10 Zen Monkeys has published an interview with David Talbot about his new book, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years. Talbot claims to show in his book that Bobby Kennedy believed his brother JFK was assassinated by a right wing conspiracy.
The interview is transcribed from a recent episode of The RU Sirius Show. BB pal Jamais Cascio also joined in.
JAMAIS CASCIO: Did Kennedy suspect that he had been sandbagged?
DAVID TALBOT: Yes. And he was furious. Afterwards, he famously threatened to shatter the CIA and scatter it to the winds. And he did fire the top two officials of the CIA — Allen Dulles, who ironically later became the most active member of the Warren Commission (to investigate the assassination of JFK), and Richard Bissell. And he was constantly re-shuffling his Joint Chiefs, because they were some frightening characters as well. The head of the Air Force, Curtis LeMay, actually thought you could fight and win a nuclear war.
RU SIRIUS: LeMay comes across in this book as actually very anxious to just get right into a nuclear war. And there's another character -– Lyman Lemnitzer — true psycho maniacs. Talk a little bit about these characters.
DT: Those are two of my favorites! Curtis LeMay was this cigar-chomping World War II hero who had devastated Japan with firebombing assaults during that war. He knew that, in the early '60s, America had massive nuclear superiority over the Soviet Union. And he thought that was our window of opportunity to take the commies out. Do it now. We would, of course, suffer millions of casualties of our own, but he argued with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara that you could still win the war as long as you had more weapons in the end.
RU: The one who dies with the most bombs wins.
