History's Agenda
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History's Agenda
JFK: Part Three - The Final Mysteries with Historian Jack Stanley
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The mystery of what happened to President Kennedy's body after his assassination stands as one of the most disturbing chapters in American history. In this riveting conclusion to our JFK series, historian Jack Stanley unravels the ghoulish and bewildering events surrounding Kennedy's autopsy that suggest a sophisticated cover-up of the truth.
Stanley meticulously details how Kennedy's body apparently traveled in two different caskets—the bronze casket seen by the public and a shipping casket that arrived at Bethesda Naval Hospital via helicopter. Drawing on decades of research and newly released documents, he explains how the autopsy itself was compromised from the start, with evidence suggesting the body was altered before formal procedures began to support the official narrative of shots fired only from behind.
The infamous "magic bullet" theory comes under particular scrutiny as Stanley demonstrates its physical impossibility. "Houdini couldn't have done this better," he notes of the bullet that supposedly changed direction multiple times while causing seven wounds between two men. Even more disturbing is his compelling case that Lee Harvey Oswald never fired a shot, but was instead set up as a "patsy" who was conveniently silenced before trial.
Perhaps most chilling is the fate of Kennedy's brain and other crucial evidence that mysteriously disappeared, likely dropped into the North Atlantic inside the bronze casket on Robert Kennedy's orders—a final act of protection by a brother determined to preserve JFK's legacy.
Stanley connects the assassination to Kennedy's peace initiatives that threatened the military-industrial complex, including his American University speech that Khrushchev had printed in Pravda and the subsequent nuclear test ban treaty. These represented a dramatic shift in Cold War relations that ended abruptly with his death.
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Hello everyone and welcome back to A Better Life, new York. Part three of our JFK stories from a day in Dallas with seems to be our resident historian, jack Stanley, and the stories that he's collected over his life of research and relationships, is probably a good way to put it. Wouldn't you say so, jack? How?
Speaker 2:are you? I think so I'm doing fine. Thank you, good to see you. Good way to put it, wouldn't you say so, jack? How are you? I think so I'm doing fine. Thank you, good to see you.
Speaker 1:Good to see you, always a pleasure. We always talk about great stuff. Yeah, well, people are always like how do you know that much, steve? I said I don't know anything. I sit there and go, yes, yes, and I add a little color and jack jack knows it all I'm. I'm a, you know, poor dumb kid from new jersey.
Speaker 2:That's, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Speaker 1:It's not true at all so, anyway, where would you like to start? I mean, we got a great response and great and some nice comments about um, about our first two episodes from one and two, and if you haven't seen them, please go back to watch them. Like subscribe so you get all our notices. You will see that it's available not only on video and YouTube but also on all. Audio versions are all available on all our major streaming services Apple, spotify, everyone. So please, better Life, new York that and some of our other conversations are all available there. Abraham Lincoln, which is a great two-part episode and I still get people reaching out to me about that, about those episodes. People that maybe haven't listened to us before jack and and they heard a little bit of jfk and then they went back and are now relist are listening for the first time our conversations about lincoln. I guess they find this interesting, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Well anyway, wherever you'd like to start, please do.
Speaker 2:I think we need a little preamble, you might say, to what I want to talk about here. We talked about the assassination, the assassination, and also we talked about some of the people's reactions, some of the people I spoke to, and stuff like that. But perhaps the most bizarre part of this entire episode is the autopsy. You know the body and what happened to it, and truly what happened to the body is something absolutely ghoulish, if I may say so From the moment he got to the hospital, right From the moment he got to the hospital, everything came apart.
Speaker 2:Everything changed, of course at the hospital in Dallas, of course at Parkland, of course at the hospital in Dallas, of course at Parkland, they observed right away that there was a massive exit wound in the back of the skull and of course, there was an entrance wound right here. They didn't know about the back wound, they never turned him over. I mean they didn't really bother. I mean he had passed away before they did anything. They just basically prepared him to be taken away. But once they left Parkland, everything went bonkers. First, off, the casket that came from a funeral home was this bronze casket, very, very ornate bronze casket? Was this bronze casket, very, very ornate bronze casket? And he was wrapped in a sheet and a sheet around his head and placed inside that casket. That casket was put onto an ambulance that went to Love Field and was loaded onto Air Force One.
Speaker 1:And just to stop you there, you know the little blip of that is before they when they prepare the body. You know the coroner came in and tried to take control of the body and the Secret Service hands on guns, as they say said get out of our way, we're taking the body pretty much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a big mess, mess, yes. Well, texas law said when a crime takes place in texas, right, they need to do an autopsy there. And that's the last thing they wanted was an autopsy there and just one other point is the.
Speaker 1:the one other bit to that is and you know, I guess I've been a lawyer the last couple of days because it's the second time I mentioned things like this and that is the federal law that makes it illegal to kill a president of the United States, makes it a federal crime, had not been created yet it was created after JFK was assassinated.
Speaker 2:Of course, we had three presidential assassinations before that and nothing happened. In fact, we really didn't get to Secret Service until McKinley was assassinated.
Speaker 1:Right Lincoln had.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the thing is that after all of the commotion at Parkland is that after all of the commotion at Parkland and those doctors, I mean, they went through the hinges of health, I mean, because what they saw they eventually were told they didn't see, and if they wanted their careers to go on, they didn't see anything Very important stuff. Finally, they get to Air Force One. They can't get the casket into the plane because it's too fancy and too wide, so they have to break the handles off on the side of it to squeeze it in and also cut part of the inner bulkhead of Air Force One to fit it in a spot in the back. Now here's where it really gets bizarre.
Speaker 2:They fly back after LBJ is inaugurated and made president, with Jacqueline in her bloody outfit standing next to him, which was rather macabre in the first place, but he wanted her there. By the time they reach Washington DC, a lot of things happened. First off, they sent an ambulance, and it was a cardiac ambulance, because there was a rumor that LBJ had a heart attack. And that's what they put the casket into. It wasn't designed for that, but they got it in there and then everybody just packed themselves into the cardiac ambulance.
Speaker 1:I never heard that, that they thought LBJ had a heart attack, that there was a rumor. I never heard that.
Speaker 2:Well, he had had several heart attacks before and eventually he would die of a heart attack actually. Had several heart attacks before and eventually he would die of a heart attack actually. But the thing is that then they take the long trek to Bethesda Naval Hospital. That's where they decided they were going to take care of everything. This happens and while this is all taking place, something very, very bizarre happens at Bethesda. Something very, very bizarre happens at Bethesda. A helicopter arrives and a shipping casket is brought into Bethesda and the people there said do we know who this is? And Boswell, one of the doctors, says yes, the president's in there. They opened it up and his body is in a body bag, totally different than how things were when he left the hospital. However, the head is wrapped, but it's in a body bag bag and it's taken out of the shipping casket. And then Dr Humes, who is going to be in charge of the autopsy, shoos everyone away and he spends a bit of time with the body himself and makes the alterations that need to be made. In fact, he is seen by a few people doing things and he gets very upset when he sees them and tells them to get out.
Speaker 2:Once this takes place, eventually the cardiac ambulance arrives at Bethesda, but it sits in the front after dropping everybody off. And here's the odd part. It sits there for like 10, 15 minutes till. Finally someone tells them where to go and then the casket is brought to the loading dock of where the morgue is and everyone's a little confused because they'd already got a casket. Now they've got a second casket, but this casket is empty. Then that casket is brought to a different part of the morgue, then that casket is brought to a different part of the morgue and then, after the work is done by Humes and Boswell, before any notes are taken on an autopsy, suddenly the bronze casket arrives again with Kennedy in it.
Speaker 2:At this point there are people all set up to see the autopsy and this is when the notes start. Everything that was done previous was not marked down, was not introduced into the record Very important and it leads to tremendous confusion for half a century, because there's lots of people that work there. Said he came in a shipping casket and the other people say, oh, no. Said he came in a shipping casket and the other people say oh no, no, it was a bronze casket. Well, they were both correct. So it's really quite fascinating.
Speaker 2:And this is before anything truly starts. And then the autopsy takes place and what Humes had done previously he had adulterated the body to a degree to remove a bullet hole here, cut into the head here, and he saw it open the top lobe. Yeah, he saw it open the top part of the head. Now the thing is that once they start the autopsy, the first thing he does is go to the head, unwrap things and the brain practically falls out into his hands and he says this has been cut before. Well, he's the one that cut it, but he didn't dare say that Fascinating stuff that goes on here, and the body of course, and they do the wide cut across the chest and pull out the various organs and weigh them and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:So just let me stop you for a minute there. So what is your thoughts? Behind the body comes in a metal casket but arrives in a shipping casket on a helicopter, so somehow it gets from the plane and and there are a matter of fact I think that's the photo that will will lead into our podcast, with bobby and everyone on the plane taking the casket off the plane, and my recollection is it is not a brass casket in that picture, it's a bronze casket.
Speaker 2:It's a bronze casket. A bronze, I mean. Yeah, it's a very ornate. It was called an ornate bronze casket Really, and the reason is there's going to be another casket coming in soon, so we have another casket coming.
Speaker 1:Oh good, no shortage of caskets.
Speaker 2:This is really bizarre. I mean the things that happened. So the autopsy is done and they announced everything that deals with the autopsy and everything that they talk about in the autopsy deals with a attack from the rear. They don't even mention the fact that there's a defect in the back of the head. They say it's the side of the head from being shot in the back and then it blows out in the top.
Speaker 2:The interesting thing is that once this is all done, once this is all prepared which seems to have been done under the control of an awful lot of people telling the doctors what they could do, what they couldn't do and what they had to do, right, and the other thing is that the two fellows doing the autopsy were not at all versed in gunshot wound. I mean, everything about this says there's something wrong here. There's something wrong here. Now, the interesting thing also is this there was a fellow then who was given the body after the autopsy. His name was Tom Robinson. He was going to embalm the body. Now, if anybody could understand the various wounds, the various defects and the various problems, it would be the individual who did the embalming, because what he had to do when you embalm a body is that you're injecting the ingredients, the embalming fluid, but you have to plug up all the holes.
Speaker 1:Right, you remove the blood and plug the holes, if there's holes.
Speaker 2:It's just going to come out all over the place. Yeah, everything comes out everywhere and so he is. If anyone was aware of all the various problems with the body, all the various wounds with the body, it was Tom Robinson. Now, who, do you think, was not asked a single question by the Warren Commission what a shock. And also the doctors at Parkland. They talked, but they didn't use what they said. They only used what was in the autopsy and the autopsy says he was shot from behind and the head broke apart there. But then, once again, as I mentioned before with the Warren Commission, they never saw photographs. They saw drawings, correct, correct Photographs.
Speaker 1:They saw drawings Correct, and that's how Gerald Ford moved the bullet up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course. The thing is that one of the things that was found out about the wounds that was found out during the autopsy that is interesting is that the bullet that hit was the entrance wound. It tore right through the neck and went down right above the lung and that would have killed him without the headshot Because, as I mentioned, it hit a nerve and he couldn't breathe. But also there was so much damage done to that whole area that he would have suffocated before anyone could have helped him which is kind of an interesting thing.
Speaker 2:That was something that was discovered Now in the autopsy notes. Dr Humes presented his fourth edition of his autopsy notes. The first he burned, he said, because there was bloodstains on it. But that doesn't handle number two and number three. It's the fourth autopsy report that exists today. It has been so pasteurized and so basically cleaned of any problems. It follows the entire story to a T. It's really amazing.
Speaker 2:You know, I've been studying this for years and years and years and now so much more information is out. And there's a fellow by the name of Douglas Horne. I would recommend you take an opportunity to listen to him. He was one of the people in charge of the Papers Project, like from 1995 to like 1998. If anybody understands this, it's him, and a lot of the information that helped me was listening to him. And he has a series of things on YouTube. You can listen to his talks. They're long, they're detailed, they're information loaded. Sometimes you have to watch it two or three times to get some of the information because it's so much, and he has been very, very helpful in this. Now the other thing I wanted to mention to you here. I wrote down a few things. It's the fourth autopsy report, Not only in the Warren report were no pictures used in 1979 when they did the assassination review again of the Warren Commission and stuff like that. They get drawings as well. I mean, doesn't that sound rather bizarre?
Speaker 1:Well, you would think that they probably can't figure out which photos are real and which ones are not. Well, most of them are fakes, right, because?
Speaker 2:Right, because where they show the wounds in the photographs, it's been doctored. There are over 40 individuals in the medical field that observed the defect in the back of the head. Now, obviously, they're not all basically hallucinating, true, okay, but they saw it, but they couldn't say anything. Now they can say things. Now, people, the ones that are still alive, the vast majority of them are all gone now, but the thing is that this was done. This was a combination of the CIA and the military. I am pretty, pretty positive that this is somewhat of the rogue parts of the CIA and also, you know, the Joint Chiefs. They wanted to get rid of him. He was doing everything that they didn't want and, if you think about it, Maxwell Taylor was the head of the Joint Chiefs, or was he still there?
Speaker 2:I don't know if he still was. Lemay.
Speaker 1:He was there for LeMay I didn't think LeMay he was fishing when this happened, right. And I didn't think LeMay he was fishing when this happened, right. And I didn't think that he. I never thought that he had a role in it. He may have been aware it was going to happen, but I never thought he had a role.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to say he had a role in it. I'm going to say and agree with you that he was probably very aware of it. You've got to remember. There were two other assassination attempts.
Speaker 1:One in.
Speaker 2:Chicago and one in Miami, right, and they were foiled and, of course, dallas was successful. So, getting back to his embalming, he was put back together as best as could be and dressed and everything sealed up, everything together, making him presentable because he would be viewed by the family, and he was placed in an African mahogany casket, which is the one which he's still in, I hope.
Speaker 1:I was going to say I don't mean to laugh, but so many bizarre things happened here, right, yeah, oh yeah. You almost say to yourself come on already.
Speaker 2:Now there's a couple of other things I want to say here that are going to be a little bit controversial.
Speaker 1:It's okay, we like a little controversy.
Speaker 2:I have said this before, but I will say it much more aggressively I don't think Oswald fired a single shot. I don't think Oswald was at that window.
Speaker 1:It's so funny you say that I don't think he's filed a single shot. I don't think he was at the window, he was either in a cafeteria, but I believe he was standing on the front steps. Could very well be.
Speaker 2:When they went in, the police came in. 90 seconds after the shots, the police came in and Oswald was sitting there with a Coke in his hand, right. I mean, he wasn't winded.
Speaker 2:And not on that floor, right, he was a few floors down, that's in the second floor and also and the Warren Commission had this thing set up that he fired the gun, ran over, hid the gun, ran over to the steps, went down four flights of stairs, not winded of course, got a Coke and was standing there. It's insane. I don't care how healthy you are, I don't care how healthy you are.
Speaker 1:If you had just shot the president of the.
Speaker 1:United States, your adrenaline, with some of the greatest marketmanship in American history. Right, I don't care how much of a marksman he was and how good he was, come on that shot. If anybody took it and everybody made it, it would have been amazing. And then, with the worst rifle ever made, the greatest shot with the worst rifle ever made, from the most difficult position that you couldn't see from. And yet you're on the second floor having a Coke in the cafeteria. Yeah, it's a little hard to believe Now.
Speaker 2:I will add a couple of other things about Oswald. I think he was very much involved with the FBI, CIA and when he saw what was going on he went to go see his handler, which is at the theater, where he was waiting to meet his handler, and it's amazing that there were like 10 police cars waiting for him and then he was taken in. He knew he had been screwed. I mean he was a patsy.
Speaker 1:I mean there were people that saw him there and said that he looked a little jumpy and he was looking around like he was waiting for someone. Yeah, yeah, I mean he wasn't waiting. He wasn't hidden in the theater because he didn't think the police were going to find him there. He was meeting somebody else but, strangely enough, they knew where he was going.
Speaker 2:They knew everything. Yeah, they knew everything about him. And the other thing is that they tie the gun to Oswald because they said there's a picture of him posing with it, the picture that he's posing with that gun. It's not the same gun. The straps are different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one's on the side and one's on the back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not the same gun. I think, as time goes by, the United States needs to offer an apology to Oswald Now. He might have known some things, but he didn't kill the president and I think he deserves a pardon for that.
Speaker 1:And maybe in the future he will.
Speaker 2:But you know something? I think it's so ingrained in people's minds because to this very day, the Warren Commission is still the narrative of the assassination. Think about that the magic bullet. The stupid idea that the bullet went through his neck in the back, went out through the front, broke bones, smashed this, smashed that and came out not perfect. But all you have to do is hit one bone with a gun, with a bullet. That bullet's going to show a lot of defects. It's so ridiculous. And of course it was invented to solve the situation, because there were only three shots, because there was only three casings up there which were very carefully put out so people would find them. It's really rather incredible. And you know something?
Speaker 2:I saw an interview with the mortician that took care of Oswald for his funeral and he said it was a very interesting thing. He said members of government people. He didn't know what they were. They said they wanted to see the body. And well, the thing is, no one seems to know why. But the mortician said wait, no, why. They took the fingerprints from Oswald and put them onto the gun Because he had such a hard time, he said, trying to get all the ink off of the corpse's hands. Everything was all touched up and fiddled with. See, it's really sad to actually think that this happened. You know I mean we have this wonderful sanitized version that this lone nut on the sixth floor fired three shots, two of them hit, killed the president, he got captured and then he's conveniently killed. Therefore, there doesn't need to be a trial, because well, and they don't have any arguments either, because everything's set.
Speaker 1:So I just want to just talk about this lone assassin thing. You wonder how much damage it did to the crazies of the future because there became this belief that this lone gunman could change the world, and what that led to other people believing that they could be a lone assassin and could change the world. Because Oswald did it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:He's a whole part of a musical called the Assassins. Yeah, you know, the thing is that it is my belief that Lee Harvey Oswald never shot Kennedy, that he was a convenient patsy and it was preset. And I think it would be the same in Chicago and the same in Miami that there would be another Oswald type that would conveniently be killed. And in each case that solves everything, because then the Warren Commission could just say what it wants. Because who's to know? And I can remember when this all started, when it came out, we all believed it. You know why not, why would they lie to us? But slowly, people like Mark Lane he said this is nonsense, it doesn't make any sense and other researchers and countless researchers. And then the movie came out which I talked to Gerald Ford about and he said it's a great movie but it's not based on fact. Well, there's more fact in that movie than there is in the Warren Commission report.
Speaker 1:You didn't say that to him, did you? No, that's funny, but it's amazing. I always found it amazing. The magic bullet theory. I always found it amazing and I mean, why did they need to go that far? I mean, nobody was really. Nobody was really. I mean they tried to quell public opinion, if you will, but the guy was dead, oswald. In some extent there was nothing we could do. Maybe it's LBJ's paranoia, but I don't know.
Speaker 2:The thing is that they had to come up with three shots Because that's the way it was reported, so they were stuck there and then they discovered that one of the shots totally missed. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of shots missed.
Speaker 2:To be perfectly honest, there were shots. There were bullets coming in every which direction. That was such a this was such an organized killing shot. It's incredible. But the thing is they had to come up with a theory and obviously one hit the head. So that left one bullet Doing all of those wounds. So that left one bullet doing all of those wounds. And then Arlen Specter, he came up with the incredible magic bullet. I mean Houdini couldn't have done this better. I mean it had to go. If you look at the wounds, it had to go like this. It went in every which direction.
Speaker 2:What Cyril, cyril Wendt, the coroner. It had to go like this, this, and it went in every which direction. What Cyril went, the coroner, right, he immediately was talking about how it was. This is absolute hogwash. He said bullets don't work this way. And he's very important. I mean he was well known in his field and he became a strong advocate that this was nothing but a sham and truly it was.
Speaker 2:And JFK was put into his African mahogany casket and I talked to people that were there when he was laid out in the White House, and I think Jacqueline Kennedy. She was basically saying it doesn't look like him. Of course, his body was terribly disfigured. It was a, you know, gunshot wound. But that's the end of this whole thing. You would think it's a terrible, horrible tragedy that basically he scared the daylights out of the military industrial complex, as Eisenhower warned us, and he was willing. He had guts. I have to. He was willing, he had guts. I have to give him that he had guts. He sat there and said this is what we need to do and he started doing it and they looked upon it as treason.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. They think they were protecting us.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, and so they removed him Now. Now the interesting story.
Speaker 1:Okay, finally get to this. I've been waiting for this for days.
Speaker 2:The brain was removed. Obviously it had been removed previously, because you know an interesting thing, and I learned this from Douglas Warren there were two large glass vials that contained bullet fragments pulled from the brain and pulled from the body, and in one of the vials there was enough to equal two, almost two, bullets. They said less, it was more than one and a little less than two, and then there was another vial Horn is again.
Speaker 1:tell us who Horn is again.
Speaker 2:He was one of the people in charge of the papers project, of the, the jfk papers, to to basically release a lot of them. So he was going through and finding what was going to stay and what was going to go, and obviously he was sick and tired of the the nonsense. And so he's just right saying what he, what he truly believes, what the evidence tells him and, as I said, if anybody knows, he's a person that I would definitely believe. And so, right there, that's destroying this whole thing with the one shot to the head, because there's enough to make more than one bullet just from the pieces. Right, and this was all done before the autopsy. This was all done before the autopsy, you've got to remember.
Speaker 2:He basically gets adulterated, so it fits the narrative, and then he arrives in the bronze casket, basically cleaned of a good deal of the bullets. So after that is all done, after this whole switch and bait show is done, there are the brain, there is the brain, there are tissue slides, there are many photographs, there are many x-rays, there is also handwritten notes pertaining to the autopsy, and Robert Kennedy announces that the family should get all of that, and so he and Evelyn Lincoln are put in charge of that material which is presented to him with this inventory, to him with this inventory. Now, as time goes by, it is decided that it should belong to the National Archives, and so they tell him it has to be returned. They returned some of it, but the brain, the tissue sides, photographs, x-rays, paperwork has not returned. And when?
Speaker 1:was that when asked?
Speaker 2:I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:When was that that they requested it back?
Speaker 2:1960. Okay, robert Kennedy announces you know I'm returning this, he said the rest of it I have made unavailable. Learning this, he said the rest of it I have made unavailable. Now, what happens in 1965 is the Rosetta Stone to this whole thing. Robert Kennedy announces to the National Archives that bronze casket that Kennedy was in, was out and was back in again, was being held by the National Archives and Robert Kennedy said this should be removed because it'll become a morbid curiosity, and he gets permission to take it, have it hold, taken out to the North Atlantic and dropped my theory.
Speaker 2:The brain, the tissue slides, all of the material that gives any evidence to the body and any evidence to the various drugs JFK is on, are gone. They're in the casket. It makes sense and that was my feeling and I've said this for years, because Robert Kennedy always cleaned up after his brother. That is true and I think that this is his final job. He didn't put the brain down by the body Because the brain could be examined. If the brain no longer exists, it can't be looked at. If the tissue slides don't exist, they can't be looked at. Now, that was my feeling and I felt very, very pleased to hear Douglas Horn say through his research in the papers he believes that is what happened. Wow, the brain was not buried with him, jane was not buried with him. The head of Arlington National Cemetery was there during the exhumation and movement and he said nothing was placed in there with the casket and the casket is in a Wilbur vault, sealed in a Wilbur vault. So nothing was ever placed in there with the casket in the wilbur vault.
Speaker 1:It's a strange story, right, how he ended up being buried where he's buried, that he had been on a trip for some reason to and you correct me when I'm wrong to arlington, and he still ended in a site and the other said to jackie or his you know, this is a pretty nice spot, I wouldn't mind being buried here, or something to that effect. I'm paraphrasing yeah, yeah, shortly later he's killed and he ends up getting buried in that very spot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the line somewhere like that you know I could spend eternity here. I guess something along the lines of that because he was fascinated with history. You got to understand that JFK was a history nerd from the get-go. He used to go to the Arlington House and go up to the third floor attic and there was a little peephole that they used during the Civil War. He used to love to look through that thing. He was just fascinated with history. He studied all kinds of history. He was surrounded with books on history.
Speaker 1:Right, I remember during the Cuban submisss crisis. He excuse me, sorry, oh bless you. He thank you. In the recordings, if you listen to him, he talks about books and I can't remember the exact book about a book that he had just read from World War. I Do you remember? What the book was the Guns of August just read from world war one do you remember what the guns of august guns? Yeah, and he said he wished that everybody on the front line that was on the the.
Speaker 2:I think he was referring to the ships at sea right, yeah, that with the cuban missile crisis, with blockade, he insisted everybody in his cabinet read the book, right, he said that is a guide to show us what we don't want to do Exactly, and he was very much guided by history. I don't think I've mentioned this, but I was fortunate to talk on the phone a couple of times with Arthur Schlesinger. Oh right, and Arthur Schlesinger, oh right, and Arthur was his historian and he would always. He said Arthur would say that he'd walk into his office and say, arthur, what happened today in history? And another thing and I remember talking to Arthur's daughter, who also taught in the school where I taught, and she told me that one day her father was in the office and they were constantly doing history all the time because he was Kennedy's historian. And he said JFK came in the office in the East Wing, because that's where Arthur was, and said Arthur, let's not do history this week, let's do movie reviews. Well, you like movies? Yeah, just fun, crazy stuff that would break the monotony.
Speaker 2:I have to say that JFK is just a fascinating character. He had lots of flaws, especially around women. A fascinating character. He had lots of flaws, especially around women. But the thing is he also was a fascinating, brilliant and incredible individual and if you ever want to hear a speech that will blow your mind, listen to his speech on peace given at American University. And I was at the memorial service for Arthur Schlesinger, which was at Cooper Union in New York, and all of the members of the administration that were left all came and spoke and of course they talked about what it was like, you know, and it was the last gathering of Camelot, I may say. Basically, and it was a fascinating thing for me to observe and to watch and it was mind-boggling just to hear the various things that he would talk about and do and stuff like that. And of course Arthur was a very important part of that whole thing and he eventually wrote a great deal about JFK Right and, of course, cleaned him up a little bit too.
Speaker 2:I'm sure he did you know?
Speaker 1:at JFK you would say that at his worst it was the worst, but at his best he always was the best. I mean stories of him at the war, you know, think of Bay of Pigs. They're really amazing, amazing things. So he saved the world. Maybe saved the world from the military existence that may have happened, maybe save the world from the military existence that may have happened.
Speaker 2:You know, the thing is that JFK I guess in closing here, yeah, I have since I was a kid and remember this event because this has been a part of my entire life and you know I've kind of known about this kind of studied, it read about it from the time it took place, for 62 years now practically. And JFK I have despised, admired, questioned all through various parts of my life, as I've learned and as I've experienced the various parts. That was JFK. He was a very much, had a brain that was very much into wonderful compartments and he could just focus on one compartment. And I have to say that, yes, he was flawed and which amongst us are not, we're all flawed people. But with the Cuban Missile Crisis, every expert he spoke to, except for just a handful, said bomb Cuba. Had that happened, you and I would not be having this conversation right now. That is true, because there are no winners in a nuclear conflict. And the other thing is this the person who really helped JFK was what was his name? Isn't that awful? He ran against Eisenhower for president Adlai Stevenson. Adlai Stevenson, thank you very much. My tongue over my eye teeth, I couldn't see what I was saying there. I got my tongue over my eye teeth and I couldn't see what I was saying there.
Speaker 2:The Adlai Stevenson suggested in a luncheon with JFK after the Cuban Missile Crisis was going on. He suggested why don't we get rid of the missiles in Turkey and Italy and trade? And JFK wasn't quite sure what he wanted to do at that point but he thought it might be somewhat cowardly. And Adlai Stevenson said something very fascinating. He said sometimes you need a coward, sometimes you need a coward to find out how not to fight. And eventually that was how it was solved Right. And I mean it was this close. We hardly realized how damn close this was to really breaking loose, including on a submarine.
Speaker 1:Right Well it's funny because when Bobby heard he had said that, whether Bobby was there or not, I think he was afterwards in confidence. I think he told John Kennedy, jack Kennedy, the president, that you know he thought you know it was a cowardly thing. He thought it was a cowardly thing and one of Kennedy's great obsessions, as we know about history, is doing the opposite thing and how much courage that takes. And Kennedy's view was. I think it took great courage in front of all the people that were here, to say such a thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know how that message was sent. I mean Khrushchev. Khrushchev had a, he was really fired up. But JFK, and sent his brother over to talk to the Russian ambassador and Robert Kennedy, he was nearly in tears. He said I don't know how much longer we can hold out before we might be taken over, that it might be a military coup.
Speaker 2:And the same thing was going on in Russia, in the USSR, absolutely. And so these two leaders, khrushchev and Kennedy, both had their wits scared out of them seeing how far this thing went and how easy it was to raise the bar to such a spot where you couldn't stop it. And that led the two of them to start a dialogue. And then, when jfk did the peace speech at american university, where he said that we all inhabit this small planet and we all breathe the same air and we all wish the best for our children, and he gave a talk and he said how hard it was for the Soviet Union during World War II, how they lost so much, and he said we don't think of that, you know, and we have to understand that they are human too, they are like us.
Speaker 2:And Khrushchev heard that speech and he said that was the greatest speech I've ever heard since FDR and had it printed in Pravda. I mean think of that, yeah, fdr. And had it printed in Pravda? I mean think of that, yeah. And so those two totally changed things. And shortly after the peace speech they signed the nuclear bill where they cut back on their weapons and testing. And it was a start. And then, of course, kennedy is gone and Khrushchev not long after.
Speaker 1:You can wonder that it wasn't a start. It really was the finish. That speech made this military-industrial complex, if you want to say. The Joint Chiefs themselves really had to put a target on his back.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure that was the last straw.
Speaker 1:The fait accompli as you will.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Because he basically said to Sorensen, who was his speechwriter, he said should we check with people? And he said, no, I'm going to do it. And Sorensen was there at Cooper Union, at this memorial, and you know, I was sitting there thinking that here is the voice of JFK. He's the guy that he took JFK's words and made them into something poetic, very much like Lincoln and Seward as they worked together. So I think I've talked enough here.
Speaker 1:I think we'll end it there. I look forward to our next conversations. We've talked about Lincoln. We've talked about Kennedy at length, more than we talked about Lincoln. Whatever president, you want to talk about another president, please?
Speaker 2:Sure, we can do something.
Speaker 1:Let's start the conversations.
Speaker 2:I know you love presidents. There's so many different things I love presidents Sure.
Speaker 1:There's so many different things, but I want to thank you for all your time. It's a great pleasure to document this research you've done over the course of your life and to have conversations that many, many people listen to, and I appreciate it so thank you very much and look forward to our next foray.
Speaker 1:I do too. And for those of you that listen to our other podcast site, Listen to our other podcast site and that is A Better Life for Collectors. You can listen to Jack there. We've had some conversations about many different things, mostly about Edison and some of his great things, but we have talked about doing something about Caruso and that is still hanging out there, so I'd love to you know, do one on Caruso. So I thank you all where please like and subscribe. You're listening to us on you or watching us on youtube, as well as any of the audios on a great audio podcast. Thank you so much, jack.
Speaker 1:Enjoy the rest of your day, make sure you let everything, make sure you let everything upload before you hang up all right bye thanks.
