Bobby and J. Edgar Revised Edition

Starred review from April 9, 2007
Historian and journalist Hersh (The Old Boys
) might well have titled his excellent book "Collision Course," for that is exactly what J. Edgar Hoover and the Kennedys were on from as early as the 1930s. The many tensions between Bobby (as both attorney general and senator) and the power-hungry FBI director are well known. What Hersh brings to the party is important new research and intensive analysis revealing the complex background attendant to the confrontations of the 1960s. The third party to RFK's and Hoover's sparring was Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., whose long history of professional affiliations with such gangsters as Johnny Rosselli, and amorous flirtations with the likes of Gloria Swanson, swelled one of Hoover's secret files and (like JFK's peccadilloes) did much to complicate dealings with "the Director." Joe's past still overshadowed everything when in December 1961 the father was incapacitated by a stroke, leaving his boys to deal with an FBI head who secretly despised not only the father but his brood. On this stage, in a drama populated by such fascinating and contradictory characters as Roy Cohn, Martin Luther King Jr., Jimmy Hoffa and mob boss Carlos Marcello, Hersh reveals the ways of power, deceit and survival-of-the-fittest in Kennedy-era D.C.