Speaker 1: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
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Speaker 1: journalist and author Dan Zufanski, Good Evening.
Speaker 2: John F. Kennedy's life is promoted by sentimental myth makers
Speaker 2: as pure legend, but a sinister shadow lies across his life.
Speaker 2: JFK's death was such a shocking event that the vivid
Speaker 2: memory of his assassination still blinds us to much of
Speaker 2: what went before. It is almost always seen through the
Speaker 2: prism of that single terrible day in Dallas, obscuring the
Speaker 2: dark corners of his life and government for JFK power
Speaker 2: with soundbites over policy, the White House a fairytale castle,
Speaker 2: and the President a hyper sexualized movie star. As with Hollywood,
Speaker 2: the willing suspension of belief was required, Reality imposes no
Speaker 2: such limits, Drawing on essential new material, Reckless shatters the
Speaker 2: secrets and lives with a revelatory true life thriller focusing
Speaker 2: on RFK and Robert F. Kennedy both before and after
Speaker 2: they bought the White House. All the usual suspects from
Speaker 2: FBI titan Jay Agar Hoover and billionaire Howard Hughes to
Speaker 2: CIA rogue agents and mob hitman appear in a narrative
Speaker 2: which sweeps from wartime London to the salons of Washington,
Speaker 2: from the bedrooms of Hollywood to the torture chambers and
Speaker 2: jungles of Central America, and on to revolutionary Cuba and
Speaker 2: the tragic, bloody political carousel of Vietnam. The book that
Speaker 2: we're featuring this evening is Reckless, Sex, Lies and JFK
Speaker 2: with my special guest, investigative journalist and author Douglas Thompson.
Speaker 2: Good evening, and welcome to the program, and thank you
Speaker 2: very much for this interview. Douglas Thompson.
Speaker 3: Hello Dan, thank you for having me. It's pleasure.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, and congratulations on this extraordinary book, Reckless.
Speaker 3: That's great. Thank you. Yes, it's been a long time
Speaker 3: in writing, so it's good to it's out now in
Speaker 3: the bookshops and people are reacting to it and getting
Speaker 3: another side of the the whole history of well a
Speaker 3: little history of America, but mainly of course of John F.
Speaker 3: Kennedy and his family.
Speaker 2: Yes, as you do in the book. Just to start
Speaker 2: in a very dramatic fashion, you have Havana, Cuba, nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty seven and Santo Trafficanti Junior on the phone with
Speaker 2: his lawyer complaining tell us about what his complaint is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Traffic County, who was one of the big mob
Speaker 3: mafia figures of America in the fifties and into the sixties,
Speaker 3: was very angry. He had tried to set up then
Speaker 3: young Senator John F. Kennedy in a kind of honey
Speaker 3: trap in Havana, using some very attractive and very alluring
Speaker 3: Cuban girls to entice Kennedy on the colleague of his
Speaker 3: into set in a hotel room. Traffic County has set
Speaker 3: up a camera set up the next door hotel room
Speaker 3: where the kind of see through see through wall, and
Speaker 3: the whole plan was to photograph and compromise Kennedy and
Speaker 3: blackmail them into the way into the future. The problem
Speaker 3: was that traffic Aunty's helpers hadn't quite got the technology
Speaker 3: correct and so the photographs never ever came out, much
Speaker 3: to his ignignation, and that's why he was onto his
Speaker 3: lawyer complaining. It's basically saying, if I'd only got the
Speaker 3: son of a bitch on camera, things would have been
Speaker 3: much different. He typically of the mob. Of course, he
Speaker 3: didn't blame his own kind of actions or his own
Speaker 3: management of the situation. He blamed the the colleagues who
Speaker 3: had tried to set up this minops mini camera to
Speaker 3: work and and stop, you know, and stop Kennedy literally
Speaker 3: and sexual action. Of course, he the colleague, was admonished
Speaker 3: in a nasting way. But if Kennedy himself and his
Speaker 3: friends just carried on without any knowledge that they had
Speaker 3: been so close to being compromised, and I would think
Speaker 3: you imagine a future completely ruined before it had really began.
Speaker 3: In politics in America.
Speaker 2: Take us back, take our audience back to the origins
Speaker 2: of Joseph Kennedy, as you do in the book.
Speaker 3: They Well They Kennedy. John Kennedy's behavior in Havana was
Speaker 3: very much a mirror of his own father's behavior, going
Speaker 3: back into the deals in the nineteen twenties and to Boston,
Speaker 3: and to his whole attitude to life, his attitude of entitlement.
Speaker 3: Old Joe Kennedy had a great gift for making money,
Speaker 3: didn't care how he made it made up through connections
Speaker 3: with mob figures, mob figures like Santra traffic ante's father
Speaker 3: who was also a traffic ante. And throughout the years,
Speaker 3: Joe Kennedy manipulated people, he manipulated banks, he manipulated situations,
Speaker 3: and he was it's now become clear. It's always been
Speaker 3: rumored that he was a kind of bootlegger during Prohibition,
Speaker 3: but over the years it's certainly been clear and clear,
Speaker 3: and certainly with freedom of information in the last ten
Speaker 3: fifteen years, there's been more detail come out about how
Speaker 3: close he was working with the mob, working and running
Speaker 3: his own booze which he imported into It came through
Speaker 3: into Boston, that came into New York, it came down
Speaker 3: from Canada and some of the most prestigious speakeasies, kind
Speaker 3: of legendary names of going back to the nineteen twenties,
Speaker 3: of all those you think of all these old Warner
Speaker 3: Brothers gangster movies with Cagney and George Rapt, Kennedy could
Speaker 3: have been, could have been a player in any of
Speaker 3: these these movie scripts. He was that involved, but kept
Speaker 3: through again through connections through manipulation, as the sailing with
Speaker 3: really was his middle name of the press. He became
Speaker 3: very friendly with Walter Winchell, so, you know, with Kennedy,
Speaker 3: if there was rumors or scandal about him, that was
Speaker 3: all quelled in the peer and favors were given. So
Speaker 3: Kennedy would give Winchell and others, including some of the
Speaker 3: big papers that Washington Post, New York Times, would give
Speaker 3: them the dirt and other people to keep himself looking
Speaker 3: very well, not squeaky clean, but looking clean enough to
Speaker 3: stay out, but to stay out of jail, stay out
Speaker 3: of compromise. And he his his affiliations were always towards
Speaker 3: those in power. So he did favors, you know, with
Speaker 3: mobsters who were in power. He did favors for politicians
Speaker 3: who were in power. Early went on to do that
Speaker 3: and in a grand way with Roosevelt, who he supported
Speaker 3: for the presidency. Where at the same time, all the
Speaker 3: time thinking of his own political ambition. When and of
Speaker 3: course the Boston dynasty begins through Joe Kennedy, they'd have
Speaker 3: been dirty tricks with his, with Fitzgerald's, with his wife
Speaker 3: Rose Fitzgerald's family in Boston politics. But later on he
Speaker 3: gets in there and he is using the money all
Speaker 3: the time to buy influence to buy votes, to buy elections,
Speaker 3: and this went on, would and would go on for decades,
Speaker 3: and his family. His big ambition was for his eldest son,
Speaker 3: Joe Kennedy, to ultimately become president, and Joe Jr. Was
Speaker 3: very much trained for it, educated for it, as in
Speaker 3: second son, John Kennedy was in the slipstream of this,
Speaker 3: also being well educated and prepared for political office, but
Speaker 3: not the high office that he's that his older brother
Speaker 3: was destined for the Second World War. When America entered
Speaker 3: the Second World War, very much against Joe Kennedy's fearsome,
Speaker 3: very fearsome opposition and lobbying against and Kennedy was sort
Speaker 3: of bought off in a way with giving the US
Speaker 3: ambassador to London. So he's in London. He's also at
Speaker 3: that I'm still fighting American involvement in the war. He's
Speaker 3: championing appeasement. He's upsetting then MPs like Winston Churchill and
Speaker 3: Noodling to a degree, say Noodling, he's flirting with Hitler
Speaker 3: and trying to really see peace with America and letting
Speaker 3: Europe get on with the war and not involve the States.
Speaker 3: He did his reputation no good at all because of this.
Speaker 3: At the same time, he had the tragic thing of
Speaker 3: his son. Joe was flying with experimental flight with a
Speaker 3: lot of tea twenty thousand tons of TNT on board, right,
Speaker 3: and that exploded over England, over Suffolk in England. So
Speaker 3: Joe Kennedy is tragically killed. Joe Kennedy Jr. That is,
Speaker 3: Joe Kennedy Senior, then goes back to the States with
Speaker 3: his tale between his legs, really but to keep him
Speaker 3: tweet and keep him sort of in the tent rather
Speaker 3: than outside the tent. Roosevelt looks after him with appointments there.
Speaker 3: But at that point, of course, the mantle of who
Speaker 3: will become president of the family goes to JFK. And
Speaker 3: that's where again a whole not new but a newly
Speaker 3: revived campaign, political campaign begins, all centered again on Kennedy Kennedy,
Speaker 3: this time John Jack Kennedy and centered on Boston and
Speaker 3: getting him into into his high political on the ladder,
Speaker 3: the high political office.
Speaker 2: At that point, let's go back, because I think it's
Speaker 2: very important for the behavior of Joe Kennedy. Joe Kennedy
Speaker 2: talking about his flirtation with Hollywood. You talk about before prohibition,
Speaker 2: making money in the movie business, having affairs with Hollywood starlets.
Speaker 2: Tell us about this behavior, this risky, reckless behavior that
Speaker 2: she's demonstrated in this book. Reckless.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Joe Kennedy, it's all in Hollywood, an opportunity to
Speaker 3: make money. He looked out there, he looked to the coast,
Speaker 3: and he had he had money, He had the banker's money,
Speaker 3: and he went up there and he thought he could
Speaker 3: do better running a studio, making movies, making money. Also,
Speaker 3: he was away from home. He had the lights of
Speaker 3: I mean, it was starlet's day and night. The philandering
Speaker 3: went on constantly. He became quite enamored with Gloria Swanson,
Speaker 3: who was then the biggest star female leaning lady in
Speaker 3: the world. He took over her kind of love life
Speaker 3: and her professional life, and in terms of her business
Speaker 3: and making films. They were successful films, but basically Joe
Speaker 3: Joe Kennedy took all the money, made an absolute fortune
Speaker 3: in Hollywood, managed to all but bankrupt Gloria Swanson in
Speaker 3: the process was involved in rumors that he'd had people murdered,
Speaker 3: which was notch was was a nonsense, but it was.
Speaker 3: He was such a disliked character and such a reckless
Speaker 3: and maverick in Hollywood that the whole of Hollywood was
Speaker 3: desperate to believe that he was going to be found
Speaker 3: guilty and stuck in the slammer. But his behavior with
Speaker 3: Glorious Swanson as the son of other women was just
Speaker 3: when you look back now, it seems beyond the It
Speaker 3: seems beyond the pair, because that by that time a
Speaker 3: large family, by then it had eight children. Rose Kennedy
Speaker 3: looked the other way. He was having affairs with all
Speaker 3: with just about. He seemed to be with everybody, every
Speaker 3: woman he met, he seemed to go to bed with.
Speaker 3: But the ongoing relationship with Glorias Swanson was was quite incredible.
Speaker 3: He took the family. To appease the family, he took
Speaker 3: them all to the South of France, and it was
Speaker 3: kind of camped out there in some great stuff and luxury.
Speaker 3: And next door to him in the South of France,
Speaker 3: also staying in the next door villa was Marlinie Dietrich
Speaker 3: with her with her husband and his lover, his male
Speaker 3: lover and her family. And of course then Joe Kennedy
Speaker 3: being Joe Kennedy, and I suppose district being Dietrich. They
Speaker 3: begin an affair then, and during that time there's a
Speaker 3: big society dance to science. The evening is staged, which
Speaker 3: Jack Kennedy is then, I think then twenty one, around
Speaker 3: about twenty one, and he is there and is entertained
Speaker 3: along with all the other kids and the people that
Speaker 3: sat there, and of course MARLINI Ditrich dances with him
Speaker 3: and sticks her hand down his trousers and tries to
Speaker 3: arouse him. Well, and she's been sleeping with the father.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just kind of beggar's belief when you
Speaker 3: see when you kind of see it in black and
Speaker 3: white now and you think, of course the influence on
Speaker 3: John Kennedy then, who later on sees his father in
Speaker 3: a kind of sexual clinch with glorious wantson. You do
Speaker 3: wonder just how much his own his own later for thundering.
Speaker 3: It was just a kind of stepping stone, you know,
Speaker 3: in his mind, it's just something you did as part
Speaker 3: of being a man.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about some of the investments that Joe Kennedy
Speaker 2: undertook with his mob friends. What kinds of things did
Speaker 2: he invest in with them?
Speaker 3: The main Joe Kennedy's main investments where in obviously during
Speaker 3: provision he was in he was very much into importing
Speaker 3: and selling illegal boost and supplying it rather than just
Speaker 3: being the man front man. After provision ended, UH, he
Speaker 3: went into the booze business because he obviously had the connections.
Speaker 3: And they also bought up very big real estate clubs Florida,
Speaker 3: Midwest money into that. There was money into Boston into
Speaker 3: clubs and warehouse a lot of warehousing as well, because
Speaker 3: obviously distribution is in a sense he was ahead of
Speaker 3: Amazon by UH decades and that they built the contribution
Speaker 3: centers for for booze and for you know, any kind
Speaker 3: of contraband. But the result but nightclubs he was involved
Speaker 3: in buying into nightclubs or a mob run he had percentages.
Speaker 3: And then he was also into into Las Vegas and
Speaker 3: into putting money into clubs and in Vegas and mainly
Speaker 3: into one, you know, some of the big casinos.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about what was learned and what was gained
Speaker 2: in Honduras, the country of Honduras be what we talk about.
Speaker 2: What was the interest of the mob in Cuba and.
Speaker 3: Well in Honduras there was it was it's basically they
Speaker 3: the mob that mafia worth gambling the mafia's intention, and
Speaker 3: it goes back to, you know, through Mary Landski basically
Speaker 3: the chairman of the board and the moneyman the chances
Speaker 3: of the exchequer. For the Mob always thought gambling was
Speaker 3: the way they could expand worldwide. It begins in the
Speaker 3: carpet you know, the carpet joints of America Midwest. You know,
Speaker 3: then they have Vegas interest in their starting up Vegas.
Speaker 3: But then Honduras was it was a wide open. Guatemala
Speaker 3: was wide open. They tried to get into Asia through
Speaker 3: that way with the idea was to get in from
Speaker 3: there and then get into Asia. And again Guatemala led
Speaker 3: to Cuba. Cuba again was just with Batista who was
Speaker 3: then running the country was corrupt again manipulated into taking
Speaker 3: a chunk of the gambling with the mob. So it's
Speaker 3: a money machine gambling. Gambling attracted the people that could
Speaker 3: run and be tough, and that's what Joe Kennedy was,
Speaker 3: So he's investing in much of this as the mob is,
Speaker 3: and of course all the things that go along, all
Speaker 3: the prostitution, the protection, rackets, the illegalities where the money
Speaker 3: is made and the skin is made, all kind of
Speaker 3: runs along with gambling. So you've got in sort of
Speaker 3: in tandem, you've got the mafia's empire is running in
Speaker 3: a very very swift way through the world, much as
Speaker 3: Kennedy's politics and business are running very very quickly as
Speaker 3: well and his influence. So you've got that kind of
Speaker 3: too great dynasty. You've got the Kennedy dynasty, and you've
Speaker 3: got the Mob with their engines both fully you know,
Speaker 3: fully steamed up, and they're running through that early past
Speaker 3: half century of America, uh and then expanding as America
Speaker 3: expanded its influence throughout, you know, into Asia and elsewhere,
Speaker 3: the Mob were doing the same thing and and still are.
Speaker 3: I mean the Mob still you know, Aimed came into
Speaker 3: the UK, went into into Africa, they had they had
Speaker 3: casinos running running early days in Russia. So it's it's
Speaker 3: it's it's expansionist. And strangely enough, for Joe Kennedy trying
Speaker 3: to be an isolationist during the war is completely expansionist
Speaker 3: when it comes to running as a business empire making
Speaker 3: a dollar. And that's the point, both with Joe Kennedy
Speaker 3: and with the Mafia where you got into trouble was
Speaker 3: there was somebody got in the way of either of
Speaker 3: them in the business of making a dollar. If you
Speaker 3: let them just get on with it, there was never
Speaker 3: any trouble for people in their vicinity or working with them.
Speaker 3: It was only when authority or someone else you know,
Speaker 3: arrival came on the scene and wanted to get in
Speaker 3: the way.
Speaker 2: Tell us about the government's involvement and why they despite
Speaker 2: Batista's cruelty and violence and murder, they still like Batista
Speaker 2: as the head of Cuba, and why they Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well they basically American governments have consistently supported figures, be
Speaker 3: they dictators, be they cruel dictators, who have been anti communists.
Speaker 3: You know, we know it throughout the kind of history
Speaker 3: you know, Central American so on. But very much Batista
Speaker 3: was a buffer against the the the castro, the shape
Speaker 3: of Guevera politics, which were the intelligence was telling them
Speaker 3: that was coming along. They're very much the same happened
Speaker 3: in Guatemala. The government there was believed to be going well,
Speaker 3: not believed it was. It was becoming very socialist. They
Speaker 3: knew the president was a believer in giving everybody in
Speaker 3: the country a piece of land, a share, you know,
Speaker 3: a share, and their own lives and daily daily kind
Speaker 3: of likely of making a livelihood, and this was frowned upon.
Speaker 3: So he he is assassinated in Guatemala and the new
Speaker 3: kind of biggerhead has comes in who is is far
Speaker 3: more equable towards the politics of Washington. It's a repeat,
Speaker 3: It's repeated a lot along the way. The mob has
Speaker 3: a hand in helping the governments. It's thought that the
Speaker 3: mob were we're kind of in the dark all the
Speaker 3: went through, but Lucky Liciano during the Second World War
Speaker 3: were partnered up with the government to protect the docks
Speaker 3: in New York because he had the influence as he
Speaker 3: keep the mobsters in there, and they kept the communists
Speaker 3: and they sort of what they saw as left wing
Speaker 3: threats came down. So that continued after the war, continues
Speaker 3: in Cuba, well, continue in Guatemala, Honduras, and it certainly
Speaker 3: goes into Cuba until you know, until Castro takes power,
Speaker 3: until Batista is overthrown.
Speaker 2: You talk about it, and I guess people believe they
Speaker 2: know quite a bit about this, but it it should
Speaker 2: be discussed. Is the the idea about Cuba and the
Speaker 2: assassination of Castro and those plans.
Speaker 3: The mariad, I mean there were so many we've kind
Speaker 3: of grown to see it kind of almost in a
Speaker 3: starturday night live way, with kind of exploding cigars and
Speaker 3: you know, flying bats flying in and dropping poison on
Speaker 3: his food and all kinds of crazy schemes that came up,
Speaker 3: and we think that's how ridiculous and now amusing. Actually
Speaker 3: when you go through all the CIA documents through a
Speaker 3: freedom of information, when you go through the files, there
Speaker 3: is probably not a wacky idea that wasn't put forward
Speaker 3: as a plan to kill Castro, and still astonishes me
Speaker 3: how Castro survived because there were so many different plots
Speaker 3: and so many ways that he was going to be
Speaker 3: eliminated were very much extreme prejudice, but nothing ever happened.
Speaker 3: The mob again, this guy called Johnny Rosselli, who was
Speaker 3: the mob's man in Hollywood from from the forties onwards.
Speaker 3: He was a very much a killer, cold blood it
Speaker 3: very quick but club, very street smart cluver, and he
Speaker 3: worked with the CIA, the FBI was monitored by by
Speaker 3: Core Mike Rothmother's Los Angeles Police department. They kind of
Speaker 3: watched him all times because what he Rosselli was doing
Speaker 3: was usually what was was important in terms of heeneous
Speaker 3: crime and manipulation of events, and Rosselli was recruited to
Speaker 3: hit Castro and to set it all up. There have
Speaker 3: been so many different variations of of what happened or
Speaker 3: what tried to happen, but basically they there were several attempts.
Speaker 3: They was a sniper was taken into Cuba to Havana
Speaker 3: and nearly got a shot off Castro. There was poisoned
Speaker 3: foods through an intrigue with a chef who was kind
Speaker 3: of blackmailed or compromised sexually. There was two or three
Speaker 3: attempts to kidnap Castro. One attempt in fact, they kidnap
Speaker 3: somebody who looked like Castro. They you could fill a
Speaker 3: book with all the various color It's like the Keiftone Cops.
Speaker 3: The way things went on very very basically. Everything went
Speaker 3: wrong because there were so many people trying to deny
Speaker 3: that they were trying to do anything. You had the
Speaker 3: government who didn't want anybody to know that the mob
Speaker 3: were involved. You had the mob trying to cover up
Speaker 3: their involvement as well, because they want to keep in
Speaker 3: They're still they're playing two sides. They'd still the mob's
Speaker 3: most important thing to them was to get back into
Speaker 3: Cuba and get the gambling going can And they always
Speaker 3: thought if you know, if Patista was and then maybe
Speaker 3: they could do a deal with Castro. Their belief to
Speaker 3: this day is that everybody is corruptible, so why wouldn't
Speaker 3: Castro be at some point. So it's a kind of
Speaker 3: mad cap carry on throughout the whole thing. And basically
Speaker 3: Castor when he is in power and when he takes power,
Speaker 3: and when Kennedy becomes president, is it's virtually coming his
Speaker 3: nose at him. And it makes the point to Kennedy
Speaker 3: publicly in a speech that Castro says on the record
Speaker 3: that Cuba is no Guatemala. And of course, in Guatemala,
Speaker 3: the president had been killed in Paratemala by supposedly one
Speaker 3: of his own bodyguards who supposedly took his own life
Speaker 3: and who supposedly was a left wing communist sympathizer with
Speaker 3: ties to Moscow, and pamphlets were found in his apartment
Speaker 3: and supposedly commit indications between the killer, the assassin, and Moscow.
Speaker 3: As it turned out when everybody investigated, there seemed to
Speaker 3: be no connection between the bodyguard who supposedly did the
Speaker 3: killing and any of this supposed communist sympathies. Basically, he
Speaker 3: was the patsy, he was the poor guy. He was
Speaker 3: the one who was found guilty, and the case was
Speaker 3: closed and the new president was put in. But if
Speaker 3: you look at the circumstances, and you look at Onto
Speaker 3: Dallas and you know not about many years later, six
Speaker 3: years later, the mirror, it kind of mirrors. It looks
Speaker 3: like a dry run when you with hindsight, it looks
Speaker 3: like a dry run for the Kennedy assassination.
Speaker 2: Let's get back to given the behavior, the risky sexual
Speaker 2: behavior the JFK exhibited, there are not only the mob
Speaker 2: trying to set up up in honey traps and have
Speaker 2: their prostitutes talking to JFK and being involved with him,
Speaker 2: but also that the government you mentioned the l A
Speaker 2: p D's Department O c I D gathering information on
Speaker 2: stars and criminals for their own for their own purpose.
Speaker 2: But given that the behavior of JFK tell us about
Speaker 2: the people that want to have him compromised.
Speaker 3: What they want is leverage with with with a powerful
Speaker 3: figure in government. And so basically it's it is the
Speaker 3: mob and his and political rivals. But you've also got
Speaker 3: foreign countries you've got there was certainly uh during the war,
Speaker 3: Kennedy had an affair with a woman who was suspected
Speaker 3: of being an that's the sympathizer who'd had connections with
Speaker 3: with Hitler, Watches, a journalist and so on, so that
Speaker 3: they had the history of that. He's almost got thrown
Speaker 3: out the Navy through his father, through Joe Kennedy's influence,
Speaker 3: he stayed there. He was moved out of Washington to
Speaker 3: a less sensitive area. He continued the affair. He continued
Speaker 3: the affair in later years. There was always a he
Speaker 3: was very much a connection there. There was also a
Speaker 3: situation with a kind of communist ring in Washington, and
Speaker 3: which again Kennedy has compromised and has an affair. It's
Speaker 3: covered up, it's smoothed over, but all the times there
Speaker 3: are people monitoring him, and the reckless behavior is it
Speaker 3: is astonishing. I mean, he had a very poorly controlled
Speaker 3: Addison's disease. He was given anabolic steroids for this. There
Speaker 3: has been psychiatric testimony in books and evidence and put
Speaker 3: forward that this affected his thinking and so on. But
Speaker 3: you do have to wonder whether the consciences he with
Speaker 3: Joe Kennedy sor and with Jack Kennedy, because he's meeting women,
Speaker 3: he is having affairs with them while he is trying
Speaker 3: to become a senator, a congressman. He's doing it, doing
Speaker 3: it before he becomes a senator, He's doing it before
Speaker 3: he becomes president. He's doing it almost on the eve
Speaker 3: of his inauguration as president. He's doing it through continually
Speaker 3: throughout his presidency. It's the it's almost when you're writing
Speaker 3: in the book, right you you reckless behavior, but you're
Speaker 3: almost thinking how many more women are there? I mean,
Speaker 3: it's it's it's how many more pages do you have
Speaker 3: to write about the women? Because it's almost an embarrassment
Speaker 3: of of of kind of riches in a sense of material.
Speaker 3: But of course, the the mob wanted to get him
Speaker 3: early on, and and you know, traffic Anti's idea of
Speaker 3: photographing and compromising him in Cuba was a here perfectly
Speaker 3: legitimate idea from their point of view, which didn't work out.
Speaker 3: There were pictures of him taken outside an apartment of
Speaker 3: a lover in the middle of the night. This was
Speaker 3: again all covered up. Pressure was put on from on
Speaker 3: high because it seems that nobody could quite comprehend what
Speaker 3: was happening the LAPD in California throughout the Kennedy's kind
Speaker 3: of association with California anytime the presidential not when he
Speaker 3: got the nomination in Los Angeles at sixty. The lap
Speaker 3: D is doing is basically covering up his affair with
Speaker 3: marlmon Roe. It's covering up his affair with other actressies
Speaker 3: who some of couples still alive. He's covering up his tracks,
Speaker 3: basically looking after him, almost babysitting the candidate, then babysitting
Speaker 3: the president when he was in California, much as the
Speaker 3: babysat Bobby Kennedy. You know, his brother who was then
Speaker 3: Attorney General and helped him and helped Bobby Kennedy with
Speaker 3: his work against the mob and his difficulties with covering
Speaker 3: up his brother's affairs, and of course all at this
Speaker 3: time the DAK Kennedy is heavily involved with Frank Sinatra
Speaker 3: with a movie set with the scandals, and not a
Speaker 3: word of this is appearing and in it was the
Speaker 3: head of it in European newspapers and magazines often blind items,
Speaker 3: and the occasional blind item in American gossip columns, but
Speaker 3: certainly it's it's sanitized in terms of the mainstream.
Speaker 2: Let's use this as an opportunity to stop to hear
Speaker 2: these messages. Let's talk about Bobby Kennedy his rise to
Speaker 2: the Attorney General and also Joe Kennedy employing utilizing his
Speaker 2: friends to help JFK get into the White House, and
Speaker 2: just tell us about Bobby Kennedy throwing a monkey wrench
Speaker 2: into this.
Speaker 3: Jack Kennedy is on the campaign trail, Bobby Kennedy is
Speaker 3: his campaign manager, and basically they are working together at
Speaker 3: a high high pace.
Speaker 2: But the.
Speaker 3: Joe Kennedy is manipulating by the scenes with money, putting
Speaker 3: a Massis and Massi's amounts of money into this. But
Speaker 3: Joe has done the deal with the mob that the
Speaker 3: mob will help his son become president. At the same time,
Speaker 3: Bobby Kennedy is leading as a prominent antique mob anti
Speaker 3: racketeering lawyer, is leading a campaign to alienate the mob,
Speaker 3: to get them in prison, to put them all away.
Speaker 3: So you've got two two conflicting bro brothers with two
Speaker 3: conflicting kind of ideals at that point, and the Joe
Speaker 3: as Kennedy seniors the whole time trying to pull his
Speaker 3: son back saying don't stop going after them, but hearing
Speaker 3: after hearing Bobby Kennedy in public, he abuses Sam Hannah,
Speaker 3: who is the mob boss in Chicago, probably the most
Speaker 3: powerful mafia man in America. He is friends Giacanna with
Speaker 3: Frank Sinatra. Gia Kanna is friends with Joe Kennedy Senior.
Speaker 3: Jia Canna has promised Joe Kennedy Senior that he will
Speaker 3: help him buy votes and influence votes to put his
Speaker 3: son in the White House. At the same time, Bobby
Speaker 3: Kennedy is is what's the world? He is kind of
Speaker 3: belittling Sam Giacnna publicly laughing at him for having a
Speaker 3: shrill laugh and the voice at some hearings, angering and
Speaker 3: very much angering Sam gia Kanna, who isn't at this
Speaker 3: point in two minds where he will well, he will help.
Speaker 3: So Joe Kennedy is then at this point having to
Speaker 3: blurt and promised make promises about gian Canna that the
Speaker 3: more that his son will back off from the mob,
Speaker 3: that if Kennedy becomes president, the mob will get an
Speaker 3: easy ride. There won't be this this terrible onslaught to
Speaker 3: have them put behind bars and basically to stop making
Speaker 3: money which was a great threat, always the great threat
Speaker 3: to the mob.
Speaker 2: Tell us what Frank Sinatra was asked to do by
Speaker 2: the mob.
Speaker 3: Frank Sinatra, who was always always associated with the the
Speaker 3: mafia from from his very early days in New Jersey,
Speaker 3: was kind of enrolled by the mafia by Sam Gia
Speaker 3: Kanna personally two be a goal between between the Kennedys
Speaker 3: and Jia Canna for the really the buying of votes
Speaker 3: to swing the election in Jack Kennedy's favor. It all
Speaker 3: became extremely complicated and difficult. There were secret meetings between
Speaker 3: Jia Canna and Kennedy, Giacanna and Sinatra, Sinatra and Joe Kennedy,
Speaker 3: I mean Joe Kennedy met Sinatra in a golf course
Speaker 3: and they basically did a deal whereby the more the
Speaker 3: Mob would be entertained in their request to have an
Speaker 3: easy time in return for her votes or vote manipulation.
Speaker 3: What complicated all of this was that one Sinatra evening
Speaker 3: in Las Vegas, Jack Kennedy had been campaigning and been
Speaker 3: introduced to one of Sinatra's girlfriends, a lady called Judith Exner.
Speaker 3: Now Judith Exner became an obsession with John Kennedy unfortunately
Speaker 3: for Kennedy. Well an interesting way, I mean for history. Really,
Speaker 3: she was also the mistress of Sam Jiacana, the mafia boss.
Speaker 3: So there we have it that the future president and
Speaker 3: later the President of the United States is sleeping with
Speaker 3: the same woman as the head of the godfather of
Speaker 3: the Chicago mafia. It's probably one of the more lunative
Speaker 3: tri sexual triangles in American history. But of course it
Speaker 3: gave a lot of power to the other great figure
Speaker 3: of this whole era, j Edgar Hoover, who if the
Speaker 3: Los Angeles Police Department and Intelligence Division had dirt on
Speaker 3: starlets and politicians, it was only their collection was only
Speaker 3: rival by that of Hoover. And Hoover he had wide
Speaker 3: taps on everybody. He knew who Giacana was speaking to.
Speaker 3: He knew that the Kennedys were speaking to. There are
Speaker 3: tapes of these conversations, you know, Mike Rothmanther and I
Speaker 3: had access to some conversations that were had which which
Speaker 3: basically what they do is they back up the connection,
Speaker 3: they back up the support, and they validate lots of rumor,
Speaker 3: because if you've got the voices, you've got the of
Speaker 3: people as speaking and plotting. You don't really hear people
Speaker 3: plotting assassinations or or or detail of great nefarious activity.
Speaker 3: But you hear them discussing, manipulating events and being being
Speaker 3: kind to each other and doing people a favor, very
Speaker 3: careful on how and what they do. But it's it's
Speaker 3: a kind of it's a language. It's a language of
Speaker 3: it's like a chess language of chess. It's a sign language.
Speaker 3: And they know how to move the pieces just by
Speaker 3: an inference of pause or the mention of a certain name.
Speaker 3: And I think that's so you've got running the kind
Speaker 3: of American underworld or that underbelly of of of government.
Speaker 3: The whole time you have these these a different government.
Speaker 3: You have an underworld government working at the same pace
Speaker 3: as the the Washington government. What today people would call
Speaker 3: it deep state and have all kinds of names for it,
Speaker 3: in conspiracy and so on. But then it was far
Speaker 3: more blatant. Was it was kept away from the public. Certainly,
Speaker 3: people in Washington knew what was going on. People around
Speaker 3: the Kennedy White House knew what was going around. People
Speaker 3: around Joe Kennedy knew what was happening. It's like Jack Kennedy,
Speaker 3: he didn't hide. Prinstance, the sex thing which today today
Speaker 3: without the me too movements and so on, Kennedy just
Speaker 3: cuddling an intern would have been would have it would
Speaker 3: have been seen him out the door. Whereas then at
Speaker 3: that time he's having sex with different in terns on
Speaker 3: different days, sometimes two in the same day, and then
Speaker 3: having someone else visiting him in the evening. It kind
Speaker 3: of begs belief, where were the secret Service? Who's what
Speaker 3: is going on here? And this is all happening as
Speaker 3: though it was acceptable. I think by the kind of
Speaker 3: the latter end of the Kennedy residency, a lot of
Speaker 3: these things had happened in the late fifties and had
Speaker 3: happened during his term in office, were beginning to oh
Speaker 3: kind of brush into the freeway, so that they were
Speaker 3: coming in the freeways, be coming into one lane, and
Speaker 3: eventually there was that lane was going to smacking everybody
Speaker 3: on that all the traffic was going to smash up
Speaker 3: to something. Because I don't think it could have been
Speaker 3: the lids could have been kept on it much longer.
Speaker 3: And obviously political opponents and they knew about it, they
Speaker 3: knew things, so the dirt would certainly I think would
Speaker 3: have come out in some sort of you know, the
Speaker 3: next election would have been thrown around.
Speaker 2: Sorry, you talk about this triangle, the sexual triangle that
Speaker 2: with Judith Exner and Jucanna and JFK. But another weird
Speaker 2: sex triangle was going on with Marilyn Monroe, with Peter Lawford,
Speaker 2: the in law introducing Marilyn Monroe to JFK and also
Speaker 2: Bobby Kennedy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the the I suppose the the the
Speaker 3: everlasting headline JFK's affair with Marlon Monroe, whom he met
Speaker 3: at a party in New York, thrown by ste thrown
Speaker 3: by the agent of his brother in law, Peter Lawford,
Speaker 3: the actor and the British actor who married into the
Speaker 3: Kennedy family, much to the distress of Joe Kennedy Senior.
Speaker 3: Marlon is then married to Joe DiMaggio, a baseball star
Speaker 3: who is who they meet at that when Kennedy sort
Speaker 3: of quite obviously is flirting with Domaggio's wife to Magic,
Speaker 3: gets very angry about it, takes Marlon away, but but
Speaker 3: Kennedy has got hold of Marlon's telephone number during their conversation,
Speaker 3: and the approaches made of the affair begins and carries
Speaker 3: on great lenth she she then Marlon is obsessed with
Speaker 3: Kennedy as he is with her, and she's back in California.
Speaker 3: Kennedy's and watching, and there are many many phone calls
Speaker 3: logged from Marlon to the White House and to Bobby
Speaker 3: Kennedy as well. Marlon gets involved sexually with Bobby Kennedy.
Speaker 3: They becomes a kind of a real turmoil for everybody
Speaker 3: involved in it because she is used basically by the
Speaker 3: Kennedys as a plaything. The promises are made. She you know,
Speaker 3: famously sings Happy Birthday, mister President. But that evening after
Speaker 3: the Happy Birthday, Mister President performance, she is disabused by
Speaker 3: the by Bobby Kennedy that they will have anything to
Speaker 3: do with her. I mean, she at that stages thinks
Speaker 3: that they that Bobby Kennedy will leave his wife for her,
Speaker 3: that Jack Kennedy might come back to her. You know,
Speaker 3: it's a whole messy, messy thing. And she's also threatening
Speaker 3: to go public later on and throws various tantrums, mainly
Speaker 3: tantrums on the telephone. In an earlier book I did
Speaker 3: with Mike Rothmeller, Mike had the OCID files on the
Speaker 3: death of marlonon Row and Peter Lawford. In that book,
Speaker 3: Peter Lawford explains how he went with Bobby Kennedy to
Speaker 3: Marlin's home in Brentwood and just outside Los Angeles and
Speaker 3: confronted Marlin about what she was wasn't going to say,
Speaker 3: I'll go public with the weekend that Marlon died. In
Speaker 3: the book, it explains how love for how it went back,
Speaker 3: and that Bobby Kennedy gave Marlon a passive the camera
Speaker 3: down a glass containing something, and within seconds or very
Speaker 3: certainly within within a minute, Marlon was commotos and very
Speaker 3: quickly afterwards Lorford said she was dead and they left
Speaker 3: the premises, at which point the L A P. D
Speaker 3: O c I D Squad read by Captain James Hamilton,
Speaker 3: came in. And Hamilton was a great friend of Bobby
Speaker 3: Kennedy's and had protected Kennedy family and began the cover
Speaker 3: up which went on to us for sixty years. So
Speaker 3: the the the Marlmon Row thing hole, when I say thing,
Speaker 3: the whole relationships was about to explode at the time
Speaker 3: of Marlon's death, and kind of the suspicions, the rumor
Speaker 3: and the kind of the detriatis from that from that situation,
Speaker 3: it hang around like a very bad smell right the
Speaker 3: way all the way across America to Washington from then on.
Speaker 3: And I think it did color a lot of the
Speaker 3: attitudes towards Kennedy because whether you believe they were instrumental
Speaker 3: directly instrumental in her death, people people believe that they
Speaker 3: had in some way put her in harm's way. And
Speaker 3: I think that was the kind of start of the
Speaker 3: tarnishing of Camelot, if you like, of the of this
Speaker 3: golden this golden Kennedy era. And of course they the
Speaker 3: assassination of Kennedy, and I think that is the kind
Speaker 3: of brings down a courton, a sort of iron courton
Speaker 3: on all the scandal, all the bad behavior, the reckless
Speaker 3: behavior of Kennedy, of Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, of Teddy Kennedy.
Speaker 3: It certainly if Joe Kennedy senior, because the you know,
Speaker 3: the assassination is such a shocking event. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: on telligence. I mean it's it's still today. You can
Speaker 3: you can majority of people can imagine it, can see
Speaker 3: in their own mind that footage because it's been played
Speaker 3: so many times, and it's it's it's it's because we
Speaker 3: view it through that that event, the history of the Kennedy's,
Speaker 3: I think for decades, the myth that has been allowed
Speaker 3: to sort of predominate in our thinking and and her
Speaker 3: view of of what what happened. It's only now and
Speaker 3: it's it's I think people were cynical then. I think
Speaker 3: were possibly time is allowed America to catch up with
Speaker 3: the rest of the world and being more cynical about
Speaker 3: what the Kennedys were about about the And I keep
Speaker 3: using the one manipulation, and I think and it was,
Speaker 3: I mean they manipulating themselves. They used their own charm,
Speaker 3: their own their kind of good look, their ability to
Speaker 3: talk to anyone, to convince anybody of their argument. And
Speaker 3: they There's an interesting theory put forward to it that
Speaker 3: quit strange enough by the wives who I'm sure Kennedy
Speaker 3: flirted with, of all his kind of white house colleagues
Speaker 3: and associates, his political supporters, that all the men, all
Speaker 3: their their husbands, and their brothers, their uncles and fathers,
Speaker 3: they all wanted to please Kennedy as well. They all
Speaker 3: wanted to be part of the inner circle, to be
Speaker 3: to get that beaming smile, to get a pattern that
Speaker 3: he was a great one for patting people on the
Speaker 3: shoulder or taking them by the arm, that tactical or
Speaker 3: tactile kind of of association. And because of that they
Speaker 3: the charm overrode all the all the you know, they
Speaker 3: kind of misdeeds if you like. And I think his
Speaker 3: his you know, they talk about Camelot and the chivalry
Speaker 3: and the knights and round table all the stuff. But
Speaker 3: you think how unchivalrous was the treatment of the women
Speaker 3: who were used and and and kind of h then
Speaker 3: discarded without much of a thought. And I think people
Speaker 3: were as well if someone was I think the case
Speaker 3: of Lyndon Johnson, who was helpful to the Kennedys in
Speaker 3: getting Texas to vote for Kennedy and get Tennis, well,
Speaker 3: basically Lyndjohn's helping get in the White House with the
Speaker 3: Texas vote, but then he's he sidelined Lin John's sideline
Speaker 3: until he is useful again in certain situations. So the
Speaker 3: the the history of the Kennedys is not a good one.
Speaker 3: Peter Lawford is that. I think it's an interesting metaphor
Speaker 3: for that they used him. He married into the family,
Speaker 3: he's a favored son in law, he or well, he pimps,
Speaker 3: no question about it. He pimps for for for the Kennedys.
Speaker 3: Shirley Annefield, who was a British actress, was seen on
Speaker 3: The Johnny Carson Show by Jack Kennedy, who've fancied her.
Speaker 3: He gets Peter Laufer to invite her to a presidential
Speaker 3: event and she, I mean I talked to her at
Speaker 3: good length about it. She had no illusions that he
Speaker 3: wanted to go to bed with her. She avoided that
Speaker 3: on their first meeting official because she was filming the
Speaker 3: next day and kind of sidestepped that assignation because her
Speaker 3: agents said, don't get involved, you'll just be tagged as
Speaker 3: another actress who slept with Jack Kennedy. And shortly afterwards
Speaker 3: she's invited out to Peter Lawford's place in Santa Monica
Speaker 3: and California where Kennedy will be for a party, and
Speaker 3: so she it was just ongoing. So Peter Laffer, you know,
Speaker 3: he provides Marlon Roe, he tries to provide her man Field,
Speaker 3: He provides countless other actresses. But when low Food's time,
Speaker 3: kind of he's divorced. He's no longer a member of
Speaker 3: the Kennedy family. Jack that he has been assassinated. Bobby
Speaker 3: Kennedy's been assassinated. Peter Lowford when he dies in the
Speaker 3: Alley nineteen eighty four of the He's interred in Westwood
Speaker 3: Memorial Park, strange enough around the corner from marlmon Roe
Speaker 3: on the thing. The bill for this this kind of
Speaker 3: space is put down to the Kennedy family that they
Speaker 3: will they will meet the bills of Peter Lowford's life
Speaker 3: or after life, I should say, in West Hollywood.
Speaker 2: Let's use us as an opportunity to stop for a
Speaker 2: second to hear these messages. Let's get to you talked
Speaker 2: about the assassination, and it's already been done in our conversation.
Speaker 2: But what we haven't talked about is the information, the
Speaker 2: documentation you have about who ordered this hit, who was
Speaker 2: talking about that they had to if they wanted to
Speaker 2: get to the snake, they had to cut off the head.
Speaker 2: If they wanted to kill a dog, they wouldn't cut
Speaker 2: off its tail, they would cut off its head. Tell
Speaker 2: us about this incredible conversation.
Speaker 3: The mob of the mafia in America were offended that
Speaker 3: the Kennedys did not keep to their agreement that they
Speaker 3: would be looked after after JFK got into the White House.
Speaker 3: They were angry, livid, ferociously upset by Bobby Kennedy's campaign
Speaker 3: against them, Carlos Marcello and New Orleans, and very much so.
Speaker 3: I'd been abused and disabused by Bobby Kennedy's authorities. And
Speaker 3: they have a conversation with Carlos Marcello, Sam Giacana, Rosselli,
Speaker 3: Johnny Rozil and various other MOB figures, but Smartcello basically saying,
Speaker 3: you know, in the Sicilian way, you have to you know,
Speaker 3: if you want to you have to get rid of
Speaker 3: Bobby Kennedy, who's wagging the tails. You have to cut
Speaker 3: off their heads, which is JFK. And therefore that would
Speaker 3: be their revenge and their retribution for what they believed
Speaker 3: was that the ultimate betrayal they they had delivered. And
Speaker 3: that's the one thing you can't do to save the Mob.
Speaker 3: You make a promise, you keep to the promise, and
Speaker 3: you certainly don't betray them. And they felt they had
Speaker 3: been severely betrayed by JFK. And all the documents, all
Speaker 3: the files now languishing, and all kinds of of the
Speaker 3: people basically museums now. But when you hunt it all
Speaker 3: out and put it all together, the documents are there
Speaker 3: which indicate, I think with much doubt that the the
Speaker 3: Mafia were instrumental in arranging and organizing the fascination of
Speaker 3: John F. Kennedy.
Speaker 2: You talk about the fate of Joe Kennedy's friends Johnny
Speaker 2: Rosselli and Sam Giacanna, tell us what happens to Johnny Rosselli,
Speaker 2: and then Sam Giacanna.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, Johnny Rosselli, he was called him handsome Johnny.
Speaker 3: He was a good, good looking guy, and he because
Speaker 3: of congressional hearings in Washington about the mob and Johnny
Speaker 3: Roselli was a bit too it's a bit too open,
Speaker 3: much said too much, and they and the mob, the
Speaker 3: hierarchy feared that he would be would actually squeal, become
Speaker 3: a stoop in their vernacular, stool pigeon. Roselli played golf
Speaker 3: on a pretty regular basis in Flowlia, and then one
Speaker 3: day he's found his body in a oil drum floating
Speaker 3: in the ocean and had been basically assassinated in such
Speaker 3: a way to send a message with you bullets shot
Speaker 3: in the head, and that was the end of Johnny
Speaker 3: roletse Early, who had been for many many years one
Speaker 3: of the sort of top lieutenants in the American Mob.
Speaker 3: Sam gia Kanna was about to had never really said
Speaker 3: anything or publicly or potentially implicated anybody else, but there
Speaker 3: was again there was this great fear. There was so
Speaker 3: much pressure on him to fear before Congress and to
Speaker 3: give testimony and to tell the truth about what had
Speaker 3: happened about the assassination. Because if there had been at
Speaker 3: that time, if you can imagine the outcry and the
Speaker 3: the the kind of the whole government enterprise that would
Speaker 3: come down and dump on top of the mob. I mean,
Speaker 3: they would not been able to operate in anywhere at all.
Speaker 3: So Giacana was again he was at home in Chicago
Speaker 3: and cooking his supper himself when a hitman came in
Speaker 3: and again in a very mob fashion, short and very professionally,
Speaker 3: two or three times he and he is dead. So
Speaker 3: all those kind of loose ends. There were several other names,
Speaker 3: incidental names, people who may have known bodies that were
Speaker 3: suddenly certainly found mysterious assassinations or killings. And they only
Speaker 3: last week and here we are in twenty twenty four
Speaker 3: Mike Rothmo was telling me that law enforcement people he
Speaker 3: knows in Nevada because of climate change, have been watching
Speaker 3: the waters and lake meat go down and so far
Speaker 3: that somebodies have been appearing. And he said, basically bodies anymore,
Speaker 3: but they anticipate finding bodily remains and more often as
Speaker 3: the waterline goes down, because the mob do tidy up,
Speaker 3: carry up, the mistakes and potential potential hazards are made
Speaker 3: to go away, and the easiest way to get It's
Speaker 3: the old thing. If two people have a secret, if
Speaker 3: one is dead, you know that somebody there's not a
Speaker 3: secret to be held anymore.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very interesting. You talk about Tony Spillatro taking
Speaker 2: over and you said that he may be responsible for
Speaker 2: those murders you spoke about twenty four murders.
Speaker 3: In fact, Yeah, I mean he was. I mean he
Speaker 3: was very much a professional kind of heller for the mob,
Speaker 3: and he I mean part of the recompense for it
Speaker 3: was he goes and he goes back into Vegas and
Speaker 3: comes a very big pin in Vegas. He is the
Speaker 3: character that didn't throw Robert and eerro portrays and Casino
Speaker 3: and I think remembering correctly, I think since seventy six.
Speaker 3: I went to Vegas for the to report on the
Speaker 3: on the killing he and con show you again, you
Speaker 3: can't it's it's it's it's not a career with pension plans.
Speaker 3: I don't think the more he was blown up, I
Speaker 3: think seventy six because basically the again, the hierarchy of
Speaker 3: the all believed he was skimming off the take in Vegas,
Speaker 3: and they weren't, you know, they weren't getting the full return.
Speaker 3: So it's it's it spins that the story. The character's changed,
Speaker 3: but the kind of theme of the story tends to
Speaker 3: say the same throughout. And again you look at the corruption,
Speaker 3: you know, we hear about, we read about today in
Speaker 3: foreign countries, in Washington and London, in Moscow, the oligarchs
Speaker 3: and so on. It's it's an ongoing correlation between power,
Speaker 3: a criminal enterprise, which one has the upper hand and
Speaker 3: at any given time and the Kennedy's h people said
Speaker 3: to you know, reviewers of the Book of a Reckless
Speaker 3: have said, the well, it was a different era, it
Speaker 3: was a different time, people had different attitudes. But I
Speaker 3: can't I still can't equate what you would have thought
Speaker 3: American or world or any just decency and treatment of
Speaker 3: bare minded treatment of people is an ongoing thing. And
Speaker 3: I don't think there were any different people at that time,
Speaker 3: but just the ones who you know we're writing about
Speaker 3: and talking about today were in their ways corrupt, often
Speaker 3: despicable people who for their own aggrandizement or benefit power
Speaker 3: for money, sexual lease of our sexual enjoyment, we're willing
Speaker 3: to use other people and to abuse them. And I
Speaker 3: suppose if there's any there are a great lessons from uh,
Speaker 3: from reckless of and the thing with that, I think
Speaker 3: it seems so much more enormous now because you have
Speaker 3: the ability after decades of of of freedom of information,
Speaker 3: of interviews of people feeling willing to speak and to
Speaker 3: come forward with information that you you've got the detail
Speaker 3: of the activities of the Kennedies off the mob of
Speaker 3: the very you know, not just big time hitment, but
Speaker 3: all the little pawns and people moving around. And because
Speaker 3: of that, and they're all put together in one in
Speaker 3: one volume, if you like, it seems like an indictment
Speaker 3: because and it seems because it's happening, and it happens
Speaker 3: over what is a relatively short period of time. You know,
Speaker 3: the Joe Kennedy, it's it's you've got a power structure
Speaker 3: over decades, but with John Kennedy, you're really looking at
Speaker 3: over you know, less than twenty years, maybe even just
Speaker 3: fifteen years of political influence and an activity, but so much,
Speaker 3: so much is put in eye. And I understand the
Speaker 3: argument that after the Second World War, the war, you know,
Speaker 3: the world is readjusting, you're trying to find itself again.
Speaker 3: But it's the opportunist who took over. And it's the
Speaker 3: opportunist who were running a button reckless and who were
Speaker 3: talking about because they became the the the leading figures
Speaker 3: of the time became you know, they became the bosses.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. You say in in the final pages of this
Speaker 2: book that Joe Kennedy outlived his three sons and died
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty nine. The catalysts for all of this
Speaker 2: tragedy you call it it this tragedy that occurred.
Speaker 3: No, I was going to say with Joe Kennedy, it's
Speaker 3: ironic that he did. I mean, you you think you
Speaker 3: know that that he did outlive his sons and he
Speaker 3: had any suffered in that he that he was out
Speaker 3: of stroke and he was basically certainly not himself, you know,
Speaker 3: for several years before his death. But the I suppose
Speaker 3: it's a king lear quality about it and the whole thing.
Speaker 3: But and the sins of the father.
Speaker 2: And so on.
Speaker 3: But for all the money he made, and for all
Speaker 3: the ambititions and all the dreams and uh kind of
Speaker 3: accolades that he really really wanted, it comes back to
Speaker 3: that that we're you're you're all that you're all human
Speaker 3: in the end, and it all comes back to it
Speaker 3: was just this sad man unable to talk and being
Speaker 3: fed in a wheelchair, and it's it's it's tragic. The
Speaker 3: whole there is a tragedy. I think the whole, the
Speaker 3: whole kind of the story is a tragedy. And it's
Speaker 3: a great testament to the political system, to American to
Speaker 3: everything else. That of course, the Kennedy is assassinated, Bobby
Speaker 3: Kennedy is but the world it moves on very quickly.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying that new bad guys appear just as
Speaker 3: much as new good guys. But there's a triumph and
Speaker 3: that that the system still seems to over overwhelm the
Speaker 3: people who try and abuse it.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm going to thank you so much for coming
Speaker 2: on and talking about your incredible book, Reckless Sex Lives
Speaker 2: and JFK. For those that might want to find out
Speaker 2: more information about this book you co authored with Mike Rothmiller,
Speaker 2: could you tell us how they might find out more information.
Speaker 2: Do you have a website or do any social media.
Speaker 3: Of the website. My website at www Doug E. D
Speaker 3: oor U G I E. Thompson dot com has the
Speaker 3: book down and if enemy's got any questions, I'm more
Speaker 3: than happy to answer any emails.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much. I appreciate this interview. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much for this interview. Douglas Thompson, Reckless Sex
Speaker 2: Lives and JFK. Thank you so much for this interview.
Speaker 2: And you have a good night.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Dan, good night to you. Thank you,