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Brad Meltzer: The JFK Conspiracy

Brian Kilmeade Show / Brian Kilmeade
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January 18, 2025 12:00 am

Brad Meltzer: The JFK Conspiracy

Brian Kilmeade Show / Brian Kilmeade

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January 18, 2025 12:00 am

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Save up to 40% your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast. Terms apply. Here is a bulletin from CBS News. In Dallas, Texas, three shots were fired at President Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas. The first reports say that President Kennedy has been seriously wounded by this shooting.

Wow. And that was Walter Cronkite. Was that Walter Cronkite?

Actually, it doesn't even sound like him. Walter Cronkite making the announcement the president was shot. That was before the cable networks. You have an emergency broadcast break in and that's what happened in Dallas. And we know that all shots landed and he would die. Here's Walter Cronkite one hour later. From Dallas, Texas, the Flash, apparently official, President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time, 2 o'clock Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago.

Vice President Lyndon Johnson has left the hospital in Dallas, but we do not know to where he has proceeded. Presumably, he will be taking the oath of office shortly and become the 36th president of the United States. And now we're up to 47, but no one will ever forget that. Brad Meltzer, best-selling author, host of Fox Nation series, Brad Meltzer's Greatest Conspiracies, his latest book, The JFK Conspiracy, The Secret Pot to Kill Kennedy, and Why It Failed. It's on sale nationwide starting tomorrow, right?

Tomorrow on Tuesday. So Brad, what were your thoughts when we were playing that? I mean, you also heard that a million times. Yeah, no, listen, that's the one we all know.

It's the one we all market by. It was the end of Camelot and it changed the world. It changed the world. I mean, and I don't mean, you know, we can say and argue, you know, what happened with civil rights and would that have come forward and what other, but JFK was the first celebrity president. And I don't mean popular, plenty of presidents waving from trains and crowds, but that celebrity that we see now that, you know, the perfect life and the perfect wife and you got fame and you have money. And that was something that we've been chasing.

Right. And some people think that's what the Reagan administration was. For some, it's Obama. For some, of course, it's Trump. But what I think is always true is it was a hollow pursuit.

Camelot never existed. And we're about to talk about why. But when I hear that, I'm just like that was the demarcation line.

That moment, what Oswald did that day changed the world. And I'm like, well, you know, why did people still question? And that was one of the questions that Joe Rogan just asked Donald Trump. When you get in there, will you finally unmask the all the paperwork to do with all the CIA reports to do with who killed JFK?

Yeah. And listen, most reports are all out. You know, I work with the National Archives on their board.

I love working with them. But the only person who read every single document that there is and people think there's some missing thing and there's no missing thing. There's no like magical, you know, anything that's going to come out. You're a case closed guy.

It's not. Listen, the case will never be closed because Oswald died. Jack Ruby killed him. And the moment that happened, we lost the one person who knows what happened, which was Lee Harvey Oswald. And obviously, in this new book, that's what we discuss. That's what we get into is we start with this plot that nobody knows about.

And then we end with the actual plot. We show the actual plot from not only the first lady's eyes, but her secret service agent's eyes. And it's a view you've never seen before. It's Jackie Kennedy's view.

And how did you get it? Her secret service agent is an amazing guy. And I have to say, Lisa McCubbin wrote this great book with him. And I owe him a huge thank you for giving us that point of view that we get to share.

What's the discovery you made? So what we talk about in this new book is called The JFK Conspiracy. And just to paint the picture, it's 1960. It's right after JFK is elected before he's inaugurated and he's on his way to church. And this is before Oswald happens. What JFK has no idea is there's someone else who wants to kill him. There's a disgruntled postal worker named Richard Pavlik who loads his car with seven sticks of dynamite and is ready to kill JFK. And he actually flies down to Palm Beach, Florida. And because Pavlik follows him there because he's like, JFK's security isn't as good there.

And he's right about that. So all this killer has to do is hit the trigger mechanism that he's built and boom, we'll go the dynamite. And what saves JFK's life that day, I won't ruin it, but it has to do with Jackie, leads to one of the craziest JFK stories you've never heard in your life. And it's about the first plot to kill JFK. That's what the JFK conspiracy is. Just like you found the first one to kill Lincoln. Our specialty is finding these stories.

What I love is these stories you've never heard of. And when we did this story, what makes it so interesting is we dive in not just to the story of how to kill him, because it is an amazing story, but also in his life. And one of the things who's the star in this book is Jackie. And Jackie Kennedy, we don't pull any punches here. We show you JFK's affairs. We show you how he kept them hidden. We show you that when Jackie was giving birth and she's hemorrhaging and they rush her to the hospital, JFK is nowhere to be found.

He's on a plane headed to Florida. And it's a Secret Service agent, Clint Hill, who comes in and actually was the first one there for her. And what's amazing about it is I kept saying to myself, like, Brian, why do they call this Camelot?

And I finally figured out this. This is what I discovered, is that Camelot actually isn't used until after JFK is killed. After the assassination, Jackie grants one interview to Life magazine and she tells the reporter this exclusive story. She says that when JFK was in pain in the White House and he was lying there and his back was hurting him, to calm him down, she will put on the record player a song that he loved the most about a place called Camelot.

That is how Camelot entered the lexicon. Jackie put it there. She was a reporter when she started. So she was a member of the press. She was hounded by the press. But make no mistake, she was a master of the press. She's the one who put it in the lexicon. When you say it never existed, what do you mean?

There was never the idyllic family. Obviously, we see what happened after. Right. I mean, JFK is an incredible World War II hero. He saves the life of everyone that's on his ship when it gets blown to bits. He puts an unconscious member on his back and he swims two miles with him on his back because he's the best swimmer. He's amazing.

Takes us to the moon, unleashes idealism like never before. Is he amazing? Of course he is. But is he also a completely reckless husband who's cheated on his wife that we document in the book too?

Of course he is. So Camelot, why I say it never existed, it's not that some greatness didn't exist. When it came to hope, Camelot was real. But when it came to the perfect life and the perfect wife and the perfect family and the perfect smile, that wasn't real at all.

Right. He wasn't even supposed to be the guy. It was supposed to be his older brother Joseph. His older brother Joseph.

And listen, this family was, and we document this too in the book, you know, what his father, he's a strong-minded guy, right? I mean, he gets what he wants. There's a moment where when they're trying to figure out should Bobby be attorney general and they say, sir, Bobby doesn't want to be attorney general. He knows it's going to look like nepotism. He doesn't want to do that.

And we should not do that. And Joe Kennedy looks at his buddy and says, I appreciate that. Bobby's going to be attorney general. There's no arguing with it. And what you get to see in this book is the behind the scenes in JFK's marriage and Jackie and what Camelot was really like behind closed doors. Right.

And what it would have been like had he survived. But when it comes to the actual conspiracy itself, it seems to be on jet fuel of late. Yeah, it is. And let's talk about that. The mob is now involved, the CIA.

Let's talk about it. I mean, so when I talked to the Secret Service, I asked them, I said, tell me about assassins. I'm researching assassins.

And they taught me long ago, presidential assassins fit into two categories. There's hunters and there's howlers. And howler makes a lot of noise and says, I'm coming to get you. I hate you.

I'm coming to get you. But they rarely take action. A hunter is very different. A hunter barely says anything, but they're the ones who tend to pull the trigger. And if you look at the four men who have successfully killed a U.S. president from Abraham Lincoln to JFK, they are all hunters. Richard Pavlik in our JFK conspiracy book, he starts as a hunter, but he's a howler, too, and he opens his big mouth. And what's fascinating to me, what you just said, which is so interesting, is if you look at who killed JFK, if you want to know who killed him, in the 1960s, when JFK is killed, we said, who do we blame it on? We said it was the height of the Cold War. It was our great enemies at the time. It was the Russians, the Cubans, the Soviets did it. If you look in the 70s, as Watergate happens and we have mistrust in the government, who killed JFK? Well, it was an inside job. LBJ did it. The CIA did it. If you look in the 80s, when the Godfather movies peaked, who killed JFK?

It was the mob, right? So decade by decade, if you want to know who killed JFK, it's whoever America is most afraid of at that moment in time. There was a theory out there that people who are obsessed with the conspiracy have a father complex.

It's not just a father complex. I think they have a fear complex. You know, here's the thing that I've realized, is that the idea that it takes a lot of people to take down a U.S. president is a comforting thought. The idea that it takes one person to change the entire world, that one guy on one day can take down the president and kill us all and change America, that's a terrifying thought. It's much easier to believe. It takes tons of people and lots of planning and millions of dollars and all these things.

And so we want to believe that story. So I want you to put what we're going through now in perspective too when we come back, Brad, because we have an inauguration which is happening literally in seven days. We also have a president returning to power, only happened once before in our lifetime, Grover Cleveland. And then what it means for the rest of the world. We see duplicates popping up in Argentina and possibly over in Canada.

Is there a theory? Now, meanwhile, just a quick note before we go to break. Tonight, Barnes & Noble and Carl Place for WABC listeners especially, you'll be there at seven o'clock. Baltimore area, Books-A-Million over in Columbia, Maryland. That'll be Tuesday with the book's debut. Fairfax, Virginia, Barnes & Noble, Fair Lakes, Promenade, the Wednesday, January 15th. Atlanta, Georgia on the 16th. Atlanta History Center on the 17th, 730 in Dallas, Museum of Art. And then the St. Louis County Library over in, I've been there January 18th. That'll be at seven o'clock. So we could always get it at Brad Meltzer. You can go to Brad Meltzer, go to Amazon, anyone who loves history.

And if you love Jackie, you're going to love this book. But also to find out where you're going to be. Yeah, go to bradmeltzer.com and the whole tour is there.

Back in a moment. It's Spanning Your Knowledge Base. It's the Brian Kilmeade Show. Hey, I'm Trey Gowdy, host of the Trey Gowdy Podcast.

I hope you will join me every Tuesday and Thursday as we navigate life together and hopefully find ourselves a little bit better on the other side. Listen and follow now at foxnewspodcast.com. Hey, we are back. I just want to give a shout out to one of our new stations just went to a more powerful single. The voice of the Pine Belt in Hadesburg. Laurel is now on its new signal.

It's news talk 107. So that's great. More powerful. More people in the area will have a chance to listen.

We appreciate that. And if you are Brad Meltzer out with a brand new book officially available tomorrow, but order it now. It's called the JFK Conspiracy. The secret plot to kill Kennedy and why it failed. It's on sale tomorrow.

But, you know, what are today's this way will show up right away. Now, Brad, you realize RFK is also on the record saying that I don't know who killed my brother. I'm not sure who killed my father. Despite the fact that everyone was there and had all these witnesses.

I know he was there and he was there. I was going to say that's the other part. I wish I don't know that I've looked into it, but I disagree with that one, man. But, you know, I don't care what anyone says when your father dies in front of you. You know, that's a hard one.

So I did no judgment on anyone that that is one of the greatest, hardest things that any person can ever face. But the family has it's not only didn't even start there. When JFK himself has killed his father, Bobby Kennedy, obviously, Junior's father. Actually, JFK's brain went missing and they did the autopsy. They took his brain out of the body. They and his brain, it sounds almost like a science fiction story, right?

Like a 1950s story. I wanted to put this in the book, but we didn't have room for it. But they put his brain in a metal container. And then that metal container went to the National Archives where it sat until Bobby Kennedy's secretary, on the record, as you can see it, we researched it, came and picked it up. And then the brain went missing. And nobody to this day knows where it is.

Now, we we think we know where it is. And it's Bobby Kennedy then took it and threw it into the ocean, had a helicopter fly it over the ocean and dumped it. Why? Because he didn't want anyone picking apart his brother's belongings and brain and doing weird stuff with it. And I don't blame him for that.

If God forbid something happens to your family, remember, you don't want everyone dissecting it. But it's a crazy story. Oliver Stone did a lot of damage in terms of accuracy. Put together this book and a lot of that movie. A lot of people think that's almost a documentary.

Right. I mean, here's the thing, let's talk about it. I mean, it's such a, when I was researching the JFK conspiracy, researching this book, I was like, and my whole life I grew up going, well, listen, Oliver Stone's great movie, when I was younger, I saw it. And it said that no one has ever been able to recreate the shot that Lee Harvey Oswald took from the book Depository. And I took that to mean, wow, it had to be two people. If no one can recreate that shot, it's a one in a billion shot. It couldn't have been just him. Here's the problem is that that was a lie. That was that was not true. There have been dozens of people and Marines who have recreated that shot.

In fact, the distance of it is about the distance that a Marine currently needs to do to become a sharpshooter. And when you ask Oliver Stone, you can look on the record. He say, yes, I put some other things that were exaggerations in my movie because the Warren Commission had things that were wrong and I wanted to balance them out.

And it's my one true belief. Brian, don't get your history from a Hollywood movie. That's why I write these books. That's why you write your great books.

Right. It's like to make sure that people know the true history. And I love the fact that we get to show you the secret plot to kill Kennedy at the beginning that no one knows about. And then we take you right to the end and show you what really happened from Jackie's perspective. And it's heartbreaking watching her take off her gloves, which are caked in blood, watching her when they say, can I take your ring off because it's covered in blood? Say, no, I want people to see it.

I want people to see what they did to my husband. And it's a it's a if you especially if you love Jackie, you will love this book. How did it affect her?

You said you talked to a Secret Service agent. They give you her perspective. How did it affect her?

Because she wasn't quiet. Yeah. Listen, your whole life explodes. Right. Your husband's brains are splattered all across. You don't have a house. You have a beautiful pink dress.

You're kicked out of your home. Right. Obviously, she has places in Massachusetts. She has a place in Palm Beach. Yeah.

But your life has changed forever. And here's the thing that people don't realize is Jackie wanted no part of the spotlight. It's the one thing, you know, at the beginning of when they get engaged, Jackie's in love. And one of JFK's we document this in the book. One of JFK's best friends comes up to Jackie after their engagement and says, you know, Jack loves women. Basically, he's going to continue to sleep around, tells her to her face that he's going to continue to sleep around. And she's like, I'm going to fix it. I'm going to make it better. But of course she can't.

Yeah. And at the time, there were people, her neighbors knew what was happening. They knew he was sleeping around and they would go to threaten to tell the story. And someone would show up at the neighbor's door and say, if you put the story out there and continue to tell it, we will ruin you. And guess what? That story stays hidden. So Jackie's trying to hold this whole Camelot place together, but has this husband who's cheated on her. Right.

Which is amazing. And then seeing she ends up marrying a Greek tycoon. In my belief, again, I don't know anything about the marriage. Who knows why people get married. But there's very few people that you can trust when you're at that level of people watching you. And you need two things if you want to drop out of the world.

Right. You need money and you need someone who's going to keep their mouth shut. And listen, that woman deserves and has earned her privacy.

It's a hard life. But, you know, the world that was left behind and it's important to talk about what happened in 1960 to JFK. I know it's titillating for me to say, hey, we found this secret plot that killed JFK.

No one knows. But the reason we tell this story, the reason I know you tell your stories is what does it tell us about where we are today? And when you look at the 1960 election between Nixon and Kennedy, it was the closest election in modern times in the 20th century. Whatever side you were on, you bitterly hated the other. You thought the other side were complete, horrible, awful morons.

Does that sound familiar to you? It's exactly where we are now. Right. And you had all these people ginning up hatred for JFK, saying he's a Catholic. You shouldn't elect him. He had Reverend Norman Vincent Peale, Reverend Billy Graham, who's amazing.

Right. But in the early parts of his career, thought JFK will not be loyal to America. He's going to only be loyal to his pope.

We can't have a Catholic be president. And obviously, it sounds almost silly today, but that's what they believed back then. Also, Kennedy going after Eisenhower and saying, turning the page.

Of course, we got to turn the page. No one's happy with that. And the KKK separately says they see Kennedy as the worst thing of all, which is an immigrant. They saw him as an Irish Catholic immigrant.

And you can't have that an immigrant run in the country. So they go after him for that. And when you when you when you put out that much venom and hatred, you can't be surprised when someone gets activated. Right.

And Richard Pavlik, this disgruntled postal worker, gets activated and says, I'm going to kill Kennedy long before Lee Harvey Oswald does. And that's where we are now. You have all this venom and hatred out there. And I hate to say it, but I sadly think we're going to see other attempts. Right. Maybe other attempts. But I think in many ways the country is turning the corner on a lot of those divisive issues. I hope so.

I mean, we need it more than ever. Hey, check out Brad Meltzer's tour begins tonight on Long Island and check out his book, The Secret Plot to Kill Kennedy. Listen and follow at FoxTrueCrime.com or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Listen to the show at free on Fox News podcast, plus on Apple podcast, Amazon music with your prime membership or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Whisper: medium.en / 2025-01-18 02:28:43 / 2025-01-18 02:38:02 / 9

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