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The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years
Free Press
May 2007
On Sale: May 8, 2007
496 pages ISBN: 0743269187 EAN: 9780743269186 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Biography
For decades, books about John or Robert Kennedy have woven
either a shimmering tale of Camelot gallantry or a tawdry
story of runaway ambition and reckless personal behavior.
But the real story of the Kennedys in the 1960s has long
been submerged -- until now. In Brothers: The Hidden
History of the Kennedy Years, David Talbot sheds a
dramatic new light on the tumultuous inner life of the
Kennedy presidency and its stunning aftermath. Talbot, the
founder of Salon.com, has written a gripping political
history that is sure to be one of the most talked-about
books of the year. Brothers begins on the
shattering afternoon of November 22, 1963, as a
grief-stricken Robert Kennedy urgently demands answers about
the assassination of his brother. Bobby's suspicions
immediately focus on the nest of CIA spies, gangsters, and
Cuban exiles that had long been plotting a violent regime
change in Cuba. The Kennedys had struggled to control this
swamp of anti-Castro intrigue based in southern Florida, but
with little success. Brothers then shifts back
in time, revealing the shadowy conflicts that tore apart the
Kennedy administration, pitting the young president and his
even younger brother against their own national security
apparatus. The Kennedy brothers and a small circle of their
most trusted advisors -- men like Theodore Sorensen, Robert
McNamara, and Kenneth O'Donnell, who were so close the
Kennedys regarded them as family -- repeatedly thwarted
Washington's warrior caste. These hard-line generals and
spymasters were hell-bent on a showdown with the Communist
foe -- in Berlin, Laos, Vietnam, and especially Cuba. But
the Kennedys continually frustrated their militaristic
ambitions, pushing instead for a peaceful resolution to the
Cold War. The tensions within the Kennedy administration
were heading for an explosive climax, when a burst of
gunfire in a sunny Dallas plaza terminated John F. Kennedy's
presidency. Based on interviews with more than one
hundred fifty people -- including many of the Kennedys'
aging "band of brothers," whose testimony here might be
their final word on this epic political story -- as well as
newly released government documents, Brothers reveals
the compelling, untold story of the Kennedy years, including
JFK's heroic efforts to keep the country out of a
cataclysmic war and Bobby Kennedy's secret quest to solve
his beloved brother's murder. Bobby's subterranean search
was a dangerous one and led, in part, to his own quest for
power in 1968, in a passion-filled campaign that ended with
his own murder. As Talbot reveals here, RFK might have been
the victim of the same plotters he suspected of killing his
brother. This is historical storytelling at its riveting
best -- meticulously researched and movingly
told. Brothers is a sprawling narrative about
the clash of powerful men and the darker side of the Cold
War -- a tale of tragic grandeur that is certain to change
our understanding of the relentlessly fascinating Kennedy
saga.
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