The JFK assassination attempt you’ve never heard of

But there is another compelling ‘what if’ question that very nearly became reality. How might history have looked if JFK hadn’t been president at all?

Years before his death, before he even took office, Kennedy narrowly escaped another attempt on his life. It’s a story so overshadowed by subsequent events that it has faded into near obscurity.

In their 2025 book The JFK Conspiracy, Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch explore a chilling episode which sheds light on a nation grappling with divisions and prejudice in the 1960s. They joined an episode of the HistoryExtra podcast to explain more.

• On the podcast | The forgotten JFK assassination plot

A forgotten assassination plot

On 11 December 1960, just weeks after his narrow election victory, President-elect John F Kennedy was on his way to church in Palm Beach, Florida, where he was staying while preparing for his inauguration. Unknown to Kennedy and his staff, a retired postal worker named Richard Pavlick waited nearby, in a car packed full of dynamite.

“He’s about 20 yards away from Kennedy across the street,” explains Brad Meltzer. “Pavlick knows Kennedy’s schedule – he goes to 10am church every Sunday. All Pavlick has to do is hit the gas, flip the switch, and boom goes the dynamite. And that would have been the death of Kennedy.”

But what motivated Pavlick, a World War I veteran from New Hampshire, to travel to Florida to try and kill Kennedy? He was, as Meltzer and Mensch detail in their book, consumed by anti-Catholic bigotry that was emblematic of the deeply divided USA at the time of Kennedy’s election in 1960.

“Kennedy wasn’t just dealing with political opponents,” says Mensch. “He was confronting entrenched prejudice. Catholicism in America at that time was linked to the waves of immigration in the early 20th century that had transformed the nation. People like Pavlick feared what they saw as an erosion of traditional Protestant values, and there was a lot of anger, a lot of rage on this issue.”

The climate of the 1960 election had heightened Pavlick’s rage. It had been a bitter campaign, with Kennedy facing both political and religious opposition. “Kennedy was only the second Catholic presidential candidate in US history,” Mensch notes, “and the first, Al Smith in 1928, had been soundly defeated largely because of his religion. For many, Kennedy represented a similar threat.”

Pavlick’s bigotry had long been documented. Years earlier, he had tried to start a Protestant-only veterans’ group that explicitly excluded Catholics and Jews.

Fuelled by this animosity and against a backdrop of wider prejudice, in late 1960, Pavlick loaded his car with explosives and began stalking Kennedy. His plan to assassinate the future president took him from New Hampshire to Kennedy’s family homes in Hyannis Port and Palm Beach.

Though, his actions appeared neither impulsive nor chaotic. Meltzer describes him as the embodiment of the type of potential killer that the Secret Service calls a “hunter”: “hunters make almost no noise, unlike ‘howlers,’ who shout threats without follow-through. Pavlick was quiet and methodical – a real danger.”

What saved JFK?

Pavlick’s obsession with Kennedy drove him to plot an explosive murder, but Meltzer explains that it was this same preoccupation that betrayed him. “He couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He started writing letters to people, almost telegraphing his intentions. That became his undoing.”

As the President-elect stepped out to attend church on 11 December 1960, Pavlick sat ready to detonate his car bomb. It’s no spoiler to say that Pavlick’s scheme did not come to pass – but what stopped him?

The final decision that foiled Pavlick’s plot is revealed in The JFK Conspiracy – a moment that Mensch reflects “is one of the great ironies of this story. Pavlick’s bigotry and hatred drove him to the brink of murder, but his narrow view of morality prevented the tragedy.”

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Why isn’t the assassination attempt better known?

“It was overshadowed by larger events,” Meltzer explains. “Right as the story was about to break nationally, a devastating plane crash over New York grabbed headlines.” On 16 December 1960, United Airlines Flight 826 and Trans World Airlines Flight 266 collided over New York City, killing a total of 134 people, including six people on the ground.

“And, of course, the tragedy in Dallas almost three years later all but erased this earlier attempt from the public memory.”

• Read more | Who killed JFK? The case that can never be closed

Kennedy’s own reaction to Pavlick’s attempt contributed to the story’s obscurity; Mensch notes that the President-elect “brushed it off. JFK had faced death many times, from World War II to his political career.

“That also might be a reason why the story got kind of lost, because Kennedy himself didn't take it very seriously.”

Meanwhile, the Secret Service took it much more seriously, recognising just how close Pavlick had come to succeeding.

For Meltzer and Mensch, the episode offers a stark parallel with modern political divides. “The country was deeply polarised in 1960,” Meltzer says. “Hatred and fear were weaponised, targeting Kennedy as someone who was different – an immigrant’s son, a Catholic, an outsider in the eyes of many.”

The 1960 election was “a moment where the country is so deeply divided. Each side hates the other side. Whatever side you're on, you think the other side are horrible, terrible people.

“Does that sound familiar to you?” asks Meltzer. “When you whip all that hatred up, you can't be surprised when you incite somebody out there. And it's the most dangerous thing about this game that's being played right now in the United States.”

Mensch adds: “I do think when you look at what's being sold to us by our politicians, and how we're being divided rather than united, and the benefits that come from doing such things, and what happens when you target groups of people and say that those people are the cause of your pain – that’s what makes this story so vital today.”

Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch were speaking to Elinor Evans on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation

The JFK Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Kennedy, And Why It Failed by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch is published by Flatiron Books in the US and is out now, and will be released on 13 February 2025 in the UK, published by Ithaka