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The Kennedy Curse, Part 10 - The Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Assassination of JFK
49 Plays1 month ago
Holy moly, it's episode 100! Wowzah! On today's episode, we explore the Bay of Pigs disaster, the Cuban Missile Crisis. Then, we walk through the facts of the assassinations of John F. Kennedy. Don't worry, we'll get conspiracy-y soon!
Check out our YouTube channel, Fixate Today: Grey Matters
Sources (there's a lot):
Books: The Kennedy Curse by Edward Klein, Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Katie Clifford Larson, The First Kennedys: The Humber Roots of an American Dynasty by Neal Thompson, After Camelot: A Personal History of the Kennedy Family 1968 to the Present by J. Randy Taraborrelli, Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed by Maureen Callahan, The Kennedy Imprisonment: A Meditation on Power by Garry Wills, Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates, RFK Jr.: The Rise and Fall by Vincent Isabel, Marina and Lee by Priscilla Johnson McMillan
Media: Grey Gardens (1975 documentary), JFK (1991 film), Thirteen Days (2000 film), Murder in Greenwich (2002 television film), Bobby (2006 film), Grey Gardens (2006 musical), Grey Gardens (2009 film), Parkland (2013 film), 11.23.63 (2016 series), Jackie (2016 film), Chappaquiddick (2017 film), Cover-Up (2018 podcast), The RFK Tapes (2018 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episodes 400-405: JFK (2020 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episode Relaxed Fit: Marilyn Monroe & The President’s Aspirin (2020 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episode Side Stories: The Bullet in the Backseat (2023 podcast), Wine & Crime, Episode 366: Lobotomy Crimes (2024 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episode 1046: The Miseducation of Ed Larsen - JFK & Government Conspiracies (2025 podcast), United States of Kennedy (2025 podcast), Dead Certain: The Martha Moxley Murder (2025 podcast), Wine & Crime, Episode 456: Family Curses (2026 podcast), Love Story (2026 series)
Websites: historyhit.com, Scientific America, CNN, PBS, CBS News, BBC, Autistic Self Advocacy Center, InStyle, Best Buddies International, All Things Interesting, USA Today, Today in Civil Liberties, Cambridge Dictionary, Kennedys and King, RJP Books, New York Post, Boston Magazine, Time, The Moth, Vanity Fair, Voices Center for Resilience, Reddit, Washington Association of Black Journalists, NPR, The Ringer, The Daily Express, The Harvard Crimson, Wikipedia
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'Fixate Today Gone Tomorrow'
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Fixate Today Gone Tomorrow. I'm Nikki and I have ADHD, Joy is autistic, and we are letting our hyperfixations fly. Today we are fixating on the Kennedy
JFK's Presidency and Family Drama
00:00:12
Speaker
curse.
00:00:12
Speaker
Music
00:00:21
Speaker
Hello. Welcome back, everyone. So for today's episode, we are continuing our series on the Kennedy family, and we are still focused on JFK.
00:00:33
Speaker
So last week we talked about, the last two episodes, we talked about some of the pretty notorious infidelities that he had. talked about Marilyn Monroe.
00:00:45
Speaker
And we talked about ah Mary Pinchot. always forget how to say it. mary We talked about Mary. um who was, what it was something about Mary. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha.
00:01:03
Speaker
Well, we talked about, yeah, a lot of these kind of scandalous affairs that he had. We also talked about the miscarriages and the stillborn that Jackie suffered. So for today, we're going to talk about some of the struggles in Jack's presidency.
00:01:20
Speaker
So I want to talk about why we're just talking, like kind of focusing on these low points. Like he obviously had a lot of successes in his presidency, but we're talking family curse in this series.
00:01:33
Speaker
And truly, it would take forever to go through like his entire presidency. um And this like mini series within the larger series is already going to be long. We're talking about JFK.
The Bay of Pigs: Failures and Guilt
00:01:44
Speaker
So I want to focus on these kind of two like pretty so major misses in his presidency because it'll show kind of the link of how these events impacted him as a person and him as as part of the Kennedy family.
00:02:05
Speaker
And I think that's why, you know, it's it's you'll see guilt almost he feels for some of the these two like big misses as president. He feels shame for his role in it. But then also like a next layer of shame is like, I let my dad down. I let my brothers down, you know. So there's that whole thing of it, too.
00:02:28
Speaker
Yeah. Very good. So we're just start with the Bay of Pigs. And so over the years, I've always heard about the Bay Pigs. Yep. And I've always in some way kind of knew what it was. But I just found it really interesting to dive in and learn a little bit more. know you do not find it interesting. This is not really your cup of tea.
00:02:51
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Here's it's really not. I wish it were. i wish it were the kind of person that was like military operations really interest me. And I'm sorry they don't.
00:03:02
Speaker
And so I like when we were taught, we always talk about what we're recording um on a call the week we record and we're going through and i was like, I did real bare bones research because. I'm tired. and And we were like, hopefully, maybe this is one of those times that the hyper fixation starts you. Which is kind of how we work. Like this overall is your thing. But then, yeah, I try to, I try to hone in on the fixation. So, so I did. And you know, I don't want to, obviously, these are two topics that, oh my gosh, they could be more than an episode of their own. So I want to just, and I just want to try to explain it in like real people language. And obviously,
00:03:42
Speaker
major overview, but yeah. Yeah. If you want more information about the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, go anywhere else. Anywhere.
00:03:54
Speaker
all right.
CIA's Role and Alan Dulles' Influence
00:03:55
Speaker
So the Bay of Pigs, right? We're um talking about Cuba. You need to remember that Cuba is a fairly small island about a hundred miles away from Florida. And and they had gone through their own revolution and ah Fidel Castro,
00:04:12
Speaker
i think everyone's heard of him, it was their new leader. And he had kind of been making some comments that seemed to imply he was more friendly with with the Russians. And this is a problem, right? Because they're they're pretty close to us.
00:04:26
Speaker
So during the Eisenhower years, he decided he wanted regime change there. And he started putting together this like half-baked plan to overthrow Castro like during his term. But he didn't it didn't all get done. it It didn't pan out while he was in office.
00:04:47
Speaker
and And the plan was to only use the CIA. it what it wasn't to be a military um action at all. and no And they wanted nobody to know that the U.S. was involved.
00:04:58
Speaker
Yeah. Right. So when Kennedy got elected um in November, Kennedy started getting briefed on matters of national security. And so this is when he first, you know, he first hears about this. Yeah. So it's very much like he inherited this problem that was like already the ball was rolling and yeah he has to then pick it up.
00:05:21
Speaker
And it's a it's a plan that. he and his cabinet haven't that they didn't devise this plan you know what i mean like they kind of were like here's what's happening bye right and it like it's not a great plan to begin with and then as we'll see it sort of even gets worse and let's remember like Kennedy like from his father and family standpoint they were pretty non-interventionist um If we think back to world war two. So that could be playing a role. And also, you know, you're jumping in. He's just, he's green. Like this is, you know, he hasn't, so this is a huge decision and um yeah.
00:05:57
Speaker
To have to be making. And, you know, I think he had a lot of respect for Eisenhower in a way in his, but was not a plan. I don't think that Kennedy would come up on his own. So, so this plan, yeah what they decided to do is they again, like can't,
00:06:12
Speaker
Understate how much they did not want the US, anyone to know the US was involved. And once Kennedy took that over, took it over, that was even a bigger point. That was really, really important to him. and And so in a way, he kind of like minimized or drew back the... the Level of intervention, which, as we'll see, is going to make this half-baked plan an unbaked plan. So they don't want any Americans involved. so what they did was they went and recruited 1,400 Cuban exiles who were opposed to the government. And they just decided that trained them to go do all the work to take this.
00:06:53
Speaker
So and now let's remember, this is like fourteen they're not 1,400 military people. Right. There's 1,400 people. Right. So there's different ages, different professions. In there, they did grab they made they made sure they or they had some pilots, which was necessary. But but they weren't, again, military pilots. these They were just pilots, of you know they commercial pilots. I think there was about seven or eight of them. And one thing i want to add in quick is – So the CIA had known that Castro was popular in Cuba. Like Cubans liked him. But part of this plan on the CIA's end was trying to convince Jack that the Cubans were felt oppressed under Castro and didn't want him. Like that was part of this.
00:07:37
Speaker
So the exiles obviously were exiled because they didn't want to be under Castro's regime. But that doesn't mean the people on the island of Cuba felt the same.
00:07:49
Speaker
But the CIA where the cia tried to convince them or tried to convince Jack that, no, everybody wants him gone. Now, what's your understanding of why the CIA was more interventionalist on that?
00:08:02
Speaker
Well, should we talk about Alan Dulles? Do you want to jump into him now? Or you want to... Well, let me just – because it's all him, I think. um So let me do a really quick overview of him. We talked about him either last episode or the episode before, and I didn't really talk too much about him. um So bought pause Bay of Pigs. Tangent.
00:08:23
Speaker
ellenlan douglas Yeah. I think he is the key to understanding why the he why they took the interventionalist route. Alan Dulles was planning on World War with everything with Russia, Cuba, all the things, he was expecting World War III to happen and happen soon. He wanted to humiliate Castro if he couldn't kill him.
00:08:44
Speaker
So I want to talk really quick about who this guy is. um for For a really in-depth story, ah podcast about him specifically, check out Behind the Bastards. ah They have a series called How the Dulles Brothers Created the CIA and Destroyed Everything Else.
00:09:02
Speaker
So he was a lawyer who was the first civilian director of the CIA. He oversaw the 1953 Iranian coup d'etat, the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'etat, and the MKUltra program.
00:09:18
Speaker
We will talk so much more about MKUltra in the upcoming episodes, especially when we get into JFK and RFK's assassinations. So just keep that in the back of your mind.
00:09:29
Speaker
Dulles leveraged U.S. policy and CIA intelligence to overthrow these foreign governments that threatened his and his brother John Foster Dulles' wealthy corporate clients.
00:09:42
Speaker
So the reason he led these coups was to protect his own interests. His clients were the United Fruit Company in Guatemala and, of course, various oil companies.
00:09:55
Speaker
Dulles believed really to be above the law and often went against the presidents he served under. He was real big wild card. He colluded with high-ranking Nazis and protected German war criminals if they could be useful to him and
Conspiracy Theories and Global Tensions
00:10:11
Speaker
U.S. intelligence.
00:10:13
Speaker
The Dulles Plan or the Dulles Doctrine is part of a Russian conspiracy theory that says that the U.S. had created a plan to destroy the Soviet Union during the Cold War by corrupting Russian cultural heritage and moral values. And this was created and attempted to be implemented by Dulles. So basically, like, it's this big conspiracy theory. Some Russians believed that Dulles mobilized subversive groups within Russia to, like, encourage nationalism and, like, stoke mistrust of the government.
00:10:50
Speaker
And whether or not this was real or not, it still, like, just was another factor in, like, causing the Cold War to just expand, expand, expand, expand. And as you mentioned, the ah Russia was really court in Cuba.
00:11:05
Speaker
and And Castro was, as you said, talking highly of Russia in ways that made the U.S. very, very nervous. So I think Dulles' is an involvement, he's he was super manipulative. He could charm is too strong of a word, but he could charm people into doing what he wanted. He was...
00:11:28
Speaker
speak very eloquently, sounded like he knew what he was talking about, when ultimately everything was about protecting his own assets and wealth. I don't know. I don't know if this became his hyperfixation, if he like truly believed that World War III was going to happen.
00:11:46
Speaker
And this is how they stopped it. Or if it was World War III would be really profitable for me. Well, they're patterns that we obviously see repeated again and again over history.
00:11:59
Speaker
Very easy to see in today's environment. Yeah. So Dulles is kind of in his ear pushing pushing the plan. Yeah. And yep even – not lying. Even – think he was lying. I think there was lying. Outright. okay Yeah, yeah. And I really get the feeling like this is the one time where I really feel like JFK was just not really feeling confident in himself.
00:12:24
Speaker
Not for a man who's known for his confidence. Yeah. And I think if I'm remembering correctly, Jack didn't like Alan Dulles. don't And so it wasn't Dulles wasn't in acting with Jack about this, but he was going to Jack's advisors and getting the advisors that Jack did trust to then lie to Jack to tell him to go through with this plan. So so we have these exiles, Cuban egg exiles that we're going to we're going to train. We're just utilizing the CIA. So the CIA, we're having to like fund money to get to to the CIA. Also, weapons, like having – get weapons to them, would like backchannel. Yeah. And then these ah these these guys are sent off to train in Guatemala, which – well, connection again um to Dulles, as you just mentioned. And Nicaragua and maybe ah and a little bit in Florida. So while they're training, like word gets out.
00:13:19
Speaker
Yeah. There's leaks. and um And Cuba becomes – or Castro becomes aware of that's something that something is going on, um which the U.S. s does not want. The U.S. s does not want them knowing – the whole world knowing we were in involved involvedd at all.
00:13:35
Speaker
um So the whole thought was, OK, we bring these 1,400 dissenters. We get them into Cuba and they rile up the pop the population and the population overthrows the government. Which is the conspiracy the Russian conspiracy theory. So that they were doing in Russia already.
00:13:54
Speaker
You know what i mean? So it's like maybe that's not a conspiracy theory. Yeah, yeah. It's an interesting, yeah. Well, it's Iran right now. Right. mean, it's kind of the exact same thing. But as part of this plan, there there was a little bit of pre-planning and then we were going to go in and drop some bombs on their airspace um so that they would not have air cover um or that to to defend themselves with after we got the 1400. We'll just call them soldiers, exiles there.
00:14:25
Speaker
So we we have these ah Douglas B-26 invader bombers and we paint them so that they look like Cuban planes.
00:14:37
Speaker
But like we missed the nose. We didn't paint the nose. And so it became evident that that that they weren't, that it was a farce that somebody was trying to get away with something. So the first round, we go in, drop some bombs. Doesn't go well. Don't hit targets. From there, there's so many things that go wrong. I can't even begin to talk about them because it would be it it would just be one thing after another.
00:15:03
Speaker
a whole bunch of stuff goes wrong. But one of the the most important is basically we can't get the population right on one because Dulles has been overstating exactly how um anti-Castro they are.
00:15:18
Speaker
But also Castro, again, knowing that this is going to happen, he his dis the dissenters, he he rounds them up and and locks them up. Like 32,000 of them he locks away, kind of, so that so that they're not there. Well, obviously these these tactics do work, and and the public doesn't rise up.
00:15:40
Speaker
The 1400 also couldn't be, they were like dropped in or brought in farther away than they needed to be on a, but Obviously, the Bay of Pigs. And so they became trapped. um We did not have air cover after things went wrong with the planes. They no longer had air cover. So they didn't have the military to back them at all.
00:16:04
Speaker
We didn't want anyone to know if we were involved, so we didn't want any of our military equipment there. And I mean, famously later, Castro's quoted as saying that the reason it didn't work was that the US didn't have air cover.
00:16:20
Speaker
i think that's one of many reasons it didn't. you have anything you want to add here? Yeah. I mean, the Cubans had time to prepare. And when we were being much more active on our YouTube channel, I did two shorts about the Bay of Pigs, but it was about one specific thing, which why it is why I'm not confident at all in my understanding of it. But I believe, if I'm remembering correctly, there was an issue with time zones that led to, I think it was Nicaragua, like being late or being early.
00:16:56
Speaker
to like come in as backup. I think it was early. They like try it started to take off early and they were like, nobody's here. it was like people got the time zones confused. And so that was, yeah, I'll, I'll, uh, link those in the show notes, uh, with the sources. Well, I'll do it before the sources, but It was just a lot of things that went wrong that people didn't think about. And I think that's partly because it was a half-baked plan handed to a new administration. It was this it was a series of mishaps. And to some extent, it should have yeah been a military operation.
00:17:29
Speaker
And it wasn't. Yes. This was the CIA. Yeah. And as we keep going in the series, we're going to see, especially through the assassination of JFK,
00:17:40
Speaker
how much power the CIA had that they could take over something like this and say it's theirs over the military. ah guess. So long story short, we fail.
Impact of Bay of Pigs on JFK and Family
00:17:52
Speaker
Uh, 500, about 500 of these exiles get, die. I think 1200 get captured. It becomes, the mission is a failure. And then the whole world knows that it was the U S who did it. So on every front, everything went wrong. Yeah. Um,
00:18:08
Speaker
And again, this is one of the first major decisions that Kennedy has has made He's pretty humiliated. Yeah. The entire administration is, it is a bad look for the first, what, four months in office? Mm-hmm. Yeah.
00:18:24
Speaker
And if you, when when he speaks about it, if you if you're watching him, when he he speaks to this event, you can see he's kind of like already laying in some excuses. You can almost see the insecurity or the shame on his face, which which is interesting. Again, because he's someone who we think of as being confused. confident in him, yeah him own his own self, and such a solid speaker. So this was a bad start. ah After this, he did turn and relied more on Bobby.
00:18:51
Speaker
i don't think at this point he was not he was not relying on Bobby. And i you know as you said, i think this was a learning experience about who and who who you could and could not trust. And bringing Bobby and his family, who we know knew he could fully trust, became really apparent at this point. This is a big turning point for that.
00:19:11
Speaker
you want to talk at all about his family and how they reacted? Yeah. So how did this look for his family? um First to start, they got very defensive. If anyone in the Kennedy family heard anybody criticizing Jack specifically about this,
00:19:30
Speaker
they considered like the people criticizing to be cowards, to be like, you would never even be brave enough to think of something like this, let alone try it. Like they really went on the defensive of you're just not man enough to do it. And he was. And so what if it failed? And, you know, I think Jack did take personal responsibility for the defeat, but I think you're right. He started kind of making...
00:19:55
Speaker
yes, it was my fault. It was my call, but here's what happened. And because of this, Alan Dulles was forced by the administration to resign. And here's why I'm harping on him. He was later tasked with investigating Jack's assassination under the Warren Commission.
00:20:13
Speaker
So he pops up again. act Along with he pops up again. he is a historical villain. Like he is a bad guy. He's going to pop up again.
00:20:25
Speaker
He was fired by Jack. It's just this, like the Warren commission is iffy enough. It's this huge point for conspiracy theorists around the assassination that why would they pick this guy?
00:20:39
Speaker
but But also he got an airport named after him yeah in Washington, D.C. of all places. He did get an airport named after him. So. Of course, what this ended – the result was this just pushed Cuba closer to the Soviet Union. Right.
00:20:57
Speaker
Soviet – things worked out exactly perfectly for the Soviet Union in this instance. Yeah, in a really hands-off way. They didn't have to do much for this to be catastrophic to the U.S. Yeah.
00:21:08
Speaker
Again, I hate to keep making the parallel, but there's so – I know. With our current Iran crisis, we can see so much of the same thing happening. Wanting to minimize it so that our role is not – we minimize our role in it, but then not putting enough in to actually see it through. And in that, the whole thing backfitting ends. Okay.
00:21:34
Speaker
e Yep. no Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'll see how that works. So, all right. So we're now, so now the Soviet Union is closer than ever. And we have the whole nuclear arms race ah beginning.
00:21:48
Speaker
No, I mean, the U.S. is far ahead. They have far more nuclear weapons. But you know, all you need is you don't need a lot. You just need one. Right. Right. And there's a problem.
00:21:58
Speaker
so So the U.S. was was allies with with more Europe. So we had quite a few weapons that were in Turkey and Italy, um i think, among others. but And then that that those could reach Russia. Right.
00:22:15
Speaker
Right. So what the Bay of Pigs did is it opened the door and led directly to the Cuban Missile Crisis, which. Yep.
The Cuban Missile Crisis
00:22:25
Speaker
ah So that was October 1962. It was 13 day standoff between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. And if you want to watch a really boring movie, watch 13 days with, I think, Kevin Costner. Oh, my gosh, it's so boring.
00:22:41
Speaker
You're really selling that one. It's just like they're in an office talking. Like all of the things that could be exciting are happening around them off screen. So what had happened is we had some good spy technology and we we saw where they were actually putting they were preparing to put nuclear missiles in Cuba and those could reach.
00:23:04
Speaker
Much of the U.S. Some could reach. Yeah, they were only, the missile sites were only 90 miles from Florida. So this this changes the whole ballgame. And we can't let this happen, right? Right. and And Cuba had requested that the Soviet Union do this after the Bay of Pigs because they needed, they they probably rightfully so were requesting protection. Yeah.
00:23:26
Speaker
So, and it was something, by the time i our arrived, I was going to say satellites, but they our spy planes saw them. They were like just weeks away from being in operating order.
00:23:38
Speaker
so we So a decision had to be be made fast. Like, what are we going to do here? And one possibility was dropping bombs and bombing them before they're active. And then the other was, and and Kennedy just was not, he he wasn't ready for that. he was now He was trigger shy at that point, especially after the Bay of Pigs.
00:23:59
Speaker
Well, and I think there's still so much trauma from World War II. Mm-hmm. And that's so much of what the Cold War was about also was – already traumatized world.
00:24:09
Speaker
And now this is just escalating anxieties. And so I think nobody wanted that to be the option. Well, yeah. Plus we have nuclear weapons now, right? So we don't even, we can't even picture war would mean these in this day and age, right? that it's It's a whole different ballgame. So yeah it's terrifying.
00:24:29
Speaker
So what Jack decided instead instead of, you know, dropping any bombs is that the U.S. would Basically create a naval blockade.
00:24:40
Speaker
or i think Or they called it a quarantine even to make it sound a little less aggressive. I don't know. Military? yeah Yeah. I again call it what you will. ah They were trying to prevent any ships from making it into Cuba and with any kind of weaponry that could be used to further arm these weapons.
00:25:03
Speaker
And this is the 13 days, right? Yep. Yep. So it's back channel negotiations with Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet premier. And ultimately, the Soviets agreed to remove the missile sites in Cuba, but the U.S. had to agree to remove the missile sites from Turkey as a trade-off. Both countries agreed to a non-invasion pledge.
00:25:27
Speaker
which I think is interesting. It's not a treaty or a pact. It's like, we promise. yeah And this is the closest that the Cold War had come to a full nuclear conflict.
00:25:38
Speaker
Something interesting to note, though, um is that those missiles in Turkey were outdated and useless anyways. yeah And so ah it was floated up front that that be used as the as the method of negotiation. We will take those out. And the thought was, no, that's that's giving too much too quickly. yeah That's what we ended up doing. and again, they were useless. So we didn't give up much in in that negotiation.
Prelude to JFK's Assassination
00:26:08
Speaker
That's where we're at Okay, moving on. All right. So for the second half of the episode, we are going to talk about the assassination of JFK. This episode, we're keep keeping things like very linear timeline.
00:26:25
Speaker
We're going to follow the things that happened because in the next couple episodes is when we start getting weird. So for this one, I just want to outline like the things that happened in the days before and like just the actual verifiable facts that we've learned.
00:26:42
Speaker
On November 20th, 1963, Jack was having his usual morning swim at the White House pool with his trusted aides, Kenny O'Donnell and Dave Powers.
00:26:53
Speaker
At this meeting, they were discussing their upcoming trip to Texas. Jack was actively campaigning for his second term at president, and he needed to win over Texas.
00:27:05
Speaker
The Dallas-Fort Worth area was dangerous for him, both politically and personally. at that time, that area did not like him.
00:27:17
Speaker
ah This is something else we'll talk a lot about next episode when we talk about Lee Harvey Oswald. there's ah already a tie to Dallas-Fort Worth with him, but we'll get into it then. But just historically at the time, the Ku Klux Klan was pretty big in this area, and they just did not like progressive Kennedy.
00:27:37
Speaker
And previously in the ah election before, he chose LBJ as a running mate in order to secure the vote of Texas. Right. And nick he isn't the biggest fan of LBJ. They weren't the biggest fan of each other. Yeah. They really like each other. There was definitely contention, but that's how um how he was pulled in to begin with. So, yeah.
00:27:58
Speaker
So O'Donnell and Powers were concerned about right-wing demonstrators who had already – they'd already knew they were planning on being in Dallas, and they were expressing security concerns. Right.
00:28:10
Speaker
So the Dallas Morning News, the newspaper itself, was highly critical of Jack. So much to the point that after the assassination, people called the paper to blame them for the murder, saying that their vitriolic and incendiary reports caused the assassination. it's like that's how bad it was. like The newspaper was so toxic toward him that after he was killed, people were like, you did this.
00:28:39
Speaker
it's crazy So a lot of people were telling Jack not to go at all. In another example of perhaps the Kennedy hubris, this made Jack even more determined to go.
00:28:50
Speaker
He really wanted to win these people over. And I think there's a lot of pride in this decision, but also he's trying to win the presidency. And I don't think he wanted LBJ as his vice president this time. So he had to win Texas on his own.
00:29:08
Speaker
He also didn't want to use the bubble top protector on the vehicle he would be in in the parade through the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Knowing this was going to be a difficult trip and it was going to be hard to win over the Texans, he ah knew that this was it was integral to have Jackie come with him, that she, her charm, could win win them over, which he was completely right about.
00:29:34
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Well, because of this, the reason that Jack said he didn't want the bubble top protector was because he wanted, he said he wanted Texas to see how beautiful Jackie was. Yeah, it was a strategic plan on his part to win over the voters and boost his popularity. She went specifically at his request. I think that's probably a generous generous term, request. Mm-hmm.
00:29:59
Speaker
Yeah. Well, and they were, this is kind of a good point there. And in the marriage as well, um they had recently lost their son, Patrick, and it brought them closer together. They leaned on each other at this time. And so she wanted to help as well. She was ready to go and and do what she needed to do to help him in this. So she wasn't like talked into it or anything. She was happy to go and she was happy to to spend time with him, but still had ah an element of her that was grieving. This was still, yeah ah there was still a fairly fresh wound in her. Yes, very much so.
00:30:39
Speaker
But his plan worked right. And her star power was unparalleled. And it's actually estimated that her presence drew in an extra hundred thousand people, um,
00:30:52
Speaker
throughout the streets of Texas, oh wow then he would have alone. yeah Let's remember, this was a multi-leg trip. so Right. he There were five different cities, but but it worked. Yeah. um The tour, it was ah it was five cities, two days.
00:31:09
Speaker
It was exhausting. And again, i mean... Jackie, this is the first time she's gone out and made a public appearance with Jack since losing Patrick. So in addition to this, Jack also wanted the motorcycle police to stay out of sight. And he didn't want the Secret Service to be too close to their car. Like he wanted an air of like this every guy, this regular guy.
00:31:33
Speaker
So why did his advisors in Secret Service agree to this? Jack could be a bit of a bully. his inner circles. He had that Kennedy-like bullishness, I guess.
00:31:46
Speaker
So despite this, O'Donnell felt responsible for the rest of his life for not demanding Jack follow these safety measures, but he gave in. They both gave in.
00:31:57
Speaker
And one of the the hubris things I see is Jack's casual attitude about safety, which it wasn't just this. It was, you you know around most, a lot of things. He wanted to kind of not have the security that presidents require. And he also was very prone to mingling with the public. Yeah. To the point of putting himself in peril and frustrating secret service.
00:32:24
Speaker
and Yes. Yeah. um But this casual attitude about safety can often, I think, be rebranded as him being courageous. And I definitely think that is how history... kind of sees him as this like, I don't know, brave like cowboy type almost that's like, I'll do the thing even if it's not the safest thing because it's the right thing.
00:32:47
Speaker
Instead of like, maybe it was just like, they were telling him not to and he was like, well, I'm going do it. Probably multifaceted reasons. Right. Part of his, the perception of him also was spin after the fact, which we will yeah end up talking about a lot.
00:33:03
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So the day before, just this is an exhausting trip, right? So the day before, they had actually already visited San Antonio and Houston, Texas.
00:33:14
Speaker
Then they flew up to Fort Worth. In Fort Worth, they it was it was nighttime by then. So there was crowds. It was like 11 o'clock at night by the time they got to their hotel. That's where they spent the night. In Houston, Jackie gave her final speech.
00:33:33
Speaker
and She gave the whole speech in Spanish. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. I'm gonna actually, but I'm going to throw in a clip of it because it's beautiful. I'm very happy to be in
00:33:53
Speaker
fund weapon to be the
00:33:59
Speaker
soia manos um they case they colon on colon measle massachusetts and it's valid to me mad you know ouner tried you to say my To the um United Latin American Citizens Group. So that was her final speech. Wow.
00:34:18
Speaker
something to add is this trip like the stops they were making were happening so quickly that The Secret Service really didn't have time to fully secure the buildings on the motorcade route. So that's important. Because we're talking five major cities in two days. Yeah.
00:34:38
Speaker
Yeah. So there was, i i i do think the Secret Service had a ton of pressure on them. And this is something you and i maybe don't agree about. But the story is that the Secret Service, some of the Secret Service agents stayed out that night drinking.
00:34:56
Speaker
And ah possibly doing drugs as well, which is like obviously against the rules.
Security Concerns and the Dallas Visit
00:35:03
Speaker
I will say later the Warren Commission wouldn't hold them accountable, citing a lack of evidence that they didn't take the appropriate actions. So just keep that mind. I believe it was maybe a little overstated, again, in retrospect, but that also – We'll give it, i'll I'll give it to you that maybe that's because also the Warren Commission didn't want to make make the Secret Service look foolish.
00:35:27
Speaker
yeah yeah um But they were stretched thin too at this point, you know, with with ah between all these cities, the moving one to the next. yeah So they were stretched thin and and um things weren't prepped quite as much as they should have been. Yeah.
00:35:43
Speaker
And I don't think the Secret Service planned the route, like planned the trip. Their job was to secure everything. And it's like, that is a wild expectation. Mm-hmm. to put on them. Like, I don't actually blame them for everything not being done 100%.
00:35:58
Speaker
It's not possible. So what we'll see is, okay, so the morning of Friday, November 22nd, wake up in Fort Worth, Jack gave a speech that morning and he requested, again, nice word for saying it, Jackie, get down there. yeah And I think Jackie's tired, but she gets down there um and he, right instincts. The crowd loves her. Yeah.
00:36:25
Speaker
It works, right? Then after that, they go outside and there's the public and kind of like you said, there's different instances where the Secret Service just couldn't be fully,
00:36:37
Speaker
prepared. And this also was one of them. the The public was way too close to him. He was wandering off. Yeah. Nothing happened, but this was a challenge already. And I think he, in this speech, so that morning, actually, that paper I mentioned before ran a story with a right-wing group, like, making an accusation of Jack committing treason to the country. So, like, that's happening.
00:37:02
Speaker
this paper's still whipping everybody up. And in that speech that he gave that, that like, he even mentioned a sniper could get him like that very morning. Like he, he like, it's like, ah, a sniper could take me out right now. Or like, he said something like that at this time that he's like, not listening the secret service. But you wonder if there had been talk and that's why that, you know, just something like that even stuck in his mind little bit. Right. Right.
00:37:28
Speaker
Right. So this is a minor point, but I don't know why this this struck me. So I actually live in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. And i I did not know when Jack and Jackie flew into Dallas, they were flying in from Fort Worth, which to me is just one city.
00:37:46
Speaker
yeah I don't know. Right. shocks me I know. I just, was like, the airport is DFW. They're one airport now. Yeah. So the fact that they flew over, I don't know what about that, but I'm like, oh that was like mind blown. What? Yeah.
00:38:01
Speaker
was Maybe there was a concession. he get He's like, fine, we can fly over to the other one. Is it worth is it worth the time to to take off? You'd think there was a helicopter. I guess you i guess I can't just make it like I suppose being on the road with a, ah motorcade would be, is it was kind of far for that. so I didn't i didn didn't really think about the logistics, but it was funny that to think that they flew from one to the other.
00:38:24
Speaker
Yeah. So yeah. So now, so the day has already begun. They've already, I believe had two appearances before lunch and now they're over in Dallas. They arrive in Dallas.
00:38:38
Speaker
Yeah. So after this luncheon speeches, they went through downtown Dallas through Dealey Plaza and The route had been made public and was planned days before, and the local newspapers...
00:38:53
Speaker
announced the route. They showed the route on November 19th. So this is a weird, a weird thing. But Lee Harvey Oswald, who is the assassin, he was very cheap. I can't wait to talk about him next week. This man's great. This man's wild. I know. I know. It was really hard not to yeah start yeah like going into him deeper. So we are keeping this yes as surface as possible, but there's so much more to say.
00:39:18
Speaker
So because he was cheap, he only bought day old newspapers. Yeah. So he saw the published route on November 20th, which meant he had a day and a half to kill the president.
00:39:29
Speaker
Can I throw in a personal story that's an aside that has absolutely nothing to do with this? Yes. So my father, Nikki's grandfather, was extremely cheap also. Yeah. And we used to, he used to clip coupons. Yeah. And so on Sundays, he would go and um go to like, where when you have to, like you had to pay for newspapers, right? Like you'd put them in the little newspaper dispensers.
00:39:54
Speaker
Yeah, you'd like put the quarter in and you'd pull the thing out and you'd put it open and get your paper. Except he would grab three. And that was his little way of saving money. And he used to make me go do it. ah He made me go do it too.
00:40:11
Speaker
Anyways. yeah Sorry. that Back to Lee Harvey. I wonder where you'd get the day old ones. Would they still be in there, but like at the bottom? Maybe. like i don't know.
00:40:22
Speaker
Or they were cheaper. so how yeah Where were they being sold? I don't know. He went to the newspaper office and got his day old ones. I guess somebody had to come take them out of the- ah the What it was the word?
00:40:34
Speaker
Right. Machine? Dispenser? i can't think There's a word! Dispenser, maybe? i don't know Maybe you can go pay them off as they take it. Yeah, right. The motorcade at this point had hit a point in the trip that everyone kind of let their guard down and assumed they were safe.
00:40:47
Speaker
The crowd had thinned out and some press had started to leave already. Around 1230 p.m., multiple shots were fired.
The Assassination and Aftermath
00:40:58
Speaker
Okay. So when when they were in Dallas, they actually had a 10-mile drive to the location of the planned luncheon.
00:41:09
Speaker
um that they were heading to so that's what they So they were going from Love Field, the airport they landed, to the location of the luncheon, which they're actually separate thing, but there was a lot of back and forth over where that, which, ah what the location that that luncheon would be held or which one they would be attending. But, um, yeah, so it was a 10 mile drive. So, um, it was a long motorcade and and I'm just thinking now, can you imagine, you know, now we have with a presidential beast or whatever it is we talk about. mean, 10 miles in an open top, like going slow.
00:41:43
Speaker
Yes. Yep. Yeah. I mean, it's, that's pretty crazy in, you know, just think back. Yeah. So they're heading to this luncheon. Obviously, they never make crowds. Crowds are thinning. Press is starting to pack up and head out. Everybody thinks like, OK, we're good. We're like at the end of this. We're in the clear. It's 1230. We want to go have lunch at the luncheon.
00:42:03
Speaker
But around 1230 p.m., multiple shots were fired. The Warren Commission would later conclude that it was three shots. But about 20% of witnesses say they heard a different amount of shots.
00:42:17
Speaker
I think this the the official story is we have three shots. But this has been one aspect of the of the conspiracy that is it seems to be never ending. That there's a there's not a lot of consensus.
00:42:29
Speaker
Yes. So Jack was shot on his right through his upper back and out his throat. That shot alone should have been or was a fatal shot. Yeah. Would have been fatal.
00:42:43
Speaker
Yeah. Because of how it hit his windpipe. Right. So Jackie, when that happened, she put her arms around him because he kind of went forward. And then ah another shot struck him in the head.
00:42:57
Speaker
And this is the shot. if If you've not seen the video, don't watch the video. I made the mistake because I hadn't actually seen the whole video. And I thought, I can do it. And it's don't do it. Yeah.
00:43:09
Speaker
It's gruesome. So with this shot that struck him in the head, blood and blood and brain matter erupted. Secret Service agent Clint Hill ran to the car as the second shot hit Jack.
00:43:24
Speaker
And Jackie was trying to gather bits of his skull in kind of this like shocked effort, thinking she could like put it back together.
00:43:36
Speaker
If she physically had it and physically trying Holding it yeah to his head. Right. O'Donnell and Powers were less than 20 yards away when Jack was shot. and They were in the follow-up car. So these two like trusted aides friends, but worked for him, watched his head explode.
00:43:57
Speaker
So in the car with with them was the governor and his wife. And if I'm remembering correctly, I think it's Governor Connolly. can't remember. I think Connolly was hit.
00:44:09
Speaker
He was. But it was like right in the in the leg or something like something not. It didn't kill him, but i actually don't. I think he was hurt. He was significant, but not. so Yeah.
00:44:20
Speaker
Yeah. It wasn't life threatening. Yeah. We'll talk a lot more about them when we get into the conspiracy episodes. So as i say at this point, the Clint Hill is like the Secret Service is.
00:44:33
Speaker
Like spread eve eagle over the Kennedys trying to protect protect them from further harm. And trying to keep Jackie in because she's like trying to climb on the trunk to like get parts of her husband. And he's having to be like, nope, you got stay in the car. Because they've got to now head off, head to to to the hospital, right? So this is unplanned.
00:44:59
Speaker
Their contingency planning at this point was not great. This was the right. So they take off and they're heading toward Parkland Hospital, which is it's still there. But it's like a 10 minute drive. It's it's a yeah fairly decent drive from where they are. And it was said that they were driving 80 miles per hour to get there.
00:45:18
Speaker
Yeah. Jackie this whole time is trying to hold down the top of Jack's head in one hand and holding his brains in her other hand. When they arrived at Parkland, he had no blood pressure. He wasn't breathing, but there was a faint heartbeat.
00:45:34
Speaker
Jackie had never once even considered that she had been hit. It didn't occur to her. And she never flinched at the gore. It's almost like, like I saw it as almost going into like, I've gone into mom mode.
00:45:48
Speaker
where I'm like, I can do these like crazy things to protect my family. That's what I saw. like I just saw her going into like take care of action mode.
00:45:59
Speaker
And in shock, probably. Oh, for sure. Yeah. And of course, she's covered in blood. She's covered in blood. there's reason i mean reason to think maybe she could have been yeah hit. Yeah. So at the hospital, she even like nudged a doctor in this state of just shock.
00:46:18
Speaker
and handed the doctor part, the part of the brain that she had been holding. was like, here, put this back. Actually at the hospital with all the commotion, obviously going on and and and everyone focused on Jack. Connelly consequently was sort of like off to the side. Like nobody was really, yeah nobody was really helping him. And and yeah another doctor yeah came down. It was like, think we probably should, we should probably look at him too. Look at him too. So Jackie did not want him to die alone.
00:46:48
Speaker
And she demanded to be with him when he took his last breath. So she was even in there the whole time he was being worked on. so and And kind of in the same way Connelly was kind of forgotten about at the hospital, nobody comforted her. Nobody checked on her. They were so concerned with with him And we we talked about this a little beforehand, you know, in a way that kind of, made I can see how that happened. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Who who would be that person yeah to comfort her? ah Who would feel like it was okay to approach, first of all, this woman in the state of losing her husband, but but I mean this huge political figure. Right. Well, it's kind of like like, you know, their secret service were with them, but his his aides, like I said, like friends, question mark, but he worked for, like they worked for him. Kind of the same thing. Like she has a relationship with a lot of these people, but she, they worked for her, you know? So it's like. that And this is the height of what they're,
00:47:49
Speaker
there to protect right right that that to protect them. So this is this is when their job really is is at its most intense. And you know that doesn't doesn't leave leave room for comfort. But I mean, it's it's devastating. yeah Not to say it's not devastating. yeah but and i So I definitely don't think it was anything intentional. I just think it was All these people had a million things that they had to do in that moment. And unfortunately, that wasn't helping her.
00:48:20
Speaker
So the cranial injuries were deemed 100% fatal. And then it was thick they quickly knew that, despite that the... the faint heartbeat. it was It was quite obvious that there was yeah nothing they could do to save him. yeah And he was a officially pronounced dead at 1 p.m., 30 minutes after being shot. yeah John F. Kennedy died at approximately 1 o'clock Central Standard Time today here in Dallas.
00:48:51
Speaker
here' in doham He died of a gunshot wound In the brain. So what else was going on at the hospital? The Secret Service agents were putting a hard top on the car they were in. And this was to protect reporters from taking photos. They didn't want anything like that getting out until they were ready for information like that to get out.
00:49:13
Speaker
They also used sponges and buckets of water to wash out the gore. Even as onlookers screamed at them that they were ruining evidence, And you and I had a good conversation about this because neither of us think this was a conspiracy. It's going to be used that way down the line when we get to it. um But both of us think this is the Secret Service are doing their job.
00:49:39
Speaker
They're still protecting the president. Yeah. And I don't think they were thinking about evidence. Like, I i don't. That wasn't a concern. The concern was. Mm-hmm. This is going to be photographed and shared, and they can't let that happen.
00:49:53
Speaker
and i mean it and And they didn't have a plan in place also. I mean, there's had they didn't yeah this hadn't been thought through. how How they were to react in this situation was not something that was laid out.
00:50:04
Speaker
Yeah. You work on human instinct, right? And your instinct would be to to do their jobs. And protect the president's. I think even just the image of him. The entire country from seeing such a gruesome.
00:50:17
Speaker
Right, right, exactly. So he obviously died in Texas. According to Texas law, autopsies had to be performed in the state where the crime occurred.
00:50:30
Speaker
to maintain the chain of command. And interesting, at this time, there was not even a federal law that you couldn't kill the president. Oh, because so it just I'm just thinking a lot about the Garfield series when it was like they didn't even consider people would do this. Like people were walking into the White House for a visit and he's just like hanging out at the train station. And like this is like the next step. They were like, OK, we prepared for that.
00:50:57
Speaker
Okay, we learned some lessons. ah Well, we're going to find out the same is true with this. But yeah, there wasn't a federal law. So, I mean, it was all state yeah jurisdiction. that The law had been broken at the state level. So they were really in control of the situation. And so texan medical examiners from Texas really, like on paper, should have pertor performed the autopsy. But Vice President, now President Johnson, And the Secret Service wanted to take the body. They did not want to leave the body in Texas.
00:51:31
Speaker
LBJ famously said, i arrived in Dallas with him. i am leaving Dallas with the president. Yeah. Yeah. There was a literal push and pull, like, for her the body, before a Parkland doctor eventually signed off at Jackie's request.
00:51:50
Speaker
she wanted the autopsy to take place at a military hospital because of Jack's military service. Now, again, this is one of those things that down the, down the road, this will be brought into the whole conspiracy.
00:52:06
Speaker
We both agreed. that Again, I think it just happened. You know what? I think it, I think, I think it really was. Yeah. They didn't know what to do. And, um Yeah. You know, it's just one of those things, you know, there's, yeah there's someone who wants to follow of the rules and then.
00:52:22
Speaker
There's a whole bunch of people are like, are you great crazy? this The president has to. Yeah. And when the visibly traumatized widow says like, this is what's happening. Like, great. i'm I'm not going to be in the paper saying no to Jackie. That's happening.
00:52:37
Speaker
So Lyndon B. Johnson swept in immediately after the death and got everybody on Air Force One. He had one. Everybody really had wanted Jackie to change her clothes because she was covered in blood.
00:52:52
Speaker
And she defiantly refused, saying she wanted the world to see what Dallas had done to her husband. In fact, someone on Air Force One before she got on had laid out a white dress for her to change into. and she was just like, I'm not doing that.
00:53:09
Speaker
So she remained in that pink stained suit. on Air Force One, where Johnson was sworn in as president. And a lot's been made of how Johnson behaved at this time. he really took control of the situation. He stayed like calm and cool.
00:53:26
Speaker
But that came across as very cold and has been, yeah based on your perspective, has been spun either direction and in the Oh, there's there's an LBJ conspiracy theory that we will also talk about.
00:53:45
Speaker
But he was like – he had always shown Jackie kindness despite the issues he had had with Jack. And um his wife, Lady Bird Johnson – They maintained a friendship. They wrote letters back and forth for the rest of their lives.
LBJ's Actions and Conspiracy Theories
00:54:00
Speaker
So, i you know, she was actually the the one who tried to comfort Jackie as kind of the need shifted from the like, devastating, surprising loss of Jack to then swearing in Johnson.
00:54:16
Speaker
So instead of her focusing on her husband, she focused on Jackie And it was actually LBJ himself insisted that Jackie be with him for the swearing in. This could look two ways. It could look as spin, you know, kind of how she was along for the trip in the first place to because who's everybody loved her, you know? And so part of the conspiracy theory is that, is he was using her.
00:54:42
Speaker
It could also be just a show of, you know, everybody coming together. and it was probably a bit of both. Yeah. and And as we go forward, i think that's it important to talk about how a lot of the things that – later were construed as possible parts of a conspiracy are really everyone looking out for themselves. Right. Or everyone doing their job. um Which is still looking out for yourself because right it's it's not in a nefarious way that you look out for yourself, but they're protecting themselves. and Right. Yeah.
00:55:13
Speaker
And we see this all around with LBJ, with Jackie, with the Secret Service, across the board. Yeah, definitely. So after the swearing in the casket was brought on to Air Force One. But the casket that was carrying Jack was too large to fit through the plane doors. Yeah. So the people carrying it broke the handles off. They're like, we're getting this dang thing in here. So something very interesting about that casket, Nikki, is that he, the body was so bloody and everything happened so fast that the casket was soaked in blood to the point where it couldn't, mean, the family, it it couldn't be used as his actual casket.
00:55:58
Speaker
But the family definitely didn't, Yeah.
00:56:03
Speaker
yeah so when they after to dispose of that casket they actually took it up into a plane flew out over the ocean weighted it down with sandbags and dropped it in the ocean.
00:56:19
Speaker
Wow. I didn't know that. Oh, yeah. Oh, my goodness. Well, again, another thing that could be a conspiracy thing. When, again, probably just doing what they thought was the best thing. Yeah.
00:56:33
Speaker
Well, so the pilot says that he was the person who was like, once the casket, like, what they were having a difficult time getting the casket on, the pilot said like he was like the caskets getting on board.
00:56:48
Speaker
And he said he was the one who said that he arrived with Jack and he was leaving with Jack. And I think Johnson echoed that as well. Johnson wanted to get out of Dallas as soon as possible. He wanted to get to work as president.
00:57:04
Speaker
Jackie refused. she She was not leaving without Jack's body. And she basically told Johnson that it would be a bad look for Johnson to abandon a widow in Dallas. And the casket wouldn't fit. They were just like, we have to go.
00:57:17
Speaker
And she's like, oh, yeah. On the plane, the casket was actually placed in the rear section of the main passenger cabin as opposed to stowed. in the Yeah. Yeah. So it it was and um with obviously Secret Service equipment.
00:57:37
Speaker
Right alongside the body. Jackie sat next to the casket. I would really recommend, so I'm going to talk more about movies. So first I watched the movie called Parkland and it was about like the doctors at the hospital taking care of him. And it was fine. It was whatever. Zac Efron was in it, so I was happy.
00:57:54
Speaker
But the Natalie Portman movie, Jack, I think it's just Jackie, is about like, it starts with the car speeding to the hospital.
00:58:06
Speaker
And her, you see like the pig pink outfit she's in like on the trunk and so it's like the literal like moments and days after the assassination um it's based on an interview she did a couple days after the assassination it is so good like natalie portman's phenomenal in it and it like made what i researched really visceral and yeah definitely recommend that She really nails the accent, which is very difficult accent, and the like voice inflection, yeah which Jack had a very distinct yeah way of speaking. And I think Natalie Portman did a great job with that.
00:58:45
Speaker
Yeah, agreed. The body arrived in D.C. by 6 p.m. and was taken to Bethesda Military Hospital for autopsy. Bethesda.
00:58:59
Speaker
There was immediate battle for Jackie. Johnson wanted her to stay united with him to show the country that they could have faith in him.
Jackie Kennedy's Struggles and Legacy
00:59:08
Speaker
Even different Dallas businessmen tried to contact her to see if they would if they could get her to speak positively about the Dallas hospitality because they were worried that the assassination would like negatively impact local commerce. She did not respond. That is insane. Yeah.
00:59:29
Speaker
It is insane. So at the same time, the Kennedys needed her to secure Jack's legacy. So all these different, like... This push and pull is all happening while she's dealing with losing her husband, masterminding his grand funeral, raising the kids, still mourning Patrick.
00:59:52
Speaker
So she was too distraught to tell their children, Caroline and John Jr., So the kid's nanny ended up telling them.
01:00:03
Speaker
um They were very close with the nanny. It wasn't just like, it again, somebody who worked for them, but she trusted her to do it. It wasn't like a nanny, go do this.
01:00:13
Speaker
So with Jack's death, her life's mission became raising her children and curating Jack's legacy. it was very, Jack was a, Despite his prominent position and and obviously huge job, he he was a good father still. He was yeah he was a hands-on father with the kids. and There's actually some some great footage. There's some great footage of him playing with the kids in the Oval Office. And it's actually yeah incredibly sweet.
01:00:42
Speaker
Yeah. I'll try to find those something like that for social media too. Okay. So this curation of Jack's legacy on the other hand, came at the expense of all of the women he harmed.
01:00:54
Speaker
This is like another, his death made it even harder for them to ever come forward because right now at this time in the 60s, Jack is a hero. And I cannot even imagine what would have rained down on any of these women if they came forward with any allegations or suggestions of impropriety.
01:01:19
Speaker
for decades. And to be fair, some are also, they were grieving yeah too. what I mean, it's just a, it's a ah storm of emotions yeah that must have been overcoming. We talked about Mimi and Diana both had, had grief.
01:01:34
Speaker
Probably some grief, some anger. oh yeah. Some guilt watching Jackie suffer at this point. just so many different, so many different emotions. Yeah.
01:01:45
Speaker
And that's why we don't really hear a whole lot for Years to come. Yeah. and I mean, decades. Then they get their stories. Yeah. Or some choose to.
01:01:56
Speaker
So for Jackie, she curated the image of this storybook family. and in that, she kind of took the burden on herself of dealing with the bad husband of it all and kept that private.
01:02:12
Speaker
It was like, I have to handle that. The nation doesn't. And with this, she really romanticized him after his death. And I think as we all have. And she made a very conscious decision to do so almost immediately after his death. She she jumped in and and was very concerned about protecting his legacy.
01:02:33
Speaker
yeah And what this did was solidified her role forever in the Kennedy family. Jack was only 46 years old when he died. The Kennedy family united over the loss. They really, like, came together, took care of each other. It solidified...
Family Unity and Future Divisions
01:02:51
Speaker
Jack's death solidified their belief that the family was divinely ordained to be leaders of the country and that really, like, dark forces were trying to stop them.
01:03:02
Speaker
Unfortunately, a few years later, Jack's brother Bobby's assassination... would divide the family instead of bringing them together again. I have some Jackie episodes planned. I can't remember if it's one or two, just kind of about her life after. And one thing I think is really amazing is Rose loved Jackie.
01:03:25
Speaker
and especially after Jack died, because she's, she was like, okay, she's proven herself. She's a Kennedy. So much so that Jackie would go to her for advice about like her next marriage.
01:03:38
Speaker
And so, yeah, this decision to curate his life and legacy really made it so the family saw her as like, okay, she is a full Kennedy. She is one of us.
01:03:52
Speaker
She's loyal. She won't betray us. Also, to their credit, they never they never saw Jack's kids as anything but their family as well. So even when Jackie got married and moved to Greece, you know, it was still like, no, they're still the there still are cousins. They're still the grandkids. There's nothing going to change about that. um And I don't think they were ever treated differently except for what, like, we'll see the boundaries Jackie set. And that film, Jackie, that you mentioned with Natalie Portman, it it's focused on the interviews she gives or the interview she gave with a journalist. i think Life Magazine, maybe? yeah within, it was about a week after the actual. Yeah. um
01:04:35
Speaker
And it was. That's where she started really cementing and laying that that groundwork for his memory. Yeah. And it was back at Hyannis Port at the Kennedy compound.
01:04:45
Speaker
And I think that was another move. of the Kennedys to say like, no, she's still ours. All right. Well, I think that wraps up the ah solidified information, let's say, for the assassination.
01:04:59
Speaker
Next week, we're going to take a bit of a detour. I debated doing and a full episode on Lee Harvey Oswald because it's not, he's not a Kennedy.
01:05:11
Speaker
But once I started just like re-listening to some podcasts and I read a book, i was like, Joy's going to really want to talk about him. I was going to sit. I'm sitting here going, please, please. I thought we were. So when I was, yeah, when I was putting everything together, I was like, do I do a whole episode? And then I was like I can't stop.
01:05:32
Speaker
I have to do a whole episode. And thank you. Yes. I was like, Joy is going to be fascinated so I can get away with doing a full episode on a not Kennedy. In fact, probably an anti Kennedy, the exact opposite of a Kennedy.
01:05:46
Speaker
But he's so interesting. And. It's worth it. It's worth it. And so much ties together with like the Cuban Missile Crisis and Dulles and the CIA. And he's he's got this weird, he's almost like the an evil Forrest Gump in Jack Kennedy's life.
01:06:08
Speaker
i yeah I don't know what to make of him, truly. I mean, I'm excited. I have been researching him a lot. um And I will, obviously, this week go more into it. But I really don't know what to make of him. Yeah. totally me Help me research. will help Help me form more of an opinion, even with all conspiracy, which has their own episodes too. Yeah.
01:06:32
Speaker
What I'm left with more than anything is just overwhelmed with but everything I learned makes it less clear. what what ah Exactly. Yeah. The more you look into things and research things, it's like, but that opens so many what ifs or- that decision was made and that led to this. And it's it's, yeah, the more you learn about it, the more you're confused.
01:06:57
Speaker
So much more to come, but we will keep in mind, really, this is about the Kennedy curse and nutge not, not, not a podcast specifically about just the assassination conspiracy. Yeah.
01:07:09
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. Having said that, this will be a few episodes of the whole series. How could it not be? All right. Well, until next time, i hope everybody's enjoying the series. I'm still super into it.
01:07:26
Speaker
Was it I think one of my kids was like, what happens if you write all these episodes and halfway through you're like, I'm so done. And I was like, i don't know. We power through.
01:07:38
Speaker
I've written a book about the Kennedys. We have to finish. And you are dragging me along. But it's working. But it's working. Yep. kick Kicking and screaming. i find I find the angles I like. Exactly. i knew you would. All right, everyone. We will talk to you next time.
01:07:55
Speaker
Bye.