Bombshells and Brickbats

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.”

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Hersh burst into prominence in 1969 with an expose of the My Lai military massacre of Vietnamese civilians. In later books, he probed Henry Kissinger’s controversial White House diplomacy, the Soviet shoot-down of Korean Airlines Flight 007, and the nuclear secrets of Israeli military intelligence.

Each time, he has reaped critical praise and honors, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award and three George Polk awards. A former New York Times reporter, he also has drawn fire from targets who accuse him of deep bias.

Yet nothing matched the controversy that erupted two months ago when Hersh was attacked before his book on Kennedy even appeared. Media sources learned he had written a scorching chapter--the very centerpiece of his work--based on forged documents.

As Hersh now admits, he was prepared to argue that Marilyn Monroe had blackmailed JFK to keep their alleged sexual relationship and his mob ties secret. The chapter was deleted after forensic experts concluded that his source documents were bogus. The story cast a shadow on Hersh’s work, although ABC-TV still plans to air a special based on his book sometime next month.

Asked what is new in “The Dark Side of Camelot,” Hersh looked like a boxer who is cornered before the opening bell rings. He offered a torrent of stories and justifications.

Unlike other Kennedy critics, the author said, he’s got four former members of the U.S. Secret Service speaking on the record about JFK’s sexual peccadilloes. He’s got key sources linking the president to Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana. He has materials suggesting that John Kennedy and his brother, Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy, helped organize clandestine plots to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro as late as 1962.

“The original idea was to see if we can figure out how this president died by looking at how he lived,” said Hersh, a brash, combative man of 60 who clearly is itching for a fight.

More important, he continued, it is important for Americans to “reclaim” history that has been lost in the mists of Camelot. Reverence for the late president has “now gone well beyond myth. It’s a national cult, and we need to understand this.”

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Others are not so kind. As expected, Kennedy loyalists Arthur Schlesinger and Theodore Sorenson--both of whom wrote adoring biographies of JFK--have trashed Hersh’s book, calling it “political pornography” built on rumors and gossip.

Historians without personal axes to grind also have been harsh. In a blistering Time magazine review, Columbia University professor Alan Brinkley excoriates “The Dark Side of Camelot” for superficial research, asserting that “no one should expect to find [the truth] in Hersh’s embarrassing book.”

It is doubly depressing, Brinkley adds, “to see such shoddy and careless arguments and such self-serving credulity coming from a celebrated investigative reporter.”

Hersh is used to the heat.

Born in Chicago, he drifted into journalism after dropping out of law school. Starting with a wire service in his hometown, he gained a reputation for tough, pugnacious reporting. He was not an easy person to get along with and he made enemies easily. But his work spoke for itself.

When he uncovered the My Lai killings, it spoke to millions. Single-handedly, Hersh showed Americans that some of their soldiers in Vietnam were out of control--killing, raping and maiming civilians in an atrocity that sickened the world.

He got his story the old-fashioned way: Acting on a tip, the journalist bluffed his way into interviews with sources, demanded documents and wrote articles that gripped the imagination.

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To this day, his reporting on My Lai remains a model of tenacious inquiry in the public interest. But now, as “The Dark Side of Camelot” stirs fresh debate, there are questions about the limitations--and utility--of his reporting skills.

What happens, after all, when an investigative journalist veers into the domain of political history and biography? To his credit, Hersh suggests that there are no easy answers.

In a memorable chapter, for example, he alleges that Kennedy may have been forced to select Lyndon B. Johnson as his running-mate in 1960 because LBJ threatened to expose Kennedy’s sexual indiscretions. Many historians have examined the reasons why Johnson was given the vice presidential slot; few have embraced Hersh’s theory.

His proof? He cites interviews with the late Hy Raskin, a historically obscure but politically well-connected insider in Illinois. Raskin would be in a position to know, Hersh argues, but his evidence is deeper than that.

Hersh said that Raskin’s widow, Frances, called him and mentioned that her husband had written an unpublished memoir spelling out JFK’s anguished decision about Johnson. She said it was based on private conversations that Raskin claimed to have had with the late president.

“This darling, sweet lady from the south side of Chicago . . . who liked me because I’m a nice Jewish boy taking her to dinner--and she’s a lovely lady--calls me,” Hersh recalled. “And she said to me: ‘Did you know? There’s a memoir.’

“Bang, slam, bam! I’m in Kinko’s the next week.”

Hersh offered other corroborating proof for the story, but conceded that no one will ever know what Johnson really said to JFK. It’s not an ironclad theory, the author acknowledged, but he insisted that no self-respecting journalist could ignore such juicy material.

“Should I have written it?” Hersh asked rhetorically. “Oh, yes. Did I caveat it? Yes. Do I have the memoir? Oh, yes.”

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But is this how history should be written? Historians often spend years sifting through contradictory accounts. They weigh the veracity of sources and frequently refuse to make snap judgments about The Truth because there’s not enough proof.

“I knew this [argument] was eventually going to come out,” Hersh said. “Historians will say, ‘You didn’t prove it!’ But journalists will say, ‘Wow! This is a great story!’ ”

Real reporters never outgrow the thrill of the hunt, and so it is with Hersh. He said that in his research, he came to have great respect for Judith Campbell Exner, an Orange County resident who has alleged that she was a mistress to JFK and mob boss Giancana. Hersh also said he gained fresh insights into Monroe, describing her as a tough, intelligent woman under siege.

Once, a great story with killer sources was enough for Hersh. But in a media culture where one comment can cancel out another, he believes the printed word no longer may be sufficient to prove a point and convince millions of people.

“I knew after I got the Secret Service people [on the record] I was in trouble,” Hersh said, predicting the debate would degenerate into their word versus someone else’s. For real impact, he needed a more powerful medium. At that point, he hooked up with a TV production company.

The result: the ABC documentary, with 61 of Hersh’s sources on camera. It will be shown in prime time, narrated by Peter Jennings.

“I decided I needed TV for credibility,” the reporter said. “As much as I’ve been around, writing about massacres and the CIA, I knew that this was the Kennedys. And I knew that to get them, I needed something extraordinary.”

He flashed a smile and added: “I know what’s coming.”