During Robert Kennedy's campaign for the American presidency in 1968 he would sometimes disappear from the wild crowds and sit alone for hours on end. When aides would ask what he was thinking about, he would reply, "Just thinking about Jack."

The relationship between the two brothers, and the dynamic political partnership it generated, was one of the most important in American politics.

This is the subject of Richard Mahoney's Sons and Brothers. But the book also documents their father Joe's relationship with the corrupt worlds of the mafia, the labour unions and J. Edgar Hoover's FBI.

Although the research is copious, there are no revelations. The author draws on the work and ideas of conspiracy kings Anthony Summers (The Arrogance of Power) and Seymour Hersh (The Dark Side of Camelot), while the controversial movie director Oliver Stone gets a thank you in the acknowledgments.

While they were growing up, John and Robert were not particularly close. After the death of their older brother, Joe jnr, during World War II (and sister Kathleen a few years later) the family's political prospects rested with John. The brothers' relationship became close: Robert managed John's 1952 Senate campaign, his ill-fated bid for the Democratic vice-presidential nomination in 1956 and his run for the presidency in 1960.

Following the Kennedy win, the new president - and his father - wanted Robert as attorney-general. Robert protested but in the end John's desire for someone he could trust won out. Anticipating criticism over the appointment, John explained to the press: "I can't see that it's wrong to give him a little legal experience before he goes out to practise law."

Robert was an activist attorney-general, tackling problems like the civil rights movement, the mafia underworld and the corruption endemic in many of the labour unions. He was also included in all the administration's important decisions; his access to and influence over his brother was unmatched.

After hearing for the first time that the Soviet Union was building nuclear missile sites in Cuba, it was his brother that the president immediately summoned to the White House. In the ensuing days of the crisis, Robert played an integral role in securing a peaceful outcome.

But the darker side of the brothers' lives is also examined. Mahoney uses FBI reports to describe John's and his father's numerous sexual escapades, and claims that Robert strayed only once with Marilyn Monroe.

The Kennedy connection to the mob is not a new allegation, but Mahoney emphasises its depth: in the 1960 presidential election, for example, he explains how the Kennedys used the Mob already a major financial contributor to falsify ballots and buy votes.

In addition, he claims that Democratic Party bosses in Chicago and New York "periodically received briefcases full of campaign money" from Joe in return for political favours. A portrait emerges of a father and his two sons negotiating their way through American politics to power, using their connections with Hollywood, the mafia, the unions and party bosses to achieve their ambition.

Conscious of Machiavelli's dictum that men "seldom or never advance themselves from a small beginning to any great height except by fraud or force", Joe Kennedy knew that the price for power was a moral one. John went along with the dictum while Robert resisted it.

Mahoney's overarching theme builds to a climax through the nexus he develops between the Kennedys, the mafia and the CIA. Essentially, his thesis is that the mafia grew resentful of Robert's pursuit of it; that anti-Castro Cubans were frustrated with the administration's apparent detente with Cuba in the wake of the missile crisis; and that the CIA had a contract with the mafia to assassinate Castro.

He suggests that the CIA hired mafia figure and Kennedy acquaintance Johnny Rosselli to assassinate the Cuban leader, and that both John and Robert approved of the arrangement.

Mahoney writes that it was the Kennedys' pursuit of Castro that led Cuba to seek protection from the Soviet Union, which eventually led to the crisis and the showdown between Kennedy and the Soviet leader Khrushchev.

Robert was deeply traumatised by John's death. Mahoney describes him as "like a widowed spouse" who was paralysed by grief. He was haunted by the idea that he himself had contributed to the murder of his brother, given his pursuit of Castro, the mafia and his bad relations with Hoover.

Robert's rising political star had been hitched to his brother's; but under Lyndon Johnson's presidency, he became an outsider.

Tortured by his brother's death and their unfulfilled legacy, Robert ran successfully for the Senate in 1964 and later for the presidency in 1968. He became a fierce critic of the Johnson administration's policies on Vietnam, civil rights and poverty.

Sons and Brothers is well written and documented but the author does not discuss in depth the nature of the brothers' personal relationship beyond the politics. John and Robert's iconic status was enhanced by their sudden and violent deaths. Their lives are now frozen in time remembered for the dream of what they might have been.

As Robert exited through the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel after claiming victory in the 1968 California Democratic presidential primary, he was gunned down. Lying on the floor losing consciousness, his last words to an aide were, "Jack, Jack."

* This review was published in The Sydney Morning Herald

I thought I knew everything there is to know about the Kennedys but this book took me to a new place. Other versions tell one of two stories: the Kennedy brothers were great or they were terrible. This tells a different story, a clasic tragedy. Because they did terrible things to achieve wealth and power, the Kennedys had to pay the price just when they (particularly Bobby) were on the brink of doing good things for the country and the world. The anguish of Bobby is right out of literature. He (and old man Joe) were the Kennedys most guilty of making deals with the devil -- and JFK may have paid for his dad's and Bobby's sins with his life -- and he was also the one determined to do good after 11/22/63. Tortured by guilt, he reached out to heal those hurting, rather than inflict hurt as he had in the past. But the past caught up with him and killed him.Terribly sad.An incredibly good book: the best on the Kennedys.

It is interesting to go through those turbulent years of the 1960's and get a clearer understanding of what took place. The author shows how vulnerable a country can be when people in high places such as President Kennedy and F.B.I. Director J. Edgar Hoover place themselves in compromising positions subject to possible blackmail from others. President Kennedy wouldn't get away with his extramarital relations now as he did in the '60's. I was especially impressed with Robert Kennedy in this book. This man was a doer who showed a genuine concern for the improvished in this country (the blacks, Indians, Mexicans, and poor whites) when he could have chosen not to get involved. His attacks on the mafia may have led to his brother's death, but he had the courage to face up to the problem rather than pretend it didn't exist. Leaders always have someone who don't like them, and the Kennedy's, along with Dr. Martin Luther King, paid the ultimate price for this. It's too bad that there was such friction between the Kennedy's, King, Johnson, and Hoover. Working together, they could have accomplished more for the country. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and it was interesting to revisit this turbulent period in history.