New RFK Book Rife With Scandal

With a scandal swirling around the Clinton White House, there is also a new account of the Kennedy brothers' alleged exploits, reports CBS 'This Morning' Co-Anchor Jane Robelot.

A new book, Eye of the Storm: A Candid Biography of Robert F. Kennedy by C. David Heymann, claims to "tell all" about Robert Kennedy, and it disputes his reputation as a family man, a devout Catholic who fought organized crime and stood up for civil rights.

Among Heymann's claims:

• RFK once proposed intentionally blowing up an American civilian jetliner, in order to blame it on Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
• RFK had an affair with Jacqueline Kennedy after JFK's assassination. "In fact," says Heymann, "Jackie once said of Bobby, 'If there is one person who always will be there for you, it's Bobby.' They had a life-long love relationship which was actually only consummated after Jack's death."

  For his book, Heymann claims, he interviewed no fewer than 12 people who identified the relationship - "intimates, friends, acquaintances, relatives [who] knew about the relationship." And he said RFK and Jackie Kennedy might have been drawn together by their love for JFK and their shared grief at his loss.

• RFK ran an operation called "Operation Mongoose," which. Heymann says, "experts believe, turned around and ended up in the destruction of his brother. Heymann claims that JFK "used Mafia figures in this endeavour to get Castro. He had direct contact with Castro's physician in order to try to kill Castro."

  "I worked for Bobby in 1968, when he ran for the presidency," says Heymann. "I was 23 at the time, registering voters in New York."

  During that time, he says he met Ken O'Donnell, chief of staff under JFK, "and [O'Donnell] said on one occasion that Bobby, during this Cuban fiasco, was out to do anything to embarrass Cuba."

• RFK "would do anything" to discredit those on his enemies list, which, according to Heymann, included not only Castro, but also Jimmy Hoffa, J. Edgar Hoover, and Lyndon Johnson.

"That was one of Bobby's roles as attorney general, guarding his brother Jack from this kind of invasion of the press and the media. He did it very well," says the author.

But, Heymann adds, RFK was more than the attorney general. "He was the secretary of state, head of the CIA. He was a man who wore many coats in those days.

"Today," concludes Heymann, "this would be impossible."

Heymann also has written "tell all" books about Barbara Hutton, Elizabeth Taylor, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.