John F Kennedy's brain stolen by brother Robert to conceal medication details at time of death, says author James Swanson

John F Kennedy's brain may have been stolen by his brother, Robert, to prevent disclosures about the medication he was taking when he died, according to a new book. The president's brain, which was not buried with his body at Arlington Cemetery after his assassination in November 1963, was placed in a container and secured in a locker at the National Archives.

Almost three years later, his secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, discovered that the brain was missing, while she worked to organise the late president's papers. Conspiracy theorists have long claimed the materials were taken to cover up the fact that Kennedy was shot from the front, rather than by Lee Harvey Oswald from the Texas School Book Depository.

However, in End of Days: The Assassination of John F Kennedy, James Swanson claims that an inquiry ordered by the then attorney-general, Ramsey Clark, indicated that Robert Kennedy - himself later assassinated - was to blame.

While the inquiry failed to recover the brain, it did "uncover compelling evidence suggesting that former attorney-general Robert Kennedy, aided by his assistant Angie Novello, had stolen the locker", Swanson writes, according to an excerpt in The New York Post.

"My conclusion is that Robert Kennedy did take his brother's brain - not to conceal evidence of a conspiracy but perhaps 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."