Mafia Helped JFK to Win, Book Claims

Indeed, according to an unpublished memoir by Hyman Raskin, a Chicago lawyer and political operative whom Hersh cites, Kennedy was forced to pick then-Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson as his running mate in 1960 when Johnson and his fellow Texan, then-House Speaker Sam Rayburn, threatened to divulge some unidentified episode from Kennedy's past. "Those bastards [Johnson and Rayburn] were trying to frame me," Raskin claimed Kennedy told him. "They threatened me with problems, and I don't need more problems. I'm going to have enough problems with Nixon."

According to numerous other accounts--including the recollections of Theodore Sorensen, Kennedy's closest aide--Johnson was offered the vice presidential slot mainly because he could help the ticket carry Southern states.

Hersh contends that Kennedy's reckless tendencies extended into foreign policy, notably his backing for undercover plots to subvert the regime of Cuban leader Fidel Castro and to assassinate Castro. These schemes, Hersh argues, helped to pave the way for Castro to accept Soviet missiles in his country, leading to the United States' near-cataclysmic confrontation with the Soviet Union in 1962.

In a revealing sidelight to that crisis, the book recounts a phone conversation Kennedy had with his predecessor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, in which the two men talked almost nonchalantly about the possibility of nuclear war. The dialogue is based on a recording made by Kennedy but withheld from the Kennedy Library by his secretary, Evelyn Lincoln. Kennedy, who was considering an invasion of Cuba, asked Eisenhower if he thought the Soviets would respond by launching nuclear weapons against this country.

"Oh, I don't believe they will," Eisenhower replied.

". . . you would take that risk if the situation seems desirable?" Kennedy asked.

"What can you do?" Eisenhower responded. ". . . I'll say this: I'd want to keep my own people very alert."

Then, Hersh writes, "Eisenhower and Kennedy shared a laugh."

The book provides details of the handsome president's alleged entanglements with a variety of women--some of which have been reported by other authors. Besides Monroe and Giancana's girlfriend, Judith Campbell Exner, Hersh writes of a 19-year-old Radcliffe College student for whom Kennedy found a place on the staff of his national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy. "It was very embarrassing," the unnamed inamorata told the author. "It put McGeorge in a very creepy situation."