if he'd paused long enough to contemplate something so silly.

All of you are too young to remember anything of this, much less the man himself, so to recap: Schlesinger was the son of historian Elizabeth Bancroft; he was a freakishly intelligent early-admin to Harvard; he (like everybody else with a heart and a brain at the time) fell in with the doomed campaigns of Adlai Stevenson; and he, for services rendered, was taken into the fold of the Kennedy administration as a 'special assistant' to the president.

He came to that administration fully-vetted as a serious historian. He'd written an semi-immortal work, after all, 'The Age of Jackson,' and he'd written it as a young man, fiercely intelligent and deeply inquiring.

As hardly ever before or since, the Kennedy administration was the perfect fit for such a creature. He basked in the particular aura of Camelot - the cocktail parties that lasted until dawn, the gorgeous secretaries, and most of all the all-pervasive feeling that a vital new age was dawning, an age that could divest itself of all the dead trappings of previous generations.

That's what they did, those two Kennedys and the brace of greyhounds they assembled around themselves: they activated HOPE ... they accessed nothing less than that tired old chestnut, the American Dream. They sucked in everybody - from Negro porters to Dupont society matrons - and created a feeling of fresh beginning, a feeling that it was no longer the world of your parents but yours, to make of what you could.

Schlesinger drank it all in; he revelled not only in the genteel debauchery of the Kennedy social scene but also the thrill any historian would feel if they had their hands on the live wire of history being made. And he was always explicitly clear in maintaining that the two worlds didn't detract from each other.

He insisted on it, in fact: that historians owe it to their readers to live in the real world, not cloistered academic towers. He walked the corridors of power carrying the notebook of the historian, so it was only natural he incurred the suspicion and dislike of both the historians and the powerful.

The only ones who mattered to him at the time always evinced a wry affection for him. Robert Kennedy bridled at the watching presence of so obvious a memoirist, but he allowed that Schlesinger had a first-rate mind (a rare compliment, given the source). JFK himself, naturally, took a deeper view. 'I don't currently have time for posterity,' he used to quip. 'I leave that to Arthur, God help us.'

Perhaps the best assessment of the man came earliest, however. As a freakishly young kid (although certainly not unprecedentedly so ... a small cadre of such early admins have paraded through the halls of Harvard over the centuries), he was classmate with Young Joe Kennedy, the broad-smiled, wide-shouldered, stogie-chomping, gin-swilling, debutante-deflowering older brother of the future president. Young Joe was the chosen one in that vast family; he was the one who old Ambassador Kennedy had naturally chosen to push for political office (nobody then dreamt of the Oval Office, regardless of what their memoirs might say), and he took the very earliest Kennedy shine to this provincial Midwestern kid. There were rumors that said Midwestern kid helped said Kennedy crown prince write more than one academic work that led to the graduation of both. In any case, Young Joe had this to say about bow-tied young Arthur: 'He suits me down to the ground: he knows everything, and he puts it all at my disposal.'

It's doubtful a more thoroughly Kennedyesque appraisal could be found, and it played out in the decades to come. Schlesinger worked for JFK until the awful day in Dallas, and then he worked for RFK, with an even more open, fervent heart, until THAT awful day.

The combination broke the working parts of him, as it did the working parts of so many. He pretty much retired to scholastic work - and to a certain degree of prescience, writing 'The Imperial Presidency' in 1973, a book that looks darkly at the tendency of the executive branch, when in the hands of unscrupulous men, to gobble up as much power as it can get its hands on.

Schlesinger lived long enough to see just how exaggerated that tendency could get, and in his last years he took great delight in skewering the evil midgets currently encamped where once he saw giants walk.

He left us when we needed him most, but that's always the way of such men, and such times. The only consolation - and it's a big one, in fact the only one - is that he transformed his White House access into two magnificent works of history, 'Robert Kennedy and His Times' and 'A Thousand Days.' These are permanent works, as full of intelligence and gossip and pitch-perfect pacing as was their author.

So we raise a glass to Arthur Schlesinger. and we offer a humble nunc dimittis to the great historian of the Kennedy era.

Kennedy-mania in the Penny Press!

Holy Haddock! It's Kennedy-mania in the Penny Press this time around! Like chum in the water to those of us here at Stevereads.

In New York magazine, Mark Jacobson turns in a piece called "American Jeremiad" about Robert Kennedy Jr, and it's a puzzler of a thing. On the surface, it looks like a straightforward interview/profile. But either Jacobson or his editors seem to want it to be some kind of expose - there are lunges at drug use and the like, and even an alert reader is hard-pressed to figure out WHY they're there.

RFK Jr. is certainly an easy target, what with the drug- bust in the shadow of frickin' Mount Rushmore, but that's hardly the point - after all, EVERY Kennedy is an easy target, that's half the point of BEING a Kennedy.

And reading the article, you get the sense that Jacobson has a pretty good handle on the whole Kennedy thing. This is a rare enough thing in a reporter of any stripe, but still: one could hope for an entirely preconception-free approach.

It's a good strong piece nonetheless. The two men met at the North Castle Diner in White Plains and talked about a fairly wide variety of topics, mostly RFK Jr's favorite stomping ground, the environment.

RFK Jr 'came to the river' (nominally, the Hudson River Valley, but in the broader context, all things natural) late in life - after the aforementioned coke bust - but despite the bitter little sour-grapes snipes of the one naysayer Jacobson can dig up, there's no way to doubt his conviction to the issues that have taken over his life in the place of drugs and drink.

To his credit, Jacobson doesn't dwell overlong on his subject's sordid past - especially not when his subject is so eager to provide alternate targets.

It turns out Robert Kennedy Junior, at least from the evidence gleaned from this interview, is every bit as sharp, every bit as focussed, and very nearly every bit as intelligent as his martyred father (that 'very nearly' will only sound ungenerous to the uninitiated, but it's true, and even JFK grudgingly admitted it, always referring to his brother as 'the brains of the outfit').

At one point Jacobson asks RKF Jr about that nebulous catch-all, the vision of America. Now for a moment, picture our current president being asked to verbally render his account of that theme. Picture that, roll it around in your mind for an excrutiating long moment. Then when you can't stand it anymore, listen to the reply Jacobson got:

"There is an ancient struggle between two separate philosophies, warring for control of the American soul. The first was set forth by John Winthrop in 1630, when he made the most important speech in American history, 'A Model of Christian Charity,' on the deck of the sloop Arbella, as the Puritans approached the New World. He said this land is being given to us by God not to satisfy carnal opportunities, or expand self-interest, but rather to create a shining city on a hill. This is the American ideal, working together, maintaining a spiritual mission, and creating communities for the future.
"The competing vision of America comes from the conquistador side of the national character and took hold with the gold rush of 1849. That's when people began to regard the land as the source of private wealth, a place where you can get rich quick - the sort of game where whomever dies with the biggest pile wins."

That 'whomever' alone is enough to bring hot tears to the eyes of every intelligent American who's been watching the news for the last six years.

Some of you will know where we here at Stevereads stand on the Kennedys. We couldn't be more indifferent to the various sex scandals and drug scandals - they aren't indicators of anything at all, just accurate demographics of a large family. The plain truth is, for most of human history governments have been ruled by families, for good or ill. This has been mostly for ill, to the tune of 95 percent. The luckiest common people have always been the ones who happened to live under GOOD families.

Read that verbally-coherent John Winthrop quote again. Think about the family currently ruling this country. Then ask the question RFK Jr. himself asks during Jacobson's interview: What's wrong with more generations of Kennedys?

"It's a good question, especially since we'd just spent the past 45 minutes discussing the comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq and how he is certain his uncle Jack would have stopped the sixties war because 'he was a military man and he knew what idiots the brass were and not to trust anything they said.' He is equally sure that had his father lived to become president in 1968, the war would have ended then. 'Because he said he would and he wasn't a liar.'
No, I have to admit. If not driving an SUV is going to make the planet a copasetic place for future generations of Jacobsons, then there might as well be more Kennedys, too. There is just too much history between us, too much investment in hope, requited and not. You might even drink to it, if Bobby Kennedy Jr. drank."

Over in the latest Vanity Fair, there's another Kennedy-related item, this one about the man himself, JFK.

Robert Evans, Hollywood mucky-muck and author of the genuinely entertaining memoir 'The Kid Stays in the Picture,' is writing a new book, 'Kid Notorious.' And in this memoir, he retails a JFK anecdote of his very own.

The scene: it's the summer of 1949 and Evans is a hot young actor sharking debutante balls on the Upper West Side.
In his anecdote, he's at one such party when Congressman Kennedy shows up:

"A couple of minutes later, the luncheon's guest of honor arrived. What a shocker! He was No. 1 on America's Most Wanted List - to shack up with, that is. His name: Congressman Jack Kennedy, from Massachusetts. He was top honcho on every lady's 'heat list.' The more he broad-smiled, the wetter them panties got. He knew it, and they knew he knew it!"

OK, let's hold our noses against the mogul-prose and forge on. In the anecdote, Evans claims .... well, he claims so much, it's probably best to let him do the talking:

"The clock struck three. Desserts were being served. The good congressman stood and thanked Miss Society for the fun lunch.
Then, wide-smiling all, he begged an early exit. 'It's not easy keeping a seat anywhere these days, much less in Congress. If I weren't running for re-election, I'd take up residence right here on East 73rd Street. But I have to be on the road before the sun goes down, and I promised His Excellency, Bishop Donahue, I'd spend a bit of time with him before I left for Boston.' The congressman had them words down cold. He knew what to say, when to say it, and how to say it.
Wishing everyone good-bye as he was leaving, he took me by total surprise ... he actually remembered my name! Impressed? Big! Yeah, but dumb me. I must have been itchin' for trouble.
'When you see His Excellency, would you give him my regards?'
A dead-ass silence hit the patio. Miss Society closed her eyes, thinkin,' This ain't Harlem. I knew I shouldn't have invited him!
The congressman, he gave a triple take.
'You know His Excellency?'
'Very well.' He didn't believe me. His face showed it.
'Very well, huh?'
'That's correct, Congressman. Very well.'
He was enjoying the confrontation, certain I was lying.
'Join me then. We'll pay him a visit together.'
'Is that an invite?'
'Absolutely!' Then a wide smile. 'I'm sure he'll take great pleasure in seeing you again!'
We left together ... by far the best exit of my young life. Them debu-tramps? Their open mouths matched their upturned noses. What they didn't know was that the actor from the West Side was not showboating. He did know His Excellency. He knew him well. Well enough to put him right smack in the slammer!
For the record, I was never invited back to East 73rd Street.

As we drove across the park to West 96th Street, the congressman threw me a look. 'Why did you say that you knew Bishop Donahue?'
'I'm an actor. I like getting reactions.'
'I was right! You don't know him.'
'You are wrong, Congressman! I do know him well ... It's a story you don't wanna hear.'
The congressman's street smarts matched his Harvard diploma. He didn't ask another question."

The congressman drops our sooper-cool young memoirist off somewhere, and they meet again only in '62 at a swanky Fifth Avenue gala. The prose that follows is breathless even by Evans' standards:

"Our eyes met. Our hands shook. Would he remember me? The last time we eyed each other, I had yet to shave. At best, a trivial incident on his historic climb to the top step of the world's ladder.
But that was why he was standing on it: he remembered well!
Smiling, Jack got in the final lick: 'I've followed your career closely. Congratulations.'"

Well, OK. Evans isn't a young man anymore, and everybody's entitled to their tall tales. But even pardoning the naked self-aggrandizement on display in his anecdote, there are a couple of places where it smells like cod liver oil.

For instance, even in '49, the Congressman almost never went anywhere alone. MAYBE in Boston, but never in New York. There were always cronies, handlers, and even sometimes friends along.

Also, His Excellency Bishop Donahue was in fact one of the only New York prelates who DIDN'T partake of the slammer-able offense to which Evans alludes.

Also, and this one is a bit of a clincher, the Congressman absolutely NEVER drove his own transportation. Had he driven even the short distance Evans mentions, just across Central Park, there would have been piles of sideswiped trees, signs, small animals, and people left in his wake.

Only the final detail, the fact that JFK remembered Evans' name, rings entirely true: no Kennedy ever forgot a name or disposition. But even that is in its way a refutation: they remembered everybody - it wasn't a mark of distinction.

Still, 'The Kid Stays in the Picture' was an entertaining read, so this new memoir might be also. Kennedy fish-stories notwithstanding.