Final_Judgment

739 Final Word? [641]
There's no doubt about it: the word about Final Judgment is getting
around. On October 29, 1998, Washington Jewish Week reported that Rabbi
Abraham Cooper, self-styled "associate dean" of the Los Angeles-based
Simon Wiesenthal Center had complained in one of his interminable press
releases that "in an interview given on Syrian Television, Syrian Defense
Minister General Mustafa Tlas asserted that 'international Zionism' was
responsible for the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy."
The rabbi demanded that the Syrians provide official clarification "as to
whether or not these views expressed by one of Syria's most powerful
figures reflect Syria's official view of American history," although as of this
time, the Syrians have not yet rushed forward to apologize. In any case, a
Syrian friend of mine has advised me that General Tlas told him that he (the
general) had read Final Judgment and concurred with its conclusions.
Earlier, the aforementioned Rabbi Cooper had attacked those who had
come to my defense when I was under attack by the Anti-Defamation
League in Southern California. Cooper said: "They don't need to prove that
Israelis had a hand in assassinating JFK; they just have to plant the seed of
suspicion that it might have been that way."
Final Judgment has planted the seed of suspicion, but only because the
facts assembled in this book paint a plausible scenario that is just as
believable as other theses put forth about this most controversial subject. So
that's why Rabbi Cooper and the ADL and others are so uncomfortable.
THE LAST BROTHER . . .
Just as the fifth edition of Final Judgment was being readied for the
printer, an odd thing happened. I was actually working on the final draft,
and late on the night of June 14, 2000 (around 11:30 pm), I received a call
from a friend who told me that Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and a group of
people were "cutting up" at the outside tables at the Hawk & Dove, a
popular nightspot near my office on Capitol Hill in Washington. My friend
offered to give a copy of Final Judgment to the senator. "Why not?" I
thought. "He's probably heard about it—one way or the other."
I inscribed the book to Senator Kennedy and handed it to my friend
who then proceeded to gingerly approach the senator. Looking up at the tall,
lanky African-American in dark sunglasses who was approaching him,
Kennedy asked, "Can I help you, sir?" My friend handed Kennedy the book
saying, "A friend of mine asked me to give you this book. It's about the
Mossad." The last Kennedy brother held the book in his hands, looking at
the cover (as his companions strained to see what the book was about).
After a moment, handing the book back to my friend, Kennedy said,
"Thank you, but no thank you. God bless you, and have a good evening." My
friend accepted the book, saying, "God bless you, to," and departed.
That sad little story says so very much I feel somewhat guilty that I subjected
the senator to that experience, for—after all—it was the murder of his own big
brother we're talking about here. But the fact is that Final