IV
But as bad as all the above is, its not the worst part of this awful book. No, the worst part is when Wallace tries to show that the Kennedy campaign stole the 1960 election. To do this, he does something I thought no credible author would ever do again. He trots out Judy Exner and Sy Hersh. Again, can the man be for real? He must be the only reporter in America who is not aware that the book he is using, Hersh’s The Dark Side of Camelot, was discredited before it was even published.
Hersh famously fell for a phony trust that was allegedly set up between the Kennedys and Marilyn Monroe by her attorney Aaron Frosch. Hersh was told, not once, but twice that the signatures were faked. (For an analysis of this, click here https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/sy-hersh-falls-on-his-face-again-and-again-and-again) When experts in forgeries finally examined the papers, they proved to be forged in every way. The question later became why did Hersh, or his publisher, not do an examination first?
But then Hersh used Exner and, as one will read above and below, that story also blew up in his face. Exner—who we will deal with soon-- had now changed her story a second time. She now said she was knowingly exchanging messages between John Kennedy and Sam Giancana. Unlike Wallace, Hersh realized Exner’s ever evolving story had credibility problems. So Hersh now said that there was a witness to her messenger mission, namely Martin Underwood, a political operative for Mayor Richard Daley. (Hersh, pp. 304-305)
Like the Monroe trust BS, this also exploded in Hersh’s face. Because when Underwood was examined under oath by the Assassination Records Review Board, he denied he did any such thing. (ARRB Final Report, p. 136) But incredibly, Wallace alludes to that part of the story again here. For whatever reason, he does not name Underwood. (Wallace, p. 113)
Now, still going with “pie on his face” Hersh, Wallace writes that Joseph Kennedy was involved in bootlegging operations with organized crime during Prohibition. This was disproved by author Daniel Okrent in his fine book on the era titled Last Call. Okrent went through nearly 900 pages of FBI documents on Joe Kennedy. These were done to clear him for the many positions he served on in government. Okrent found not one page or source who said a word about any such involvement. Joe Kennedy biographer David Nasaw discovered the same for his book, The Patriarch. But Nasaw, who had unprecedented access to Joe Kennedy’s files, also went over how Joe got so very rich. It was through stocks, real estate and, above all, the film business. As Okrent notes in his book, this mob mythology was begun in the sixties by gangsters who clearly had an agenda to smear JFK and RFK since they had made their lives so troublesome with their war against the Mob.
Another point that Wallace sidesteps is this. As FBI agent William Roemer explained in his book, Man Against the Mob, the Bureau had total surveillance on Giancana. This included following him everywhere he went and having electronic wires on four dwellings that he did his business in. In Roemer’s 400 page book one will read no reference on tape to any arrangement with Joe Kennedy or the election. Which is pretty convincing that it never happened.
But for me, there is something even more convincing. That is the work of professor John Binder. His landmark article “Organized Crime and the 1960 Presidential Election” first appeared in 2007 at Public Choice; it has been preserved at Research Gate. In a statistical study, Binder examined the returns for what were considered the 5 Chicago Outfit controlled wards. He discovered that there was no indication that the voting trends in those wards went up, and in some cases they declined. He also makes short work of the idea that the outfit could influence the Teamsters in that election. (Wallace, p. 214) Since Jimmy Hoffa depised the Kennedys and would not trust them with a tennis ball. After all they had already gotten rid of Hoffa’ predecessor Dave Beck.
Thus Binder deduces that “union members in states where the Outfit operated voted less heavily Democratic than usual and therefore against JFK.” Binder concluded his essay by saying that “much of what has been written about the Outfit, the 1960 presidential election and other events involving the Kennedy family appears to be historical myth”. (Here is a link to this fascinating article https://themobmuseum.org/blog/did-the-chicago-outfit-elect-john-f-kennedy-president/)
I should add one concluding note about Sy Hersh and his JFK book: Not even the MSM supported it. And in most cases they savaged it. The most brutal and thorough review was composed by Garry Wills in The New York Review of Books on December 18, 1997. That memorable critique closed by saying it was an odd experience watching a once valued reporter destroy his reputation in a mad, and ultimately failed, mission to tear down President Kennedy--while simultaneously imploding himself. Somehow Chris Wallace missed that.
V
What Wallace does in trying to revive the dead corpse of Judy Exner is something I don’t even think magician David Copperfield would attempt.
Exner first surfaced into the American consciousness for the Church Committee in 1975. At that time—and this is key-- she stated that she wanted to head off wild-eyed speculation that she had ever discussed her relationships with either Sam Giancana or Johnny Roselli with John Kennedy. She also said she knew nothing about the CIA attempts to neutralize Castro, and they were never brought up with the president. Also, the president did not know she was seeing Giancana and Roselli. (NY Times 12/18/75, article by John Crewdson)
She called a press conference in San Diego to say that she wanted to clear her name so as not to be implicated in “these bizarre assassination conspiracies.” She also added that she “had no wish to sell the rest of her story to book publishers or to the news media.” (ibid) Although there were phone calls from Exner to the White House from California, no notations recorded her as a visitor to the Oval Office. (ibid). Evelyn Lincoln said the same.
It was revealed that when Hoover informed the White Hose of who she was, the communications stopped after March 22,1962. (Ibid)
What is exceptional about this initial summary is that almost all of it will be radically altered over time. And Wallace does not tell the reader about any of the revisions. She did take part in the writing of a book and Wallace quotes from it. But that book was clearly a team operation out of agent Scott Meredith’s office with prolific Mafia writer Ovid DeMaris as co- writer. It is important to note that DeMaris was also a big fan of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and a Warren Commission backer. (The Assassinations, edited by James DiEugenio and Lisa Pease, pp. 330-31). There is a salacious and unbelievable scene in My Story placed at the Democratic Convention of 1960, one which has all the earmarks of being a fabrication. And unsurprisingly, Wallace repeats it here. (Wallace pp. 169-70; DiEugenio and Pease, pp. 332-33)
Not only does Wallace not tell the reader that Exner altered her story, he does not even note when it happened. It was for the February 29, 1988 issue of Peoplemagazine. And they were radical alterations. She reversed herself on everything she said in 1975. She now stated that she was seeing Giancana at Kennedy’s bidding! But further that she helped arrange meetings between Kennedy and Giancana and Kennedy and Roselli, some of which took place at the White House! (ibid, p. 333) If one reads the two best biographers on those two gangsters, William Brashler and Lee Server respectively, nothing like this ever came close to happening. And the idea it would happen with Bobby Kennedy as Attorney General is pure science-fiction. Exner was selling whoppers, and she was being paid tens of thousands to do so. (DiEugenio and Pease, p. 334)
In her new and modified version, the reasons for these newly remembered meetings is in order to cinch elections and to liquidate Castro. She specifically mentioned West Virginia at that time. Which Wallace agrees with. Again, this shows how poor his research is. Dan Fleming wrote a good book about that primary. He notes that no subsequent inquiry—by the FBI, the state Attorney General, or by Senator Barry Goldwater—ever turned up any evidence of skullduggery that influenced the outcome of the election. (Fleming, Kennedy vs Humphrey: West Virginia 1960, pp. 107-12) And unlike what Wallace tries to insinuate, Fleming interviewed literally scores of people throughout the state. He could not find any trace of any underworld figure on the ground during that primary.
To show the reader just how bad Countdown 1960 is, Wallace mentions union leader Raymond Chafin, but he does so through author Laurence Leamer. As far as I could detect, he does not refer to Chafin’s book Just Good Politics. Therefore Wallace twists the story of the Kennedy campaign contribution to Chafin for a get out the vote effort. Chafin originally backed Hubert Humphrey in that primary. Kennedy asked to meet with him and he told him that if he won, and then won the White House, he would give him even more than Humphrey had promised. Chafin changed his mind and asked for $3,500 to get out the vote. Kennedy’s team misconstrued this and gave him $35.000, which he spent days delivering to other counties in the state.
But that is not the end of the story. Because Kennedy made good on his promise. He summoned him to the White House after his inauguration. He was told he had 15 minutes with the president. Kennedy countered and said Chafin would have all the time he needed. At the end of the book, Chafin said that Kennedy ended up doing more for West Virginia than any previous president. That is quite a lot for Wallace to leave out of the story.
In other words, Exner’s story about West Virginia is, to say the least, unfounded. But again, what Wallace leaves out is that Exner added to her story even further. Almost ten years later, for Vanity Fair, she now said that JFK had impregnated her and she had an abortion. Again, this is something she said the opposite of in her book. There she literally said “I didn’t have an abortion.” (DiEugenio and Pease, p. 336)
But she then changed her story again for Hersh. For People, back in 1988, she said she was not really sure what was in the satchel that JFK gave her. Now it became 250,000 dollars in hundred dollar bills and the message was the elimination of Castro. (Hersh, pp. 303-07). To say that Exner changed her story is much too mild. She has done a somersault from her original statements. And the part about the elimination of Castro is an outright lie. Because the declassified Inspector General Report on the CIA/Mafia plots to kill Castro specifically says that no president had any knowledge of them. (Pp. 132-33)
There is another outright lie that Exner told. In Hersh’s book she told him that Attorney General Bobby Kennedy asked, “Are you still comfortable doing this. We want you to let us know if you don’t want to.” (Hersh, p. 308). Again, RFK is the man who had wall to wall surveillance on Giancana through both the FBI and the Justice Department. So Bobby was going to give Hoover bribery information on a mobster through the White House? Who could believe this?
But Exner herself contradicted this. In an interview she did with Larry King in 1992, she said that she never even talked to Bobby, perhaps in passing at a rally in Los Angeles. In other words, Exner told so many lies she could not keep track of them. And this is the kind of witness that Wallace bases his book upon.
I could go on and on. For example Wallace mentions the case of Florence Kater saying she had a picture of JFK leaving a girlfriend’s house at night. The picture is not clear as to who the man is. But Wallace attacks Kennedy for harshly scolding Kater about it in a threatening manner. What Wallace does not reveal is this: Kater was blackmailing Kennedy. She wanted a Modigliani painting.
VI
We now come to the reason for the book. Which the author admits in his Acknowledgments. (p. 397). He says that during the January 6th Insurrection he was so disturbed that he thought back to the elections he had covered. He then writes that 2020 shattered the belief in acknowledging a winner and loser in a presidential campaign.
Wallace then makes a quantum leap in time. He says that thinking about that day somehow reminded him of the election of 1960. There is a slight problem here. Wallace did not cover that election. In fact, he was only 13 years old. So, like much of the book, this simply does not wash. And if it did remind him of any election he covered, it should have been the 2000 election in Florida and the whole Bush v Gore phony decision commandeered by Justice Antonin Scalia and the Supreme Court. Where they halted the recount certified by the state and stopped the probability of Vice President Al Gore from winning the election. Which it appeared he would have done since he was gaining on George W. Bush very quickly.
Besides the Supreme Court and its phony decision, we know that Roger Stone created a mini riot during a recount at the Steven B. Clark Government Center in downtown Miami. This was later named the Brooks Brothers riot since it was made up of Republican staffers disguised as local residents. As Chris Lehmann noted in The Nation, it was this ersatz local riot that outlined the blue print for Trump’s insurrection. (August 4, 2022) Roger Stone had been a dirty tricks impresario under Richard Nixon. In fact Stone wore a Nixon tattoo on his back. He then moved into the orbit of Donald Trump. Stone was then part of the Stop the Steal demonstrations in Washington on the eve of the Insurrection.
As Lehmann notes, the difference between the two is that the Florida riot worked. That particular recount was halted and then the Supreme Court sealed the deal for the disastrous reign of George W. Bush. Which, among other things, included the deaths of about 650,000 civilians in Iraq. Even William Kristol later said that the Brooks Brothers riot let loose a buried trait in the GOP that later became dominant. (ibid)
Also, many observers think that the whole mythology about the corruption in West Virginia began with Nixon’s operatives late in the general election. When it looked like Nixon had lost his lead, they planted a story in the St. Louis Post Dispatch to this effect.
So 2000 is the proper precedent for the Insurrection. Not a pile of mythology created after the fact by gangsters, Judy Exner and Sy Hersh. Wallace does not want to go there for obvious employment reasons. But also because he admits he favored Nixon in 1960. (Wallace, p. 397). He clearly did not like Kennedy. And that carried forward to this book. Any reporter who would stoop to using Exner and Hersh to trash JFK is too biased to be trusted.
The best way to close this review it to quote Wallace from the MSNBC show The Beat. On October 9th, he commented on the Fox defamation lawsuit over the 2020 election. He said, “There ought to be a price to pay when you don’t tell the truth.”
As detailed above, you just paid it Chris.