New book says RFK stole JFK’s brain to hide illness

A new book casts light on a decades-old mystery — the disappearance of John F. Kennedy’s brain, which wasn’t buried with his body — and suggests that the former president’s brother took it to conceal how many medicines the White House icon had been taking.

Mr. Kennedy was buried on Nov. 25, 1963, at Arlington National Cemetery — but his brain wasn’t. That organ went into a stainless-steel container and “for a time … was stored in a file cabinet in the office of the Secret Service,” said James Swanson, in his soon-to-be-released “End of Days: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy,” The New York Post reported.

It was then transferred to a footlocker and moved to the National Archives and “placed in a secure room designated for the use of JFK’s devoted former secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, while she organized his presidential papers,” Mr. Swanson wrote.

Mr. Swanson then told The Post: “In October 1966, it was discovered that the brain, the tissue slides and other autopsy materials were missing — and they have never been seen since.”

The brain is still missing, but a past investigation did “uncover compelling evidence suggesting that former Attorney General Robert Kennedy, aided by his assistant Angie Novello, had stolen the locker,” Mr. Swanson said, The Post reported.

Why?

“My conclusion,” he said, The Post reported, “is that Robert Kennedy did take his brother’s brain … to conceal evidence of the true extent of President Kennedy’s illnesses, or perhaps to conceal evidence of the number of medications that President Kennedy was taking.”