John F. Kennedy thrived on action.  In response to the
question: "why did he want to be president?" he replied,
"because that's where the action is."  I guess we could say
that he was an action junkie.  In any event, he naturally
gravitated to the White House situation room.   It's
unfortunate that his leadership style tended to create the
very crises he then had to manage but that is how the
first two years of his presidency proceeded.  In those
years he was given to speaking of his being "Commander
of the Grand Alliance," "leader of the free world," and
of "exercising the plenary powers of his office," including
those that are enumerated and those merely implied. Such
was his exalted self-image and grandness of his eloquence. 

     From 1945 to 1960, John Kennedy was fully engaged
in the task of becoming president.  In fact, so engrossed
that he never really thought through what he wanted to
do once he got to be president.  He felt noble stirrings,
had a keen sense of his own mortality, and wanted to
leave a legacy of greatness.  It's just that he had no idea
what that might entail.  In his presidential campaign, he
kept coming back to the expression, as if it were a mantra,
that we have to get "America moving again."  A fine
generality that.  Moving where?  In his inaugural address,
Kennedy called upon his fellow citizens "to pay any price,
bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend,
oppose any foe" as if he knew who he was or where he
was going.  But he didn't.  Given this clarion call, the
American public were aroused, ready to do their part,
whatever that may have been, but there were no specifics.

     Originally, JFK's older brother Joe, Jr. was the one
on whom the family's political aspirations rested but after
he perished in a WWII airplane accident over England, it
fell to Jack, as next in line, as it were, to fill his brother's
shoes and fulfill his father's fondest dreams.  Were that all
there was to it, vainglorious ambition and the love of power,
there would be little reason now for our revisiting his
presidency but there's more to it than that, as soon we shall
have reason to relate.

     In various respects JFK was a conventional, promise-
making/promise-breaking politician yet, both as candidate
and as president, his appeal transcended politics-as-usual. 
Expectations were aroused that he represented a break from
the past, that the "New Frontier" was more than just another
campaign slogan but a hopeful departure from business-as-
usual.  As his speech writer/biographer, Arthur Schlesinger
put it: JFK was of a "skeptical mind, a laconic tongue," that
he was "contained and ironic," and that he "voiced the
disquietude of the post-war generation."

     But where did image-making leave off and reality begin?
Charisma is a hard-to-define quality very useful in the
exercise of leadership but potentially misleading.  Maybe
it had something to do with his cool air of detachment, his
wistful, laconic way of speaking, his elevated rhetoric, his
self-depreciating humor.  Reinforcing the view that he was
out of the ordinary, was his gift for the symbolic act - such
as during his presidential campaign communicating directly
with Martin Luther King, Jr. in jail, when he was
incarcerated in Georgia and in mortal danger.  This showed
initiative and a willingness to shape events and not just be
reactive.  Then too he was a genuine war hero.  As the
Captain of PT 109, after it sliced in two by a Japanese
cruiser, he heroically swam a wounded shipmate to shore in
the dark, pulling him along using his pants' belt.

     Further, Kennedy could attract men of the arts, Carl
Sandburg, for instance, who was present at the podium
for his inauguration.  All of this spoke of excellence. 
Beyond that there was the Kennedy mystique: his wife
Jacqueline, the jet set, the beautiful people, the Hollywood
crowd, (such as Peter Lawford, his brother-in-law.)

     Until Kennedy, no presidential candidate had spoken
up on behalf of people of color.  Thus when during his
presidential campaign President Kennedy asserted that
discrimination in public housing could be ended with the
stroke of a pen, there was a stir of excitement in the Black
community and among those of liberal persuasion.  Again,
on being elected President, JFK founded the Alliance
for Progress.  Expectations were raised, not just in Central
or South America, but around the world that Kennedy's
Administration would put aside gunboat diplomacy and
be a friend of peaceful relations and that the US would
pursue humane policies. 

     Also, when Kennedy founded the Peace Corp and put
his brother-in-law Sargent Shriver at its head, there was
an outbreak of idealistic fervor among America's youth
who volunteered to do stints of duty in faraway places.

     And yet on the other side of the coin, Kennedy often
disappointed.  For instance, from all over the country,
People of color began sending him pens but he continued
vacillating and never did get around finally to making
that stroke of the pen he said is all it would take.  Indeed,
it's not difficult to see Kennedy from a completely
disillusioned perspective as only having been motivated
by calculating considerations of electoral advantage, that
his intentions ran little beyond placating Stevensonian
liberals who were given to wondering aloud whether
there was any real difference between him and Richard
Nixon after all.

     And it is a fact that Kennedy with his father's money,
and the intervention of mobsters, stole the presidential
election of 1960.  Vote early and vote often really meant
something that year in Chicago.  On Kennedy's watch,
spending on armaments and for war-making rose
dramatically.  On his watch, over 17,000 "advisors," so-
called, were stationed in Laos and Vietnam - up from
800.  On his watch, occurred the Bay of Pigs fiasco.  On
his watch, numerous attempts were made to assassinate a
head-of-state, Fidel Castro.  Truly, the powers-that-be
had reason for confidence that Kennedy was their man for,
despite occasional outbursts of idealistic rhetoric, they
figured like father, like son, JFK could be counted upon
to run true to form, that his idealism would drown in a
surfeit of pragmatism and realpolitic.  But if not, they
figured they had enough dirt on him that they could
always blackmail him for his playboy activities.  

     But then came October, 1962 and the infamous Cuban
Missile Crisis which dramatically changed the calculus. 

     For thirteen days the President, members of his Cabinet,
military personnel and his advisors were holed up in the
White House situation room conducting marathon sessions,
trying to figure out a response to the Soviet's nuclear-
tipped missiles in Cuba.  From that room came the response
to blockade Cuba, an act of war, also to conduct over-
flights of Cuba, another act of war, and finally on the 28th,
they settled on a full-scale invasion to begin the next
day, Monday the 29th.  A flotilla of navel ship had been
gathered off Florida.  Many tens of thousands of military
personnel had been mobilized and were standing at the
ready.  That is why President Kennedy was in such a great
sweat that fateful evening, for the next day he could
become the greatest mass-murderer in human history
were the Russians to respond in kind, tit-for-tat and
events spin out of control, spiraling downward into
WWIII, with thousands of nuclear weapons being
employed.

     Presumably Kennedy's advisors, "the best and the
brightest," hired from "think tanks" or non-profit
foundations such as the Ford Foundation would know
what to do but they didn't.  Smart as they, yet they
couldn't even frame the simplest of questions: to wit, if
it was alright for the US of A to base nuclear weapons
in a foreign country bordering the USSR, namely,
Turkey, why wasn't it alright for the USSR to base its
nuclear weapons 90 miles from America's shore in Cuba?
Did we say "the best and the brightest"?  Actually, they
were acting like a ship of fools by holding the entire world
hostage to nuclear blackmail.

     One of the few voices of reason among them had been
Adlai Stevenson's.  Stevenson is most remembered for his
stirring speech before the UN Security Council, October
25th, in which he told the Russians among other things
that "I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell
freezes over, if that’s your decision."

     But Stevenson played a far more significant role five
days before privately on October 20th at the White House,
in the ExComm meeting (the Executive Committee of
the National Security Council) where he laid out the basis
for resolving the crisis, that being a settlement involving
reciprocal withdrawal of U.S. nuclear missiles from
Turkey.  For this he was roundly condemned as a weakling
and as being soft on Communism.  His advice ignored,
on October 22nd, the first U.S. Jupiter missile site was
formally turned over to the Turkish Air Force for
maintenance and operation.       

     Day by day, the crisis escalated until on October 27th,
at 7:45 P.M, Ambassador Dobrynin and Attorney General
Robert Kennedy held a meeting at the Justice Department
where Kennedy, according to his memoirs, told Dobrynin:

 ...We had to have a commitment by tomorrow
that [the missile] bases would be removed.  I
was not giving them an ultimatum but a
statement of fact.  He should understand that
if they did not remove those bases, we would
remove them...  He asked me what offer the
United States was making, and I told him of
the letter that President Kennedy had just
transmitted to Khrushchev.  He raised the
question of our removing the missiles from
Turkey.  I said that there could be no quid
pro quo or any arrangement made under this
kind of threat or pressure, and that in the
last analysis that was a decision that would
have to be made by NATO.

     After this disastrous meeting, RFK returned to the
White House.  That evening President Kennedy directed
Secretary of Defense McNamara to have the Secretary
of the Air Force Eugene Zuckert order to active duty 24
Air Force Reserve units totaling 14,200 personnel.  Later,
Robert Kennedy vividly recalled the somber atmosphere
in the White House:

We had not abandoned hope, but what hope
there was now rested with Khrushchev's
revising his course within the next few hours.
It was a hope, not an expectation.  The
expectation was a military confrontation by
Tuesday [October 29] and possibly tomorrow...

     Fortunately from October 25th through the 27th, living
at the White House was a colorful personality, especially
brought in for this ocassion to advise the President, a
German national turned spy with an event-filled life.  
During WWII, Erich Neumeth had fought for Nazi
Germany as a Luftwaffe pilot.  After the war he worked
first for British intelligence behind the Iron Curtain in
Hungry and in Russia.  After that he was picked up by
the CIA as a human intelligence officer.  He was
considered to be especially knowledgeable about Russian
psychology and had advised President Kennedy on
previous occasions, particularly preparing him for the
face-off with Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna in 1961.  
In a remarkable filmed interview released in 2000, he
said:

The President trusted me, he trusted me to
avoid what's coming.  That's my job.  I consider
both nations my enemies. ... you know the
Americans ruin my country, ruin my cities,
they bomb my house, they kill my people in
indiscriminate bombing and the Russians take
off my wealth and I said "why not just let them
slug it out."  He [Kennedy] had at least forty
advisors and they were pushing him to make a
first move to attempt to destroy the Russians
and destroy their capabilities to hit us and the
President was asking them, "are you sure?"

I was in the other room and I heard what was
going on and I came out and he was trembling,
he was trembling, and was white and that's
when I said: "Please, please, don't be hurried,
talk to the Russians, call to the Russian embassy.
He said "Why, why the Russians will not attack
us?"  I said, "I tell you why, I give my word, it's
the why in a few seconds, call the Russians ..." 
And I looked at the terrified faces of the two
guys  [that is, both JFK and his brother Robert].
Just like Isaiah, I don't know why, I see it
'Blessed are the Peacemakers" and I said, that's
it.  I am that.  God put me in that position and
I am calling myself a peacemaker.  And he
[JFK] said, "Alex," that was my name, Alex,
"it's Moscow."  And I picked up the phone in
a hurry, and the voice he said, it is a direct call
from Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev.  And he
said in Russian like he is talking to the President,
"Mr President, we don't want war, please, we
don't want any war.  Let's deal.  I'm only saying
one thing to do, don't attack Cuba.  I don't want
the war."

I think Bobby heard the conversation, he runs,
he picked up his arm, "God bless, we have no
war ..."  I heard Khrushchev talking now on the
phone, "one more deal, you have too much
advantage over us in Turkey.  The Jupiter
missiles, I want you to pull them back.  That's
our secret."  The President said, "it's a deal, it's
a deal, yes, yes, I promise."

I was the only guy who knows what Khrushchev
offered.  I swear, the President kneeled down
and he prayed with the rosary. 

      Nikita Khrushchev effectively terminated the Cuban
missile crisis on October 28th when he broadcast on Radio
Moscow that "the Soviet government, in addition to
previously issued instructions on the cessation of further
work at the building sites for the weapons, has issued a
new order on the dismantling of the weapons which you
describe as 'offensive,' and their crating and return to the
Soviet Union."  In November the US removed its missiles
from Turkey.

     For most of his life, JFK had played hardball for the
prize of worldly success - fame, power, adulation -and,
with the help of his family, he usually won.  But he came
to a new realization, that, in a nuclear-armed world, this
approach will lead mankind to disaster.  And so he started
to replace his competive, take-no-captives approach with
a live-and-let-live ethic.  Having come within a hair's
breath of being the destroyer of worlds, he recoiled from
such a fate and dedicated himself, instead, to being a
peacemaker.

What Castro Taught Us.

Robert McNamara, Foreign Policy May/June 2005 Issue.

Among the costs of maintaining nuclear
weapons is the risk - to me an unacceptable
risk - of use of the weapons either by accident
or as a result of misjudgment or miscalculation
in times of crisis. The Cuban Missile Crisis
demonstrated that the United States and the
Soviet Union--and indeed the rest of the
world - came within a hair's breadth of nuclear
disaster in October 1962.

Indeed, according to former Soviet military
leaders, at the height of the crisis, Soviet forces
in Cuba possessed 162 nuclear warheads,
including at least 90 tactical warheads.  At
about the same time, Cuban President Fidel
Castro asked the Soviet ambassador to Cuba
to send a cable to Soviet Premier Nikita
Khrushchev stating that Castro urged him to
counter a U.S. attack with a nuclear response.
Clearly, there was a high risk that in the face
of a U.S. attack, which many in the U.S.
government were prepared to recommend to
President Kennedy, the Soviet forces in Cuba
would have decided to use their nuclear
weapons rather than lose them.  Only a few
years ago did we learn that the four Soviet
submarines trailing the U.S. Naval vessels
near Cuba each carried torpedoes with nuclear
warheads.  Each of the sub commanders
had the authority to launch his torpedoes.  
The situation was even more frightening
because, as the lead commander recounted
to me, the subs were out of communication
with their Soviet bases, and they continued
their patrols for four days after Khrushchev
announced the withdrawal of the missiles
from Cuba.

The lesson, if it had not been clear before,
was made so at a conference on the crisis held
in Havana in 1992, when we first began to
learn from former Soviet officials about their
preparations for nuclear war in the event of a
U.S. invasion.  Near the end of that meeting,
I asked Castro whether he would have
recommended that Khrushchev use the
weapons in the face of a U.S. invasion, and if
so, how he thought the United States would
respond.  "We started from the assumption that
if there was an invasion of Cuba, nuclear war
would erupt," Castro replied. "We were certain
of that.... [W]e would be forced to pay the price
that we would disappear."  He continued,
"Would I have been ready to use nuclear
weapons? Yes, I would have agreed to the use
of nuclear weapons."  And he added, "If Mr.
McNamara or Mr. Kennedy had been in our
place, and had their country been invaded, or
their country was going to be occupied ... I
believe they would have used tactical nuclear
weapons."

     Knowing that Russian commanders in the field had their
orders, that if war were to break out and communications
with Moscow were broken - they were to loose their
nuclear-tipped missiles at will.  We can see how easily it
could have been: boom, no more Washington; boom, no
more New York; and in return, boom, no more Moscow.
Boom, boom, boom, maybe no more humanity.

     President Kennedy had learned his lesson: from that
time forward he would be a man of peace.  Until then,
politically, President Kennedy had been little more than
a fetch boy for the military-industrial complex.  A shaken
man, humbled by the responsibilities of his office, he
found a new sense of moral clarity.  Maybe for the first
time, he found a calling equal to his considerable talents.
But no good deed ever goes unpunished, for in trying to
establish peace with the Soviets, JFK had to stand up to
the powers-that-be, thus setting the stage for his high-
noon execution.

      With characteristic vigor, Kennedy set himself to the
task at hand, namely that of making an enduring peace. 
Inasmuch as both the Soviet Union and the US had returned
to atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in the latter
half of 1961, massive amounts of cancer-causing
radioactivity were being released worldwide.  It was urgent
that the parties involved cease and decist.  This Khrushchev
sought to do when he broached the subject in a message to
Kennedy towad the end of the Cuban missile crisis, on
October 28th, 1962:

We should like to continue the exchange of
views on the prohibition of atomic and
thermonuclear weapons, on general
disarmament and other problems relating to
the relaxation of international tensions.

     Then, in a long letter devoted entirely to the test ban
situation, on December 19th, Khrushchev wrote that it
was time "to put a stop to nuclear tests once and for all,
to make an end of them."  In this letter appeared a telling
passage: "I should like to think that you yourself appreciate
the truth of our arguments that national means of detection
are adequate. ... But you have been unwilling thus far to
recognize this reality openly."  Reading between the lines,
the significance of this passage is that Kennedy and
Khrushchev were coming to understandings privately,
outside the usual diplomatic channels of negotiation. 
This had to be very disturbing to America's power
brokers.

     The big breakthrough on the American side came with
President Kennedy's commencement speech at American
University, June 10th.  The Manchester Guardian wrote
that it was "one of the great state papers of American
history."  Again, this came about not through regular
channels but, as Theodore Sorensen, who helped draft the
speech, wrote:

Unlike most foreign policy speeches - none
of which was as sweeping in concept and
impact as this turned out to be - official
department positions and suggestions were
not solicited.  The President was determined
to put forward a fundamentally new emphasis
on the peaceful and positive in our relations
with the Soviets.  He did not want that new
policy diluted by the usual threats of destruction,
boasts of nuclear stockpiles and lectures on
Soviet treachery.

     To escape the watchful eyes of his enemies who were
rife not only in the bureaucracy but also among his
appointees. (Foolishly, Kennedy had hired on a number
of Rockefeller associates, also ex-CIA types such as
McGeorge Bundy as his National Security Advisor, a
Cold War Warrior leftover, more hardened than a missile
in an underground silo).  Thus, if Kennedy was to get
anything significant accomplish at all, he had to conduct
a kind of guerilla government, employing a few
trustworthy confidants, his brother Bobby or Ted Sorenson.

     Regarding the "Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons
Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space, and Under
Water" Kennedy's aide, Ted Sorenson, wrote, "No other
accomplishment in the White House ever gave Kennedy
greater satisfaction."  It was presented to the US Senate
August 8, 1963 for ratification and consent came
September 23rd.  The document of ratification was
signed October 7th.  As of 1981, 126 nations had signed
on to this treaty.

     Consistent with his commitment to protect the world
from a nuclear conflagration, was Kennedy's attempt to
prevent nuclear proliferation.  Only in recent have we
begun to learn in outline what this entailed or how it would
cost him his life:

It wasn't until just recently, in 1995 in fact, ...
that the State Department released a massive
volume of previously - unpublished documents
relating to U.S. relations with Israel during the
Kennedy administration.  And there are
documents that verify that JFK and Israeli
Prime Minister Ben-Gurion were engaged in
very bitter behind-the-scenes conflict over
Israel's drive to build a nuclear weapon.
      (Final Judgment, Michael Collins Piper)

John McCone - a longtime Kennedy family
friend - who was JFK's appointee as CIA
director (replacing Allen Dulles, who had been
fired by JFK)... was a bitter critic of Israel's
nuclear bomb program and earlier, at the close
of the Eisenhower administration where he was
a member of the Atomic Energy Commission,
it was McCone who first leaked the truth about
Israel's nuclear ambitions.
       (Final Judgment, Michael Collins Piper)

The purpose of the letter [JFK to Ben-Gurion,
June 16, 1963] was to solidify the terms of the
American visits [to Dimona] in a way that
would accord with these minimum conditions
on which the intelligence community insisted.
To force Ben-Gurion to accept the conditions,
Kennedy exerted the most useful leverage
available to an American president in dealing
with Israel: a threat that an unsatisfactory
solution would jeopardize the U.S. government's
commitment to, and support of, Israel ...  The
showdown Ben-Gurion was trying to avoid now
appeared imminent.  Ben-Gurion never read
the letter. It was cabled to [US Ambassador to
Israel Walworth Barbour] on Saturday, 15 June,
with instructions to deliver it by hand to Ben-
Gurion the next day, but on that Sunday, Ben-
Gurion announced his resignation.  No
American president was more concerned
with the danger of nuclear proliferation than
John Fitzgerald Kennedy.  He was convinced
that the spread of nuclear weapons would
make the world more dangerous and undermine
U.S. interests.  He saw it as his role to place
nuclear arms control and nonproliferation
at the center of American foreign policy ...
Kennedy reminded his advisors that more
was at stake at than a piece of paper -
without an agreement, the arms race would
continue and nuclear weapons would
proliferate to other countries.  The only
example Kennedy used to make the point
was Israel.

Not since Eisenhower's message to Ben-
Gurion in the midst of the Suez crisis in
November 1956 had an American president
been so blunt with an Israeli prime minister.
Kennedy told Eshkol that the U.S. commitment
and "support of Israel "could be seriously
jeopardized" if Israel did not let the United
States obtain "reliable information" about its
efforts in the nuclear field ... Kennedy's
demands were unprecedented.  They amounted,
in effect, to an ultimatum.
 (Israel and the Bomb, Avner Cohn, pp. 134,
                                                        99, 155)

     JFK's Letter To Israeli PM Eshkol July 5, 1963:

Dear Mr. Prime Minister (Eshkol),

It gives me great personal pleasure to extend
congratulations as you assume your
responsibilities as Prime Minister of Israel.  
You have our friendship and best wishes in
your new tasks.  It is on one of these that I
am writing you at this time.

You are aware, I am sure, of the exchange
which I had with Prime Minister Ben-Gurion
concerning American visits (ie: inspections
-ed) to Israel's nuclear facility at Dimona. 
Most recently, the Prime Minister wrote to
me on May 27.  His words reflected a most
intense personal consideration of a problem
that I know is not easy for your Government,
as it is not for mine.  We welcomed the former
Prime Minister's strong reaffirmation that
Dimona will be devoted exclusively to peaceful
purposes and the reaffirmation also of Israel's
willingness to permit periodic visits (ie:
inspections -ed) to Dimona.

I regret having to add to your burdens so soon
after your assumption of office, but I feel the
crucial importance of this problem necessitates
my taking up with you at this early date certain
further considerations, arising out of Mr. Ben-
Gurion's May 27 letter, as to the nature and
scheduling of such visits.

I am sure you will agree that these visits
should be as nearly as possible in accord with
international standards, thereby resolving all
doubts as to the peaceful intent of the Dimona
project.  As I wrote Mr. Ben-Gurion, this
Government's commitment to and support of
Israel could be seriously jeopardized if it should
be thought that we were unable to obtain
reliable information on a subject as vital to the
peace as the question of Israel's effort in the
nuclear field.

Therefore, I asked our scientists to review
the alternative schedules of visits we and you
had proposed. If Israel's purposes are to be
clear beyond reasonable doubt, I believe that
the schedule which would best serve our
common purposes would be a visit early this
summer, another visit in June 1964, and
thereafter at intervals of six months. I am
sure that such a schedule should not cause you
any more difficulty than that which Mr. Ben-
Gurion proposed in his May 27 letter. It would
be essential, and I understand that Mr. Ben-
Gurion's letter was in accord with this, that
our scientist have access to all areas of the
Dimona site and to any related part of the
complex, such as fuel fabrication facilities or
plutonium separation plant, and that sufficient
time to be allotted for a thorough examination.

Knowing that you fully appreciate the truly vital
significance of this matter to the future well-
being of Israel, to the United States, and
internationally, I am sure our carefully
considered request will have your most
sympathetic attention.

Sincerely,

John F. Kennedy

The Dirty Deed.

    Operationally, the lead agency in carrying out the
plot to kill the President was the Zionist State, other
wise called "Israel,"  That is a shocking statement, yet
true.  Overseeing this operation was Yitzak Shamir,
(later the Prime Minister.)  In the US, the lead agent
was James Jesus Angleton, head of counter-intelligence
for the C.I.A.  He also held the CIA's portfolio for the
State of Israel.

     Over the years, the finger of blame has pointed in
diverse directions which was and is the genius of the
operation, that so many bunny trails were created to
keep inquirers busy following false leads until the cows
come home.  Over 40 years later, the cover-up is still
in place and numerous, false trails are still being
propounded.

     If you want to believe that the Mafia did it, there
is a clear trail leading to New Orleans and to the mafia
don presiding there, Carlos Marcello.  If you want to
believe that Big Oil did it, there is a clear trail leading
to H. L. Hunt or to Clint Murchinson.  If you want to
believe that there was a Nazi plot, there was General
Willoughby (formerly General McArthur's right-hand
man in Japan) who was associated with the Shickshinny
Knights and with reactionary White Russians.  Let us not
forget, too, the right-wing nut job, the wealthy, Georgian,
Klansman Joseph Milteer who bragged to an undercover
Miami police informant that Kennedy would be taken
out "from an office building with a high-powered rifle,"
that "it is in the working."  Then too there were
disaffected anti-Castro Cubans who some say did it or,
conversely, that Castro had it done, or that the Russians
did it or even that Lee Harvey Oswald did it.   And let us
not forget J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI or the vice-
president, Lyndon Baines Johnson.  No doubt, the latter
two had advance guilty knowledge and participated in
the cover-up.  Trails lead in all those directions and more.  
However, if you want a definitive, detailed, authoritative,
well-documented account of the assassination that really
connects all the dots, then see Final Judgment.  After
ten years in print it has never been refuted.

The murder of American President John
F. Kennedy brought to an abrupt end the
massive pressure being applied by the U.S.
administration on the government of Israel
to discontinue the nuclear program. ...  The
book implied that had Kennedy remained
alive, it is doubtful whether Israel would
today have a nuclear option.  
   (Ha'aretz, Reuven Pedatzur,  2/05/99 review
     of Israel and the Bomb by Avner Cohn)