POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY ANDREW COHEN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
The Kennedys were simply America's Borgias.
The Borgias had grace and beauty and wealth, but they also were ruthless and murderous and had ambition beyond bounds.
The full story of the Kennedy's greed and manipulation has not been - and likely never be - told. Despite many revelations coming to light, the family has succeeded time and again in suppressing much evidence.
This film may or may not be what the author of this article claims, but it does seem strange to me a man who wants to be taken seriously would spend time criticizing a television show.
We know, absolutely, that such a show will be vapid, whether it dwells on the sleaze or not.
Here are some reflections on Kennedy, the president, people may enjoy:
http://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2010/11/19/the-dark-aspects-of-kennedys-road-to-the-white-house-were-far-darker-than-described-by-british-journalist-andrew-marr/
_______________________________
Joe Kennedy wasn't just a crook as a reader has commented.
He was a ruthless and highly immoral man whose behavior included acts like bringing home young women he picked up or paid for sex right in front of his family gathered in the living room.
He was also brutally anti-British in his views, and correspondingly somewhat of a Hitler admirer.
He was so stupidly outspoken in these unpleasant views that the British government asked the United States to withdraw him as ambassador to Britain, not a common occurrence in diplomacy, a request with which Roosevelt complied.
Joe made his fortune in illegal alcohol, working with some very unpleasant and murderous gangsters, a connection which was exploited later in getting funds and support for his son's drive to be president.
Jack himself, while a far classier guy on the surface with his tailored suits and quotes and manners, shared a number of his father's characteristics, albeit in varied forms.
John’s womanizing we all know about, although not everyone is aware that at least one of the women - Judith Exner, a woman who paid him calls right in the White House - was tied to high levels of the Mob.
And not everyone knows that one of his early relationships, while in the military, was with a woman German spy. J Edgar Hoover was on to it, and had it not been for the Kennedy wealth and influence, his career would have died right there.
The abuse of privilege, in avoiding responsibility for your actions, was just as big a part of the Kennedys as it was that dishonest mediocrity and ignorant frat boy, George W Bush.
Much was made of John's PT-109 exploits at the time of his running, and he did help save a man's life, but the entire incident - the loss of his craft and the misery of his crew - was owing to his incompetence and lack of appropriate caution as a commander.
The same behavior from anyone else, without the connections, might well have resulted in a court martial.
Kennedy’s good taste included taking on people like Theodore Sorensen as writer/advisor – his family wealth allowed them to hire what essentially became a platoon of smart flaks, people who helped very much in smoothing over the bumps in the road of family history and who gave an aura of intelligence and worth.
But it is certain that more dishonesty came into play here too. Sorensen almost certainly wrote Kennedy’s Pulitzer prize-winning book, although he was such a loyal follower he denied it always. Sorensen also, to a certainty, was author of speech phrases like “Ask not what….” If you read Sorensen’s book about Kennedy, the cadence and style of the writing are so recognizable.
John also played a very two-faced game in the White House with regard to Cuba. After the Missile Crisis blew up in his face - and the CIA, as well as attempting to assassinate Castro many times, had been very much in the business of planning another invasion of Cuba as Khrushchev feared when he considered sending missiles to Cuba – the agreement that ended the crisis was Kennedy’s agreeing to not invade Cuba as well as withdrawing certain missiles from Turkey.
Word of the agreement made the anti-Castro thugs the CIA had sponsored for years – Osama’s boys in the mountains made a peanut-sized operation compared to the multi-million dollar terror operation the CIA ran in the early 1960s (just one of countless examples of U.S. hypocrisy around the use of terror) – bitterly, fiercely angry, making them one of the prime suspects in Kennedy’s assassination.
Kennedy had his brother, as Attorney General and stand-in voice of the President, make a big show of raiding camps in the South where these thugs carried on with their CIA-provided weapons and training. Robert also secretly was in charge of more attempts to murder Castro.
The Kennedy brothers were always getting involved in heated battles. For reasons that still are not clear, Robert conducted a vendetta against a number of big mobsters, despite the fact that the Mob had financed his brother’s presidential campaign and kept such connections as Judith Exner. That behavior made the Mob another chief suspect for Kennedy’s assassination.
Both of the Kennedys actually, for whatever well-organized group killed Jack knew they also had to kill Robert if he was going to become President. Robert’s ruthless use of power meant that the full powers of the office of the president would go after his brother’s assassins, as the pathetic Warren Commission never made any attempt to do.
Sleaze in fancy suits, ruthless people with a veneer of class – that’s the Kennedys.
