The JFK Conspiracy

Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch open their narrative nonfiction account on December 11, 1960, with a scene outside the walled estate of President-elect John F. Kennedy in Palm Beach, Florida. An older man sat in a parked 1950 Buick on a residential street, watching. Hidden in the car's trunk were seven sticks of dynamite wired to a trigger mechanism, enough to "blow up a mountain" (3). His plan was to ram his Buick into JFK's sedan and detonate the explosives. From this scene, the authors pull back to trace the converging forces that brought a seventy-three-year-old retired postal worker to the brink of assassination, and the people whose actions prevented it.

The book flashes back to August 1943, when twenty-six-year-old Lieutenant Junior Grade John F. Kennedy commanded PT-109, a Navy patrol boat in the Solomon Islands during World War II. After a Japanese destroyer rammed and destroyed the vessel, Kennedy, despite a severe back injury, rescued the badly burned machinist Patrick McMahon by swimming three miles to a tiny island with a strap from McMahon's life jacket clenched in his teeth. Over six days without food or water, Kennedy led his eleven surviving crew members across multiple islands. He carved a rescue message on a coconut and entrusted it to two native island scouts, who delivered it to an Australian Allied officer. The episode established Kennedy as a leader willing to risk everything for others and launched his public profile.

The narrative jumps to the 1960 Presidential campaign, where Kennedy's Catholic candidacy revived fears shaped by Al Smith's landslide defeat in 1928. On September 7, 1960, the Reverend Norman Vincent Peale, author of the bestselling The Power of Positive Thinking, held a press conference warning that a Catholic President threatened American culture. The authors reveal that the organization Peale represented was secretly orchestrated by the Reverend Billy Graham. The book traces anti-Catholic sentiment through the Ku Klux Klan, which in the 1920s expanded its ideology beyond anti-Black racism to target Catholic and Jewish immigrants under the slogan "America First."

Richard Pavlick of Belmont, New Hampshire, a retired postal worker consumed by grievances, embodied these prejudices. In 1955, he attempted to form the Protestant War Veterans Legion, an organization excluding Catholics and Jews. Though never confirmed as a KKK member, his views mirrored Klan ideology, and the anti-Catholic messaging from Graham and Peale's circle further inflamed him. On the eve of the election, Pavlick wrote a letter vowing to put "a hex on Kennedy and his family millions" (58) if Nixon lost.

Kennedy's campaign captured a new generation. His "New Frontier" speech at the Democratic National Convention appealed to idealistic young voters, while the "Viva Kennedy" initiative became the first to target Latino voters. Kennedy confronted the "religious issue" in a speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, declaring his belief in absolute separation of church and state. Jackie Kennedy, JFK's wife, fluent in multiple languages, addressed crowds in Spanish Harlem and recorded campaign spots in several languages, emerging as a formidable asset. Beneath the glamorous image, the marriage was strained by JFK's chronic infidelity.

On November 8, 1960, JFK won with 303 electoral votes but a popular vote margin of only 0.17 percent. Three days later, Pavlick drove to Hyannis Port, followed the President-elect's motorcade, and observed the security, later telling Belmont's Postmaster Thomas Murphy it was "stupid" and "poor" (125).

The transition introduces the Secret Service agents who would protect the Kennedys. Agent Gerald "Jerry" Blaine was assigned to the President-elect's detail in Palm Beach, while Agent Clint Hill received what he initially considered a demotion: personal protection of Jackie Kennedy. Over quiet walks along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal towpath, Hill and Jackie formed an unlikely friendship. The Secret Service scrambled to secure the Palm Beach compound, changing Monterey Road, which ran directly toward the front gate, from two-way to one-way traffic.

Pavlick, meanwhile, escalated. On November 14, he purchased more dynamite. In late November, he donated his home, wrote a farewell letter, and left Belmont permanently, telling Murphy he was "going to prepare a place for me" and "might end up in pieces" (149). Murphy, alarmed, contacted postal superiors, who relayed the warning through the U.S. Attorney's office to the Secret Service.

On Thanksgiving night, Jackie experienced premature labor. Doctors performed an emergency Cesarean section, delivering John F. Kennedy Jr. on November 25. Her recovery was slow. On December 9, barely able to stand, she endured a ninety-minute walking tour of the White House with outgoing First Lady Mamie Eisenhower. Hill had arranged for a wheelchair, but Eisenhower ordered it hidden. Jackie emerged pale and near fainting.

Pavlick tracked JFK from city to city, arriving in Palm Beach in early December. On the morning of December 11, he parked on Monterey Road across from the Kennedy estate, knowing JFK would leave for Sunday Mass. As Kennedy prepared to enter his sedan, Pavlick reached for the ignition, then froze: Jackie and their three-year-old daughter Caroline had stepped outside to say goodbye. His reluctance to harm them caused him to abandon the attempt. He followed JFK to St. Edward Church, where Agent Blaine noticed the disheveled man, intercepted him, and noted his license plate: BI 606.

On December 14, the Protective Research Section, the Secret Service unit that monitored threats, called the Palm Beach team with a formal warning about Pavlick. The plate matched Blaine's notation. The next morning, Palm Beach Police Officer Lester Free spotted the green Buick, confirmed the plate, and pulled Pavlick over. A search revealed seven sticks of dynamite, detonator caps, wiring, and a detonation switch. Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Rust confirmed the dynamite purchases by contacting the New Hampshire Machinery and Explosives Company. Pavlick eventually confessed he had been outside the estate on December 11 but "hesitated because he did not wish to kill Mrs. Kennedy or the children" (210). He admitted he came to Palm Beach to kill Kennedy.

JFK treated the news with bemusement. The Secret Service regarded it as a critical wake-up call; Chief U. E. Baughman called the plot one of "the closest calls any President ever had" (213). The story received scant press coverage because on December 16, two airliners collided over New York City, killing 132 people.

On January 20, 1961, Kennedy delivered his Inaugural Address, declaring that "the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans" (224) and urging citizens to "ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" (225). Pavlick, found not competent to stand trial, was confined to a federal medical facility and released in December 1966, partly under mental health reform legislation Kennedy himself had signed. He returned to Belmont and stalked Murphy and Murphy's family until Pavlick's death in 1975.

The book closes with the broader Kennedy legacy. As First Lady, Jackie transformed the White House through a restoration project and cultural programming. Hill remained at her side. On November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Hill sprinted to the Presidential limousine after shots rang out and shielded the Kennedys with his body, but JFK was fatally wounded. Seven days later, Jackie summoned journalist Theodore White and told him JFK loved the musical Camelot, especially the lines: "Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot" (247). Jackie's deliberate framing of the Presidency as Camelot became permanently linked to the Kennedy name. The authors close by acknowledging Kennedy as both a beacon of idealism and a deeply flawed human being, arguing that his vision of hope and civic duty remains worth striving for.