The Dark Side of Camelot

Rating:
Summary: No Pretense At Objectivity
Review: If Hersh doesn't like Kennedy that's fine, but to do such a one sided hatchet job and make millions is pathetic. Kennedy did not initiate plots to kill Castro, this started under the Eisenhower Administration. In fact Kennedy Advisors and Intell. officials to a man said they did not think JFK knew of the these plots during the Church Comittee in the mid 70's.

There are two fine books regarding the President and his policies in South East Asia- Dereliction Of Duty by McMasters - and JFK And Vietnam by Newman. Both Authors are Military Men with distinguished careers , who give it to you straight. When you read either of these, especially the latter you will see Kennedy always had a firm no combat troops policy in Vietnam.

What is also disturbing is the reliance on Intell. Assets to trash Kennedy.Not that some of them can't be objective- but to just seek out enemies.............

How much of the Womanizing is true I don't know-but you can bet there is substantial embellishment. Just because something is in FBI FILES doesn't make it true.I'm sure lower level agents made up stories to appease the tyrannical Hoover. Read Summers Official And Confidential for the real goods. What Hersh says on the Assassination is wrong and very insulting.Other than the quick buck- this book was written for two purposes: One- to blame JFK for everything and give him no credit for the big crisis. Two- to make no one care about his death, which was obviously a domestic conspiracy. Please read Noel Twyman's Bloody Treason or Jim Marr's Crossfire.

As JFK once said "things don't just happen they are made to happen"

Same for this book.

Rating:
Summary: It had me shocked into disbelief
Review: I have always been facinated by the Kennedys but after reading this information about them has really opened my eyes. I knew of some of the information but to find out the others has really baffled me. Some of the information has really left me also thinking that alot of it sounded like two old women sitting on the back porch talking about the neighbor. If his research is as good as his writing and it is all true, camelot was bond to come to an end.

Rating:
Summary: GOOD READ
Review: Seymour is quite the story teller. The Presidency of Jack Kennedy is one of the most interesting stories of the 20th Century. What more could one possibly want: War, Sex, Drugs, desception, the mob, and assassination. The Kennedy Presidency reads more like Melrose Place (sans Allison), and Seymour Hersh does an excellent job of uncovering the truth behind Camelot. Hersh should be commended for his copious research, and she be applauded for his breezy story telling manner. Along with Roger Simon's new book, this is the best political book on the shelves. Other than Alley McBeal, I don't know where else you would find all the intrigue that the JFK presidency had. Must read tv for all.

Rating:
Summary: And let Camelot fall, as the farce that it was !!!
Review: Hersh has written a masterpiece. Although many people say that it was rehashed stuff, for many people today this book can offer a truly objective and well documented account of the true history of JFK's so called Camelot. A riveting book that not only tells a history, but places it in a relevant context. I cannot recommend a better book.

Rating:
Summary: History repeating itself....especially now!
Review: I was in the 7th grade when JFK was assassinated. My grandfather saw it happen. Like other Americans who were young and impressionable, I loved the Kennedys and bought into the Camelot myth.

Now, we find that even Camelot had its warts and secret hiding places. I'm sorry to learn about the President's dallying and maneuverings, but I am not surprised. It was all too good to be true.

This is the first comprehensive book I've read on the cracks in Camelot's facade. It seems to me that Mr. Hersh has done his homework. I read the entire book. I didn't like the facts that were presented, but I believe Hersh did a thorough job researching his subject matter.

Now, our current President faces charges that would have most probably been levelled at JFK had he lived. Maybe Hersh is already at work on "InternGate."

I guess it's true that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.

Rating:
Summary: The New Frontier was reached over a too well-travelled road.
Review: Gloria Steinem was once quoted as saying that she had not felt
like the government was responsive to the people since
John Kennedy occupied the White House. Perhaps Ms. Steinem should
be forgiven for her naivete, as all Americans who came of age during
those years probably should. The average American trusted
his governmental leaders; they could do wrong, we knew, but
operated with the best of intentions. A boy in those years, I can
still recall reading a Dennis the Menace magazine that took baby-
boomers like myself on a tour of Washington. The golden-haired
rascal met representatives of the Golden Boy and shook hands with
the FBI Director, who supposedly made all Americans feel safe
in a way as innocuous as the tike's incessant antics. I recall, too,
staring at the black and white images of a wagon (hearse) being pulled by
strangely unprancing horses, and the unexplainably blank faces of rows of
adults along the streets. My mother, herself devoutly Catholic and smitten
with Kennedy's photogenics, stared on in what I now realize was painful
disbelief. A knight had fallen; his armor unable to save him from
some mysterious, evil force in the world.

How utterly taken in we all were by this dead young President's aura of
sheer goodness, and light, and spiritedness. But alas, what a masquerade,
after all. Hersh's book does more than expose the dark side to an American Camelot;
it suggests to the sober reader that Camelot was, as King Arthur's servant mutters
in an aside in Monty Python's Holy Grail, "only a model."

We wanted so desperately to believe in the dawning of a new era in 1960
that we conveniently forgot about hardball politics-as-usual. The backroom,
cigar-biting, cutthroat deal-making couldn't have been Jack Kennedy's way,
could it? America did not come of age with the unfortunate assassination of its young
President, after all. It only showed its age: its wrinkles and warts, its
greasy sidedeals, and its cankerous creations. Hersh's account of the Kennedy presidency, and all that
created it, should make us realize, if we haven't allowed ourselves already,
that the New Frontier was reached not through a virgin prairieland conceived by Kennedy's
self-described Whiz Kids, but over a too well-travelled road in American
political history--one continuously pockmarked by corruption, deceit, and tired forays
into self-aggrandizement.

Rating:
Summary: not groundbreaking, but valuable
Review: Myths die hard, particularly American myths. That the myth of "Camelot"--the good ol' days under the Kennedy Administration--persists even today, in our post-Watergate society, demonstrates not only our penchant for myth-making, but our intellectual blindness as well.

Veteren investigative reporter Seymour Hersh tackles this myth in his new and controversial book, THE DARK SIDE OF CAMELOT (Little, Brown and Company, 1997; 498 pages), an effectively researched and written summation of the Kennedy years. Beginning with the origins of the family's political clout, and following through until just after the assassination, Hersh weaves a Machiavellian tale of corruption, sex, backroom deals, and intrigues that would be difficult to believe were there not so much evidence to support it.

And this is where the controversy begins: just how much of this can we believe? In the wave of publicity before the book's publication, certain commentators essentially accused Hersh of becoming a sort of an out-of-the-closet Kitty Kelley, filling his narrative with unsupported allegations, speculations, and just plain hearsay. Others bashed Hersh for supposedly telling lurid stories of Kennedy's sexual conquests. In short, the general idea was that Hersh had betrayed his ideals as a reporter, shooting instead for the lowest common denominator and a high payday.

A reading of the book proves these accusations to be false. As far as sources are concerned, there are many and they are well documented (so well, in fact, that the footnoting becomes a nuisance). When a source has been self-contradictory (such as in the case of Judith Exner), Hersh is quick to point this out. When an allegation seems to be questionable at best, Hersh reminds his reader of this. And when there are details that are simply unknowable, Hersh states this matter-of-factly as well. In no instance in the book does Hersh allow a tabloid mentality to prevail. For the intelligent reader, this is enough.

As to the lurid sex tales, there are a few mentioned in passing. But these are in no way made to stand on their own for the sake of prurient interest. When Hersh interviews Secret Service agents and recounts their stories of the young President's numerous trysts, the point is not to rehash old (and, by now, tired) ground; rather, it is to show how his escapades made JFK vulnerable to physical harm and even blackmail. This, in turn, affected much of the way the Kennedy brothers ran the country. It is true that we've heard it all before about JFK and Marilyn; what Hersh makes clear is the gamble the man took with his office and, by extension, American lives. These insights alone make the book worth reading.

This is not to say that these issues have never been dealt with before in this way; they have. Indeed, one of the flaws of the book is that it portends to add much to our understanding of JFK's administration. There is new material, but, as a whole, there's nothing that can be considered to be a revelation. Hersh treats the Cuban Missile Crisis as if he alone knows the "true" story, but on balance, his account isn't much different from James Patterson's in GRAND EXPECTATIONS. CAMELOT works best as a synthesis of all we've learned about Kennedy in the last 20 years, with the new details adding some salt to the meat.

That the details are often entertaining is gratifying. I personally did not know that JFK was kept sitting bolt upright that day in Dallas by a stiff back-brace, and the CIA plot(s) to assassinate Castro made for often hilarious reading. Hersh's style flows quite smoothly if you can discount the often intrusive, windy footnotes (apparently included to ward off charges of poor sourcing).

In all, then, THE DARK SIDE OF CAMELOT is far from the expolitive mish-mash of half-baked rumors and backroom stories it has been made out to be. It is, rather, a riveting piece of history, against the myth certainly, but implicitly fair and reliable.

Rating:
Summary: Mr. Hersch tell us something we don't know!
Review: This book is basically a repeat and repeat and repeat of what we already know about John Kennedy. In every chapter are claims of President Kennedy's indiscretions, well we know that, did you just have to fill the pages, I was expecting some good journalism, not repeats.And what is with all those footnotes. Way too many.

Rating:
Summary: Why pull your punches, Mr. Hersh?
Review: Seymour Hersh has provided an outstanding book describing and documenting the multitudinous depravities of Jack Kennedy and his father's family. To satisfy those who find the Kennedy's apparently unusual sexual behavior of no particular interest, but who are interested in the Kennedy brothers' malfeasance in office, Mr. Hersh has tried his best to connect the two. For example, he attempts to show that Jack Kennedy's various sexual dalliances opened him up to blackmail. In stretching to make that case, Mr. Hersh has to introduce an almost unsubstantiated case that the award of the TFX jet fighter (later called the F-111) development contract to General Dynamics in 1962 was influenced by blackmail of Jack Kennedy associated with his liason with Judith Campbell Exner.

Mr. Hersh didn't have to try so hard to find cases of Jack Kennedy's abuse of his office, to the detriment of the country he claimed to be serving. The most egregious case of this that I am aware of is his acquiescence in the acquisition by the State of Israel of nuclear weapons. As has been well documented elsewhere, Jack Kennedy told the then-Prime Minister of Israel, David Ben Gurion, that the Kennedy administration was going to look the other way as Israel's nuclear weapons program got underway, as a quid pro quo for Jewish political support in the presidential election of 1960.

This venerable political payoff has continuing consequences to the present day, as knowledgeable citizens of various foreign countries snicker at American exhortations for them to not build weapons of mass destruction. Can the Chinese diplomats who have to listen to Bill Clinton inveigh against the evils of weapons proliferation really feel that he is anything other than a thundering hypocrite, knowing that his idol JFK went along such proliferation in the case of the tiny State of Israel, for not much more than a few pieces of silver? Those diplomats probably think that his blabbering is just Bill's way of negotiating their level of support for the next election.

My question is, why is Mr. Hersh so, shall we say, penetrating in his analysis of the downside of JFK's sexual dalliances, but avoids the above described documented case of explicit political corruption on the part that president? Could it be that Mr. Hersh has his own axe to grind?

Rating:
Summary: A superb example of objective investgative reporting
Review: Let this be a warning to our un-informed; and/or worse,uneducated voting populance. Presently, due mainly to a media that will not face the realities of our social, political and economic weaknesses, we are having to live with an executive branch and judicial system of such corruptness that one has to pray we can continue on as a nation of free people. The "presidencies" of John F.Kennedy and William J.Clinton were and are a frightful and tragic travesty of what this nation worked for and has historically stood for...would I give up four years of my life as I did during the Korean situation for this administraton; or, that of Kennedy's - no way.Sad.