The dark side of Camelot

Built to a large extent around interviews with friends, colleagues and former associates, this remarkable book by Seymour Hersh –first published in 1997- delineates a world that, to the modern eye, seems barely believable.
We are all used to reading about political scandals, but John F. Kennedy's activities went far beyond the odd indiscreet affair or dodgy business connection. His 'unofficial' CV is remarkable, containing as it does dalliances with prostitutes, connections with organised crime, a string of mistresses, bribery, election fraud and links to a number of assassination attempts on the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro.

In tracing Kennedy's inexorable rise, Hersh sets the scene with some illuminating background information on the family, particularly on his ruthless and ambitious father. With rumours constantly linking him to bootlegging, profiteering and organised crime, the bad smell around Joe Kennedy meant that he could never have been president, but he made up his mind that one of his sons would be, whatever it cost. As Hersh puts it, “Joe Kennedy spent his life making money … and then hiding it.” Once his own political career had perished on the rocks of a disastrous tenure as US ambassador to the United Kingdom, Joe used his vast fortune to get his son into the White House.
There seems little doubt, for instance, that the 1960 election was crooked, with even Kennedy's opponent -Richard Nixon- later conceding that, in the realm of street-fighting politics (yes, that's a euphemism for bribery, cheating and lying), he was out of his depth when he tangled with the Kennedys.

The iron curtain around the family can be hard to breach, but Hersh manages to secure a number of startling interviews with former associates and colleagues, revealing several jaw-dropping anecdotes about the extent of the ‘unusual’ lifestyle enjoyed by the president, his brother Bobby and their inner circle.

One of the key arguments of the book is that this very lifestyle presented a significant risk to America’s security. There is certainly evidence to suggest that the president’s complicated relationship with drugs (he was constantly on a cocktail of powerful medication for Addison’s disease and a chronic back condition) may have accounted for his unusually high sex drive and his willingness to take risks. Hersh puts the case that the Cuban missile crisis was down to a disastrously inept policy on Cuba, fuelled by what appeared to be a pathological hatred of Castro and a dangerous taste for brinkmanship. There is little doubt that Kennedy sanctioned various (rather inept) attempts to assassinate the Cuban leader, but he also gave tacit approval for the coup in South Vietnam which resulted in the murders of president Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother and chief adviser, Ngo Dinh Nhu. The fall-out from that would prove to be disastrous.

It might be tempting to think that any modern politician behaving like Kennedy would be exposed and excoriated in the press and social media, but the truth is that many influential people -particularly in the world of journalism- knew about the Kennedys, but chose to put a blind eye to the telescope when it came to the behaviour of the up-and-coming senator and, later, the handsome young president. Having an ideological crush on a politician invariably impairs the critical faculties, a fact that is as true today as it has ever been.

Hersh offers no theories on the assassination, other than to state that the lack of credible evidence points to both Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby acting alone. If however, you are inclined to conspiracy theories, the book’s merciless accumulation of grubby detail might tempt you to look in one particular direction; when you add up all of the connections with (and favours owed to) various shadowy underworld figures, it doesn’t take a huge leap of the imagination to suspect that someone somewhere might have nurtured quite a grievance against the Kennedy clan.

One can’t help but wonder how a family with so many dodgy connections, so many skeletons in so many cupboards, managed to attain a status somewhere between royalty and showbiz demigods. You come away from this book with the impression that, for all the charisma, the glamour and the showboating idealism, the fact that people like this could accede to power is something of a stain on America's soul.

It's probably a conspiracy. Again.

The level of bile and vitriol on the various radio phone-ins and internet message boards regarding the outcome of the SPL’s investigation into financial affairs at Rangers has been ridiculous, but sadly predictable. You get the feeling that, for some folk, the appropriate punishment for Rangers would be permanent exile to a penal colony on Mars. Others take the view that the Ibrox men should be forced to play in sackcloth and ashes, change their name to Newco Cheating Bastards FC and start all over again in the Paisley and District Amateur League Division 4 (North-West section).

What some Celtic fans require from Rangers is similar to what the aliens required of the earthlings in ‘Independence Day’. For those who haven’t seen that film, there is a scene which takes place in an underground bunker, right in the middle of an extremely hostile alien invasion of earth. One of the aliens has been captured and is under questioning. President Whitmore (played by Bill Pulman) asks the alien: “Can there be a peace between us?”
“No peace”, replies the nasty extra-terrestrial. “What is it you want us to do?” asks the president. The alien, not entirely keen to explore the notion of finding some common ground, responds with one word: “Die!”

Some Celtic folk hate Rangers more than they love their own club (and this hostility will often be mirrored on the other side). The hatred is visceral and completely beyond the power of reasoning. Some believe that Rangers are the ‘establishment’ team who routinely bribe referees, control the media, bend the rules, influence officialdom and, in all probability, run secret sweat shops and brothels populated by orphans, waifs and strays.
Since the ‘liquidation event’, some Celtic supporters have taken to arguing that there is no such thing as the Old Firm anymore, that there is no such club as Glasgow Rangers. The fact is, of course, that if there is a team playing at Ibrox, wearing blue jerseys and being watched by 45,000 people every other week it is -whether they like or not- Glasgow Rangers. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck – it’s probably a duck.

There are lots of reasons (some silly, some rather more sinister) for this weapons-grade level of hostility. From a neutral point of view, there are plenty of things to dislike about both clubs, but Celtic perhaps provide the more interesting case study. The club's officials and fans often exhibit a curious mentality which somehow manages to combine a sense of superiority and self-righteousness with a large dose of victimhood.

I first became aware of this peculiar phenomenon many years ago. When I was a lad, Celtic signed an English goalkeeper by the name of Peter Latchford. It was quite unusual in the seventies for a player to cross the border from the English League to play in Scotland and his transfer was quite big news. At one point, Peter came to our school to do a ‘question and answer’ session with the pupils. He was a perfectly charming fellow and handled the questions really well. Being a Catholic school, full of pupils and staff who were ‘Celtic-minded’, he got asked the inevitable question:

"Do you think that referees in Scotland are biased against Celtic?"

His answer, more or less in these words, was: “Yes, definitely. The players and officials at the club told me all about it when I arrived and now I’ve seen it for myself”.

So … here was a club that, within the previous decade, had won nine consecutive league championships, god knows how many Scottish Cups and League Cups, had been to two European Cup Finals (and a few semi-finals), and yet its players, officials and a big percentage of its fans thought that there was a conspiracy against it. Even as a wee lad, I remember thinking: ‘But if everyone is out to get you, how come you keep winning all of these trophies?’

The truth, of course, is that there was (and is) no conspiracy against the club, although there may be sound historical reasons to explain the sense of injustice hardwired into the Celtic psyche. The club has noble origins and strong links –of which it is rightly proud- with the poor immigrant communities of the nineteenth century. It’s fair to say that the treatment sometimes handed out to Irish Catholic immigrants is something that Scotland should be embarrassed about. But that is ancient history; or at least it should be.

Alas, a lot of folk associated with Celtic can’t shake off that historical baggage; indeed, successive custodians of the club have cynically tapped into ancient wells of resentment among a certain element of the faithful, allowing that sense of injustice to mutate into something uglier and sillier, something more like paranoia and a perpetual sense of persecution. Consequently, this huge club -a global brand that enjoys every conceivable advantage in domestic competition- has often displayed an utterly cynical mentality: it wants to win everything, it wants to be in charge of everything (witness their various campaigns against the SFA) and yet it wants the option of playing the victim card whenever it suits.

Celtic’s interpretation is that the SPL’s verdict on Rangers was lenient, so this gives them yet another chance to play that victim card and to send out dog-whistle messages about conspiracy theories to their supporters. They say that the Rangers case is nothing to do with them, but still issued a club statement stating that: "We are surprised by the parallel conclusion that no competitive advantage was gained from these arrangements"

Just to be clear, I’ll translate that for you: “Those dirty cheating bastards have exploited their establishment contacts to get away with murder once again. We should have been awarded five or six league titles by way of compensation”.

Lest there be any confusion, I should point out that I hold no brief for either half of the Old Firm. I long ago tired of the tribalism and the incessant bleating about how the rest of Scottish football is holding them back and how they would be much better off playing in the English League or the North Atlantic Alliance, or whatever the latest daft scheme happens to be. My preference would be for the Old Firm to join a two-team league (available only by subscription to a satellite TV channel) in which they could play each other thirty times a season and leave the rest of us to get on with 21st century life.

So, like that alien in ‘Independence Day’, my message to the conspiracy theorists among the Celtic hierarchy and support is quite simple.

What do I want them to do? Just grow up.