Inside the JFK Conspiracy: How Brad Meltzer Unearthed a Forgotten Assassination Plot

[00:00:07] Probably no president has fascinated this country and our history as much as John F. Kennedy, JFK. Everyone who lived through it remembers where they were when JFK was assassinated. He's considered the golden boy of American politics. But I didn't know this amazing conspiracy that was happening right before JFK took office.

[00:00:32] Best-selling thriller writer Brad Meltzer, one of my favorite writers, breaks it all down. He just wrote a book called The JFK Conspiracy. I highly recommend it. And we talk about it right here on the show. This isn't your average business podcast and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show.

[00:01:05] Brad Meltzer, author of The JFK Conspiracy. Brad, welcome back to the podcast. Good to be back, my friend. Best-selling author. I think we've, we've, we last episode with you, we completely broke down as much as we could your, your writing style and process. I tried to analyze what a Brad Meltzer book was. And you did it again with the JFK Conspiracy, which is sort of a fictionalized version of the first assassination attempt on JFK.

[00:01:34] And I, I've read a ton of JFK biographies. I did not know about this incident until I read your book. Yeah. And it's not fictionalized. It's a true story. This is a real story that happened. We all know the story of Lee Harvey Oswald killing JFK. Um, but what no one, very few people know. And I didn't know until we started researching the book is there was a plot in 1960 to kill JFK.

[00:01:58] It's true. This really all happened. There's 30 pages of footnotes in the back of this book that JFK at the time in 1960 is, um, is coming out of his house. He's just been elected. There's a guy in a car with seven sticks of dynamite waiting for him. He picks and waits for JFK to go and meets him in Palm beach, Florida. Cause he thinks that his JFK security is the weakest there, which he's right about that.

[00:02:23] And he also knows that every day at just before 10 o'clock, JFK comes out on Sunday mornings to go to church. So at nine 50, right on time, when JFK comes out, all the assassin has to do is hit the gas in his car and hit the little trigger mechanism that he's built. And truly James boom, we'll go the dynamite. And I, I just ruined chapter one of the JFK conspiracy. That's chapter one of it.

[00:02:47] But what, when you see what saves his life and why he doesn't die that day, it's the craziest JFK story you've never heard in your life. And we built the JFK conspiracy. It's just wound up being, we were like, we have to tell this story cause no one's ever heard it. And you know, was it, so the guy was declared afterwards, he was arrested several days afterwards and he was declared, you know, mentally insane.

[00:03:12] What, what, um, just out of curiosity, like what happened to him? Like how long did he live? Like what, what did he go to? Yeah, it's this guy's name, Richard Pavlik. He's a formal disgruntled postal worker, putting the word postal in postal worker. And you know what, so, so two things. So one, why do you not know this story, right? Like why, how do you not? The reason is when it happens, it becomes this huge story. It's, it's, you know, it's all over the papers. It's, it's ready to go nationwide. It's on the local papers in Florida. It's about to go nationwide.

[00:03:41] And the day it's about to hit the press, two planes collide, uh, over New York city and everyone on board, both planes die. It's a horrible air accident. Everyone dies except for one kid. This one little boy actually is the sole survivor of this double plane crash. And America becomes obsessed with this kid, whether he's going to live or die. And so instead of being on the front page, this JFK story gets moved into the center page, you know, second page or inside the paper.

[00:04:09] And it becomes a footnote to history. What happens to Richard Pavlik, as you said, he's declared incompetent. They consider him, he's a nut. He's clearly a nut and got something loose in his head. Um, and he has his own motivations. He hates, you know, he hates Catholics. He hates anyone who's different than what he is. He doesn't want anyone to hold the presidency who's different than he is. And he, and we should talk about the context of that and what's going on in the sixties at the time.

[00:04:31] Um, but what's so crazy is he spends three years kind of bouncing through the judicial system and finally gets released because of a law that allows people that are mentally incompetent to actually go free. The law is signed by JFK. And the irony of all ironies is that this guy gets out because of the person who he actually tried to murder. And then truth is after that, he's, he's just old at that point. He later dies soon after, but.

[00:04:59] Did JFK realize that this law was going to release the guy who tried to kill him? That's a good question. I don't know. There's any way to know that I can't, I can't possibly know. You know, when it happens, don't forget. So we start the book with showing you JFK when he's a World War II hero. And as a World War II hero, you know, he's, he's, he's on this PT 109 and his boat, um, you know, hits basically and, and, and smashes, gets smashed apart by a Japanese cruiser.

[00:05:27] Um, and everyone's decimated. One of his, you know, people, one of the sailors on board is unconscious. They're all swimming for their life. JFK grabs the unconscious guy and puts him on his back. Like I'm the best swimmer. I got him. And everyone's like, we'll help you. He's like, I got him. Um, they swim to an Island and on the Island, there's no water. There's no food after a day or two on the Island. They're like, if we stay here, we're going to die. So we got to go swim another couple of miles to a new Island.

[00:05:54] And JFK is like, put them on my back again. The guy, I'm telling you that not to make them sound macho or cool, but JFK in his head. And by the way, when he's done, his father's like, okay, it's time. You got your medal. You're, you're a war hero in World War II. It's time to come home and get your release. And he's like, no dad, I'm not coming home. Even though his dad can pull strings, do whatever. He's like, no, I need to keep continuing fighting World War II.

[00:06:17] And that's what he does. And the reason I tell you that story is that JFK, when, when this plot to kill him happens, he's not like, oh, we should be scared. He's like, World War II didn't kill me. This guy's not going to do it. So he doesn't really give a crap about this guy. He barely registered him. No, and to this day, no one even know if he's told Jackie, his wife, that it even happened.

[00:06:42] Because he's just like, nothing's going to hurt me. And whether he thinks he's invincible because of World War II, because he's a Kennedy, or because he's just, you know, he has no reason to believe that he could be killed. He doesn't care at all about this guy. He doesn't, I don't think he gives him a second thought. You know, at first when I was reading the World War II story in the book, I was wondering why you included it.

[00:07:01] And, but then it is actually an impressive story. Like, you know, he, at the time, his whole life, as you, as you mentioned, he's a sickly, he was a sickly child. Like he, he, and he grew up with Addison's disease. He was, his back was, was wrecked. And, and he was taking like all these drugs for it, heavy amounts of cortisone for it. And so for him to kind of pull off, like he was legitimately a hero in World War II.

[00:07:29] There was no question of his leadership abilities, you know, of his, of his heroism. Like regardless of what you think of JFK politically in any way, this was a legit story. And so it's important to put it in context. Yeah. And not only that, I think it was important because in that story in World War II, the guy's a stud, right? He's swimming for miles with like everyone's swimming for their life. And he's the guy who's holding someone on their back.

[00:07:59] And he's like, I got him. I'll take care of him. Never thinking about anyone, never thinking about himself, but only thinking of others. And so you think like, this guy deserves to be president. This is who you want to be president. But then we also show you the stories of him cheating on his wife and being reckless with his marriage and being not a great husband at all. And so is JFK, the point of telling you those stories is it's not to take a crack at him either.

[00:08:25] It's that, is he this amazing war hero who unleashes a new level of idealism and takes us to the moon and he's amazing? Or is he a reckless, deceitful husband who can't be trusted? Or is he, so is he good? Is he bad? Or is he like the rest of us, a little bit of both? And we realized as we told the story that you can't tell the story of the JFK conspiracy without telling the story of his marriage and the infidelities and who he is. Because he's, he's complicated.

[00:08:55] We've reduced the Kennedys to these cliches. You know, JFK is the guy who died in Dallas and he has a beautiful wife and he has a great life and Kennedy's Camelot. And, and it's just a cliche. It's not reality. He's so much more complex and interesting than that. And we felt like it was important to show you just where that rollercoaster, all the highs and all the lows. You know, and also the, the influence of his father, like you mentioned how his father, there was this tension. His father tried to keep him in, get him out of World War II.

[00:09:23] He, like you said, he, his father wanted a son who was president. And after the older brother who, Joseph, who died in World War II was no longer around, JFK was, was the guy. And, but, you know, and you point out the story where, you know, at one point JFK, you know, eventually he picked his brother, Robert Kennedy, to be his attorney general. But at first he didn't want that.

[00:09:49] He didn't want to have the deal with the nepotism issues and all the accusations. But Joe Kennedy was like, no, you're going to pick your brother. So. It's a great moment. I love that you found that one. It's one of my favorite moments in there. Yeah. So basically they, again, we all know the story of Bobby Kennedy becomes, you know, obviously becomes the attorney general, but he doesn't want the job at first. He's like, I don't want to look like I'm just, you know, my brother gave me a job. I don't want to look like this is nepotism.

[00:10:13] And, and they send this, you know, this very respected elder statesman back to Joe Kennedy, to the dad, this powerful, amazing, you know, legend in politics. And sorry, just, sorry to interrupt, but just to make this elder statesman, Clark Clifford, he was like the conciliary for like five presidents in a row. Oh yeah. Like he was a Democrat Republican. He was like there. Right. Doesn't matter what you are. This guy knows how to deal with presidents and, and, and is not phased by anything.

[00:10:41] And he goes to, uh, goes to Joe Kennedy and he's, and, you know, says like, listen, we've thought this over. We've been through, we talked to Jack, we talked to Bobby, we talked to everyone and we've decided he should not be the attorney general. And, and Joe Kennedy listens to it and looks him dead in the eyes, says basically, that's great. Bobby's going to be attorney general. And that's exactly what frigging happens. He's not listening to anybody.

[00:11:05] And I love that frigging power play that he just rams forward his belief that I don't care what you say. I don't care how many presidents, you know, Clark Clifford, I'm in charge. I'm in charge. And it is, it's an awesome little power moment. That that's where you start understanding what the Kennedys are really dealing with as a family. It is, it is a, it is a wild place to grow up. Yeah. And, uh, uh, you know, it's interesting because Joe Kennedy, of course, was the first head of the SEC,

[00:11:35] the Securities and Exchange Commission, uh, Franklin Roosevelt appointed him to that because he said he wanted to, he wanted to hire the criminals to run the, the, uh, criminal institution. They know, they know where all the tricks are. So, so, so, and then he was later ambassador to the UK until, and people don't really notice. He was so pro Hitler. They had to basically say, Joe, you're out of there. Tone it down. Right. But, but it was because of their time in England that JFK also, this is right before, uh, World War II.

[00:12:04] JFK, he was like a college kid. He wrote a book, uh, I think it was called While England Slept about how England just ignored Hitler's rise to power and why they did this. See, JFK was kind of like this intellectual, even as a kid, intellectual war hero. And then his career was so easy, you know, after the war, congressman, senator, president. It was like a natural thing, but it, but there were pitfalls along the way. Yeah.

[00:12:33] I mean, listen, he's cheating on his wife like a dog. Right. And, and one of the things I think that the real secret weapon in this book for us, as we were telling the story is not just that we get to show you the inside of JFK's life, but it's the story of Jackie Kennedy. Jackie Kennedy steals the show for me. I mean, she's just so badass and awesome and frail and strong.

[00:12:56] And she's just, um, you know, again, we've reduced her and, you know, and him to this, you know, the perfect smile and the perfect hair and the perfect family and the perfect life. And we do him a huge disservice when we just, you know, reduce him to that. And when, when they get engaged, JFK's, one of his good friends comes up to Jackie at a party and says, listen, Jack, you know, he likes women. He really likes women. Basically saying to her face, he's going to sleep around on you. That's what he does.

[00:13:23] And he thinks he's doing a favor for JFK that he should tell her what she's going to face. And, you know, Jackie's kind of hit with this and you're just like, what? And the pitfalls, you know, he's a terrible adulterer. And at the time, again, we all hold the Kennedys up as this like kind of mythological family. But at the time, you know, right now we have threads and we have blue sky and we have all these other places where you can, you know, Instagram and Facebook and all these places you can put your words out.

[00:13:51] But back then you had newspapers that had real guardrails on them. And if you went to the paper and said, I'm going to tell the story about how Jack's sleeping around with this woman, which a family did, what neighbor of theirs did. Someone showed up at the family's house and basically said, if you tell this story again, we're going to ruin you. We're going to ruin your family, ruin your business, ruin your life. And guess what happened? It worked. Nobody heard those stories. Everyone in Washington knew them, but no one reported on them.

[00:14:19] And obviously, you know, good luck keeping those stories down. You do your best. But it was amazing to me to try and look at this world that he was in and this marriage that he was in and watching Jackie try to maneuver inside it. It's a pretty humbling moment when you look at her life. Yeah, because, I mean, at one point she actually had to work out a deal with Joe Kennedy to stay in the marriage.

[00:14:44] Like, he wanted her, obviously, to stay, and so just blatantly gave her money to stay. I don't even know that story, but I'll tell you what she knows. And this is what's interesting is she's just as popular as he is. If he, you know, he's a magnet. People are like, they're drawn to him. They said, everyone, you know, when you read all the firsthand accounts, they're like, I've never, you know. And just to paint the picture of where we are, it's, you know, it's the end of the 50s. And here comes 1960 rolling in.

[00:15:15] And there's a new word that's really becoming popular at this point in time. And the word is teenager. I know that seems like an obvious word. And it's not like there weren't teenagers before that. But the teenager that happens when 1960s rolling around is very different. Because it used to be back in the 50s and 40s, 30s, back, all back. When you go all the way back, your job was largely defined by what your father's job was. If your dad was a blacksmith, you took over the family business, you became the blacksmith.

[00:15:44] If he's a butcher, you become the butcher. But that when people started moving to the suburbs in the late 50s and early 60s, they started going to better schools. The schools got better. And as a result, these kids had a significant jump in education. And when an entire generation of kids jump in education, guess what? They don't want to become a butcher or a blacksmith anymore. They want to have their own job and their own life. And you better believe their own president and first lady.

[00:16:12] And Eisenhower was a symbol of, you know, the old not right way of doing things in the 1950s. Come home. Wife has dinner on the table. That's how life is. And here comes JFK and people look at him, especially the teenagers, and they're like, this is not my mother and father's president. And that's appealing. And Jackie is, you know, we think of JFK as this, you know, the first president who, you know, he's on TV and he beats Nixon because JFK is handsome and Nixon's all sweaty.

[00:16:42] And that's why he won the debates. And that's just nonsense. It's part of the story. But the real part of it is not just that he's handsome. It's that JFK knows how to use television. He knows how to use this weapon in a way that no one else knows how to use it. So they realize, oh, Jackie's popular? Let's put her out there. She speaks Spanish? Let's put her on places where people can hear her in Spanish. Like they, the Kennedy family knows how to weaponize it.

[00:17:12] I mean that in a good way. This asset that they have and they put it out there on television and in mass media in a way that no other president has ever done before. Needless to say, it's a gangbusters move. Take a quick break. If you like this episode, I'd really, really appreciate it. It would mean so much to me. Please share it with your friends and subscribe to the podcast. Email me at altitra at gmail.com and tell me why you subscribed. Thanks.

[00:17:51] Have you ever watched, and they're on YouTube, have you ever watched the Kennedy-Nixon debates from 1960? Of course, of course. They are amazing compared to today's debates. Oh, yeah. People wouldn't watch them for two minutes, by the way. Like people would be, I remember when I was in high school, I think it was when I was in high school, maybe college. But I remember the teacher professor used to make us watch them the first time we watched them with no sound. And just said, just watch. Tell me who's winning. I remember watching and you could just see it.

[00:18:18] You see what JFK is doing, and he's calm, and he's cool, and he's like, what's going on? The reality is that on the issues, Nixon and JFK weren't that far apart. They were both pretty trying to be moderate people, trying to find that middle in America. And I know it's titillating, James, for me to come on here and say, oh, we found a secret plot to kill JFK, and that's great. But the reason we tell the story is, what does it have to say about us now?

[00:18:44] And if you look at what 1960 is as an election, it's a time where people are completely, the country is bitterly divided. It's the closest presidential election in modern time. Whatever side you're on, you hate the other side. You think they're terrible, awful people. Does that sound familiar to you? Yeah. And that's why we tell the story is because those things, they say that Mark Twain said it, although he never said it.

[00:19:13] History doesn't repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme. And although he never said it, it's a really amazingly true sentiment. And you can see what happens there. It seems like we watch it happen again. Well, you know, you mentioned earlier how we have to put in context, like why this guy Richard Pavlik had these certain beliefs. Back then in 1960, there had never been a Catholic president. Every president before JFK was Protestant.

[00:19:41] There had never been, you know, he was the, I believe at the time he was the youngest president ever, right? When he was the youngest president to be elected. I think when he's elected he is, yeah. I don't know if he was the youngest president ever, but he was definitely the youngest president elected. But I'm trying to think. I don't know. And, you know, Al Smith in 1920, was it 19? He's the first. He ran as a Catholic, but he did not win. Right. He gets destroyed. He doesn't even have a chance. JFK is the first one who actually has a chance. Yeah.

[00:20:11] And like you said, it was a close election. And there's all sorts of theories about whether there were, you know, dead people voting in Chicago. But who knows? I mean, ultimately he won and Nixon conceded. But I mean, maybe you didn't know this. Nixon conceded, but he did get in the court system to overturn the election all the way up until inauguration day, I believe. Oh, I didn't know that part. I know that he waited the 24 hours after to concede. And JFK at the time, we cover this in the book, all of his staff was pissed.

[00:20:41] Like, how could you not concede? How can you not do this? And JFK said, if it was me, I don't blame him. Count the votes. Count them up. Like, you got to do what you got to do. You know, and again, I firmly believe if you have a problem with the system, then prove it in court. And if you don't, then take a seat. Yeah.

[00:20:58] Well, well, and so you had all, and not only that, like you said, 1960 was kind of this battleground where civil rights was just rearing its very, you know, or the racism involved around civil rights was, there was the conflict about to happen that raged all through the 60s, which was the old guard, particularly in the South versus the new guard of young people wanting civil rights for everybody, wanting equal rights for everybody.

[00:21:25] And, you know, Eisenhower kind of like didn't really pay attention to this issue that much, unfortunately. But JFK famously, you know, even while he was running, was having conversations with Martin Luther King, helped Martin Luther King get out of jail at one point. And so he was very much starting. But it's not just about the racism. That's part, there is certainly, that's a powerful part of what's changing society at the time.

[00:21:50] But at the election, what they were, no one was acting against JFK when he was running just for that. That was a piece of it. But the bigger piece was he was Catholic. As you said, you hit it right on the head. He's the first Catholic to have a chance. Second guy to ever run, but the first one to have a chance. And it sounds silly now, like that the Protestants were fighting with the Catholics so badly. But back then, you know, Reverend Norman Vincent Peale is one of the most prominent Christian ministers in the country at the time.

[00:22:19] He's the guy who wrote the book, The Power of Positive Thinking. But the guy was hardly positive. I mean, he basically was working with Reverend Billy Graham. They made a, they were literally plotting and saying, we cannot trust this guy because he's Catholic. We don't know he's not going to be loyal to the United States. He's going to be loyal only to the Pope. He's never going to be loyal to us. And we got to take him down. And we have to, you know, we can't let him get into the White House. And it's solely because he's Catholic.

[00:22:46] And at the same time, the other kind of, if racism is one part and, you know, civil rights are, you know, one part and the Catholicism is the other. There's another part that's even more racist in there, which is there's a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan. And we all know the KKK, of course, from the Civil War and targeting the black community.

[00:23:06] But what happens is in the 1920s, there's actually a brand new group that the KKK realizes they can get better dues on and make more money if they just expand the hatred a little. Instead of just hating blacks, they start focusing on new groups to hate, like the Jews and also like immigrants. And make no mistake, that's who they target. And they see JFK as an Irish Catholic immigrant.

[00:23:31] He's a guy who came in with his Irish buddies and they're, you know, first generation off the boat and they're the problem in society today. And so you have these kind of, not that they're working together, but they're working in tandem to just drum up all this hatred. And when you drum up all that hatred and all that venom, you can't be surprised when you activate someone. And Richard Pavlik, make no mistake, is activated. He is just like, they're, you know, that's true. JFK's bad. He hates the Kennedys because he's from Massachusetts.

[00:24:00] He thinks they bought their way into power and he's like, I got to take this guy out. Right. So the bought their way to power was also important because there's, he hates this sort of privilege or entitlement that he feels JFK had that, you know, he forced his way into the presidency. So he was, you know, taking matters into his own hands after that. But like, let me ask you this. What's the conspiracy aspect of it? Because the guy was mentally ill and bought all the dynamite on his own.

[00:24:29] And like, where do you think there's the conspiracy aspect? Yeah. And to be fair, listen, it's the fourth book in our series where he did the first conspiracy about the secret plot to kill George Washington, the Lincoln conspiracy about a plot to kill Lincoln, the Nazi conspiracy about a plot to kill Stalin and FDR and Churchill at the height of World War II. And the JFK conspiracy is this is guy conspiring to kill him. Right. It's hardly like he's got a big plan with a lot of people. But make no mistake, he's got a secret plan.

[00:24:57] He knows, you know, he buys seven sticks of dynamite. You know, now if you go and buy seven sticks of dynamite, guess what? There's a report sent to the U.S. government after Oklahoma City. We're like, we don't allow you to do that anymore. But you see some of the things that Richard Pavlik did. And you can almost see how forward in time, how they lead to where we are today and how we deal with this stuff. Back then they were like, oh, what are you buying these two sticks of dynamite for? Oh, I'm going to blow up some tree stumps because that's how they used to get rid of tree stumps. They used to blow them up with dynamite.

[00:25:27] And now, OK, I guess you need more dynamite. I guess you got a lot of tree stumps. It's a crazy idea that this guy is doing this. And again, I don't want to ruin the end of the book, but when you see why he gets stopped and why he gets caught, you know, I do believe history, we tend to focus on the bold names and the powerful names. But so often history just twists and veers into whole different directions by people you've never heard of.

[00:25:53] And the guy who saves JFK's life really in this is the guy who's paying attention, is in the background, a name you've never heard before. Even if you Google him, it's hard to find stuff on him. But he just was like, something's wrong here and I got to do something about it. And I love that this unknown person you've never heard of is the guy who really is responsible for saving JFK's life here.

[00:26:15] Yeah, and you really do make it riveting and you build up, you know, showing the everything from the war hero to the adultery to the election to those few months right after the election when this is all coming to a boiling point. And it's a real fascinating story. And like you said, history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. Like, look at this past election. First off, everybody on one side hates everybody on the other side.

[00:26:44] I've had really smart people on both sides say to me or ask me the question, what kind of idiot would vote for so-and-so? But on both sides, like there's no common ground where they can even understand each other. So it's similar in that respect. And then look, you have this rhetoric of hate again on both sides. And look, I don't know, like Trump at least had two assassination attempts during the election. And there's certainly been a lot of hatred.

[00:27:12] Listen, I'm going to tell you right now, I hate to say this. I mean, there's going to be more. You cannot be like, you know, he's a guy who every day is just drumming up anger, you know, and he loves it. He loves the fight. And if you're going to show the world I'm a big fighter, guess what? Someone's going to punch back. And you're just going to see it. I mean, I talked to the Secret Service. I was like, you know, this was years ago, but I was like, tell me about people who killed the president. Tell me what they're like.

[00:27:41] Tell me what you've researched, what you found. They don't just like go, oh, we'll wait for the next one. They research these guys. And they divide into two categories, James. They divide into what they call hunters and howlers. And howlers, they make a lot of noise. They're the ones who say like, I'm going to kill that guy. I hate that guy. I'm going to come for him. I'm coming for his family. They make a lot of noise, big mouths. But they rarely take action. They rarely pull the trigger. But a hunter is very different.

[00:28:09] A hunter is the one who never tells you they're coming. They never say a word. They keep quiet to the last moment. And those are the ones who do pull the trigger. And if you look through history from all four men who have successfully killed U.S. presidents, if you look at the four of them, from Abraham Lincoln to JFK, every single one of them was a hunter. And Richard Pavlik tries to be a hunter. He thinks he's a hunter. But at some moments, and again, I won't spoil anything, what you'll see in the book, opens his big fat mouth.

[00:28:39] And it's obviously the whole thing. There's a great twist there when it happens and how he gets tracked down. But you can't be surprised. We've already had two attempts on the guy. And that's before he's even gotten to the White House. And that's the sad part. I fear that it's a terrible time. Our discourse is so distraught and so filled with so much venom and hate. If you can't calm it down, you're only going to see more of it.

[00:29:07] And what's disturbing to me is that, again, on both sides, you see this rhetoric escalate. Like both candidates saying the other one belongs in jail. Both candidates comparing the other candidate to Hitler. As far as I'm concerned, neither candidate was even remotely close to Adolf Hitler. Like it's ridiculous. And I mean, look, Trump's grandchildren are Orthodox Jews.

[00:29:37] Kamala's husband is, I believe he's Jewish. You know, nobody's a Hitler. And yet that rhetoric escalated so much that people really believe these things and take it to heart. And of course, there's the science fiction question. Hey, if you could go back in time to when Hitler was a baby, what would you do to him? Like people are legitimately asking these questions now about these, you know, the president of the United States and the vice president of the United States.

[00:30:06] And it's crazy. Yeah, that's not, I mean, again, and that's why you, to me, that's why you tell these stories. You tell these stories to try and calm people down, to try to show us what happens when you, you know, the, and, and the thing about JFK, that's fascinating is what's being sold. And, and I'll tell you this, the whole time I was researching the book, I kept asking myself, well, where, where does Camelot come from? When do we see Camelot?

[00:30:36] I want, where does Camelot come from? We all associate Camelot with the, with the Kennedy administration. And I thought it came, whatever, in the first hundred days or in the first time he was in power. No, no. Camelot doesn't come into the public dialogue and the discourse until after JFK dies. After his brains are splattered across his wife's beautiful pink dress in Dallas that day. And what happens is when JFK dies, we tell the story of, in the JFK conspiracy,

[00:31:04] we tell you the story about the secret plot to kill and we end the book with his real assassination. We show you, it's an unbelievable, we show you firsthand from the first lady's point of view. And it's a view that's just incredible. And huge, huge thank you to Clint Hill, her secret service agent who, and Lisa McCubbin who helped let us use so much of, you know, his, what he saw that day. And after he dies, when JFK is dead, everyone of course wants an interview with Jackie. She's not granting any interviews.

[00:31:33] And she says, Life Magazine says we're doing a special issue on the death of JFK. Please, can we have an interview? She says, I'll give you one. One interview exclusively to Life Magazine. The reporter comes to her house and late at night, it's like eight o'clock at night, he's there until after midnight working with her. And she's reproving what he's writing down. And she tells him the story that when JFK, when his back was hurting him in the White House,

[00:32:00] and he was in real pain, the one thing that would calm him down is she would put on the record player this record he loved about this place called Camelot, play the music from Camelot for him from the play. And Jackie Kennedy at the start of her career was a reporter. She used to be a beat reporter who used to ask questions on the streets. So she starts and used to be a member of the press. She's hounded by the press. She's chased by the press. She's vilified by the press. She's held up by the press.

[00:32:30] But make no mistake, James, she is a master of the press. She is the one who inserts that word Camelot into the lexicon and makes sure she's the one who's writing his legacy before anyone else can write it. And that's why we use the word Camelot today. And Jackie steals the book to me because when you see what she's going through, you see what her marriage is like, when you see this, you can't help but stop and say,

[00:32:55] I think JFK and Jackie were the first celebrity presidents, true celebrities. I'm not talking the way that everyone used to come out on a train stop and wave from Lincoln to anyone else. But the celebrity of the suburbs where you're like, I want to be him and I want that life and that's available to me. And that's, in a sick way, that version of the American dream celebrity. And maybe Ronald Reagan for some people thought it was. For some of the people it was Barack Obama. For some people it's Donald Trump.

[00:33:24] But no one, they're all pale comparisons to what JFK and Jackie were selling. Do you think if he had, you know, obviously not been assassinated and had served, let's say, two terms,

[00:33:51] do you think he would have gone down as one of the top 10% presidents, bottom 10% presidents? Like, where's your take on that? Yeah, I mean, you know, it's amazing how death makes you popular, right? I mean, JFK to this day of the 20th century, when they track presidents of who's popular and who has the most approval rating, I mean, number one, bar nobody, by like a crazy number, not even close, is JFK. I think he's got like an 80% approval rating and the next closest is like 60 or 50. Like, no one's even close.

[00:34:20] So when you die, you become a saint, as anyone in their family knows. So, you know, is it going to be a good president or a bad president? Who knows? Is it going to, you know, if JFK dies earlier in this plot to kill him in our book, if he dies earlier, does, you know, the Bay of Pigs happen? Does, you know, does this, who knows? Does civil rights get passed faster if LBJ comes in early? Who knows? We can't guess that. But what I do think, what I do think changes is that view of the White House and that celebrity we associate it with.

[00:34:49] I think what they brought us was this hope and this dream and this family of perfection, this beautiful place called Camelot that I think we as a culture have been chasing ever since. And I think it's a fool's chase. But boy, we're still on it. Yeah. I mean, every president tries to sort of model themselves or model their campaign after JFK's campaign. And... Because he was cool and he was popular, man.

[00:35:19] Who doesn't want to be JFK? Right? You're cool. You're popular. You got the beautiful spouse. You got the beautiful life. You got the beautiful wife. Your kids are gorgeous. Like, what else do you want? And... But again, if that's what you're chasing, you're chasing the wrong thing. So let me ask you about the actual assassination that happened in 1963, November of 1963. Trump said... I think it was on Joe Rogan. Trump said he had the opportunity to open the file about JFK's assassination.

[00:35:47] But someone close to him or close to the file, someone high up, said, don't do it. Do me a favor. Do not read that file. You will not like what you see. What do you think? I don't believe that. Yeah. I don't... The file... No offense to anyone, but those files were set to be open 30 years ago. That date was set. Right? The National Archives has made them available. I don't know what he's... I mean, maybe there's some new files that no one knows about, but I know the person who's

[00:36:16] read all the files. There is one guy who's a friend of mine who lives in Dallas, Texas, actually, who has read, the only person who has currently read everything in the files. So maybe there's something new that we don't know about, but I don't... That's not where I'm taking... So you think Lee Harvey Oswald was pretty independent, acting on his own? You know, this is what I think, and I'm obsessed with this case, obviously.

[00:36:43] You know, what really destroys me about this case is that we're never going to get the answer. And why? Because Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald and took away the one person who was there that day. And the moment that happened, all we have are theories. Sadly, I wish we had the truth. And the thing that's really amazing about it is that, you know, people have said, and I remember growing up with this fact, you know, from the 80s, is that, you know, no one

[00:37:11] has ever been able to make that shot that Lee Harvey Oswald made from the book depository. No one's ever been... All these Marines tried. No one could recreate it. And I was like, man, if that's true, that's serious. Except here's the problem. Dozens of Marines have made that shot over and over and over again. But if you watch the movie JFK, Oliver Stone said, well, you know, I know I said that in there. I put a lot of, you know, he says he... And you can look this up.

[00:37:38] Oliver Stone said he put misinformation in the JFK movie because he felt like there was misinformation in the Warren Commission. He wanted to level it out. And millions of people took that information from a Hollywood movie as reality. Don't get your history from a Hollywood movie. And if you look, that shot's been made over and over again. Now, do we know what else happened or what else been out there? I mean, you know, we're never going to know because we don't have Lee Harvey Oswald. But do not believe the nonsense. If you're actually going to get into it, go and read it.

[00:38:08] And to me, Lee Harvey Oswald took that shot. Are there other people who are funding him? What was he doing when he was in Russia all at that time at the height of the Cold War? We'll never know. Is he funded by someone else? We'll never know. So I want to know more than anyone. But here's my theory on JFK, really. If you want to know who killed JFK, if you look in the 60s, we said that who was behind Lee Harvey Oswald? Well, it had to be the—it was the height of the Cold War.

[00:38:38] It had to be the Russians. It had to be the Cubans, our great enemies at the time. If you look in the 70s, as Watergate hits and distrust for the government reaches new heights, who killed JFK? Well, that was an inside job. CIA did it. And, you know, LBJ did it. And if you look in the 80s, as the Godfather movies peak, who killed JFK? It was the mob. The mob did him in. If you want to know who killed JFK, it's decade by decade whoever America was most afraid of at that moment in time. Yeah, that's interesting.

[00:39:07] I never heard a perspective like that. But that's my take on JFK. So it's become a mirror for our fears. And sadly, we're never going to really get the answer. I wish we were. But the moment Lee Harvey Oswald left this earth, so many answers went with him. So in all these political conspiracies you've been writing about, what's next? You know, you wrote about Washington. You came on the podcast for Washington. You wrote about Lincoln, JFK. We did watch that. The Nazi one is one of my favorite ones also. The Secret Plot to Kill FDR, Stalin, and Churchill, The Height of World War II.

[00:39:37] And you're going to love that book because it shows you a look at Adolf Hitler and the people who work with him like you've never seen before. And that's a crazy story about them, this Nazi plot to kill the big three. And we're working on the new one now. I can't talk about it yet. But right now, we have the next books that come out. We do I Am Sally Ride is the next in our kids' book series. We do kids' books about historical heroes. We did Stephen Hawking. We did Jesse Owens. Now we're doing Sally Ride. And then we're doing The Beatles. Oh, wow. That's great. Which is fun.

[00:40:07] So I just finished writing The Beatles. And then we're doing Make Magic, which is my—I did the commencement address at the University of Michigan this year. And it was about how to make magic. And so Make Magic is a book version of that speech I gave. Tell me about the speech. So your son was graduating, right? Son's graduating from college. And you went to University of Michigan. I went to Michigan, and he was graduating Michigan. And I got to give the commencement address for my son. And one of the most amazing moments of my entire life.

[00:40:36] And the speech after I gave it, it's all about how to make magic. And based on this theory, which is true, that there are only four types of magic tricks. When you take away illusions and escapism, there's only four types of magic tricks. One is you make something appear. Two is you make something disappear. Three, you make two things switch places.

[00:41:01] And the fourth magic trick is the hardest trick of all, which is you take one thing and you turn it into something else. The hardest trick of all, of course, is transformation. And I tell the story of my best pieces of advice about life on how to actually make magic. How to make what you should make appear, what you should make disappear from your life, what you should switch, and what you should transform. And when I gave the speech, I didn't know it at the time.

[00:41:23] But there's a moment in the speech where I talked about, when I talk about two things switching places, I started talking about empathy. Because that's what empathy is, right? Is trying to see through someone else's eyes. And when you give one of these speeches, I'm talking to 70,000 people, a crazy amount of people in a stadium. You can kind of feel and you know, you hope you know where like the laughs are and where the jokes are.

[00:41:49] But when I got to talking about empathy, I started talking about kindness and how, you know, I said cruelty and venom are so commonplace today. But cruelty and venom aren't signs of strength. They're actually signs of weakness and petty insecurity. And I could feel the crowd shift. And my wife said to me, I didn't know it at the time, but she said, you tapped a vein you didn't know was there. And when the speech was over, that section of the speech just went crazy. And people started sharing it all over the internet. A million people saw it.

[00:42:16] And anyway, we are making a book about it and Make Magic comes out in March, on March 4th. And I'm excited to get to share that in book form for the graduate in your life. Oh, wow. A, I can't wait to read it. And B, you'll have to come on to talk about Make Magic once it comes out. Yeah, we'll make some magic together. I want to know how to make magic. I need to just start doing that. So Brad, once again, thank you so much for coming on the show. JFK is a fascinating topic.

[00:42:43] I've read probably a dozen different biographies of JFK plus other people involved in his administration at that time. And I had never heard this Richard Pavlik story. And I'm surprised. It's the only book. Someone told me it's the only modern book written on it, solely on it. So I'm proud of that. Yeah, why don't, I mean, I've read books by all his friends. Like, nobody mentions this. Yeah, because no one's as crazy as me and Josh Menz who want to dive into these stories. But the stories are awesome because they illuminate us.

[00:43:12] They don't tell a story just of JFK. They show the story of us as Americans. And I hope history does not rhyme in this case. I think we need a little bit of stability in this country right now after all the volatility. Amen. No, listen, that's what the JFK conspiracy book is about, is trying to get people to realize the consequences. Well, thanks again, Brad. Really appreciate it. And once again, you're always welcome on the show. Thank you, my friend. Good to see you.