ASSASSINATION LEGACY- NEWSPAPER ARTICLES

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Collection: Records Related to the Assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 07165457
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: June 6, 2025
• Document Release Date: June 12, 2025
• Publication Date: September 15, 1972

APPROVED FOR RELEASE 2025 UNDER EXECUTIVE ORDER 14176 i) bept 1912 k A - c-,taa - Oct,c grkri. .ri t.7'2174", c 7,,,.,1 c 1 y ., ,� ..,,, li CI; On April 15, 1972, WO predicted that "Teddy Kennedy would remain on the sidelines during The Soviet KGB and the CIA both conduct schools for assassins and frequently complement each other, as in the instance of Che Guevara where the KGB set up the Aitgentine-born revolu- the coming Presidential Election, regardless tionist for the CIA to ambush him. whether the Democratic Convention in Miami.' - WO on June , 1968, reporting on the Guevara will want to draft him or not." WO continued: assassination, stated: "the killing was . done by "Back in 1963 shortly after President Kennedy's agents of our own Central Intelligence Agency, assassination, Robert F. Kennedy, while he was sometimes called 'Murder Unlimited' . . . Guevara still Attorney General, conducted his own investi- was 'fingered' for the CIAi; by the Soviet po�ce gation of the death of his brother. That private in- (KGB) )."- vestigation, which ran parallel with the official The equally murderous Israeli secret political inquiry into the magnicide conducted by the War- � ren 'Commission, was featured by trips to this police re also specialists in political homicide and frequently work in cooperation with CIA and KGB. country by an Inspector Hamilton, former Chief f) Inspector of Scotland Yard., Hamilton . had been The public opinion polls have constantly indi- retained by .Bobby to help unravel the real truth cated that Kennedy could defeat Nixon. about the murder of IF K. . . Hamilton zeroed on In the interim between now and 1976 Teddy the fact that -the assassination of John Kennedy intends to ingratiate himself with both iviescow had occurred very shortly after his brother Bobbyand Tel Aviv, and be the anointed Communiit- Lad made some preliminary moves of taking direct, Zionist successor of Nixon in the personal control of the -U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, whose leadership he blamed for the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Hamilton, following the rcul pro- dest' ('whom does it benefit?') reasoning, reached the conclusion that Bobby's move to seize control of the CIA had something to do With murder of kiis elder brother.... Teddy has become convince �of the correctness of Hamilton's conclusion, and, furthermore, -considers it to have been further vin- dicated by Bobby's own death�which occurred within.a matter of days after he threw his hat into the presidential ring and was on the way to putting himself in the position to take over the free- spending, powerful cloak-and-dagger agency." When in the spring the Presidential campaigns of Muskie and Humphrey faltered, Teddy Ken- nedy weakened under pressure and permitted his cohorts to stealthily start his Presidential cam- paign, but was abruptly stopped by the attempted assassination of George Wallace. The Wallace as- sassination plot followed almost exactly the pattern of the Kennedy assassinations. Teddy was scared. He told his courtiers to desist from all efforts .to secure his presidential nomi- nation, but to continue bluffing that he was po- tentially available in order that he could exercise More power at the National Convention. Teddy wanted McGovern nominated because be was the weakest candidate, most likely to be de- feated and thus leave the door wide open for Teddy in 1976. Teddy knew that both Soviet Russia a�nd Israel are anxious to have Nixon re-elected and that any candidate who would seriously jeopardize Nixon's re-election is in mortal danger. a s)" White House. OLO, � wp.bililiGTON OBSERVER NEWSLETTER 15 April 1972 k ist,ri.� 6-,t EWIMMIW Although officials at GOP Head- quarters recently came out with the "information that Sen. Edward 'fiLkjk -0 M. Kennedy ( D-Mass) would at the last moment storm the Democrat Convention and grab 'the Presidential nomination; according to political insiders no such move is in the making. They cite the following fact, which has been kept secret for nine years, to back their certitude that Teddy will remain .on the sidelines during the coming Presidential election, regardless of whether the Democrat Convention in Miami will want to draft him or not. Back in 1963, shortly after President Kennedy's assassination, Robert F. Kennedy, while be was still Attorney-General, conducted his own investi- gation of the death of his brother. That private in- vestigation, which ran parallel with the official. inquiry into the magnicide conducted by the War-. ren Commission, was 'featured by trips to this country by an Inspector Hamilton, former Chief Inspector or Scotland Yard. Hamilton, an old friend of Joseph P. Kennedy, with whom he had many contacts during the latter's ambassadorship in London, had been retained by Bobby to help Unravel the real truth about the murder of J.F.K. After long conferring with the members of the Kennedy family and making a few discreet sound- ings with his own contacts, Hamilton *zeroed on the fact that the assassination of John Kennedy had occurred very shortly after his brother Bobby had made some preliminary moves of taking direct, personal control of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, whose leadership he blamed for the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Hamilton, following the "cui pro- dest". ("whom does it benefit?") reasoning, reach- ed the conclusion that Bobby's move to seize con- trol of the C.I.X. had something to do with the murder of his elder brother. After Bobby's own assassination in 1968, it is not known whether Teddy has the documentation Bobby had collected in his private investigation or whether it has been destroyed. But apparently Teddy has become convinced of the correctness- of Hamilton's conclusion, and furthermore, considers it to have been further vin- dicated by Bobby's own death�which occurred within a matter of days after he threw his hat into the presidential ring and was on the way to put himself again in the position to take over the free-spending, pOwerful cloak-and-dagger agency. Teddy Kennedy receives an average of about ten death threats a week via anonymous phone calls and letters. Voice prints of the phone calls A a ( and copies of the letters are turned over to the U.S. Secret Service. None of the culprits have been apprehended. Incidentally, it has been decided that Kennedy does not need Secret Service pro- tection since he is a "non-candidate." All the other announced presidential candidates have a Secret Service detail assigned for their protection during the campaign. Significantly, as previously reported in WO, Dr. Henry A. Kissinger exercises direct control over the CIA, FBI, Secret Service3 and all other security and intelligence agencies. MEMORANDUM FOR/ FORM NO. REPLACES FORM 10- 10 1 AUG 54 WHICH MAY BE USED. � ATE) - Murder Fraud was murdered b;) the CIA. - and.wha.,- 1.ESTEN, author of "Ozwald: Assassin bout the JFE assassination . 0 �..-- �10 4 1972 asination of President John F. Kennedy facts concerning the slaying of his ice of an essential difference in the observers: i,lheroas in the case of . has been tightly controlled from the e Dallas coup d'6tat end benefited y reveal the baste truth about the (47) ely available to researchers., 1-nese uruz.L,-1-iiuminating-accuments-are: (A) The previously secret autopsy report by Dr. Thomas T. Noguchi, chief medical examiner-ccromer, County of i;os Angeles, ;Mich proves (a) that the fatal bullet fragmented in the head of the Senator and that therefore the claim of the Los Angeles Police Department that this bullet had been "recovered from the victim's head and booked as evidence" was a deliberate lie 4 (b) that this bullet was fired from contact distance d\; inch from Konne4gs,ear), while Sirhan never got closer than three feet to the-Senztor and (c) that the di:?ec7;ion of this shot, which Dr. Foguchi describes as "right, to left, slightly to front,upwar" was totally incompatible with the shooting position of Siran. �And (2) .The complete, 272-page official tTansoript of the Grand Jury Proceedings of June 7, 1963, in the.Sirhan Cass (Roo A-233421) which rc:vcals, among a host of other telltale details, (a) that all the eyewitnesses closest to Kennedw at the time of the shooting testified concordantly that Sirhan was at least thr.11,,, feet-away from the Senator and infront of him, the fatal bullet entered Kenned:;'s head bek2,nd t ear,: and (I)) that the LAPD's ballistics expert, Deayne A.. Wolfer, deliberately and falsely created the impression that he had identified the fatal bullet rAvi�.,(3 come foes, SIr han's gun, while all he had at his disposal was another, rion-..iatia bullet. Here,then, is one consniraey easy to prove because the fraud was F'(), blatant and self7exr,ceinr, ber.,nuse the true facto hnve been offci:,'171 ast,:blisheri p,nd then ignored at Sir:nn's trial - leahina no room for "speculation" .,:harites,�7 and fiu,7,1 because thG coua7.up lack:=3 the sham ',ireetiEe of the WarZen Ra3C;:t, 11 di san ts aaved - and even the blindest :and most obdurate will Lv to yield to this cogent presentation of the evidence - thint Robert Kenredy ,.ias the victim of e chspiracy, /ith ar:otter gunman'ehr!oting at him from behind while Sirhan ,e,=,:lti!cullatal in front, then it soca:nes self-evident that the President s1eo fell victim do a plo, I: a' tt tr;t1 crimcs are intimately linked. The killing of ,;4.1K would make no sense whAtoevec- c.:'-ccept on -ItZsi_ premise thatt c,-'4,-,arizer,.,; of ,helLe coup ftered asc:Tr,t to dency which 1:,eld have meant IX t, inevitubly, e2;.ocure eT..!1 panic eat3 Th murder of kebsat Kennedy was organd rod and �'..11ecoted by tn,) sane agency which was rorwnsle fof thQ T',91=1;.L d2cd Of 512:le - The Joand th:, r'oalr aCesar, ws:,) agents, as is klunclusi% :;tra,,e,n. -c.:1 � "sw Lif-cht on tne ',,obc-r-'; Kennedy Y:crder , nol; � and aveilabla: only in a .!..imited edition. This reecrt ruhr to ebeut 16,00 words and � it is prihed at 20,00 a coDy. ACd.mese a71 t0 the ,,c,P as ?aIos! Jc h.71 - er FORMER Secretary of De- fense Robert McNamara :mused one evening last win- -ter on an odd fact about the "record"- he left behind him !"in the files," as he said. .The odd fact was that the .two nien who knew most about that record�one of Ahem as chief among those compiling it, the other as personal confidante�were dead. The first was Assist- /.ant� Secretary of Defense Li John T. McNaughton. The second was Robert Kennedy. It was Robert Kennedy who encouraged McNamara : to leave behind him an objective record of the deci- sion-making process which led his country from a game of bluff against a lot of little men in black pajamas to a � devastating and terrible ' war. ' 7' On two occasions, Mc- . . Nam al. a recalled Mc- � Naughton presented him with drafts of the records, and on two occasions Mc- Namara sent them back for . redrafting. The fault be found was that both drafts were too kind to Robert _McNamara. He wanted to leave a record behind him� -.1y.6z1.1.INGTD21. P.OSTI 2 2 JUN 1971 not a justification. This is like McNamara and it was like Kennedy, and by the early part of 1967 when the record was begun the two. friends were having grave doubts about the feasibility as well as the morality of what we were doing in Viet- nam. That is why the record is so valuable�because _it is honest, to the point of being self-defamatory. It is as though a man going bank- rupt could set apart for a moment his terrible anx- iety, and resolve that no matter what happened to him, he would take the time to search his memory and put clown on paper the an- swer to the question, "How did it come about?" That is also why it is wise to read the record with the knowledge that it was con- ceived and compiled by men who had become convinced that they had made errors not Only in judgment. but in morality. No record con- fined t o action can ever show motives. But it can raise questions about mo- tives and this one do;s.- t, d2 e ; ( � r V 7 c k " f'0.1; C'Z'r-) S 0 51_ e_ ( .14) -e t,(.7 Did the war planners ac- tually :conspire to deceive the American pepole, or did they find themselves deceiv- ing the American People in order to deceive Hanoi?, Did President. Johnson tell untruths to the Ameri- can people in order to help win an election, or had he convinced himself that the -contingency Plans he had � authorized would always be plans and never realities? Was the talk of provoca- tion which the .record re- veals actually put into effect at the Tonkin Gulf, or did_ Tonkin Gulf come as a not unpleasant surprise? The. record suggests _deception but proves only error. Of error there is no doubt. It conies in sinall detail and government to defend in South' Vietnam and , then proceed to suggest means of defeending it? How could leaders who. depend upon intelligence in-., formation ignore the CIA estimates that the course they- were following was likely to be fruitless and in any event was unnecessary? And how could leaders of the most powerful ,country in the world decide that their failure to frighten an insignificant government into surrender by a .show of force called, not for reap- praisal, but for more and more force until at last the alternative to reappraisal was obliteration and the clanger of obliteration in re- turn? . It is clear now that Me- in large -design-. How could Namara�like- Kennedy� anybody of William Bundys / v had convinced himself that intelligence write memo- randa about bombing so ber- eft of intellectual quality as to suggest he had never heard of the Strategic Bombing Survey? How could Gen. Maxwell, Taylor and Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge see so clearly that there was no the only way to salvage our honor, our strength, and in-. decd our national security from .this dreadful adven- ture was to abandon it. By that time, it was too late, both for him and for the na- tion his record now in- structs., . 1971, Los Angeles Till1C3 la 1 V4i 1111IY 077 A BOOK FOR TODAY- SOrad ACCOM.In P ni . Darif -en rP By MIRIAM OTTENBERG WE BAND OF BROTHERS. A Memoir of Robert F. Ken- nedy. By Edwin Guthman. Harper & Row. 330 Pages. -$7.95. Of all the books written so far about Robert Kennedy, this warmly personal account likely is to mean the most to those whose relationship with him spanned his public years. Like the good newspaper- man he is, Pulitzer Prize- winner Ed Guthman, now na- tional editor of the Los Ange- les Times, writes what he knew. And as the Justice De- partment's press officer in the Kennedy years, he was in a position to know a lot. But .G uthman 's relationship to -Kennedy went far beyond the formal requirements of a director of public information, just as all of Kennedy's assist- ants willingly performed any job required of them. That's why they followed him from the Senate Rackets Committee to the Justice De- partment and on to the office of senator from New York. Guthman himself had been with him in his Ambassador Hotel room only a few min- utes before Kennedy left to claim victory in the 1968 Cal- ifornia primary and fell to an assassin's bullet. Guthman takes a favorite passage-of the Kennedy brothers, Bob and John, to describe the men who faced mobs angered at various times by the Freedom Riders and the first blacks to enter the Universities of Alabama and Mississippi, men who skillfully went about cleaning up James Hoffa's Teamsters Union, men who made good 'Bob Kennedy's promise to get the Bay of Pigs prisoners home by Christmas. "These words, quoted by Guthman, are from Shake- � speare's King Henry V in his 'remarks to his men before the � Battle of Agincourt: "We few, we happy few, we . band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother. . . . ' And gentlemen. . . now a-bed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here. . ." Guthman frankly admits that even after six years, I know that I cannot be objec- tive about these men. . . And I suspect that the department had not seen their likes be- fore." He says he's not objective about Bob Kennedy either but he spent too much time with Kennedy who always turned his humor on himself to per- mit himself the luxury of be- coming maudlin. Instead, he -pictures the man those of us who covered the Justice De- partment in those years came to know � a shirt-sleeved driving force, a man of humor and compassion, impatient with small minds. Guthman goes beyond that to picture "a man of unlimited courage and capacity who ex- perienced life to the fullest, who grew with every experi- ence and tirelessly sought new challenges." The book details many of those experiences and chal- lenges. It begins-back in 1956 when Kennedy, a lawyer- investigator for the Senate In- vestigating Subcommittee, was beginning to investigate corrupt unions and Guthman, then a reporter on the Seattle Times, was investigating Dave Beck, then international presi- dent of the Teamsters Union. It follows the Kennedys through the Democratic Con- vention when Sen. "Scoop" Jackson seemed likely to be tapped as vice president but Lyndon Johnson got the nod. - Commenting on what he cal- led "rancorous relationship" be tween Johnson and Bob Ken- nedy, Guthman said "they mistrusted each other almost from the beginning and their mistrust turned to bitter enmi- ty at the end." The relationship with J. Ed- gar Hoover, as Guthman pic- tures it was different. In the beginning, Guthman reported, c . Kennedy asked :Hoover's ad- vice on whether he should ac- k A !--t cept the post of attorney gen- eral and Hoover said he � - should. In the end, however, their relationship was strained, and hostile. . As Guthman reviews the trials and triumphs of Bob Kennedy, he reveals untold stories behind the headlines not only at the Justice Depart- ment but � also at the White House for, as he points out, "Never before had a than so shared the burdens of the Presidency without actually holding the office." He spares us the horror of the last night. Instead, he con- cludes: "Yet all he had ac- complished was only a begin- ning, for to know anything about him is to know that had he lived and won in 1968, he would have been a great presi- dent; that had he lost, he would not have despaired or retreated but would have fought on as best he could." . 2 May 1971 AUTrin (1) 7:;: LIE ,S � (-A � c) Li -4-- -Ar c:-4- 71 To the plethora for he today that sheds of books on blood with me, shall be the late Robert Kennedy, brother..." assassinated in Los Angeles This ias one of the on June 5, 1968, the night Shal:esPearean speeches of California's primary both Jack and Bobby Yen- election, you may shortly nedy took great relish in add what is surely one of the best, memorable, poig- nant, and authoritative, We Band of Brothers, by Edwin Guthman, national editor of The Los Angeles Times, a Pulitzer Prize winner from Seattle, and Bobby's press secretary from 1961 to 1965. The book, scheduled for publication May 19 by Harper & Row, derives its title from Shakespeare's Henry V St. Crispian's Day speech: "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; his my reciting. Bobby knew it in its entirety, and photos to the friends who fought with him in the Kennedy political wars bear many of its lines. � It was Robert Kennedy who brought Guthman to Washington after Guthman's brilliant investigative reporting, which exonerated a University of Washington professor falsely accused of attending a secret Com- munist training school in New York, won Guthman his Pulitzer in 1950. ��, I - THE "NE,-;� YORK. 1-0ilf:;-T OF LOOKS }7) s �.,,, rA-� k�. c '19 Nov 19YO -k- ) _ e S i� p-- .4 01\ ke nedy legacy. Lest this hippie message. does exist, as one is reminded in -1\.) o ,The Kennedy Legacy by Theodore Sorensen. Macmillan, 414 pp., *S6.95 ' American Journey: The Times of Robert Kennedy � , , .'Interviews by Jean Stein, edited by George Plimpton. - Harcourt Brace JOvanovich, 448 No Hail, No-Farewell by Louis Heren. 'Harper ea Row, 275 pp.,56.95., Who Needs the Democrats?' by John Kenneth Galbraith. Doubleday, 86 pp., S4.95 .. � Ronald Steel � ' The king and the crown prince are dead, and the heir apparent in disgrace. But the legend lives' on, undiminished .by promises unfulfilled, mistakes better forgotten, and doubts stilled by the cold hand of death. It is a tale with all :_the element S of a feudal chronicle- murders, usurped crowns, vendettas- and no shortage. of troubadors to_ tell it. Theodore Sorensen, alter ego of John' F. Kennedy and more recently a spurned aspirant to. the public trust, � now tells us, in words that will .come as *no surprise, that he views the � Kennedy legacy "as the most impor- tant body of ideas in, our' time ... a unique and priceless set of 'con- cepts that endures and gives us � hope." c need. not doubt- Sorensen's sincerity-we all take hope where we can find it-to wOnder what so great 'a faith rests upon. Whatever the Ken- nedy legacy may be, and we are told .that it "can no more be summed up in � a book than a Mozart-con-certain a .series of black notes," the Kennedy record was one of great expectations rather than inspiring accomplishments. But Sorensen has ,a weakness for the : overexcited phrase, and his pseudo- Homeric prose ("let the word go' , -forth : we shall pay any price, bear any burden ... now the trumpet sum- mons us again ask not what your .country can do for you .... ") both shaped and defined the posturing he- roics of the Kennedy era. We can sympathize with Sorensen's .difficulty in defining the exact .nature of -the legacy he extols, although we. .pre told that "to love each other like brothers - is the heart of the 1Ge.n- seem sketchy, he also urges us ,to work. hard, have faith in man's ability to change our society, and not lose hope. Not by accident i "hope" a recurring word, for-if ever there was a politics of hope, it was that practiced by the Kennedys. Our hope that .they had a - remedy for the social ills they de- � setibed so graphically, their hope that we would he patient whil& they figured out what to do. The legacy they left is .the enduring hope that -somehow Arthur Schlesinger's .description, in A Thousand Days, of JFK's inauguration when ."the future everywhere seemed � bright with hope ... fresh winds were blowing. There was the excitement _ _ that comes from an injection of new men - and new ideas." We new knol,v � that those fresh winds were blowing hot air; that a good many of those new ideas were' tifecl clich�in vinyl . wrappings, that some of -those new men wrought disaster, and that their things would have �been better were � � . . . excitement came from a lust for-- they still here. : power. But all that came later. At the Sorensen embellishes the Kennedy . .time the passing of power from .Eisen- . legacy in sticky, though no doubt � hower to Kennedy seemed to presage, heartfelt, panegyrics ("there has never from the poem . that Robert Frost -been in American public life a family � � started to read at the inauguration but like the Kennedys"), ladies' magazine was unable to finish,' "the glory of a. � commentary ("good taste and finesse � next Augustan age." governed not only their seleCtion of clothes . . ."), political P.R ("the ... question asked everywhere was when the Kennedys would return. to the White House"), and resentment. at the usurper ("Lyndon John- son ... wanted to emulate their grace- ful wit and intellectual elegance"). The purpose of The Kennedy Legacy is � to build a platform for what Sorensen calls a "peaceful revolution for the .seyentie.s:". The program, which .appeared in time to publicize, but not -noticeably assist, his effort to fill Robert Ken- nedy's old seat as senatbr from New York, is studded with such hOmilies as. "we must pre-empt the. extraordinary before .the extremists seize .it for their own ... we must devise anew strategy. for living instead of fighting ... the United States Must become the leading. city of the world, not one of its largest villages." It is not surprising that the voters Were not .impressed by such summoning trumpets, for as John Ken- neth Galbraith has pointed but in his Pamphlet, Who Needs the Democrats?, ".`evasion, however disguised bY rhet- oric, moral purpose,. or soaring phrase, comes over increasingly as crap." As the � brief ' reign of, John F. Kennedy recedes into the historical past, leaving the Vietnam war . as its permnent inonurnent, and as Robert Kennedy's. unending succession of' ag- onizing .reappraisals now seems little. more than a footnote to the tribula- tions of Lyndon Johnson, it is 'some- times hard to remember what the ICPrITIF,11/ Inor,-,1 r1,1 . The old sage knew vihat he was . talking about. The era did turn out to be. Augustan, at least .in its pretenses ("... of a power leading from its strength and pride/. Of young ambition eager to be tried ..."), bUt the 'glory was short-lived. It got tarnishecf where around the Bay of -Pigs and - never recaptured its former glow. That . fiasco \ Vas .followed by the failure of suirimit- diplomacy at Vienna, the tria �. nipulation of .public anxiety over lBer- . lin, a'dramatic jump in the arms race,: the unnecessary trip to the brink during the Cuban missile crisis, ti�-- midity on civil rights, legislative stale- mate in Congress, and the decision to send the first American .. troops to Vietnam. Somehow everything went wrong, and increasingly the cruSading . knight gave way to the Conventional politician who had no answers for us. John F. Kennedy's- assassination came 'almost as a reprieve, forever' enshrining-, him in histOry as the glamorous, heroic . leader he wanted to be, rather than as the politician buffeted -by events he could not control. By . the time Robert . Kennedy :emerged from his grief over, the murder. . of his brother and began maneuvering Ive� NA. c� ec,..0 c ont ,f) e, ) 6") , .54 f WA. RICHMOND TD,IES - DISPATCH 2 Oct 1970 ,�.< 61 1140.,.; � It was during the early au- tUmn � days of September-Octo- b1962, that U. S. intelligence exposed the introduction by Rus- sia of surface-to-surface nuclear ,missiles into Cuba and the ad- -ministration of President John F. Kennedy prepared a course of .action to have the weapons ,rernoved.. . tight years l.ater, almost to the day, another direct Russian threat to U. S. security may be taking shape in the Caribbean. As in 1962, circumstances may :have led the Russians to misun- derstand the American mood. :That may be the reason the ,Nixon Administration has chosen to warn the Soviets before ir- ::refutable evidence of the ,Rus- ,-sians' intentions is in. During 1962, the Kennedy Ad- !ministration's Bay of Pigs fiasco was fresh in Russian memory as a sign of American timidity. Now, during the Nixon Adminis- tration, the Soviets may be in- terpreting America's withdrawal from Vietnam and the shrill 'anti-war protests here at home .R5 open invitations to renew .�their attempts to introduce of- fensive weapons into the Wes :ern Hemisphere. Of courSe the Russian& pooh- pooh U. S. fears that a strategic -submarine base is to be the end result of the activity at Cien- fuegos on the southern coast of Castro's Cuba, but if the 1962 - -crisis teaches us any- thing it is to be skeptical of any Russian denials. , _ . In his book, Thirteen Days, an �accOunt of the Cuban - missile crisis, Robert F. Kennedy re- Counted numerous promises by top Soviet leaders that no off en- isive missiles had been or would - be sent to Cuba. Some of the - � � .. promises came � even as Ameri- can intelligence. was confirming the rapid preparation of missile sites. � "Now, as the representatives of the CIA explained the 13-2 - photographs that morning. Tues- day, October 16, we realized that it had been lies; one gigantic fabric of lies," he wrote. "The Russians were putting missiles in Cuba, and they had been ship- ping them there and beginning the construction of the sites at the same time those various pri- vate and public assurances were being forwarded by Chairman Khrushchev to President Ken- nedy." The understanding that ' emerged from the U.S. naval quarantine in 1962 was that all offensive weapons would be re- moved, and, in President Kenne- dy's words, "kept out of the Hemisphere in the future." Unless those conditions continue to be met, the possibility of U. S. military . action against the nearby Red threat cannot be ruled out. � . Americans cannot sanguinely accept the building of a base for missile-bearing submarines in Cuba, if that is what the Rus- sians are up to, because it mat- ters little to the the _targets whether missiles are delivered from land or from a seaport base. The Russians - Would be miscalculating dreadfully, we believe, if they expect Richard Nixon to be any less alarmed over their machinations in Cuba than John Kennedy was, or the majority of American people to be less concerned about their security in 1970 than they were in 1962. t Pc D Lk � � 4e- ) ka-e 5 o 0 1 e e vot The New York TiMe2 Book Review ) Lea a- tat o juae 1909 P eaa3-.`-!; t a-0 e...1 By LARRY L. KING As a charter member of Students 'for a Democratic Society in 1962, -!jack Newfield originally saw only !the Bad Bobby. When, as a journalist �for The Village Voice, he encountered iRobert Kennedy on a regular basis !beginning in 1966, he was skeptical !of his man. Mr. Newfield now can write that "Robert Kennedy was the one politician of his time who Might :have united the black and white poor I into a new majority for change and !American liberalism hardly noticed." !-The author believes 'there is "a mis- taken public image of Robert Ken-: ne-cly created by the simplified. and ,static reporting of' the mass media," and says that if his book. has "any; precise purpose" it is to rectify that ..image. a. Mr. Newfield's political and social passions, his obvious love for a friend. who increasingly, believed with him :on basic questions�expressed in the e"new journalism" of personal in- volvement�are literary assets, if po- litical liabilities. Because he was not; !content to confine his recollections. 'altogether to R. F. K.'s �best mo- ts, Mr. Newfield came at least a shouting distance of his goal.' One cannot read of the R. F. K. :who procrastinated in agony before. rejecting American policy in Vietnam!, ;and L. B. J. (because they both were, ;at least in part, creations of his brother), or of his anger at the op- craters of a miserable migrant labor, .camp or of his sadness when rejected by young campus liberals, without gaining a better understanding of the !man often confused with his myth. 'Despite an iOxience of charity toward even mild opponents of R. F. IC, and churlishness sometimes bordering !on the vicious where certain old !anti-Kennedy antagonists are con- corned, this is a perceptive and moving book. The memoir is historically valuable !too. Newfield was closer to the Sen- ator than most writers; and presum- !4ng the accurtacyd.cdf....the_Authoids The shadings, Roberi Kennedy A Memoir. By Jack Newfield. 318 pp. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. $6.95. V, IA ec J24 , complexities, irten-zai friries of the Irian q-� � , reportage, we are given fascinating everything Intim experience. His end and helpful views of the private was always unknown. He dared ! Kennedy. Newfield brings to Ken- ! ; nedy's personality those shadings, ! complexities and internal furies that � would have made him a great char- acter in fiction; the book humanizes R. F. K. in ways more real than the . Mr. King, a contributing editor at ! Hanper's, is the author of ". . . And, Other DirtLa9ries." saccharine post-Mortem mourning!, . poured out by so many politicians, editorial writers and TV networks. Here' is R. F. K. grousing that he ; must sit through "a boring, three- hour sermon next to L. B. J., while ! keeping a solemn expression on his ! . face," at Cardinal Spellman's funeral. ! . (We are told R. F. K. didn't think ! much of Spellman anyway.) R. F. K. ! on Eugene McCarthy: "Gene just . isn't a nice person. In 1964 he was pulling all sorts of strings trying to ,z!, get the Vice-Presidential nomination. L, e Hubert Humphrey had been his friend -! -for twenty years, and he was trying to screw Hubert. At the same time, eLBoh McNamara .twice turned down . ,* the Vice-Presidency because he felt 1 should get it. This is the difference. between loyalty and egotism." Senator 'Kennedy compared New York's organization Democrats to "a � zoo"; he defended the C. I. A. as' having "a very healthy view of Corn- �- mtinism" compared with State and other 'departments; in September, 1967, he thought L. B. J. "might quit the night Defore the convention opens" because "he is a coward."' "So much of Kennedy demanded a literany imagination to be under- , stood," writes � Newfield ,� of his "memoir as well as a biography." .; For exactly this reason the book may � be judged more worthy in select ' ' nooks of the Russian Tea Room than . in those Washington Bronx or Johae, ' son City precincts populated by,.!!.; .peagmatic old pots whose idea of a . good book is .one that will give you ..� . house odds. ! Richard Daley and Lyndon Johnson .. could read -this book aloud to each other, and half the time neither would .!. know. what in the name of Democracy � Mr. Newfield is driving at. For in- stance, R. F. K. is spoken of as practitioner of '"sensual politics" ("He knew, on instinct, that he had to experience�see, smell, hear, touch �places like DeBacits' migrant camp, just as he sensed that he had, to ..! experience physically Delano, and .', Wolfe County, and Bedford-Stuyve- ! sant, and all those Indian. reserva- tions . . ."); and he is described as e "being always in a state of becom- ..!' Mg" ("He ,defined and created him- 1n,est death repeatedly . . ."), or he is seen , browsing through Carnus to ease his pain at some ghetto shame or human degradation. Not everyone in the posh watering places of New York's midnight intel- ligentsia" will quickly applaud Jack ! Newfield either. He has probably hurt ,. some of their feelings. He quotes (with evident approval) the late Sen- ator's contempt for those "lazy, sick, !..1 New York liberals" who spend their '� 'time worrying about not being.�in- . vited to the important parties, or e seeing psyChiatrists," and he slips in a little reverse snobbery in noting - that be and most "leftish writers" in ..! R. F. K.'s camp "had working-class . backgrounds." Heis little more tolerant of' Senator Eugene McCarthy and his followers (than he is of L. B. J.'s Texas- Humphrey-Daley crowd, or of the shabby clubhouse operattirs" in New ' York with whom his idol sometimes found it necessary to do the kind of partisan, behind-the-door business better left to mere mortals. Holding Mr. Newfield to the high- est literary standards, he must be faulted for . making the villains who � opposed R. F. K.'s search for the Presidency evil beyond the devil's dream, while endowing the Good. , Guys with near-monopoly on virtue. One must question his contention. that � had Kennedy lived he would,. have been nominated for Presiclent . . at Chicago in 1968. On this p-oint,.. Newfield supplies much of the evie! dence against himself: R. F. K. was: -`a strident Jeremiah at a time when white America longed to hear a; soothing Pollyanna"; both L. B. J. and McCarthy despised him; ,he wasn't. trusted by the old-line pols who eventually -nominated Hubert Hume! phrey. It seems logical to assume that had:, Senator Kennedy lived he and his. supporters might have suffered in Chicago those abuses ultimately re- served for the McCarthyites. Surely. the venomous old snakes who aank. their fangs into Senator McCarthy in their frantic efforts to preserve their � private lairs would have reserved equal poisons for a living, non- martyred Robert Kennedy, threaten- ing him with the same basic losses. This, sadly, is a moot question. El es Yq..0 ta -a a ; 4 � The Government Employeen Exchange 16 April 1969 6,N Ekk.w Youik riiimesL`dnke clE,P c? 0 f c 0.7 0 I 0 c , k , A- , 6o 3 _ - 0-10 �e: wt_ s e (c) � The Central Intelligence Agency's "New Team," including such "outsiders" as Harding A. Bancroft, now the Executive Vice President of The New York - Times, played a critical role in the final decisitan of Attorney General Robert F. -, Kennedy to press Secretary of State Dean Rusk to proceed with the dismissal of ' Otto F. Otcpka as the State Department's top Security Evaluator, a former x( Ambassador associated with CIA pirectot. . Richard Helms informed. this. .. . .� . . . . . , newspaper on April 11. � According to the source, Mr. ' Bancroft played a role because of his liaison and. coordinating work Involving the use of the organization and facilities of The New York Times on behalf of the CIA and the "New � Team." Other persons who had a role � 'included William H. Brubeck who had � ,been the recipient of the 1960 "leak"' 'of Top Secret information from the State Department to the campaign ;headquarters of John Kennedy which contributed significantly to Mr. 'Kennedy's narrow victory at the :election polls. After Mr. Kennedy's ; :victory, Mr. Brubeck received complete information about Mr. 'Otepka's role in tracing this "jeak", � the former Ambassador levealed. Other members of the "New Team" were. McGeorge Bundy and his - ' brother William Bundy, who had ; moved from the Central Intelligence' � Agency to become the Assistant' Secretary of State for East Asian and � Pacific Affairs, including Vietnam. � "The New Team" The "New Team" at the Central :Intelligence Agency was being planned .1-iy Attorney General Robert Kennedy even before the Bay of Pigs "fiasco" in : 1961. In fact, the former Ambassador ,isaid, the Attorney General had a ; :special group of his own "monitoring" � the Bay of Pigs operation to determine ;which persons, not yet projected for , ;the "New Team", would "pass the , :test". Although the "Bay of Pigs" was a ' national disaster, the source said,� , Robert Kennedy exploited it within'� the Government to accelerate ' itheNow . . c., 13 March 196.9 e c r�-� � aN, 4.- . ab.Lc...,... ,-- - 77 ---- c,...,--.) �., � � � : approac he attack hed t 500.mile quarantine . � ..�..14,,a.i;;..,�, , ,,,,, ..: ;i e, � i , ..., .11010 a� it p�lk,i, . . on the bases only if soiutely� .L) "....i ; '4.7;',......., :;��� line �� ,1,...,--; drawn around Cuba. "I felt,".: necessary, were ;the ' doves; led by, :c.'� ,( . 4 .i .0 1 Thirteeit Days �-;.,:s',) Robert Kennedy wrote � of .those. ter", Robert- Kennedy and Robert , Me-..,����,4A �- ,,, . by Robert I'. Kennedy, i .... � . ,;;.,����1:�.,.rible moments,. we .wt.:re on the edge Namara: and including � George Ball, .:: . ...o 17e �___, - .1-1.-L': 0 ., with Introductions .by Harold � .,...,...i'. i of. a� preeipice with no 'wayl off � � � � 'Roswell ', Gilpatric, ;Llewellyn �Thornp- ..{ .,,.,; .- . . '� Macmillan and RObert S;�McNamarit .. i President Kennedy had initiated the son, and Robert Lovett. - ' � � � ' '' Norton, 224 pis:',S5.95 ' ''". "' ,f, ,.., course of events, but he no longer had'. Dean Rusk, for the most part, s i �Ronald Steel .;" � ,�� .'� �''.���,s, � - .' '.'�: '" �, .tivoiclediaking`a stand or even attend- ; �� . � . � ,.. .��� � - . �� �� � " . ,..,',. control over them." Faced with this. ' � � ' ., . , blockade, the ' Russian � ships turned .ing. the sessions ' The Secretary of ' , -1.It. 'mot: a time, in khrtishchev's mem- back5 and ' the first crisis. was �sur-; State, � in Robert Kennedy's' caustic ,. orable' phrases � "when ;:t11�.�:�� smell of mounted. No more missiles could get words, "had . other- duties during ,this . :,,iutrning . hung in. the, �air.��;'�, Robert into Cuba. But ..what � of- the. ones.'period and frequently could not attend Kennedy's 'account or . those :thirteen already there that, Russian technicians..,0or weetings.o, .1 � ' ' It would be interesting ....,., days in 19,61 - from October. ;lb, 'when,were , installing with., feverish . haste?: ,to know -what ' these duties 'were; �he and his brother were presented with'Presidedt Kennedy ' was determinedRobert Kennedy does not elaborate, Lproof � that. the Russilihs were secretly that they had to be removed trnme�dt-:'although he does offer the further ; ., . �� 0. bu i itling . long- isi nge missile � bases. , in ;atelY, ' and on . Saturday, October .27, '04itriguingststdc,.,that,.�",.Secretary Ri�.�;'-' - .i ,Cti ha. until October 18, when �the:sent his brother to tell Soviet ainbas-���.missed...President. Kennedy's. extrcalc;y ! . . , ..1, Kremlin. agreed to dismantle them:-...sador Dobrynin "that. if they .did not -ssirnportant mecting.wit'n Prime Ministec i. shows the view from the inside by one remove those � bases, we would remove ';',v1aerriillan in Nassau���Thecause of .a '. - 'rot" the key participants.. Written with:them." The Pentagon, prepared for art ..diplomatic dinner � he felt ..he should.' ' ����:.,:e�cononty and directness-, Thirteen Days air strike against: the . bases and an attend." .That .1,viis the .mecting, one is a valuable historical document witli"invasion . of Cuba. "The' expectation" ....will rensember, . where President Ken,: �.'..all the elements of a thriller,: - ., � . :,,Robert �Ke.y.tnedy,..wro.te, of,,,t),tat fateful,inedy �agreed to .help 'out � Harold Mac- This short terse memoir-bloated by '... �..��� � _ - �Saturday;, "was, a...military�qonfronta-�rmillan (author . one of the two; . , , Introductions to this � volume) on the: -� the publisher with superfluous intro.....11.9!1'.bY .Tuesd,Y.� ductions, photographs, and ,documents.,:i '''� :���:�.;" of the British elections 'oy tufnhig; - � . � s.,-does not, of course, �tell the whole'; :� .. 0. . ......� s,��:, '..... '.: .. ..� . : : � �:�' ��over Polaris. missiles to Britain after the;- . ,. i. .. ' story of tile m e know o c9.ur isSile crisis is af.;� , .how it turned;, Skyboll fiasco that had embarrassed,' .: - � mess. the t: ; � ' � ...good deal about the events leading up::, go On Sunday morning . � . . .. .�, dge..the Tories. De Gaulle, predictably was . .�;eame.- through that Khrusitchev � !...to the crisis that is gone over. too.; WOdid ',furious; declared that Britain' still vat ',- lightly or deliberately clouded OVer.�,'��vm:hdr�w11.1!���''��-ti'iss.'",i1C�s �"i':1:',..(4Prn. fOT,..a.:...ued her trans7Atlantic tics -above. her ..,. C.) clash of personalities. and ambiva. US ,pledge not European ones, and vetoed her entry . to invade Cuba., Ken-, lint motives is . muted and. the � tone:�:'nedY.. had pulled off � the �greatest...coup.;'-intO The Common Market. r ne Nassau:' .. .. . �.�The,,- rather detached.. But behind the Meas-.�;.. of his c first and sont; �119Pes,.. accord was a colossal error of judg- 7^. . ..a.reerthe , ured prose we see the spectacle of the last.; military victory of the-ouclear,.:::ment 'that' an. astute Secretary of State. '.� -�:;:.' '. :,.. .� s'rational minds swayed by .passions and:. . . � ... ' ve.b h WC:should ;aeien able to prevent-had 7 i.:ra. Not. a. shot was fired, -although came a good di. ii to, war than ::he pea' been too busy.: attencling_diPlo- � r the euphoria of power, governmental .. , '''� '1 machinery breaking down' �Into-. the' :most people realized � at the'tinte,�..ormatic� dinners. - - ' , � . �� . . � - .� havt.--cared� to think about since.' ; :. ''.i.: Some of .the hawks were, of course, �, �� struggle of individuaCwillS, and deck. ' victory not .only over'the.[predictable. it .is not surprising that the � i� �� 't was a " � � ' H"'sions affecting the future of huma.nity.i: ' � Soviets, but Over many. of...Kennedy's...Joint Chiefs of Staff were eager to use made by a handful of men-the best of:: _ ...e ..o,svn .adviser . who favored .. a nici.re.',i'. . t heir � expensive hardware. ' � "They ; i whom were. not always sure they wer right. A disturbing description of deci- 4, � ; rnilita�n� t course rioni., ow. statt.jer.ne..!....seeined always ready to assunie," Rob- : !.1 sion-inaking. in the nuclear age, th;,..,,.,...darasTabwas. playetiout�:among.'a hastily.; !.ert.� Kennedy wrote, "that a war�was in -':..,.� '' s.t.m. led group, which later .took on. our national interest.: One of the Joint '' � I posthumous work � also offers'a reveal--:' . . �the -formal � title .of the Executive,l,Chiefs of Staff �once said to rue he:.. .. , ing chino's': of an enigmatic man who,� � ' ... ,-. ominittee of the National Security 'believed in a preventive :attack' against '���� might have bridged. the , gap between. I' ,'Council, that inet several' tittles 'a day i the Soviet � Union." Nor is it surprising . ';. the. old polities and the new. :',..� . 1, � �� ,.in the White House. The sessions were,ithat '�Dean Acheson, among' the most ,-� '?-, We have come tii take the balance�of � . 1 i:i�o...quenti y stormy, ,although the lines '; recalcitrant ' of- the .cold 'warriors, .. ' !.1 error so . much ' for granted that it is I. ...- , were loosely drawn at first., Several of "ishould have come down on the side of hard which ' ..' hd to imagine any situation 'in wh i'tiIt. � t . ,., participants, .according to ��Robertlthe military. "I felt Nye were too eager'� �,,the .two super -powers � would, actually .Kennedy, shifted their opinion' 'from to � liquid (his tiling," Elie Abel .. . . ; use their terrible weapons:, Yet more., one extreme to the'ollter-supporting��rcports him as saying in.. The. Missile . i than once during those thirteen days it���tin air 'attack at the beginning ;of the' .Crisis!..,"So long as we had the _thumb: . �-: seemed as though \the. 'unthinkable; nicciing 1111(1, .b,, the time we, lert .the... w . scre, on Khrushchev, we should have., ',..inicht actually occur. " SAC bombers.. White House, ' supporting no action 01. ',given. it another turn every day. We :.. were dispersed to .airfields throughout*all.";A few, such as Dean Acheson and were too eager . to Make an agreement the country and roamed the skies with'. Douglas Dillon, were hawks from thefr'...w)ili. the Russians They had .no bust- � their nuclear , cargoes. ;At one point,. .. � start,' and argued . for what they cu-i:..n ss . there in 'the first place." Ever' ince. his .crucifixion by Congress dur- ing the .Alger Hiss affair,,.Acheson.has, become increasingly 'reactionary .and , c: fused so lilil the order to fire would Maxwell Taylor, Nitze, ;and' Mc-, , eager to prove his toughness toward , I have to come directly front (lie White..,. George Bundy. Favoring 'a . more. mod- , '!' the CoMmunists.., His hoMb-first,and-.., ' I louse. . . . '�' ' � ' ' 1.' � I crate .. Course, whIeh. settled around ' a i� .talk -later -argument ' found receptive i i' int:. first showdown came on the�naval blockade to be "escalated" to.. ears. in "such . � ..� ri:.. � such pillars of the : Eastein morning of Oc.tok*r. 24, as Soyiet .ships.lr-7-sTs�Ts.:,��"�---,..;.���,' s ".7 ',...� - - .7: - -.:7 .... �,-.� - . . . , . , � , - . , e- ..1. . ea ii.;��:CI14` -'� , � President Kennedy, fearful � that some phemistically. called a "surgical strike71:, � trigger-happy colonel might set off' the against the air bases. They .were ; spark, ordered all atomic missiles de. Wally joined by John McCone General .� �e�S- ACM nuoy,Audwou Kyorls, DUVIN. NW:AAA 19 January 1969w cf,c,i, -7-& Storm over Eliaocazzes:7711ao were Ede recall ,heroes? 'FIIIIITEEN DAYS: A-Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis. By Robert F. Kennedy. Illustrated. Norton. 224 pp. $5.50. By John Kenneth Galbraith On Saturday, October 20, 1962, I had just arrived in London to give a lecture and, such things not being possible in New Delhi, had gone to see a Peter Ustinov play. When I came out, the papers had big black head- lines about a Chinese invasion of India and I made a suitable mental note that another political ambassador had been caught absent from his post at the moment of need. I wasn't especially surprised when, about three o'clock in the morning, the duty officer of the London Embassy awoke me with a message conveying the same ' thought in rather sardonic terms from President Ken- ' nedy and asking that I return forthwith to India. That John Kenneth Galbraith, professor of economics at Harvard, and author of The New Industrial State, was U. S. Ambassador to India at the time of the Cuban _missile crisis. _ _ I did. On arriving, I learned that it was the Russians in Cuba, not the Chinese in the Himalayas, that had induced the President's message. He wanted me to per. suade Nehru to react sympathetically and use his in- fiuence accordingly. Though I did so, there could have been few Ameri- cans, in or out of office, who were less involved in the crisis of the days following than I. The Chinese were making great progress in the mountains. Someone had to worry about an infinity of questions ranging from the military reaction of the Indians, to the foreign policy of Bhutan, to how to keep under wraps our own cru- saders (fortunately not numerous), who saw in India's involvement with China an exciting new breakthrough in the Cold War. Additionally, our communications system was monopolized by the Cuban crisis as was the attention of everyone in Washington. I knew only what the headlines told until long after the fact. When I had time to worry, it was, as always, about the peculiar dynamics of the Washington crisis meeting. i This has the truly terrible tendency always to favor the � most reckless position, for this is the position that re- quires the least moral courage. The man who says: "Let's move in with all we have and to hell with the consequences" will get applause and he knows it. seems personally brave and also thinks he is. In fact, he is a coward who fears that in urging a more deliberate policy, he will invite the disapprobation of his col-, leagues or will later be accused of advocating a policy ' of weakness. Normally, also, he is aided by his inability to foresee, or even to imagine, the consequences of the action he advocates. In contrast, the man who calls for, caution, a close assessment of consequences, an effort to understand the opposing point of view, especially if Communist, and who proposes concessions must have, great courage. He is a real hero and rare. I would have worried more in 1962 had I then known with what classical precision these tendencies were work- ing themselves out in Washington. We know now from, this fascinating memorandum. The generals, with the, major exception of Maxwell Taylor (who later and sadly i succumbed to the advocates of sanguinary action on Vietnam and so blotted the end of a well-regarded ea- reer), were all for the easy heroics. So was one group 1 of civilians who, like' the generals, yearned to be known R as men of hard-boiled, masculine decision. They urged- not air raids on the missile sites but, for purposes of scholarly gloss, a "surgical strike." There can, in his; tory, have been few more appalling examples of the self-deluding power of words. Those concerned knew � about air power, or should have. They knew, accord- .. ingly, that there was no way of bombing the missile sites without attacking all of the surrounding acreage and missing, very likely, some of the missiles. The med- � . ical counterpart of a surgical air strike would be an operation by a surgeon with cataracts wearing skiing mittens who, in moving to excise a lung cancer, was fairly likely to make his first incision into the large intestine. On the other side were the men with enough moral , courage to consider consequences Robert Kennedy, Robert McNamara, George Ball, Adlai Stevenson and, before all, the President himself. As one now reads this memorandum, it is almost impossible to imagine anyone being on the other side� and those who were must now have a certain problem in explaining it to themselves. In particular, it was Adlai Stevenson who was willing to trade some obsolete nuclear weapons in Turkey (which the President had already twice ordered re- moved) for similar action by the Russians in Cuba. (It has since been said on ample authority that the President would have removed these missiles if that had been necessary for a peaceful bargain. And they were taken out almost immediately after the missile crisis.) The most chilling thing about this memorandum is the reflection it prompts on what would have happened if the men of moral courage had not been present or if a President's disposition was not to uphold but over- rule them. And it is disconcerting to consider how the political position of an Administration, one more mod- erate than its Republican opposition, was juxtaposed to the survival of the country, even of mankind. I do not know what insanity caused the Soviets to send the. missiles to Cuba �.and after showing commendable caution about the deployment of this gadgetry in far less dangerous locations. But once they were there, the political needs of the Kennedy Administration urged it to take almost any risk to get them out. Temporizing would have been politically disastrous. Yet national safety called for a very deliberate policy � for tempor- izing. In the full light of time, it doubtless called for a more cautions policy than the one that Kennedy pur- sued. Again we see how frayed and perilous are the threads on which existence depends. Robert Kennedy, perhaps it is needless to say, wrote this memorandum himself and it is done with economy of style and no slight narrative power. With all his other talent, he was a very good writer. This makes it all very sad that the publisher, no doubt in order to f." ttruea 12 January 1969 Donald Stanley on Books Sane-lineation of � "He did not really look that much like the late President Kennedy ' when you thought about it � shorter, thinner, less handsome, a bigger and more prominent nose, much toothier, less confident in Man- ner, more .casual in dress. But still it was there, born not simply of family resem- blance but of that past pain, of television images etched in remembrance . . ." That was Robert Kennedy, says Jules Witcover, and all of us would agree. That was Bobby when he announced his candi- dacy last March, his brother's brother, many felt, who wanted to be President simply because that's what Kennedys did � � and because he wanted to '"get even" - with Lyndon Johnson for being there when his brother fell. But when he died in Los Angeles 85 days later, Robert Kennedy was his own man "to a degree few appreciated." so says Witcover, a journalist who stayed , � with Kennedy during his last campaign and who, in "85 Days," has left a star- tlingly good record of that event and that transformation of a man. * * * , WITCOVER SAYS Kennedy, for once :and at the crucial time, misread the polit- ical signs. This was in 1967 when, as a , critic of Johnson's Vietnam .policy, he nonetheless felt it impossible to oppose an Incumbent for the nation's highest Office. !Thus he publicly supported LBJ's candida- cy in 1968, hoping thereby to remove the onus of The Feud from his Vietnam at- tacks, : And thus Gene McCarthy seized the youthful anti-war activists by his candid- - a segment of the nation whose loss Kennedy felt deeply, par* because he HAD preceded McCarthy in outspoken criticism of the %var. � Witcover details the search, led by New York's Allard Lowenstein, for a candidate to take on Johnson. Before he found 'McCarthy, Lowenstein tried James Gavirii;.: , 85 DAYS, THE LAST. CAMPAIGN OF-i John Kenneth Galbraith and. John McGov- ROBERT KENNEDY."By Jules Witeor!:i ..,10.0st.p.er.;Pubiam� 338 pages, 86.95. - � 5 0c-- � Lt.0) S"- 5 54- C.._ � e 6 -e IC -4_ Earliest 'of all, he had sounded out Ken- nedy who; said Lowenstein later," "took it . as seriously as the idea of a Priest.in. Bo- gota deposing the Pope." � BUT, WITCOVER SAYS, Kennedy was � � prepared to go before the New-Hampshire upset proved Johnson vulnerable. �A meet- � ing on March 5, a week before the primary vote in Ted Kennedy's office was "not about the 'why and why not of it, but the when and how." rt � Old Kennedy allies were divided on the advisability. The issue was not 'whether RFK could win. Nobody, at the time, �'thought he could. It was whether the cause � (anti-Vietnam) was worth losing ler.. Ted ' Sorenson, for one, thought it wasn't.. Ken O'Donnell thought it was and told � Kennedy, "If you want to run because of the issue, I'm with you. H you just want to, get the White House limousines back, I'm against it:" . Witcover has some inside news that is - . . o Kennedy tried to talk Walter Cron- � kite into running for his. New York Senate ,seat. fascinating: o The plane RFK sent to return Martin Luther King's body from Memphis. to At-, lanta (and which McCarthyites said was "politics").was requested by Mrs. Xing. o There is more on the ill-fated Presi- dential Vietnam Commission, a Sorenson idea that LBJ almost bought and which would have kept Kennedy out of the 1968 .,campaign. . But 'Witcover's greatest effort �.(and: for me his most successful) is in purging the record of Robert Kennedy's alleged ,"ruth- lessness" and in substituting the picture of � a politician of extraordinary compassion', . and sensitivity. "He identified with people whoZhiiit,�!' said Fred Dutton after Kennedy!s.'cleath,;, � "Maybe it was because he hurt." 3 1.1 It Ls Le J. 'The Cuban' CrThis Rthilrpreted:' Readers of the late Robert Kenne- dy's version of the 1962: Cuban missile . � crisis came away with an impression . ' of John F. Kennedy as a cool, strong �� � President who used tough diplomacy' ; to win an important victory over the Soviets. But an article in The National Ob- server by Peter T. Chew puts a much different light on the incident. Chew quotes two recent books to rebut one of Robert Kennedy's main assertions, . and concludes that ;the Cuban crisis . was more a defeat for the United States than for the Soviet Union. Robert Kennedy states flatly, "On � Tuesday morning, Oct. 16, 1962, -short- ly after 9 o'clock, President Kennedy . � . told me that �a '132 had just fin- : .ished a photographic mission and that � the intelligence community had be- ,. come convinced that Russia was plac- ing missiles and atomic weapons in .- Cuba . . . The dominant feeling at the. meeting was stunned surprise: No one ; had expected or anticipated that the Russians would deploy surface-to-sur- face missiles in Cuba . � No official . within the government had ever sug- gested to President Kennedy. that the Russian buildup in :Cuba would in- clude missiles." � the administration failed to act until then. Why? - The answer to that question Is not known. Lazo thinks that it was be- cause the Kennedy brothers were lulled by repeated Soviet assurances. That, however, is only conjecture. Also conjecture is Lazo's charge that President Kennedy was a weak and vacillating man under fire, and that Ichruschev tried to take advan- tage of him. Another' point of debate concerns the concessions that Khrushchev ex- I tracted from Kennedy in return for r, pulling out the missiles. At the time, Kennedy gave the impression that none ; had been given, but Lazo says that Kennedy agreed (1) not to invade Cuba and (2) to remove our Thor and Jupiter missile bases from Turkey and � Italy. Whatever the final historical ver- dict on the incident may be, it seems plain that we do not have all the facts now. What is a fact is that Castro still controls Cuba and uses it as a base to '- spread Communist subversion through- out Latin, America. But both Arthur Krock's recenC. "Memoirs" and Mario Lazo's "Dagger ;In the Heart" state explicitly that, ciVohn 1VIcCone, head of the CIA, had told Kennedy aS early as ACrirthat missiles were being installed in Cuba, . and he repeated the warning several times in the weeks following. It was during those months that , former Sens. Kenneth Keating and'! Homer Capehart were charging that.4. the Soviets were bringing offensive missiles into Cuba. The Kennedy ad- ministration repeatedly replied that the only weapons were "defensive." If Krock and Lazo are right, Rob- ert Kennedy's recollection was wrong. , If the evidence of Soviet offensive mis-1 sues was clear as early as Aug. 19, the President could not --have been, stunned and surprised on Oct 16. Yet