Bobby and J. Edgar The Historic Face-Off Between the Kennedys and J. Edgar Hoover That Transformed America

- How Joe Kennedy pushed Lyndon Johnson into the vice presidential nomination by secretly encouraging J. Edgar Hoover to blackmail John and Robert Kennedy, while slipping Johnson $1 million to cover expenses. - How Joe Kennedy's close collaboration with Chicago Mob fixer Johnny Rosselli in the movie and casino businesses helped underpin the Kennedy family fortune and prepare the way for JFK's political rise. - How Hoover cultivated close ties with Mafia bosses--and his protege Joseph McCarthy, whom Joe Kennedy also backed--while struggling with his bizarre sexual compulsions. - How RFK successfully schemed to drive Roy Cohn out of the McCarthy Committee, which ultimately helped to destroy McCarthy and led to the series of events that culminated in JFK's assassination. - How RFK defied his father by going after organized crime, specifically Teamster President Jimmy Hoffa, as his Rackets Committee widely and illegally bugged and tapped its targets, and he first became aware of his father's involvement in organized crime. - How the 1960 presidential campaign in both parties was heavily funded by the Mafia, and how Joe, as well as Hoover, doubted the competence of JFK to be president and later planted lawyers in key positions in the Justice Department to try to keep JFK on course. - How Joe Kennedy was among the special-interest players agitating to overthrow Fidel Castro. - How RFK was torn by the emergence of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement, sympathetic with King's goals but fearful that King would destroy JFK's political base in the South--whereas Hoover despised King--and how the Kennedy administration reluctantly tried to subvert King using bugsand wiretaps. - How RFK was involved in the FBI's effort to cover up the events behind his brother's assassination. - How Hoover initiated a series of operations, sometimes with Roy Cohn's collaboration, to undermine RFK once he was out as attorney general. - How RFK and Joe Kennedy's separate behind-the-scenes machinations deepened the conflict in Vietnam.Hersh, Burton is the author of 'Bobby and J. Edgar The Historic Face-Off Between the Kennedys and J. Edgar Hoover That Transformed America', published 2007 under ISBN 9780786719822 and ISBN 0786719826.