Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years (No Series) (79 page)

241
“I felt a surge of the intellectual power”: Robert MacNeil,
The Right Place at the Right Time
, 200.

242
“We’re heading into nut country today”: Quoted in O’Donnell and Powers, 11.

242
Vallee…claimed that he was framed by someone with special knowledge of his…“CIA assignment”: Quoted in Waldron, 630.

242
“The Tampa attempt…had even more parallels to Dallas”: Ibid., 653.

243
a suspicious group of exiles moved into the house next door: Ibid., 683.

244
“Politics is a noble adventure”: Quoted in Kerry McCarthy speech, JFK Lancer conference, November 22, 1997.

245
“They stood there rather stonily”: Ralph Yarborough oral history, JFK Library.

247
“his head just opened up and shot down like a dog”: Abraham Zapruder testimony, Warren Commission.

248
Hollywood “could never have dreamed up John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy”: Quoted in Cathy Trost and Susan Bennett, editors,
Kennedy Has Been Shot: The Inside Story of the Murder of a President
, 16.

248
“you certainly can’t say that Dallas doesn’t love you!”: Nellie Connally,
From Love Field: Our Final Hours with President John F. Kennedy
, 7.

249
“His last expression was so neat”: Theodore White’s unpublished notes on his interview with Jacqueline Kennedy, November 29, 1963, JFK Library.

249
Connally would save her husband’s life: Connally, 43.

250
“If only I had a minute to say goodbye”: Quoted in Maier, 477.

251
“My whole face was splattered with blood and hair”: White interview with Jacqueline Kennedy.

252
“I wonder if the missiles are flying”: Author interview with James Galbraith.

252
“This is bad news”: Quoted in
New Republic
, December 7, 1963.

253
Khrushchev took the news as “a personal blow”: Quoted in William Taubman,
Khrushchev: The Man and His Era
, 604.

254
“I know he and my husband worked together for a peaceful world”: Quoted in Manchester, 610.

254
“The danger troubling my husband was that war could be started”: CNN.com report, “Letters reveal Soviet-U.S. dance following JFK assassination,” August 5, 1999.

254
It was a bloodless coup: According to former KGB chief Vladimir Semichastny, Brezhnev did in fact seriously consider killing Khrushchev, asking the intelligence czar whether his rival could be poisoned or his plane sabotaged. But Semichastny claimed that he refused to carry out the assassination plot, insisting that he was “not a murderer.” 255 “What kind of socialism is this?” Quoted in Taubman, 626.

255
If Kennedy had lived, the two men could have brought peace: Khrushchev, 557.

6: THE AWFUL GRACE OF GOD

258
a ten-thousand-word broadside that punched disturbing holes in the official version: the
National Guardian
, December 19, 1963.

258
Marguerite would insist…that her son was a U.S. “intelligence agent”:
New York Times
, February 13, 1964.

258
“he was the only one who treated the commission with contempt”: Earl Warren oral history, LBJ Library.

259
“we don’t give a damn if blood runs in the streets of New York”: Quoted in Mark Lane,
Plausible Denial: Was the CIA Involved in the Assassination of JFK?
11.

259
“He just didn’t like him”: Author interview with Mankiewicz.

259
“but I don’t have the heart for it right now”: Sheridan oral history, JFK Library.

259
“But you’re not going to talk about
that
, are you?”: Author interview with Lane.

260
“there is something rotten in Dallas”: Letter to RFK, November 28, 1963, Justice Department file, NARA record number 186-10003-10051.

260
“Europeans are convinced the Dallas drama hides a mystery”: Quoted in Thomas G. Buchanan,
Who Killed Kennedy?
150.

261
“I think he died for something”: Ibid, 206.

261
Buchanan “sowed vast quantities of seeds of doubt about the assassination”:
Washington Post
, May 2, 1964.

261
Buchanan “is most anxious to see you without going to the FBI”: Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy phone logs, March 9, 1964, JFK Library.

261
a commission staff member…took the journalist’s material and dropped it deep in the files: Buchanan would find a more curious reception for his conspiracy theories with a long-time adversary of Bobby Kennedy’s—Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Today, decades after Che was hunted down by CIA-led trackers in the jungles of Bolivia, visitors to his home in Cuba can still see the books he was reading before he left on his fateful mission. There in his cramped upstairs office—in an alcove underneath his desk, next to several books on Bolivia, Africa, and the Algerian revolution—sits a French edition of Buchanan’s book.

262
Kilgallen “has some information she wants to turn over to you”: Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy phone logs, March 9, 1964, JFK Library.

262
she was going to have “the biggest scoop of the century”: Quoted in Lee Israel,
Kilgallen: An Intimate Biography of Dorothy Kilgallen
, 382.

262
He was seen taking long walks…with Allen Dulles: Author interview with G. Robert Blakey.

263
that RFK also secretly recruited a mobster from upstate New York: Author interview with George Lardner Jr.

263
Mike Howard…had a surprise encounter with Attorney General Robert Kennedy: Author interview with Howard.

264
Perhaps Kennedy wanted “to look into Hoffa’s eyes”: Russo,
Live By the Sword
574.

265
“to get fucked around like that by Hoover”: Author interview with Guthman.

265
who ruled the FBI like “the Great and Powerful Oz”: Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach,
Hoover’s FBI: The Inside Story by Hoover’s Trusted Lieutenant,
13.

265
Guthman found the FBI czar’s behavior “cruel and unnecessary”: Guthman oral history, JFK Library.

266
“He looked to me like a man who is just in intense pain”: Seigenthaler oral history, JFK Library.

266
The attorney general “was frequently an insurgent”: Letter to RFK, January 11, 1964, Attorney General papers, JFK Library.

266
“He seemed absolutely devastated”: Author interview with Blakey.

268
“Do you think God would separate me from my husband”: Quoted in Maier, 472.

268
“Sorrow is a form of self-pity”: Ibid., 470.

268
“Your grief goes as deep as your love”: Ibid., 479.

269
“Everybody was in tears”: Author interview with Murgado.

271
a wistful Bobby…“wondered at times if we did not pay a very great price for being more energetic than wise”: Quoted in Wofford, 426.

271
a Castro agent in the United States…had paid Oswald $7,000: Letter to RFK, November 27, 1963, NARA record number 157-10002-10120.

271
Johnson “flatly told me my program with the Cubans had to be terminated: Quoted in Bohning, 244.

272
“It gives me a feeling of confidence”: Quoted in Helms, 227.

272
one official later declared himself “not too impressed with the evidence”: Joseph B. Smith,
Portrait of a Cold Warrior: Second Thoughts of a Top CIA Agent,
383.

272
he no longer had the heart for anti-Castro intrigue: CIA memo, February 28,1964.

273
“Now we’ll never know”: Quoted in Thomas, 308.

273
Helms phoned Kennedy to congratulate him on the Hoffa conviction: Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy phone logs, March 4, 1964, JFK Library.

273
“Dick Helms was not a warm and cuddly guy”: Author interview with Nolan.

274
“Friday struck me personally”: Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy correspondence file, JFK Library.

274
“I don’t think Allen Dulles ever missed a meeting”: Warren oral history, LBJ Library.

274
The former CIA chief had lobbied hard to get appointed: Trento, 269. Max Holland, a controversial figure in assassination research circles, has written that Robert Kennedy recommended Dulles’s appointment to the Warren Commission. But considering the strains between Dulles and the Kennedy brothers—and Bobby’s efforts to distance himself from the commission—this is unlikely. Dulles biographer Peter Grose concluded that there is “no evidence that the younger Kennedy played any role in the composition of the commission.” As Warren Report chronicler Gerald McKnight has observed, none of the commission members was tied to the Kennedy wing of the Democratic Party.

274
“He had a very difficult time to decompress”: Angleton testimony, Church Committee, February 6, 1976.

275
“A stranger man I never met”: Author interview with Katzenbach.

275
the Kennedys “would have been safe in their luxury bunkers”: Quoted in Heymann,
RFK
, 537.

275
“I’m not privy to who struck John”: Quoted in
New York Times
, December 26,1974.

275
“I would be absolutely misleading you if I thought I had any fucking idea”: Croft interview with Hersh.

275
he was stunned to learn that Helms had chosen Bill Harvey: John Whitten testimony, House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), executive session, May 16, 1978.

276
“Whitten was a rare CIA hero”:
Washington Monthly
, December 2003.

276
“Nick, what do I do?”: RFK’s handwritten note on Warren letter, June 12, 1964, Attorney General papers, JFK Library.

277
“he didn’t give a damn whether there was any investigation”: Author interview with Katzenbach.