RFK: Not necessarily in the loop.

[Alan Dale]

How do we feel about this?

Alan Dale
December 5, 2013 at 5:00 pm   

I believe there are very good reasons why Robert Kennedy could never have “come out publicly,” and that sending Bill Walton as an emissary to the Soviets with a private message of assurance was an effective way of attempting to turn down the heat of post assassination hysteria regarding American/Soviet tensions.

There is certainly no question that JFK and Robert Kennedy shared some exclusive Cold War secrets, the most obvious category of which may have concerned American policies and operations relating to Cuba. I personally believe we may find some explanation for the parallelisms, two-tracks, rapprochement and assassination, if we consider the possibility that President Kennedy and the Attorney General may have been pursuing opposing agendas at the time of the president’s murder. As absurd as it may sound, I believe we may have a slightly inaccurate understanding of the relationship President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy shared. I believe we may err by assuming and accepting that their relationship was essentially a co-presidency.

Regardless of the many strange bedfellows Robert Kennedy learned about during his involvement with Cuban operations, I believe the possibility that he was intent to see those operations through to an ultimate resolution of Castro being eliminated, in a manner intended to “take care of the problem” on his brother’s behalf, may have come without being informed or included in the president’s decision to pursue an alternate course. My conjecture is that Robert Kennedy’s leadership in the “Get Castro” program may be defined as a personal operational agenda, not merely the means by which the president was protected via plausible deniability.

Following the peaceful resolution to the missile crisis, President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev evolved an important working relationship with each other that was an achievement for each in their mutual opposition to proponents of war. I feel that any further acts of aggression by the United States towards the leadership of Cuba would, at that time, have demolished the integrity of that relationship.

I could certainly be wrong.
   

    TLR
    December 6, 2013 at 9:36 am   

    I agree that Bobby seems to have been more emotionally involved in “getting even” with Castro, while JFK was more detached about it. They were very different in personality that way. RFK had more of his father’s competitive streak that JFK did.

[TLR]

This is a view I've only arrived at recently. It's hard to believe that JFK didn't confide in his brother on every issue, but maybe he didn't. Look at the Mafia involvement in the primaries and general election of 1960 (via their father Joseph) as depressingly laid out in the book The Money and the Power: The Making of Las Vegas and Its Hold on America by Sally Denton and Roger Morris. It's possible that JFK himself was also out of the loop on this, but Bobby certainly was. Then the old man had a stroke in 1961 and couldn't speak or write anymore, and couldn't warn his sons about all the powerful people they were threatening.

As for Castro, I think Bobby took it very personally, as he did with Hoffa. RFK was very passionate, JFK was cool and detached.

Ironically, the Bobby we all like - the more compassionate, thoughtful person - might never have emerged if his brother hadn't been killed. Until that point he was the "ruthless enforcer." He was a young man, after all, and still concerned with "being tough," something the old man had ingrained in him.

Here's an interesting interview with Nixon where he recalls JFK being "shy" and "private," and RFK being like a "Jesuit priest."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MacmN1EtIPQ

[David C]

Plausible Denial