Q&A with Kennedy researcher David Talbot
10:15 AM CDT on Sunday, May 27, 2007
Our Q&A with David Talbot, author of "Brothers : The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years"
If, as you write, Bobby Kennedy didn’t accept the Warren Commission report, why did he publicly affirm that he did ?
That’s the great mystery and, really, what drove me to write this book. The Kennedys were raised to keep things close to the vest. The reason I think that Bobby didn’t say something that afternoon [of the assassination] was he realized that his power was fading by the minute, that LBJ hated his guts – as did Hoover, the head of the FBI. Bobby was a lonely and forlorn figure in Washington after the assassination, but he was telling people, "We have to wait till I get to the White House, then I’ll reopen the case."
How do we know that LBJ rejected the Warren Report ?
Because he was constantly obsessed with a conspiracy, from the moment it happened. We now know that when Air Force One was at Love Field trying to take off for Washington, they couldn’t do it until they found the president. The Air Force attache, Gen. Godfrey McHugh, found him cowering in the bathroom, having a panic attack, muttering "conspiracy" to himself. And Bill Moyers goes up to him later, on Air Force One, and says, "Mr. President, what are you thinking ?" And he said, "I wonder when the missiles are going to start flying." Johnson continued for years after the Warren Report to talk to people, [saying] "Who do you think killed Jack ?"
You believe the JFK assassination is especially relevant to the current political moment. Why ?
I think after almost eight years of George W. Bush, people feel that the government is capable of just about anything. That there’s a cult of secrecy in Washington, of deception, of treachery. And that didn’t just start with George W. Bush. That dark strain runs through American politics. There’s a thread that goes from Dallas to Guantánamo. If you can shoot down a president in broad daylight on the streets of a major American city, without a thorough investigation to get to the bottom of it, then any kind of treachery is possible in American public life.
