Book Review by Penn Jones

              VOLUME 2 NUMBER 11 JUNE 22, 1978
BOOK REVIEW
By Penn Jones
Since reading Hank Searls' THE LOST
PRINCE* some years ago we have felt that
Joseph Kennedy Jr. was the first Kennedy
son assassinated. This feeling has been
reinforced by reading Jack Olsen's APHRO­DITE:
DESPERATE MISSION **.
Joe Jr. was sworn into the Navy June
24, 1940 and was soon chosen for student
cadet pilot's training. After finishing
cadet training, he worked tirelessly to
obtain a combat record second to none.
While still stationed in the United States,
he had flown hundreds of hours on Altan-tic
anti-submarine search missions.
Transferred to the combat zone in
England, Kennedy worked harder than ever
on more than fifty combat missions flying
PB4Y's. (Thirty missions qualified a pi­lot
for rotation to the States).
Joe made it widely known that he
planned to be the first Catholic Presi­dent
of the United States. He needed a
hero's combat record, as his younger bro­ther
Jack had attained. Joe desperately
wanted a submarine kill to his credit,
but with the allied advances in Europe,
Kennedy gave up and loaded most of his
gear on the ship commanded by his friend,
Captain Paul Brabazon, for his return to
the United States.
Just at this point, Joe was offered
a new top secret mission, one-time only,
certain to carry a DEC with it ~ a volun­tary
mission, of course. Kennedy fell for
the bait, and his fate was sealed.
From the preface of APHRODITE:
"One day in the early 1960s a
Navy Captain called Earl P. Olsen
of the Systems Integration Labora­tory
at the Navy Missle Center,
Point Mugu, California. "Earl,"
he said, "President Kennedy's fly­ing
here for a visit, and I'm gonna
get the two of you together for a
long talk."
"Why?" Olsen asked.
"So you can talk over old times
about his big brother Joe: Weren't
you on that secret mission with Joe
in World War II?"
The usually relaxed Olsen became ex­cited.
"For God's sake. Captain,"
he said, "don't do that! I don't
want to talk to the President about
that mission,"
"Why not?"
"I don't want to have to tell him
the truth."
Joe Kennedy, Jr. was a serious young
man, well-liked by his fellow officers, and
greatly respected. He was serious about
life and especially about his presidential
aspirations.
Before retiring each night, the young
Kennedy knelt by the side of his cot and
said his prayers.
Certainly Hitler's buzz bombs were
causing widespread death and destruction to
London and much of England. There were var­ious
plans in the making for dealing with
the threat to England. One such effort was
that of the Army Air Corps in England which
was relying on "on the spot" alterations of
airplanes. These planes were being gutted
and made into piloted bombs. The Air Corps
was leaning heavily on the creative genius
of Major James Rand, son of the Remington
Rand family. Major Rand made courageous
efforts with his "jerri rigged" contraptions
by trying to guide a heavily loaded plane by