Customer Reviews

Bobby and J. Edgar: The Historic Face-Off Between the Kennedys and J. Edgar Hoover That Transformed America

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The New Frontier was led by men of vision and intelligence. But as Hersh points out in this page turner, the guys in the boiler room were as corrupt and conflicted as they could be. More so than any book I have yet read on the subject, "Bobby and J. Edgar" lays out how the Kennedy administration, the CIA, the mob, the FBI, and the Cuban exiles closely interacted. The missions were to fight organized crime, to fight communism. We are left to decide for ourselves if this machine ultimately turned on the Kennedy brothers, but the players, their motivations, and their means, are nicely laid out by Hersch.

What I found remarkable about the book was its density. Facts upon new facts pulled me to the next page, all annotated in his extensive notes section. Yes, not all of them may be true (and God, I hope the Giancana/Marilyn Monroe story is one of them), but the overall picture holds: The Kennedys fearlessly attacked the same power structures they at other times relied on. These malignant power structures cooperated with one another, usually without the Kennedy's knowledge or approval. The Kennedy's efforts to control this beast was probably their fatal mistake

It reads like a novel. You finish one chapter and you cannot wait until the next. Soon the whole book is done, and you're wondering if there's a sequel. Writing doesn't get any better than this, and then there's the unequalled story, an Attorney General (AG) whose brother is the President of the United States, and America's chief investigative officer J. Edgar Hoover (Director) who just happens to have secret files on everyone of consequence in the United States.


Those salacious files include the President of the United States his brother, and their father Joseph P. Kennedy, who is probably smarter than all three of them put together. A self made man, who made a fortune bootlegging liquor out of Canada during Prohibition, the father would maintain his contacts with mafia leaders until his stroke suffered one year into his son's Presidency.


Many would feel that had Joseph Kennedy retained his ability to speak, he would have been able to protect his sons from assassination, but that is for other books to delve into. In this book we have the rivalry and the anger of two men with enormous egos who would clash for a 1000 days until suddenly Robert Kennedy's power would collapse on a Friday in Dallas.


It's all here, and it's here in detail. Burton Hersh is an experienced journalist, and he takes us on a cyclone during a period in American history that is full of trauma and turmoil, of idealism, and cynicism. Be sure that once you start it, you have carved out enough time to finish it because you are not going to want to do anything else once you begin reading. These are just a handful of the stories that you will learn the truth about:


* How did Joseph Kennedy in consort with J. Edgar Hoover manipulate the entire 1960 Convention so that Lyndon Johnson would be selected as the Vice Presidential nominee.


* What was Bobby Kennedy's (RFK)logic to drive master lawyer Roy Cohn from the McCarthy Committee hearings?


* What was the real relationship between JFK, RFK, and Marilyn Monroe, and will we ever know the truth about her death?


* What was Marilyn's relationship to the mafia godfathers, and did JFK know about it?


* Was there a conspiracy involving Johnny Rosselli of Las Vegas, New Orleans crime leader Carlos Marcello, and Santos Trafficante of Tampa to kill the President of the United States?


* How were these three men involved with future President Richard Nixon?


Throughout all of these stories there is the information master J. Edgar Hoover weaving and intertwining his way, always present in the minds of those in power. He was never far from where power resided. He would meet with the President for lunch, and inform him that society girl Judith Exner was a lover of the Outfits boss in Chicago. Hoover would make sure Bobby knew also. In doing so, the Director knew that he would remain in power at least through the end of JFK's Administration.


If this were fiction, nobody would believe it, but it's not fiction, its history as good as it gets, as exciting as it can be made, and still be in words.


Hersh goes through the origin of the mob, and Havana, and Castro. He examines the seeming contradiction of how Joe Kennedy could accept $15 million in mob money towards his son's election, and then stand by while the AG attempted to put the very same people that backed his brother into jail.


Understand these men, as you have never understood them before. For the first time, Hersh unravels the puzzle of JFK, RFK, and Hoover, and the America they made, and remade. What they were trying to do, and who they were trying to stop. The collision between them would go on for three years, and then end one sudden day when Hoover would call the AG at his home in Virginia on a Friday afternoon, and without introduction or niceties simply say, YOUR BROTHER IS DEAD.


You won't put it down, and you will remember it forever. In deal after deal, you will understand how government worked then, and wonder how it really works now? From the election to the cover up, Hersh leaves no stone unturned, and we should all be grateful for the effort that he put into this book. If you can handle the truth, this is the book for you, and thank you for reading this review.


Richard C. Stoyeck

Were "Bobby and J. Edgar" a movie, it would be described as "The Godfather Meets Camelot." Reading it is like going to the movies, except it's all true. Burton Hersh's brilliantly sourced masterpiece, the product of over five years of research, shocks on almost every page with its revelations of how power really works in America. The duel between two powerful personalities, Attorney General Robert Kennedy and F.B.I. Director, J. Edgar Hoover, is a must read for anyone who wants to understand the history of the country. The incredible cast of characters, Joe Kennedy, Bobby and Jack Kennedy, Ethel Kennedy, mobsters Johnny Rosselli, Carlos Marcello and Sam Giancana, Marilyn Monroe, Judith Campbell Exner, Joseph McCarthy, Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover, are all portrayed as the real people they were. Joe Kennedy is a driven,, mob connected power broker, but also a loving father, while J. Edgar Hoover is revealed as a surprising defender of civil liberties. I defy anyone who picks this book up to put it down. If it isn't a huge bestseller, I will be amazed.

This primly salacious biography suffers from two conflicting flaws. Writer Burton Hersh seems to know too much about his subjects and is unable to dissever the wheat from the chaff. He seems hell-bent on telling the reader everything about everything, to the point of confusion. Detailing knicknames of mobsters who make cameo appearances in a paragraph or two, for example, blurs understanding rather than clarifying. Burton's quick switching between names hampers understanding as well, with John F. Kennedy switching to Jack and Bobby to Robert to Bob within a few sentences, making it difficult to be sure what character is acting in the play. The overabundance of detail makes for a very tedious read.

Compounding the difficulty is a serious failure in editorial oversight. Misspellings abound, both typographic and the "spellcheck" variety with correctly spelled but incorrect words. Sentence structure is convoluted to the point that necessitates re-reading, parsing and deconstructing the author's intent. A competent editor would have cut a third of the text and imposed clearer chronological threads. History buffs will pick up a few new details and learn more about the sex lives and obsessions of the rich and famous than is particularly useful.

There are a thousand Kennedy books and hundreds of books on the FBI, and I've read a lot of them, but none has what this one has: the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God. J. Edgar Hoover, the protector of our country, was no such thing, it turned out. He persecuted the innocents as far back as 1919, when he provided information for the infamous Palmer Raids. Mr. Law and Order also protected the Mafia with a vengeance. A Southerner, he also fought to stop the civil rights movement with all the power vested in him. Martin Luther King didn't know it, but Hoover was his most feared enemy, even as much as the Ku Klux Klan. As for Bobby Kennedy, it is impossible to write about Bobby and Jack without discussing dear old dad, Joe, and Hersh uses his research and writing talents to tell the Joe Kennedy saga -- how he became rich selling booze and sidling up to Mafia bigwigs, and how he used his wealth to get whatever it was he wanted. It was Joe's ambition that pushed his two sons into the Presidency, and it was that same ambition that may well have gotten them killed. In his chapter on the Kennedy Assassination, Hersh names names. His scenario of that black day in Dallas is worth the price of admission alone. (In the name of fairness, I must admit that Burton Hersh is a close friend of mine, but this in no way colors what I think of this book.) He spent almost ten years writing Bobby and J. Edgar, and he should be rewarded for this extraordinary effort.

The pictures on the cover are more correct than the title. This book, of necessity, deals a lot with Joe Kennedy, which made it even more interesting for me. I learned quite a bit about all three of these fellows. A good read, one that was strong on research and documentation.

best so far regarding the kennedys assassinations the mob and the monster j edgar hoover joins up all the dots on the various books of these times and the corruption endemic in the american political system greatauthor will look for his other publications f deans

A new slant on the differences between a new generation in politics and how not to use power.A nasty powerful man who was corrupt and used his position to stay in power at others expense.The Kennedys and J Edgar Hoover is a good book and lots of information brought to light .A.T.Kiln

I found this book very interesting to read. It is of special interest to me living in Massachusetts during this period. I found consideral insight into the politics of the time. It was well written and held my attention until the last page in the book.

It's a well-written, well-sourced book detailing disturbing relationships, among them:
* The mob and the Mormons in Las Vegas
* The rum-running "founding father" Joseph Kennedy and his intertwined business interests with the criminal element
* The at-times destructive relationship of the brothers Kennedy to one another.
Mr. Hersh's account is high on credibility and readability. However, this is not a book for those who want to swallow the "martyr" myths about JFK and RFK.