"Dark side of the Camelot"

Book of John Kennedy (1997)

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Journalist Simur Hersch talks about the ties of the Kennedy family with the mafia, about the blackmail of John Kennedy and his own exaggeration in resolving the Caribbean crisis. Simur Hersh, the author of the book, is participated in the program, Bill press - journalist, Matthew Dickenson - professor, Andrew Fergusson - political observer of the magazine "Weekly Standard", Stephen Hass - specialist in ethics and press problems. Leading Marina Efimova. For the first time on the air of November 20, 1997.

Marina Efimova : “Celebrities are always surrounded by beautiful people, and John Kennedy liked it. In the summer of 1963, when Jacqueline was away, he invited Boba Baker to the oval cabinet, the secretary of the Democratic faction of the Senate, but did not talk about the Senate, but said, if I remain without a beautiful woman for a day, I start a terrible woman. Migraine. "And Baker introduced the president to the charming Ellen Roma."

Marina Efimova : Thus begins the head of Ellen from the new book “The Dark Side of Camelot”, written by a famous journalist, the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Simur Hersh.

John Kennedy in the oval office of the White House. 1963

“So, for the next few months, Ellen Romans saved the president from migraine and gossiped with Baker about parties in the White House, during which everyone was bathed naked in the pool . The president did not know that Ellen Romacus grew up in East Germany and had managed to visit the Komsomol and the Communist Party until her family fleeed in West Germany. Information was excavated by a group of republican senators, Kennedy did not understand or did not want to take into account that his opponents would present Ellen Roma as a possible East German spy, and that the scandal is inevitable. "

"... The next few months, Ellen Roma relied the president from migraine and gossiped with a Baker about parties in the White House, during which everyone bathed naked in the pool"

Marina Efimova : The author of the book is focused not only on the romantic adventures of the president. The hersh refutes, for example, the generally accepted idea that Kennedy chose to himself the vice presidents of Lindon Johnson for reasons of political balance, as a representative of the South, Texas. But we listen to Simur Hershe himself.

Simur Hersh : Of the unpublished memoirs and conversations with Heimon Razokin, the Chicago lawyer who performed the president’s confidential instructions, I found out that Lyndon Johnson became vice president not because Kennedy chose him, but because Johnson was blackmailing, threatening him with publication of some compromising materials. I’ll spread this story by John Kennedy himself.

Marina Efimova : In the book "The Dark Side of Campelot", witnesses about various kinds of contacts of the Kennedy family with the mafia are also collected.

Simur Hersh : The mafia in Chicago controlled trade unions since Al Capone, Robert Kennedy wrote a book about this called "Internal Enemies." Both brothers Kennedy, Robert and Jack, were members of the commission to combat the mafia, and all this time their father, Joseph Kennedy, beat his head against the wall, trying to dissuade the brothers to fight the mafia, because when it came to the election, they could not do without the help of trade unions, that is, without the help of the mafia. And it was Joseph who went to Frank Sinatra and asked him to be an intermediary between him and the influential mafioso named Junkano in order to attract the trade unions to his side and neutralize the hostile actions of the brothers in relation to the mafia.

Marina Efimova : Simur Hersh accuses Kennedy of exaggerating his own role of resolving the Caribbean crisis.

Simur Hersh : Khrushchev, according to the adopted version of the Caribbean crisis, was the first to tremble in the famous confrontation between him and the American president. Kennedy spent a line, Khrushchev was frightened, removed the rockets and, holding his tail, ran back to Russia. In fact, Kennedy and Khrushchev conducted secret negotiations for a year and a half, as a result of which Kennedy removed our missiles from Turkey, and Khrushchev - their rockets from Cuba. What is bad in secret negotiations? Nothing! But the bad thing is that Kennedy, for political reasons, presented the people of the Caribbean crisis as his complete victory.

Marina Efimova : Even in the tragedy of the Vietnamese War, according to the author of the book, John Kennedy is to blame.

Simur Hersh : Kennedy could stop the Vietnamese war at the very beginning, but did not do it for political reasons. I think with horror that I could be the father of a soldier who risked his life in Vietnam in 1964 simply because Kennedy wanted to use the end of the war as a trump card in a pre -election campaign.

"I think with horror that I could be the father of a soldier who risked his life in Vietnam in 1964 simply because Kennedy wanted to use the end of the war as a trump card in a pre -election campaign"

Marina Efimova : All these attacks on one of the most beloved American presidents caused a storm of dispute in America. One of the passionate opponents of the book of Hersh is a well -known political scientist and journalist Bill Press.

Bill Press : If this is not absolutely true, then why is a book written in one -sided, biased, unprovenly, and simply pouring mud on one of the most beloved American presidents? I am one of the millions of Americans whom Kennedy inspired. Thanks to him, we seriously treated our country, our civil duty, our government. Well, this is more important than all the garbage that is stuffed with the Hershe book.

John and Jacqueline Kennedy at the Balu on the Day of Inauguration, 1961

Marina Efimova : In our program, we asked to speak about the book of Simur Hersh, “The Dark Side of Camelot,” Professor Harvard University Matthew Dickenson and political observer of the new conservative magazine “Weekly Standard” Andrew Ferguson. Professor Dickenson, how do you see the role of Kennedy in the Vietnamese War and, in general, in relations with the communist bloc?

Matthew Dickenson : the tendency to personify American policy, attribute exclusively to the president all decisions and consider the actions of the government as a result of the personal qualities of the head of state, his temperament, his ethics, this trend, in general, is erroneous. It must be understood that the president’s hands are connected with both chambers of Congress, public opinion, and press. Recall that during his struggle for the post of president, John Kennedy accused the Eisenhower administration of allowing the Communists to spread their influence by half the world, that the Soviet Union managed to achieve a nuclear-nuclear parity with the United States. Kennedy managed to defeat the 1960 elections in this way, but then he saw that it was difficult to fulfill his election promises and achieve significant superiority over the USSR, and it is difficult to deal with the spread of communism in different areas of the world. Why, he promised, and his predecessor Eisenhower promised to support the South Vietnamese government, so that Kennedy continued the policy begun by the former president. He could not leave South Vietnam, but did not want to expand military operations there, and then he chose the path of passive resistance to the Communists. But the same tactics were used by General Eisenhower. Many believe that if Kennedy lived before the 1964 elections, then the main theme of his election campaign would be the end of the war in Vietnam and the withdrawal of American troops from there, then he would have received the support of the majority. But all these are assumptions.

Marina Efimova : Who, in your opinion, was the winner in the Caribbean crisis - Kennedy or Khrushchev?

Matthew Dickenson : Neither Khrushchev nor Kennedy can be called the winner. Those in our America, who claims that Kennedy scared Khrushchev with his determination to go to the military conflict, is clearly exaggerating. In any way, Kennedy wanted to avoid military confrontation, therefore he agreed to Moscow and removed Jupiter missiles from Turkey. Moreover, John Kennedy was ready for further concessions, if it were required. But, on the other hand, there are no losers here, everyone won. Since both superpower in time realized the danger of confrontation.

Marina Efimova : With the political observer "Weekly Standard", Andrew Fergusson, our correspondent Jan Runov is talking.

Jan Runov : Do you agree with the statement of Hersh that Lindon Johnson was blackmailing John Kennedy?

Andrew Fergusson : This historical hypothesis is not documented. We know that John Kennedy was very far from the ideal, and Johnson was quite capable of blackmailing him, but this does not mean that he was blackmail. There are more questions in history than answers, and the more questions, the better, the more the parties the problem will be considered. From this point of view, Hersch’s book can be evaluated positively, because he re -raised the question of Kennedy's presidency. It is over that this new book was written by a journalist, and those requirements that could be presented to the historian cannot be applied to it. This is not a scientific work, in it, along with facts, both rumors and the testimony of some witnesses are used. Simur Hersh is known as the author famously, who gives historical materials in a journalist, his book is a kind of hybrid of two different genres.

"Simur Hersh is known as the author famously, who gives historical materials in a journalist, his book is a kind of hybrid of two different genres"

Jan Runov : How much can you rely on the testimony or memories of a witness in a journalistic and historical study?

Andrew Fergusson : That is the problem, and that is why journalists should resort to the help of historians, use the methods of comprehensive scientific and historical analysis, seek confirmation of the fact of the second, third source, as well as documentary evidence. The value of his work lies in the fact that the author came in contact with former employees of John Kennedy, his friends, entrusted persons who were either silent before, or were not frank to the end, and now, shortly before his death, they decided to tell Hersha what they had not talked about before. Even if their memories turn out to be inaccurate and will be refuted in the future, they still matter for further historical research. In this sense, Hersh did an important work, but claiming that he owns the truth in the last instance, he clearly overestimated himself.

"... the author came in contact with former employees of John Kennedy, his friends, entrusted persons who were either silent before, or were not frank to the end, and now, shortly before his death, they decided to tell Hersha what they had not talked about before."

Marina Efimova : In the stream of responses to the new book there was an article in the magazine Time, where the authors brought a classification of works written about Kennedy, starting from the date of his death. They called the first fifth anniversary the “golden age”, at that time they published materials only complimentary: “Thousand days” of the Schlezger, “Kennedy jokes” Adler, “dazzling MiG” Manchester, and the musical “Camelot” became especially popular, the music from which we took for our today's transfer, and in which the White House is compared with the noble and compared with the noble and compared and The knightly court of King Arthur. Since 1965, a stream of work on the murder of the president, including versions of the conspiracy: communist, mafia, even government. In 1971, what the authors of the article called "the first wave of revisionism." This wave included the book of Norman Meyler “Marilyn”, hinting at the possible connection between the death of Marilyn Monroe and her relationship with the White House, the book “My Life”, written by another secret lover of Kennedy Judith Exner, and the book of the most popular American gossip Kitty Kelly called Jackie O. In 1995, the nostalgic choir - the books "Jack and Jackie" Andersen, "too humane" Clyan and "Camelot" Lawy. The book "The Dark Side of Camelot", published on the eve of the anniversary of the death of the President on November 22, 1963, marks the second, new wave of revisionism.

We listen to what they say about the book "The Dark Side of Camelot" and the President of Kennedy New York. The microphone of Paradise Vile.

Raya Vile : My interlocutors are not quite the first person oncoming, these are the people with whom I recently I was in the same American company. One of the guests is journalist Jonathan Sanders, who recently returned from Moscow, where he was almost 10 years old by the CBS television company.

Jonathan Sanders : It seems to me that the Americans have already realized that they live in antiheroic or postheroic time - it is almost impossible to find a crystal pure person who would like to become a political leader and correspond to this image. In our politics, there is no equivalent to Andrei Sakharov. Moreover, the very idea that politics is a pure and worthy respect in America is no longer popular.

Marilyn Monroe (famous birthday greetings by John Kennedy)

Raya Vail : And there were such leaders in our century, about which the Americans can still say: "Here are a man without flaws"?

Jonathan Sanders : No, but there were presidents deeply respected, for example, Franklin Delo Roosevelt. Roosevelt was an amazing president. John Kennedy died early, he did not have the opportunity to fully prove himself. He is not a god, not a hero, not even a leader, he is a man who won the presidency race.

Raya Vile : Another guest, another opinion. Engineer Kenny Shaifer.

Kenny Shaifer : Simur Hersh, who has a reputation as a brilliant journalist, this time was enough over the edge. Did John Kennedy prostitutes into the White House? Surely I only know what I did not cite. We have lost the need for any hero, for any mythical person who could serve as a life model for us and for our children. John Kennedy was perhaps our last president, which could be thought of idealistically, at least at that time. I think sometimes you have to leave a person alone, do not dig in the president’s dirty linen. The president must be judged by what the president he is, and not by how many women he had in life. John Kennedy is imputed in guilty that he was sleeping with Marilyn Monroe, they say, how could he? And it seems to me that a man who would abandon Marilyn Monroe is not worthy of being president.

Raya Weil : The journalist Laura Greffen categorically disagree with this.

Laura Greffen : The country is in a moral crisis, people feel emptiness, lack of ideals, a neglect of family principles. People ruling in the White House also do not cause respect - except about the illegitimate adventures of the current president is not yet known on Mars. If the president is not decent in his personal life, if he deceives his wife, the closest person, we can expect him to be dishonest in politics. The president’s personal life has an impact on history.

Marina Efimova : As if responding to the last interlocutor of Rai Weil, the famous journalist Hugh Sayed, who personally knew Kennedy, writes:

Announcer : “Kennedy once told me that his beloved politician is William Lam, the first Prime Minister of Queen Victoria, a man in whom the UK reached its highest power. Biographers and historians clearly describe the circle of his associates and friends, young brilliant aristocrats who created history on weekdays, and nominated from the weeks The bedrooms in the bedroom, John Kennedy was a cynical red tape today, and tomorrow - a great romantic and wise politician, whose mind, flair, boldness, charm, wit made him legend and put on a par with Churchill, Charles de Gaulle and Franklin Roosevelt. "

Marina Efimova : All reviewers of the book "The Dark Side of Camelot" agree that the author was not able to collect indisputable evidence in confirmation of his accusations against Kennedy. Moreover, at the last moment, Hersha had to remove the text of the letter from the book to Marilyn Monroe, in which the White House, supposedly, offers her money for silence about her relationship with the president. Experts determined that this letter is an undoubted forgery, because it is printed on a typewriter, which was designed only 20 years after the death of the president. The other details of this study are doubtful. Nevertheless, Hersh’s book was published, and all his unproven accusations against President Kennedy are widely discussed in the press and flaunted. How it looks from an ethical point of view - a sociologist, specialist on the problem of ethics and the press, an employee of the Brooklyn Institute, Stephen Hass.

Stephen Hass : The temptation to delve into the biographies of celebrities has always been, is and will be. Although, indeed, in some countries, intervention in private life is much stricter, and in the United States, Simura Hersha, I think, does not threaten the court, because we almost do not have laws protecting the celebrity from the press, and I do not foresee those in the near future. Moreover, with the development of the Internet, publications similar to Khersha’s book will instantly spread from America around the world.

Marina Efimova : But there are some unwritten laws, some ethical boundaries?

Stephen Hass : Generally speaking, there are no such boundaries, everything is determined by readers. At the newspapers "New York Times", "Wall Street Jornal" and "Washington Post" - some borders, among the tabloids - others. Even the television programs "CNN" and "CBS" have different ethical boundaries. И существует огромная шкала этических представлений, от христианских консервативных газет до мусорных таблоидов в супермаркетах, в которых пишут, что недавно объявился, например, капитан "Титаника" - жив-здоров. И остановить их невозможно, потому что это неконституционно. Так что в США общеобязательных лимитов практически нет, но есть этические лимиты индивидуальные или, точнее, этические нормы того слоя общества, в котором человек живет. Американцы в большинстве своем строго придерживаются того, что принято в их кругу.

"...для американского общественного мнения важнее, чтобы все, включая президента, были равны перед законом"

Марина Ефимова : Но вот сейчас Верховный суд разрешил некоей даме Поле Джонс начать судебный процесс против президента Клинтона, даже не подождав пока кончится его срок. Это все равно, что начать судебную тяжбу с главнокомандующим в разгар войны.

Стивен Хэсс : В любом случае для американского общественного мнения важнее, чтобы все, включая президента, были равны перед законом. Правда, в подобных случаях судья имеет право, и на прошлой неделе он этим правом воспользовался - запретить на какой-то срок всем участникам судебного разбирательства давать интервью журналистам. Но, разумеется, пресса имеет полное право освещать судебный процесс президента.

Марина Ефимова : Не может ли такое положение вещей отвратить от политики людей ярких и неординарных, людей с чувством собственного достоинства?

Стивен Хэсс : Думаю, что это вполне возможно, правда, пока нет недостатка в людях, стремящихся занять пост президента США, но значительность этих личностей уже многими ставится под сомнение. Что касается кабинета министров или Сената, то уже были случаи, когда кандидаты, выбранные президентом, отказывались от постов, не желая выставлять свою личную жизнь и свою семью на всеобщее обозрение. Постоянное копание в грязном белье политических деятелей имеет и более широкие последствия - публика делается циничной и теряет интерес к общественным делам.

Марина Ефимова : Ну, и чего же нам ждать в будущем?

Стивен Хэсс : Я думаю, ждать реакции общества. Общество может решить, что пора поставить какие-то границы прессе, и тогда появится новое законодательство. Проекты законов о защите частной жизни уже существуют, они были предложены после гибели принцессы Дианы, но пока их даже не обсуждают, считая неконституционными. Поэтому, скорее всего, реакция американского общества останется прежней. Охота папарацци за принцессой Дианой, судебный иск Полы Джонс или книга Херша "Темная сторона Камелота" - это, увы, неизбежная оборотная сторона главного достоинства демократического общества -свободной прессы.

Марина Ефимова : Надо помнить, я полагаю, и еще об одной оборотной стороне свободы слова. Пресса неминуемо пытается если не вульгаризировать, то упростить и усреднить выдающуюся личность для того, чтобы сделать ее понятной себе и своим читателям. "Толпа, - писал Пушкин, - (...) радуется унижению высокого, слабостям могущего. При открытии всякой мерзости она в восхищении - он мал, как мы, он мерзок, как мы! Врете, подлецы! Он и мал, и мерзок не так, как вы, – иначе".