1-15-25 *INTERVIEW* Author Brad Meltzer and His Latest Book 'The JFK Conspiracy'

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brad is a best selling author of both fiction and
non fiction, and I've had him on the show for
both and his latest co authored with Josh Minch, which
is an awesome last name for a nice Jewish boy.
Is the JFK Conspiracy, The secret plot to kill Kennedy

(00:20):
and why it failed?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Brad, it's so good to talk to you again.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Thanks, thanks for being here, and thanks for an interesting story.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Thank you, brother Ross. Go to be back.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
How there, I've got macro questions and specific questions. I
probably shouldn't start with this one, but I'm going to
how is it possible that an effort to kill a
president came so close to success and nobody has heard

(00:52):
about it until you?

Speaker 3 (00:54):
That's the right question. So let's paint the pictures so
people know what we're talking about.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
This is.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
This is not the assad tempt and that's the assassination
that killed Jeffki. This is three years before Lee Harvey Oswald,
and it's in Palm Beach, Florida. It's a beautiful sunny
day on a Sunday, and JFK's going to church and
as he steps outside, what he doesn't know is that
there's a disgruntled postal worker named Richard Pavlik who wants

(01:20):
to kill him and has put seven sticks of dynamite
in his car and is waiting to attack, and JFK
steps outside. All public has to do is hit the
little trigger mechanism and boom is going to go to dynamite.
And what saves his life I won't ruin. That part
has to do with Jackie. Jackie inadvertently helps there. But
it is the craziest story you've never heard about, JFK.

(01:42):
But why did you not hear it? And here here's why.
Is on the day it happens in Florida, it becomes
big news and local papers, it's about to go nationwide.
And the day it's going to go nationwide the next day,
two planes collide in mid air over New York City
and everyone on board dies except for one kid. And

(02:05):
this one kid is a sole survivor, and America becomes
obsessed with this boy to see whether he'd live or die.
And what happens is this JFK story, instead of being
on the front page everywhere, gets buried on the interior
of the paper and becomes a footnote to history until
Josh mentioned I'm my co author, come along and say
maybe people want to know this story and that's where

(02:27):
it started.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
I'm going to ask you a few questions from the book,
roughly in the order that these things come up in
the book.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
It might be a little bit difficult for people.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
To imagine now, but give us a sense of the
anti Catholic feelings in America at the time that JFK
was elected as the first Catholic president.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
Yeah, so, you know, I know it's titillating for me
to come on and say, hey, we found a secret
plot to kill JFK. But to me, history is not
interesting because it tells us some old story. It's interesting
because it tells us something about today. And if you
look at the nineteen sixty election, the country is divided
into whether you vote for Nicktion or you vote for Kennedy.

(03:12):
It is the closest election in the twentieth century. Whatever
side you're on, you hate the other side, you think
they're horrible, awful people. Does that sound familiar to you,
And it's exactly where we are now. And what was
driving that division at the time was that anti Catholicism.
They were just i mean, even amazing religious leaders. Reverend
Billy Graham, the Reverend Norman Vincent Peel, these huge religious

(03:35):
leaders were the power of positive thinking, said we cannot
have a Catholic become president. And it sounds almost ridiculous
now that Protestants would care about it, but back then
they thought that if you were Catholic, they thought JFK
was going to be loyal to the Pope and not
loyal to the United States, and they had to do
everything in their power to stop it. And at the
same time, another group was working about against Catholics, the

(03:59):
kk the klu Klux Klam and we all know the
KKK from the Civil War hates the black community. But
in the nineteen twenties there was a resurgence of the
KKK and they realized they could get more money and
more membership dollars by increasing that circle of hate. And
they started, instead of just hating the black community, started
hating Jews and also started hating immigrants. And they thought

(04:22):
that JFK was an Irish Catholic immigrant, and no way
were they letting an immigrant become president. And when you
put that kind of venom out in the air, you
can't be surprised when someone gets activated. And Richard Public
was listening and he gets activated and he thinks, this
is my chance to be a good American, and I'm

(04:43):
going to make sure this Catholic guy doesn't get to
the White House. And that's what drives them.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
There's a lot in your book about Jackie Kennedy, and
I learned more about her from reading your book than
I had known about her before, and in its entirety,
and there's I don't want to go through in every
little detail, all this stuff about JFK's infidelity, of which

(05:09):
there was quite a lot, and she was surely aware.
One one thing that I wanted to ask you about,
because I think it's super interesting, is how how you
discussed how the behavior of her own father may have
led Jackie Kennedy to be a little less upset or
a little more accepting, or whatever however you want to

(05:31):
describe it. Of JFK's behavior, then you might expect a
wife to be Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
And we don't pull our punches, you know, we talk
and document JFK's affairs. We show you that when she
goes into labor, she's hemorrhaging. JFK's nowhere to be found.
He's you know, I want to play in the Florida.
You know what would happened in my house, Well, my
wife would do to me if I was on a
plane in the Florida while she's on the way to
the hospital to get birth. We won't be talking now
because I'd be murdered. But you know, there's even a

(05:57):
there's even a moment where one of jffs close friends
comes up to Jackie right if they could get engaged,
and says, you know, jack loves women, basically says to
her face, he's going to keep cheating on you. But
you hit it on the head. Why does she just
take it? And her own father used to sleep around.
And I don't make an excuse. I can't be in
Jackie Kennedy said, But I can tell you this that

(06:20):
my dad, my grandfather, used to beat up my dad
used to put hands on him physically. He was a
boxer in the military and.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
Used to hit my dad.

Speaker 3 (06:30):
And when you get used to that, and when that
happens to you when you're a kid, you think that's
how the world works. And I make no excuses for
anyone else. But when you grow up and your dad
is doing that, I can only imagine that it changes
your view of the world. Not that you are happy
about it, but that's what Jackie's life is. She has
it with her husband, she has it with her father.

(06:51):
There's a disrespect for women there, and that's life. And
Jackie's trying to hold this entire thing to get. And
you know, even my guy friends who like are reading
and picking up for JFK, they're like, Jackie's fast. Because
what we've turned Jackie into is a cliche.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
Right.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
We think, we think a Jackie, but like, she's beautiful,
she's got great She redecorated the White House, and that's
basically where our knowledge ends. And I'm guilty of it too.
And then we're researching the book, I'm like, this woman's amazing.
And I remember as I was reading it and researching
the book, I remember thinking to myself, why with all
this mess did they call this place camelot? Right, we

(07:32):
all call a camelot we associated with the Kennedys. And
then I finally discovered that they didn't start using the
word camelot until after JFK actually dies. It's after the
assassination in Dallas that camelot starts being used. Because what
happens is is Jackie grants one interview to Life magazine.
She says, I'm going to give you one interview to

(07:53):
find out what happens. And this reporter comes to her
house and she tells this exclusive story, and she tells
him that when JFK was alive, his back was hurting him.
When he's in physical pain in the White House. To
calm him down, she used to put on his favorite record,
a record and a song about a place called Camelot.
And Jackie used to be in the start of her career,

(08:15):
she was a reporter. She was a member of the press.
She was hounded by the press, but boy, she was
a master of the press. She inserts the word Camelot
into the lexicon. She's the reason she wanted to write
JFK's legacy before anyone else could. And that woman is savvy.
She's not just a decorator of the White House.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
We're talking with Brad Meltzer. His new book, co authored
with Josh Mench is the JFK Conspiracy, the secret plot
to kill Kennedy and why it failed. And I'm trying
to stay away from too many spoilers about the main
part of the plot. I'm going to ask this in
a very generic kind of way, and you can answer
however you like without too many spoilers. This is one

(09:01):
of the few stories I've read in a while where
law enforcement and investigative work really worked out well, Like
the FBI actually did their Josh, you know, it's like
we're living in this world right now where no, I
don't want to say nobody. The FBI is under a
certain cloud, and the level of respect to the FBI
isn't what it used to be and isn't what it

(09:23):
should be in the future. But the law enforcement performance
in this story is pretty good.

Speaker 3 (09:29):
You know, full credit. The other is, you know, know
the stories because it was classified for so long what
the Secret Service and the FBI were doing. And then
some really great reporters came into the foyer request and said,
can we have the files on Richard Publick, And we
got to see, Josh and I the first hand accounts.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
In real time.

Speaker 3 (09:46):
The reason the JFK conspiracy reads like a thrillers because
we had access to what was going on in real
time and those reports are amazing. And I'll say this,
you know, when I spoke to the Secret Service about
presidential assassins, they told me that presidential assass les fit
into two categories when they study him. There's hunters and
there's howlers. And a howler makes a lot of noise,

(10:08):
says I'm going to kill you out, I'm coming for you,
I'm going to get the president, but they rarely take action.
A hunter is very different. Ross and a hunter. They
rarely say a word, but they're the ones who tend
to pull the trigger. And if you look through history
at the four men who have successfully assassinated a president,
from Abraham Lincoln to jfk All four of them are hunters.

(10:31):
And Richard Pavlick in this book, he is a He
thinks he's a hunter, but he's a bit of a
howler opens his mouth and thankfully law enforcement and more important,
I don't want again, I don't want to ruin the end,
but you'll see that there's just a regular guy. No
one's ever heard of, a guy who works in the
post office. He's not in a single history book. You've
never heard his name. But he's one of the guys

(10:52):
who comes in and says something's wrong here. And I
love the fact. You know, we all spend so much
time focused on the bold names, right it's called the JFK.
We focus on that big name ook boy, it's regular
ordinary people who truly make history. And this guy changes
our history by being one of the people who puts
the FBI on the case.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah, this is this is very much in the in
the context of if you see something, say something, or
if you hear something, say something.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
It's really interesting.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Okay, one more question for you, Brad, And again we're
talking with Brad Meltzer about his.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
New book, The JFK Conspiracy.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
The secret plot to Kill Kennedy, to Kill Kennedy and
why it failed.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
And I'll just I'll just reiterate.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
I find it truly amazing that an effort to kill
a president that god as close to success as this
did is something that I bet nobody in the thousands
of people listening to me right now has ever heard about.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
That's just astounding to me. All Right, So, last thing
I want to ask you about.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
Tell us a little about Clint Hill and why he
was disappointed at first.

Speaker 3 (12:02):
I love you. You love the same stuff I do.
And let's let's also say this, right, you hit it
on the head that the Secret Service, the head of
the Secret Service, when this was all done said this
was the closest anyone has come to killing a city
president he'd ever seen. This wasn't like, oh, maybe this
was as close as it gets. You know. He's like,
you know, a couple feet away from him and then

(12:24):
gets another shot in him, which I won't ruin in
the books. But the reason we also have the stories
thanks to Clint Hill, and Clint Hill is a Secret
Service agent is there under Eisenhower, but when Kennedy gets elected,
they say, you're you're getting White House Detail, Presidential Protective Detail,
the PPD. It's as big as Secret Service. That's what
everyone in the Secret Services working for. Get PPD. You're

(12:45):
going to guard the president. And Clint Hill is like,
this is my day. And then he gets this news
you're not actually guarding the president. You've been assigned to
the first Lady. And he thinks he's got a demotion.
He thinks this is the worst because he's like, I'm
gonna be in tea parties. This is the worst assignment
anyone could ask for. And what he obviously doesn't know

(13:07):
is he's been assigned to Jackie Kennedy and who and
what she becomes is obviously amazingly as they pick him,
we believe because he had young kids. She had one
young daughter, and of course young John John is on
the way. She's pregnant with him and thinks they'll have
something in common. Jackie wants nothing to do with secret service,
wants nothing to do with fame, wants nothing to do

(13:29):
with all everything that's coming to her, which what makes
her even more interesting to the public. And in the beginning,
she goes on these long walks and Clint Hill is like,
you know, fifty steps behind her, and she's not saying
a word to Clint Hill. And then he's twenty five
steps behind her, and then he's twenty steps behind her,
and then suddenly she's talking to him because she's all alone.

(13:52):
And suddenly this relationship, this friendship develops between the two
of them. And this guy looks out for Jackie Kenny.
When she goes into the hospital, he comes running like
it's his own wife. You know, he just cares so
much about her. And I think one of the great
scenes of the whole book is Jackie Kennedy, you know,
we know that you're what you're supposed to do is
obviously in the transferred power. The incoming president goes to

(14:14):
meet the outgoing president. Usually also the incoming first Lady
meets the outgoing First Lady. And so now she's got
to meet Missus Eisenhower and goes to the White House
for the first time. See where she's gonna live. The
first Lady will show the new First Lady around the.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
Day that they pick to do.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
This is the day, and I won't we're in the scene,
but I'll set it up for you. Is is the
day that Jackie Kennedy has the Christine of her son
and his release from the hospital. So imagine the day
your wife gave birth and on that day you say,
you know.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
What we're gonna do now, honey.

Speaker 3 (14:43):
Let's go to a public events. So she leaves the hospital,
puts your stuff down, puts the baby down, and then
has to go to the White House. It's the only
day that Missus Eisenhower says it's okay. And Jackie Kennedy's
pale as a ghost. She's hemorrhaged from the berth. She's exhausted,
and she knows she's going to need a wheel chair.
And I'll just say she's not getting that wheelchair. And

(15:03):
when she's riding up in the White House elevator and
going to the residence when that door opens up. In
my head, it's like meeting Hannibal Lecter. Ma'am, missus. Eisenhower
is not playing around and is not happy to see
the woman whose husband beat her husband and you know,
beat her husband's party in the election. And it is
one of the craziest presidential first lady scenes you've ever

(15:27):
seen ever. It is. Everyone keeps telling me like that
scene is creeping me out, but it's an awesome one.

Speaker 1 (15:32):
Yeah, it could be my favorite scene in the whole
in the whole book.

Speaker 3 (15:36):
Amen.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yeah, and yeah, folks, go go buy Brad's new book,
Brad Meltzer The j f K Conspiracy.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
It's on sale now. The subtitle is.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
The Secret Plot to Kill Kennedy and Why It Failed.
It's a quick, easy read. It's two hundred and fifty pages.
You'll get through it in two days, and and you'll
learn a lot and you'll be ratching your head like
I was, along the lines of how the heck did
I not know this stuff before?

Speaker 2 (16:04):
But it's it's really a fun read.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
You've done a tremendous job with Josh, who must be
quite a mench and and and as always.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
I love you for How do I not how do
I know? When they we were talking about co authors,
how do I not pick the guy whose last name
is mass right now?

Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah, it's perfect. You have to do it. You absolutely
have to.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
By the way, dude, how many times do I need
to tell you that I want to host you for
a book event event in Denver before we actually freaking
do it.

Speaker 3 (16:32):
I listen, I told you. You know you and I so
your audience knows, like we love emailing and you know
we're dear friends. And I love the fact you always
offer it is the one thing the publisher does when
you do a book tour in January is sadly now,
they avoid Colorado. They don't want me getting snowed in.
And I'm like, but I got my buddy there. I
want to do the events together. So when I come
out there, you know you're there.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
All right. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
So make your next book tour in September or something.
Brad Meltzer's new book, Just Fabulous, The JFK Conspiracy. Go
buy it, go read it, enjoy the rest of your
book tour, my friend, Thanks brother, all right, we'll see
you