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  • The Poison Patriarch

  • How the Betrayals of Joseph P. Kennedy Caused the Assassination of JFK
  • By: Mark Shaw
  • Narrated by: Pat Kiernan
  • Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
  • 3.9 out of 5 stars (19 ratings)
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The Poison Patriarch cover art

The Poison Patriarch

By: Mark Shaw
Narrated by: Pat Kiernan
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Editor reviews

Mark Shaw adds another twist into the ongoing conspiracy theories surrounding the death of John F. Kennedy, using 40 new interviews and extensive research to implicate Kennedy's father, Joseph. Shaw's argument centers on how the elder Kennedy's mob ties - as well as those of Melvin Belli, the novice attorney of Jack Ruby, Lee Harvey Oswald's killer - led to JFK's assassination in an attempt to destroy his Robert's efforts to end organized crime. Pat Kiernan performs with a staccato rhythm that gives Shaw's information a shocking power, and his forceful presence makes these assertions commanding and provocative.

Summary

Focusing for the first time on why attorney general Robert F. Kennedy wasn’t killed in 1963 instead of on why President John F. Kennedy was, Mark Shaw offers a stunning and provocative assassination theory that leads directly to the family patriarch, Joseph P. Kennedy. Mining fresh information and more than 40 new interviews, Shaw weaves a spellbinding narrative involving Mafia don Carlos Marcello; Jack Ruby (Lee Harvey Oswald’s killer); Ruby’s attorney, Melvin Belli; and, ultimately, the Kennedy brothers and their father.

Shaw addresses these tantalizing questions: Why, shortly after his brother’s death, did a grief-stricken RFK tell a colleague, "I thought they would get one of us...I thought it would be me"? Why was Belli, an attorney with almost no defense experience (but proven ties to the Mafia), chosen as Jack Ruby’s attorney? How does Belli’s Mafia connection call into question his legal strategy, which ultimately led to the Ruby’s first-degree murder conviction and death sentence? What was Joseph Kennedy’s relationship to organized crime? And how was his insistence that JFK appoint RFK as attorney general tantamount to signing the president’s death warrant?

For 50 years, Shaw maintains, researchers investigating the president’s murder in Dallas have been looking at the wrong motives and actors. The Poison Patriarch offers a shocking reassessment - one that is sure to alter the course of future assassination debates.

©2013 Mark Shaw (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

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    2 out of 5 stars

A long and tedious flog

I question the relevance of the first three quarters of this story, it could have summarised in a great deal fewer words. The title is misleading as only a bit at the beginning and a bit at the end relates to Joseph Kennedy. The protracted diatribe of Jack Ruby's relationship with his lawyer should have been much shorter.
The narrator has a most annoying accent and reads the story like a shopping list.

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