Brothers : The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years

London: Simon & Schuster. Very Good/Very Good. 2007. First Edition, First Impression. Hard Cover. Lge 8vo 1847370829 Dust jacket complete, unclipped. Original boards with bright silver titling on spine. No ownership inscription. Photographs on Plates. 478 pages clean and tight. For decades, books about John or Robert Kennedy have woven either a shimmering tale of Camelot gallantry or a tawdry story of runaway ambition and reckless personal behaviour. But the real story of the Kennedys in the 1960s has long been submerged - until now. In Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, David Talbot sheds dramatic new light on the tumultuous inner life of the Kennedy presidency and its stunning aftermath. Brothers begins on the shattering afternoon of November 22, 1963, as a grief-stricken Robert Kennedy urgently demands answers about the assassination of his brother. Bobby's suspicions immediately focus on the nest of CIA spies, gangsters and Cuban exiles that had long been plotting a violent regime-change in Cuba. The Kennedys had struggled to control this swamp of anti-Castro intrigue based in southern Florida, but with little success. Brothers then shifts back in time, revealing the shadowy conflicts that tore apart the Kennedy administration, pitting the young president and his even younger brother against their own national security apparatus. The Kennedy brothers and a small circle of their most trusted advisors repeatedly thwarted Washington's warrior caste. These hard-line generals and spymasters were hell-bent on a showdown with the Communist foe - in Berlin, Laos,Vietnam, and especially Cuba. But the Kennedys continually frustrated their hawkish ambitions, pushing instead for a peaceful resolution to the Cold War. The tensions within the Kennedy administration grew to an explosive climax, until a burst of gunfire in a sunny Dallas plaza terminated John F. Kennedy's presidency. Based on interviews with more than 150 people - including many of the Kennedys' ageing `band of brothers' whose testimony here might be their final word on this epic political story - as well as newly released government documents, Brothers tells the compelling, untold story of the Kennedy years, including JFK's heroic efforts to keep the country out of cataclysmic war and Bobby Kennedy's secret quest to solve his beloved brother's murder. Bobby's subterranean search was a dangerous one and led, in part, to his own quest for power in 1968, a passion-filled campaign that ended with his own murder. As Talbot reveals here, RFK might have been the victim of the same plotters whom he suspected of killing his brother. This is historical storytelling at its riveting best - meticulously researched and movingly told, Brothers is a sprawling narrative about the clash of powerful men and the darker side of the Cold War - a tale of tragic grandeur that is certain to change our understanding of the relentlessly fascinating Kennedy saga. .