NEW YORK — It may be one of the most penetrating--or disgusting--revelations ever printed about John F. Kennedy.
In "The Dark Side of Camelot" (Little, Brown), Seymour Hersh alleges that in September 1963, JFK severely tore a groin muscle during a poolside sexual romp at Bing Crosby's Southern California home.
The injury caused Kennedy to wear a shoulder-to-groin body brace that prevented him from bending--thus making him a perfect target for the assassin's bullet that blew his head off in Dallas two months later.
It's the kind of bombshell that readers have come to expect from Hersh, one of America's top investigative reporters. Yet some may be surprised to learn that the anecdote, a darkly portentous linking of character and fate, is not Hersh's own.
Although it first appears dramatically and without attribution on Page 12, the story resurfaces on Page 439 with a footnote indicating that it actually was written in 1987 by Hugh Sidey, a White House correspondent for Time magazine.
As controversy builds over Hersh's latest work--a scathing assault on Kennedy's character and its impact on his conduct in office--one question seems to be dogging the author more than any other: How much of this material has surfaced before?
Indeed, the sordid tales of Kennedy's extramarital flings and his alleged ties to the mob have long been fodder for an army of authors, columnists and reporters. Even though Hersh insists his book is chock-full of new information, he seems resigned to the fact that readers might not realize it--or care.
"This was a horrible dilemma for us; it was of enormous concern," Hersh said, leaning back in a swivel chair in his publisher's Manhattan offices on Monday, the first day of his book tour.
"I had a little note taped on my wall from my editor as I wrote, which reminded me to ask three things: 'What's new? Why is this in the book? And what does it tell us about JFK?' "
Prudent advice for an author who received an estimated $1-million advance. But ironic questions for a reporter who has built an impressive career as a loner--someone who looks for stories where others fail to go. With this new book, Hersh is suddenly and uncharacteristically swimming in waters that were shark-infested long before he arrived on the scene.
"I have to make a living," he says, explaining his decision to write the book. "My editor here, Jim Silberman, who had been publisher of Little, Brown, had been telling me for 10 years: Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy."
