more than 60 years ago the nation was stunned by the assassination of President John F Kennedy in Dallas what you may not know is that this presidency nearly ended before it began with a first assassination attempt three years prior and that's the story in Brad meltzer's latest book the JFK conspiracy the secret plot to kill Kennedy [Music] I'm Anne Bok and welcome to between the covers Brad Meltzer is the Emmy nominated number one New York Times best-selling author he writes Thrillers he writes non-fiction he writes kids books I'm convinced he never sleeps or he has a clone the latest book is nonfiction and about an event in history that you probably know nothing about it's the JFK conspiracy the secret plot to kill Kennedy welcome back so good to be back ad okay either we were never aware of this or it faded away over time so what was the the inspiration for this book well you know I love finding those missing pieces of history no one knows and I love the JFK assassination story it it's the first story in fact when I was a student here in Florida it's what got me into history that story of Lee Harvey Oswald and here he comes and D Plaza and all the things that happened I remember going what what's that there's things we don't know and a few years back I found out and this is all true and what I love most is it happens here in Palm Beach County and JFK is elected it's 1960 this December 11th so not far from where we're taping this today and there's a guy named Richard pavy who hates Kennedy and we'll talk about why but he hates him and he he follows him in DC he follows him in Massachusetts he follows him here to Florida and realizes that the Secret Service here doesn't keep as much watchful eye on him that the Security's a little less here fills his car full of dynamite 10 sticks of dynamite all he has to do he knows that Kennedy comes out of his compound in Palm Beach and he goes to a 10:00 church service every Sunday morning so at 9:5 you show up Kennedy's going to walk out the door he's 20 yard away from where Kennedy is he just has to hit the gas in his car hit the button that he rigged to blow up the dynamite and then truly and boom will go the dynamite and I won't ruin the ending because obviously why he doesn't die and what saves him is an incredible part of the book I just ruined chapter one of the JFK conspiracy for you but that story made me go I need to know more about that you ruined nothing so this attempt happens between the election and the inauguration that's a pretty short window of time it happens in Palm Beach we know that the kennedies have this fabulous compound in in Palm Beach the wouldbe Assassin's name is Richard pavick from New Hampshire tell me who Richard is and what motivated him yeah Richard pav is disgruntle postal worker from Belmont New Hampshire and you really got to pay attention to the 1960 election because what's happening is it's Nixon vers JFK it's a nailbiter of election everyone whatever side you're on hates the other side thinks they're complete and utter morons does that sound familiar to you an that's right where we are right now and when you have all this hate being drummed up against Kennedy saying that he's a Catholic he won't be true to our country he can't be loyal to us is he's going to be loyal to the pope instead of the US government guess what happens when you dredge up that much hate people get activated and that's what happens to Richard pavick he gets activated and says for the good of the country I need to kill Kennedy and it's not Lee Harvey oswal who does it first it's this disgruntled poster worker and the problem with Richard pavick is he can't keep his mouth shut and again I won't ruin the end of the book but he just can't keep his mouth shut as we know this attempt was thwarted um and you need to read the book to see just how close he actually came you know the book reads like a thriller I mean it really it really is a thriller what's the most surpris Ur Rising thing that you found when you were researching this his story so what's so fascinating to me is we all know the story of JFK right and and his story is incredible I mean we started with his his you know what happens in World War II to him when he's you know a a hero a true World War II hero who puts one of his men on his back and swims for miles to save his life and to save his men and that launches him into the kind of Consciousness in fact when he survives his dad says well going to get him out of the military I can get my kid home now cuz he got you know his big his big award and Kennedy says no I'm going back I want to fight more and I was just so impressed by that but what struck me and surprised me more than anything is the other star of this book and that is Jackie Jackie Kennedy steals this book and I think everyone sees the title and says oh the Kennedy conspiracy and it's not one Kennedy it also affects this this plot and again you'll see at the end completely is affected and and affects Jackie more than anyone and to watch her the stories we have in there from his Affairs to just even you know how she approaches her life to how she doesn't want to be a part of all this and then you know we have her firsthand accounts from her secret service agent and those moments are just mindblowing to me because here you have you know the perfect husband and the perfect hair and he's got the perfect smile and they have the perfect life and she's the perfect wife but as you see in the book it's anything but and everyone that reads a book when my wife read the book she's like oh the Jackie parts are my favorite that I I was going to say the same thing there's one other thing that that I thought so interesting maybe the reason that I never knew anything about this there was another story that took over the news like right away so this story disappeared well you're begging the question right is why do we not know this story they tried to kill Kennedy Why does no one know this part and the reason is is here in Palm Beach Kennedy uh obviously is where he is when when it happens they capture Richard pavick and that's you know that doesn't ruin anything but it becomes a front page of the local you know Palm Beach Post puts it right on the front page you know the the newspapers here cover it Miami heral covers it and it's about to go National takes an extra day for everything to go National at that point in time and it's about to go Nationwide be on the front page of every paper in the country and then there's a plane crash in New York City over New York City where two planes Collide and everyone dies except for one child there's a child who's the sole survivor of this double plane crash and guess what happens America becomes obsessed with this child what happened what happened in this plane crash how' they survive are they going to live are they going to make it and the child doesn't make it but what it does is it wipes the story off the front page and that's why you've never heard of it it becomes a footnote rather than becoming the main headline thank goodness for you cuz you always find these stories that nobody else knows about the El ction 1960 it's Kennedy it's Nixon truly one of the closest elections in history where every I mean we always say every vote counts but every vote really did Count you know it comes down to a couple thousand votes and the thing that's amazing and this is the part I didn't know we always know you know when we think of the Kennedy and Nixon battle we think of you know Nixon sweating on television right that's what we kind of put in our head and we but what was so amazing to me and surprised me is just how much venom was thrown at Kennedy and not just because listen you always throw venom at the other side and they threw Venom at Nixon and that's politics but what struck me here was the Venom that was coming because he was Catholic and you know listen I wasn't living during that time I didn't see it firsthand but when you look we actually were able to trace back where it was coming from and that was staggering there was a a famous reverend named Norman Vincent Peele who people know from the power of positive thinking one of the best telling books of the time and he came out very against Kennedy with a group of religious leaders saying Kennedy's going to be bad for America he's going to be a you know we do not want anyone who's Catholic being president there was only one other person who ever was Catholic and ran for the presidency but he had no chance Kennedy was the only one who had an actual chance for the first time and they said he's not going to be loyal to America he's going to be loyal to the pope we don't know where his loyalty's lie they're going to be with the church but it wasn't coming just from Norman Vincent Peele it was actually coming from the Reverend Billy Graham who had secretly brought brought all these religious leaders together and said this guy we got to stop him and he hided behind all these other religious leaders and didn't tell anyone and the other part of the group that was actively campaigning against Kennedy and this is a very different group of course but is the KKK and we all know the klex clam and we know that during Reconstruction they hate anyone who's black they hate the end of slavery but in the 1920s they started to Surge again and they started to grow again and their enemies at this time they found a brand new enemy in addition to black people they found they hated Jewish people and they also hated immigrants and Kennedy as an Irish Catholic was considered by them an immigrant they were like he's the new guy all these Irish people have come into this into our country and man we got to stop him and again when you when you dredge up all that Venom don't be surprised as I said when someone gets activated by it and hearing all of that is what activates the person who wants to kill Kennedy in this story you mentioned what we remember about this election in Kennedy I mean Nixon sweating on on TV under the lights this was really the first fully televised election that we had in this country and appearances JFK seemed like the young healthy one Nixon wasn't really much older I mean they they were pretty much the same age I I joke I said the only difference is the hairline they're really the same age Nixon is really young in the 1960 election um but Kenny's just handsome that's really it he's just better for television and he knows how to handle it and the thing that also he has is he has Jackie Jackie is so beloved in fact there's one little moment in the book that I couldn't help but put in is right after Kennedy's elected he becomes so famous that crowds start coming out but they're not coming for him they want to all see Jackie and he introduces himself to the crowds in Europe and he says I'm here to introduce myself my name is John Kennedy I'm the husband of Jackie I think it was in Paris in Paris right he said L introduced him by saying I'm Jackie k husband and The Crowd Goes Wild and I love the fact that she's so famous that she's stealing the Thunder from him we still to this day we love a powerful beautiful family especially when you're good-look you may hate the Kardashians you may say they're the worst thing to ever happen to whatever but boy you watch them and Jackie Kennedy had the most amazing reason that you watched her and you want to know what it was she didn't want you to watch her she didn't want any part of this she wanted to be you know a clue she wanted to have Grant no interviews she didn't want to be famous she didn't want this life at all and I tell my kids all the time there's nothing cooler than the person who doesn't care about being cool and she didn't care and the more she pulled away from the cameras the more she pulled away from the press the more the Press was even more obsessed with her I came away with knowing more about her and feeling that she was absolutely an extraordinary woman we knew she was beautiful we knew she was poised we knew she was educated she was a master of the media I think she was very underrated and and you point this out yeah so one of my favorite things when we were researching the book is I kept saying well when does Camelot come in where's Camelot because we all know Camelot is so associated with the you know JFK and the Kennedy administration and I always thought it was some point in whatever maybe 60 61 62 and it doesn't come in until he's dead and what I finally realized and I didn't know this part of the story is right after JFK is actually killed everyone wants to interview Jackie she grants no interviews to anyone and she eventually says to Life Magazine life Magazine's putting a special edition together and they she says listen take your reporter bring them to my house send them here at 8:00 at night I'll grant them an interview it's the opportunity of a lifetime you're going to interview the wife of JFK right after he was murdered and the guy comes to her house he's there for hours until after midnight and she tells him the story and says when JFK when his back was hurt and he would in the White House I used to play his favorite song for him was this record that he loved about Camelot and she says the lyrics from Camelot and Jackie was a member of the press at one point she started a career as a member of the press she was hounded by the Press she was tortured by the Press but as you said she was a master of the press and that is the moment where Camelot enters the Lexicon with the Kennedy administration Jackie puts it there and now it's permanently there and that is someone who is m a master of what they're doing in in terms of how she's defining what their legacy is rather than letting anyone else Define it it's Jackie who has the final word there's another player in here and that's Clint Hill he was the her secret service agent assigned to the first lady tell me about him this was an interesting interesting part of the book yeah so Clint Hill and and I a shout out to Clint Hill and to Gerald blae who are both so helpful to us they have great Memoirs on this moment in time and Clint was kind enough to lend us and and let us use those accounts firsthand and he is a secret service agent who they say you're going to the White House he's so excited and then they tell him oh you're not guarding the president you're guarding the first lady and he's Crest falling he's like oh no I got the bad one I you know I got I'm going to be a tea parties this is going to be terrible I want to be in the action and what he find they pick him because he has young kids and Jackie is going to now have young kids and so he think they think you know what these two are going to get along and every day Jackie would like to go out for these long walks just clear her head and get outside get away from all the hustle bustle and Clint Hills W would walk with her and she'd say nothing to him and then eventually she started saying certain things to him started talking to him engaging with him and they become incredible friends and they have a trust that's incredible and what what you really see is he's so protective of her he takes such care of her and I think one of the most amazing moments of the book is you get to see the Kennedy we obviously go through the first assassination attempt and then then we end with the actual assassination and Clint Hills account of what Jackie goes through in those final moments when JFK is killed I don't care how many times you've seen the zuda film I don't care how many books you've read it is still jaw-dropping when you read the account that we have in the JFK conspiracy it is and and Clint Hill is this amazing person who saves her over and over again from the moment she's pregnant to when she's giving birth he has insights to her first visit to the White House and you see what Jackie is's going through and it is just mindblowing and I see how it evolves from this is my job to what what it became this friendship it it was unbelievable you know I I wonder if there's parallels with the Secret Service to 60 years later to today JFK by all accounts in your book was the most difficult man to try to protect he didn't want to play by the roles his predecessor was very much I ishower very much straight down the middle and abided by all of the roles yeah so let's talk about that so you have Eisenhower was a man of the 50s right when you come home from work and your wife has food on the stove and that's how you're supposed it's a it's a very rigid way of seeing America and he used to come out of the plane when he'd land somewhere and he would go to the car and he wouldn't talk to the secret service agent he wouldn't talk to anybody that was the job get out of the plane get in the car and here comes JFK one of my favorite scenes in the whole book is the first time they take JFK down to Florida JFK steps off the plane and they're all ready for him and JFK instead uh he heads for the fence he sees a crowd of people at the fence waving and he beines for the fence and the Secret Service look at each other going oh my God what's he doing and he's shaking hands and kissing babies and doing what we know of politicians now but it's JFK who's the first one to do this and he's not rigid in the 50s he's the guy from the 60s in the future who's like no no no I can handle all this and one of my favorite moments is when they finally do to Florida for the first time Secret Service are guarding the Kennedy Compound here in Florida but they're in a suit and and it they're they're sweating they're like this is hot and JFK looks over at them he says what size you and he goes inside and he comes out with these floral shirts he says put these on he gives them the clothes off his back they've just met the newest president of the United States and within hours they're wearing his clothes this is a very different president than Eisenhower is speaking of Eisenhower one of the one SC in the book that I absolutely adored was between the two first ladies meeting before the the during the transition May was just like Ike I mean very rigid this is the way we're going to do things she was not very warm to Jackie that's the nicest way to say what she is there maybe Eisenhower you know there's a tradition that we have in that peaceful transfer of power where the president invites the newly elected president in and we see that moment with Eisenhower and JFK but also the first lady invites the new first lady in and the M Eisenhower scene I I won't ruin the ending of it but I'll set it up for you it's it's one of my favorite scenes in the whole book right as it was yours and you see Jackie who has just given birth she's just had a hemorrhage she's just had to go through a christening with her son her husband wasn't even there when she collapsed it's what this woman has been through and then they kind of take her out of the hospital they're like listen you got to go to the white house today and she's like I I need I need a wheelchair I I can't walk around I'm like I I've just gone through birth and M Eisenhower uh I I I'll say this the wheelchair is not there and it's maybe Eisenhower who makes that decision it's a ruthless moment uh and when you see that account again we know Jackie Kennedy is having it all together and chin up and don't complain and she doesn't but when you see what she has to go through that her first moment in the White House is such a horrible terrible one in this kind of power play uh it was just a little heartbreaking moment to me it was heart that was an amazing scene I have to tell you as a reader it's so easy for me to see how you admire Kennedy and we talked a little bit before about it starts with his military service but you also recognize his flaws and it's always interesting to me how you go about balancing a riveting story with these pieces of historical accuracy that may not be so so favorable is it is it critical to add character elements that are not necessarily glowing yeah no otherwise we're just whitewashing it all um you know when we did we did we started this series with the first conspiracy about a secret plot to kill George Washington and George Washington's an amazing person the second book was the Lincoln conspiracy about a plot to kill Abraham Lincoln at the beginning of his presidency Abraham Lincoln is my favorite President of all time time it's hard to find the flaw there there are ones in there and there are compromises you had to make but if we just show you the amazing Parts where everything goes great then it's boring and it's not real when we did the Nazi conspiracy about a plot to kill FDR Stalin and Churchill the hi of World War II one of the things we showed was was how great FDR was but also how much his ego drove things that you know he's trying to charm everybody thinking I'm the guy who can do it and in Kennedy I think the hardest part of this book was that there was so much negative stuff I mean we don't hold back you see his Affairs in this book we name them we show you them we show you that one of Kennedy's good friends goes up to Jackie after they get engaged and says I'm just going to tell you your husband JFK he loves the ladies basically says to her face he's not going to stop cheating on you he likes to cheat can you imagine at one of your engagement parties someone coming up and saying this to you and we had to deal with that that's just the reality of what happened America got to see the perfect light and the perfect you know charm and the perfect teeth and the perfect smile but to me what I love about this book is that it shows you that Kennedy you know is selling Camelot and Jackie is selling Camelot they're selling all the Perfection but they're not living it and to me is Kennedy therefore amazing and wonderful because of all he inspires in US of course he is but is he also Reckless and and do does things that are distasteful about his wife of course he is so is he good is he bad or is there a little bit of both just like all of us and to me that's what we took away with and that's why we end the book where we end it with his inaugural address um which is so full of Hope and unlocks so much Beauty in the culture but we also know that there's stuff that's underneath that is not nearly as flattering generally speaking do you like the research part and because you do such good research do you have like the archist on speed dial or how does that work well you know full credit Josh menu I co-wrote this book with is just he is a master and every time we do one of these books we also bring on other people who know this particular area because we also know there are people who have studied this for decades and we're coming at it for two three years so we always take someone who's a really great guide so when we did the Revolutionary War we picked a revolutionary war expert for Lincoln of course a civil war expert and here we were like let's find someone who really knows this Kennedy Administration But to answer your question of course we love the research I mean he would send me like when when he sent me that scene with M Eisenhower in the White House and Jackie coming we were like the more Jackie stories we started getting we were like oh this is not just about Kennedy this whole book's going to change now because these stories are so good and they're so Illuminating about the hypocrisy that they're selling and what they're shoving down our throats on the television but what's really happening behind closed doors and I think when people see that you know over time everything becomes golden everyone has the Halo um and it's amazing to me Kennedy to this day in the modern times in the 20th century is the number one number one most favored president of modern time and we forget all the other stuff especially when someone dies everyone becomes a little bit more of a saint and I love this book because it doesn't vilify him it doesn't say he's the greatest but it shows you what life was really like living in that white house after that election and approaching that presidency and I think it's going to be very different than you think it is in your head I think that's why I like this book so much you write Thrillers you write non-fiction you also write children's books the ordinary people that change the world I've lost count how many do we have now yeah so we just came up with our 33rd our 34th is I am s ride is our newest one um we just did uh Stephen I am Stephen Hawking we did uh I am Jesse Owens the book started on here I started with you 10 years ago to date us and we started with I'm Emil aart and I'm Abraham Lincoln and it was our goal to give our kids better Heroes to look up to how do we teach our grandkids to find lessons of perseverance and lessons of resilience and and of compassion and we did I am Rosa Parks and I am Dr King and we're now doing our first female astronaut Sally Ride and she's just I'll say out of this world because it's an easy pun but she really is out of this world Brad what did you read when you were a kid I grew up in Brooklyn New York and my family didn't have a lot of money but my grandmother had this magical object more powerful than Harry Potter's wand which was a library card and she took me to the library I'll never forget and the librarian in Brooklyn said to me oh here's your section these are your books and I literally thought she meant those are my books and she wasn't that far off but what I love to read she introduced me to my newest friends Judy Bloom and Agatha Christie and I remember reading the two of them and you know Judy Bloom was when I was younger Agatha Christie I remember getting a little older and I remember seeing on those early Pages a dead body and then in that first chapter at the end of it I is that one question that I've been asking myself since who done it and I have loved those stories ever since you know it means something to you I know when you hear from readers I do you you really do answer all your emails I do yeah I love answering so obviously we have a lot of emails will come in that have the same answer over and over and you can cut and paste answers but when we when I love we just got someone who sent me when I say it was a 6ot tall letter it was a piece of paper that was like a giant massive thing that they wrote out in a classroom and they folded it up a whole classroom of kids and they said dear Brad Meltzer we think your next book should be I am Brad Meltzer because you've changed our lives and we love what you do and I was on the verge of tears in fact if you came to my desk right now at home I I try to keep it pretty neat it's usually a little messy with research and stuff but the only thing I keep on my desk is a pile of letters from kids it's a pile it's got to be this tall at this point and it's just classrooms and strangers and kids and they we take our ideas from them in terms of who they want to hear and who they want to see and those letters are so meaningful to me I don't know whether to be stunned or cry I mean that's just beautiful it's absolutely beautiful Brad meltzer's latest book is the JFK conspiracy thank you so much thanks an I'm Anne boock please join me on the next between the covers