The Dark Side of Camelot is a book by Seymour M. Hersh, published by Little, Brown in 1997.
Author Edward Jay Epstein stated that the book argues that John F. Kennedy's image was presented in too pristine of a way, and sought to show "a far more sinister vision" of the president. [1]
Thomas Powers wrote that, as the work is based so much on Hersh's statements and assertions, the work "is a reporter's book, not a historian's." [2]
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According to Powers, the book generally assumes that Kennedy acted in bad faith and/or was "wrong". [2]
The book includes information on sexual liaisons involving Kennedy. [2]
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It was controversial and heavily criticized. Shortly before publication, it emerged in the press that Hersh had removed claims at the last minute which were based on forged documents provided to him by fraudster Lex Cusack, including a fake hush money contract between Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe. An article about the controversy in The Washington Post said: "The strange and twisted saga of the JFK file is part cautionary tale, part slapstick farce, a story of deception and self-delusion in the service of commerce and journalism". Hersh and a one-time co-author had received a $800,000 advance for the project. [3] Other aspects of the book also came under criticism, including its prying into Kennedy's alleged sexual escapades based on interviews with his Secret Service guards, and its claim that Kennedy used Judith Exner as a courier to deliver cash to mobster Sam Giancana, made by a source who later recanted it before the Assassination Records Review Board. [3]
Powers stated that Hersh "has done his legwork". [2] According to Powers, the book accurately showed how Kennedy and his brother Robert F. Kennedy were extremely focused on Cuba and Fidel Castro, while he criticized the book's ascription of bad faith motives to Kennedy. [2] Powers stated that people criticizing the book and/or supporting Kennedy used the fake documents scandal to paint the information in the work "as trifling gossip and unsupported hearsay." [2]
Epstein criticized how the book's "idiosyncratic interpretations" meant that it always assumed that fear of exposure of negative information instead of "conventional political considerations" were reasons behind Kennedy's actions. [1] He also criticized how the forgeries colored the book's interpretations, even though the forgeries themselves were not referenced in the final book, and he argued that the book contrived information not supported by known recorded sources. [1] Epstein concluded that the work is "alas, more about the deficiencies of investigative journalism than about the deficiencies of John F. Kennedy." [1]
Edward Moore Kennedy was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Massachusetts. A member of the Democratic Party and the prominent Kennedy family, he was the second-most senior member of the Senate when he died. He is ranked fifth in U.S. history for length of continuous service as a senator. Kennedy was the younger brother of President John F. Kennedy and U.S. attorney general and U.S. senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the father of U.S. representative Patrick J. Kennedy.
The Book of Veles is a literary forgery purporting to be a text of ancient Slavic religion and history supposedly written on wooden planks.
Seymour Myron Hersh is an American investigative journalist and political writer. He gained recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. During the 1970s, Hersh covered the Watergate scandal for The New York Times, also reporting on the secret U.S. bombing of Cambodia and the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) program of domestic spying. In 2004, he detailed the U.S. military's torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq for The New Yorker. Hersh has won a record five George Polk Awards, and two National Magazine Awards. He is the author of 11 books, including The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House (1983), an account of the career of Henry Kissinger which won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
New Journalism is a style of news writing and journalism, developed in the 1960s and 1970s, that uses literary techniques unconventional at the time. It is characterized by a subjective perspective, a literary style reminiscent of long-form non-fiction. Using extensive imagery, reporters interpolate subjective language within facts whilst immersing themselves in the stories as they reported and wrote them. In traditional journalism, the journalist is "invisible"; facts are meant to be reported objectively.
Judith Exner was an American woman who claimed to be the mistress of U.S. Senator, then U.S. president John F. Kennedy and Mafia leaders Sam Giancana and John Roselli. Several aspects of her claim of having known Kennedy have been verified by documents, phone records, and testimony. She was also known as Judith Campbell Exner, and Judith Campbell.
Journalistic objectivity is a considerable notion within the discussion of journalistic professionalism. Journalistic objectivity may refer to fairness, disinterestedness, factuality, and nonpartisanship, but most often encompasses all of these qualities. First evolving as a practice in the 18th century, a number of critiques and alternatives to the notion have emerged since, fuelling ongoing and dynamic discourse surrounding the ideal of objectivity in journalism.
Inga Marie Arvad Petersen was a Danish-American journalist who was a guest of Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Summer Olympics and also had a romantic relationship with John F. Kennedy in 1941 and 1942. The juxtaposition of these facts led to suspicions during World War II that she was a Nazi spy. Secret U.S. investigations uncovered no such evidence, and her past did not harm her professional life or social standing in the United States. She was a motion picture writer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1945 and a Hollywood gossip columnist, and from the late 1940s until her death, she was the wife of wealthy cowboy actor and military officer Tim McCoy.
David Francis Powers was Special Assistant and assistant Appointments Secretary to U.S. president John F. Kennedy. Powers served as Museum Curator of the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum from 1964 until his retirement in May 1994. Powers was a military veteran who served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II from 1942 to 1945. Powers was also a close friend of Kennedy.
Ari Ben-Menashe is an Israeli-Canadian businessman, security consultant, and author. He was previously an employee of Israel's Military Intelligence Directorate from 1977 to 1987, and an arms dealer. He lives in Montreal.
Nina D. Burleigh is an American writer and investigative journalist, She writes books, articles, essays and reviews. Burleigh is a supporter of secular liberalism, and is known for her interest in issues of women's rights.
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Robert Allan Hale — known as Bobby Hale, as well as Papa Pilgrim and Sunstar — was an American criminal who mentally, physically, and sexually abused his wife and 15 children in the Alaskan wilderness.
Theodore Harold White was an American political journalist and historian, known for his reporting from China during World War II and the Making of the President series.
Satsu is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, a comic book continuation of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Introduced as one of the strongest Slayers, she has a close relationship with her mentor Buffy Summers. Satsu develops romantic feelings for Buffy, and the two have a brief sexual relationship. She becomes the leader of her own Slayer squadron in Tokyo, and forms a friendship with fellow Slayer Kennedy during her performance review. She also makes a minor appearance in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Ten.
In 1993, Lawrence X. Cusack III forged 350 documents from, or relating to, John F. Kennedy, the president of the United States from 1961 to 1963. Some of the forged documents purportedly showed that Kennedy had dealings with organized crime, tax evasion, bribery of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, payment of hush money to actress Marilyn Monroe for being Kennedy's lover, and a secret first marriage.
The death of Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011, gave rise to various conspiracy theories, hoaxes and rumors. These include the ideas that he had died earlier, or that he lived beyond the reported date. Doubts about Bin Laden's death were fueled by the U.S. military's supposed disposal of his body at sea, the decision to not release any photographic or DNA evidence of Bin Laden's death to the public, the contradicting accounts of the incident, and the 25-minute blackout during the raid on Bin Laden's compound during which a live feed from cameras mounted on the helmets of the U.S. special forces was cut off.
Pictures of the Pain: Photography and the Assassination of President Kennedy is a 1994 book by Richard B. Trask, an American historian and archivist based in Danvers, Massachusetts. The book compiles more than 350 photographs made by amateur and professional photographers in Dallas, Texas, during the November 1963 assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy, and includes interviews with many of the people who made the images, some of which had never been published prior to the book's release.
The selection of the Democratic Party's vice presidential candidate for the 1960 United States presidential election occurred at the party's national convention on August 13, 1960. After winning the presidential nomination on the first ballot of the 1960 Democratic National Convention, Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy turned his attention to picking a running mate. Kennedy chose Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson, who had finished second on the presidential ballot, as his running mate. Johnson, a Protestant Texan, provided geographical and religious balance to a ticket led by a Catholic Northeasterner, but many liberals did not like the pick. Many were surprised both that Kennedy made the offer and that Johnson accepted the offer, as the two had been rivals for the 1960 presidential nomination. According to some accounts, Kennedy had offered the position to Johnson as a courtesy and expected Johnson to decline the offer; when Johnson accepted, Kennedy sent his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, to talk Johnson out of accepting the offer. However, Kennedy may have made the offer in earnest due to Johnson's appeal in the south, Johnson's friendly relationship with Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn, and Kennedy's desire to remove Johnson as Senate Majority Leader in favor of the more liberal Mike Mansfield. Regardless, Johnson decided that accepting the offer would be better for his political career and better position himself to become president, and so he chose to become Kennedy's running mate. The Democratic convention confirmed Johnson as the vice presidential nominee, although the delegation from Washington, D.C. attempted to select Minnesota Governor Orville Freeman instead.
This bibliography of John F. Kennedy is a list of published works about John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States.
Pamela Harrison Turnure Timmins was the first Press Secretary hired to serve a First Lady of the United States. She was the Press Secretary to Jacqueline Kennedy. Turnure reportedly had an extramarital affair with 35th President of the United States John F. Kennedy.
