The Kennedy Tapes Revealed

As JFK documentaries glut the airwaves to commemorate the 40th anniversary of his assassination, Bravo contributes Revealed, a collection of candid interviews with Robert Kennedy reflecting on the history leading up to, during, and after the fatal shooting in downtown Dallas. The interviews were compiled three months after the assassination and begin with RFK’s take on the Cuban Missile Crisis and the civil rights movement. But the more engaging material reveals a clearly still bitter Bobby unleashing brutally honest assaults on Lyndon Johnson’s vice presidency and J. Edgar Hoover’s infernal meddling in the personal affairs of the brothers Kennedy—relationships that only got worse once John was gone. Sure, the tilt here favors the Kennedys, and Kevin Spacey’s narration interprets all of RFK’s rants as fact, but the strong sentiments on the tapes do bare compelling witness to the resentful in-fighting the ’60s White House never wanted to go public.