In this groundbreaking book, award-winning investigative journalist Seymour M. Hersh shows us a John F. Kennedy we have never seen before, a man insulated from the normal consequences of behavior long before he entered the White House. His father, Joe, set the pattern with an arrogance and cunning that have never been fully appreciated: Kennedys could do exactly what they wanted, and could evade any charge brought against them. Kennedys wrote their own moral code.

And Kennedys trusted only Kennedys. Jack appointed his brother Bobby keeper of the secrets - the family debt to organized crime, the real state of Jack's health, the sources of his election victories, the plots to murder foreign leaders, and the president's intentions in Vietnam.

The brothers prided themselves on another trait inherited from their father - a voracious appetite for women - and indulged it with a daily abandon deeply disturbing to the Secret Service agents who witnessed it. These men speak for the first time about their amazement at what they saw and the powerlessness they felt to protect the leader of their country.