The JFK Conspiracy Few Know About is a Riveting Thriller
As a trained historian, I pride myself on having in-depth knowledge on certain topics of history and a general sense of a wide range of other topics. This book showcased an event I never knew about.
When I saw the title of Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch’s new book, The JFK Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Kennedy―and Why It Failed, I’ll admit it threw me. Was this a heretofore unknown account of that horrible day in 1963? Not at all. This is a retelling of another attempt on JFK’s life, this time in the weeks right after Election Day 1960.
What? How did I miss this story in all of my study of American and presidential history? Not sure. I knew about the attempt on Abraham Lincoln’s life as he made his way to the Washington DC in 1861 (see Meltzer and Mensch’s second book). I also knew about the attempted assassination of Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, and even the failed attempts on Harry Truman and Gerald Ford. But Kennedy?
Absolutely.
I’ll admit: I could try my hand at describing this book, but in this case, I’m going to let their words speak for themselves:
“On December 11, 1960, shortly after Kennedy’s election and before his inauguration, a retired postal worker named Richard Pavlick waited in his car―a parked Buick―on a quiet street in Palm Beach, Florida. Pavlick knew the president-elect’s schedule. He knew when Kennedy would leave his house. He knew where Kennedy was going. From there, Pavlick had a simple plan―one that could’ve changed the course of history.”
As they have done in their previous conspiracy books, Meltzer and Mensch use present tense as their prose of choice. It provides the book with an urgent momentum, especially considering the vast majority of readers (like me!) don’t know the story and are breathlessly turning the pages to find out what happens next. And why what Pavlick wanted to do never happened.
I mention “turning pages” but with this book, as I have with all the conspiracy books, I opt for the audio. Why? Because the great Scott Brick narrates this book. By far my favorite narrator, Brick puts special emphasis on certain words that have the effect of drawing you even more into the story.
Jackie Kennedy is Nearly the Star of This Book
Having just lived through our own contemporary presidential transition, I found myself eating up all the little nuggets of history about the transition from the Eisenhower Administration to Kennedy’s. Key in these few weeks is Jackie Kennedy, the pregnant wife of the president-elect.
Meltzer and Mensch describe her health, the intricacies of what needs to be done–and what is expected by society and tradition–her budding friendship with Clint Hill, her Secret Service agent, and the birth of John Jr. during Thanksgiving week. I made a point not to jump on the internet and look up Clint Hill and read his story, but I knew he was the agent who jumped on the back of the convertible in 1963. I found myself loving every moment about Jackie Kennedy in this book, and even wanted the two authors to continue past the timeframe of their book.
The Final Chapter: Its Vision and Mandate
Meltzer and Mensch do conclude their book, recounting the events of the successful assassination in 1963. It bookends the opening which recounts Kennedy’s heroic efforts in 1943 on PT-109. They’ve taken us through the transition, described the characteristics and foibles of JFK, Jackie, and others, and delivered a stark yet empowering conclusion.
Life is messy. Human beings are messy and laced with contradictions. Kennedy’s soaring rhetoric can fill our hearts with pride even though we know he could be petty and cruel to those he loved. But that’s everyone, right? We’re all human. We’re all imperfect. We all have flaws, but it’s what we do despite of or because of those flaws that propels us forward.
The final words Meltzer and Mensch put in their book is actually from President Kennedy himself:
“All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet.
But let us begin.”