His Brother's Keeper

RFK + JFK = Power

Robert F. Kennedy is often remembered as a moral voice awakened by tragedy. This book tells a harder and more consequential story.

His Brother’s Keeper examines how power was actually exercised during the Kennedy presidency, and the central role Robert Kennedy played in making that power function. More than an advisor or political aide, RFK became the one person John F. Kennedy trusted absolutely, the figure who enforced decisions, carried secrets, and operated where formal authority broke down. Together, the brothers created a form of governance that solved real problems of trust and control while quietly bypassing institutional constraints.

Beginning with Robert Kennedy’s formation as an enforcer and strategist, the book traces his rise through the McCarthy years, the Rackets Committee, and his controversial appointment as Attorney General. It explores the creation of the “trust position” inside the White House, the secret war against Cuba, Operation Mongoose, and the moral hazards of plausible deniability. It places Robert Kennedy at the center of the Cuban Missile Crisis not as a hero, but as a necessary and dangerous instrument of power.

The book does not argue conspiracy, nor does it seek absolution. It follows Robert Kennedy through Dallas, grief, guilt, and transformation, examining how suffering reshaped his understanding of justice, race, poverty, and war. It concludes with the 1968 campaign and assassination, not as a story of lost destiny, but as the end of a life defined by responsibility carried too far.

Written with restraint and grounded in historical record, His Brother’s Keeper is a serious political history of loyalty, secrecy, and power exercised without mandate. It is a study of how governance actually works when institutions are insufficient, and of the cost paid by those who carry the burden.