The Dark Side of Camelot, by Seymour Hersh, HarperCollins, 497pp, £8.99 in UK
Once upon a time in a glamorous faraway kingdom called Camelot, no savvy reporter was ever so churlish as to pry into the handsome national leader's boudoir so long as only consenting adults were involved. As so unlikely a Romeo as Henry Kissinger learned to his great joy, power is one heck of an aphrodisiac, and so consent is awesomely easy to come by. And although erotic antics of the high and mighty might agitate certain puritanical or partisan folks, no one else gave a hoot. For what harm did recreational sex inflict on professional politicking, anyway? Ah, the good old days. There's no question that Bill Clinton, even if we credit every single sordid rumour, was a slouch compared to John F. Kennedy's priapic feats. JFK, fortunately, was not dogged all the way by a right-wing modern-day Star Chamber morbidly sniffing at his sheets when they really would rather be wearing them.
John F. Kennedy was not a great president (and certainly not the glorious "fallen king" of Oliver Stone's feverish depiction in the film JFK), but, of course, we'll never ever know how good or bad he might have been. Kennedy the idealised icon toppled and shattered to pieces long ago - but apparently nothing less than smithereens will do. In the latest sally against JFK, the usually superb investigative reporter Seymour Hersh wastes his con siderable talent and energy dusting off hordes of ancient revelations about Presidential peccadillos while dutifully striving to pad the list by trawling through a batch of the slimiest imaginable sources for even more dubious lore.
Still, nothing startling appears and hence we get an irritating procession of defensive advertisements throughout his book proclaiming that this or that tidbit of factoid is appearing here for "first time". What is new is either insignificant or unproven, and what is significant is old hat. One laments, however, that if only Hersh were not so dour a reporter this book would have all the makings of a minor comic masterpiece. But Hersh's idea of a real knee-slapper is to inform us that JFK's back brace, donned after straining himself whilst chasing a nymph around a pool, held him aloft for the fatal second bullet in Dallas.
The litany of charges is as familiar as a Gregorian chant. Daddy was a bootlegger, brother Bobby was a ruthless if loyal little shite, Marilyn Monroe frequently lifted JFK's spirits (but was not paid off to keep quiet), and Kennedy stole the 1960 presidential election by pay-offs and mobilising mobsters such as Sammy Giancana, with whom he, coincidentally or not, later shared good-time girl Judith Campbell. Hersh in his pursed-lipped pursuit pretends that only Democrats resort to ballot box stuffing, bribery and other unsavoury practices. Republicans were pretty nifty practitioners in their own localities, so that, at worst, it all balanced out, and Nixon knew it. We do learn, however, that JFK was administered last rites four times over his life, experiences which might bestir a frolicsome libido. I think a shrink might back me up on that one.
But did JFK's penchant for willing women or for Dr Feelgood shots (cortisone and speed) for wartime injuries impair his professional conduct? Apart from outraging a lot of prudish secret servicemen, there is little evidence of harm. Should Kennedy have revealed he suffered from Addison's disease? Perhaps. But can anyone produce just one photo of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his wheelchair - also an unfaithful husband who was as devious a politician as they come because, sadly, he faced extremely devious and implacable opponents. It is probably true, as Hersh claims, that Kennedy helped create the malignant scenario of the Cuban missile crisis from which he was later acclaimed for extricating himself and all the rest of us. But the missile crisis tapes reveal a man in charge and uncowed by a lot of "crackpot realists" - doubtless faithful family men - who were braying for nuclear war. Hersh berates Kennedy for projecting an image of toughness; and Hersh is genuinely funny when observing that close advisers such as Robert McNamara and the Bundys imitated Kennedy's macho posture and all its "worst aspects" while being incapable of the cunning involved.
Indeed, Kennedy played tough to appease the rabid American Right, but thereby allowed himself latitude to do what smart politicians are supposed to do: work out compromises. Hersh makes much of the alleged concealment of the removal of obsolete American Jupiter missiles from Turkey - but that is an old story and does not detract from JFK's achievement in wriggling his way out of Armageddon.
If Sam Giancana was wooed by Joseph Kennedy to throw his weight behind JFK's election, he certainly got a raw deal, because, by Hersh's admission, Robert Kennedy tenaciously pursued and tormented the mobster. Hersh gets it wrong so often because so much of his evidence is liable to be perfectly plausible recastings of motive and purpose. To suggest that Robert F. Kennedy's animus against the Mob was a vendetta on behalf of his dear old Dad is a cheap shot - even though people have done better things for worse reasons. As for old Joe, he was plainly disastrous in his mercifully brief ambassadorial stint in Britain during the war, where he was dismayingly defeatist about British chances, but a goodly chunk of the British upper crust at that point thought exactly the same thing.
Hersh has Teddy and Bobby toting fifty-grand bribes to buy West Virginia in 1960. Hersh gets this stuff from convicted bribetakers, girls, secret service men, FBI men, stockbrokers, and still worse sources (there is the kook neighbour of a JFK paramour who tries like a good citizen to expose JFK's tryst, but offers to drop the effort in exchange for a Modigliani).
The Kennedys undoubtedly waged a vendetta against Castro after the Bay of Pigs fiasco - embroiling them in a weird network of associations between the Mafia, CIA, FBI and anti-Castro insurgents. But the Mafia, remember, was first enticed into the plot against Castro by the CIA, not by Kennedy. There is a priceless moment here when a former FBI man in Miami arranges a party where the local CIA executive meets Johnny Rosselli, the mobster. Hersh asks the party-giver why he invited a mobster to a fete full of FBI and CIA officials. "It was so logical," the chap replies. "I'm having a party. Johnny is in town, I invite him over." Hey, yeah, all the goodfellas are here.
In 1960 Kennedy shamelessly exploited the Cuba issue knowing very well the government and Nixon were itching to invade. Alas, poor Nixon dared say nothing in response to Kennedy's taunts. (Hersh reveals a $100,000 bribe paid into Nixon's account by a Romanian industrialist with fascist links to the Iron Guard and who was a business partner of Herman Goering's brother). Nixon says he learned to play dirty from the Kennedys. That's rich.
Kennedy's saving grace - perhaps - was his ability to cut his losses, which he might well have done in Vietnam, despite Hersh's assertions otherwise. Both Kennedy brothers were enamoured of counter-insurgency, but not of land wars in Asia. There are hordes of charges yet to be sifted, but they are far too flimsy to bother with. Ultimately, I wonder what the point of the book is. Is it that the American public should have wised up to prevent the Kennedy presidency? Hersh himself wrote a superb book on Kissinger in the Nixon White House and ought to know better. "Do you realise what a responsibility I carry?" JFK half jocularly told a friend in 1960." "I'm the only obstacle standing between Nixon and the White House."
Kurt Jacobson is a writer and critic