cover image Love from America: A Newsman's Account of Efforts to Aid Hostages in Tehran

Love from America: A Newsman's Account of Efforts to Aid Hostages in Tehran

Alex Paen. Roundtable Publishing, $0 (203pp) ISBN 978-0-915677-33-7

Morrow, a former CIA contract man (once in trouble for counterfeiting Cuban currency in an anti-Castro move), has put together an often intriguing but also often infuriating book. His thesis, briefly, is that RFK was killed by two members of SAVAK, the CIA-trained Iranian secret police, to prevent his becoming President and cutting off support to the Shah (who was secretly supporting Nixon for election). Sirhan Sirhan, who opened fire in the pantry, was simply offering a diversion, and the real assassin, standing behind Kennedy, shot him at point-blank range with a specially-equipped camera gun and then escaped with the famous ``girl in the polka-dot dress.'' After that, the Los Angeles police, egged on by the CIA and FBI protecting their own, made sure Sirhan was seen as the lone killer. It's a plausible tale, but Morrow gets so involved in endless detail, not always germane, and a host of often irrelevant supporting documents, that the reader yearns for a stronger editorial hand. Still, Morrow raises real questions, and does so in a meaningful context. (Nov.)