Brother blamed for taking JFK's brain

John Kennedy was taking a range of medications when he died. Photo / AP

The mystery of the missing brain of assassinated President John F. Kennedy may have been solved: his brother took it.

Kennedy's brain may have stolen by his brother, Robert, to prevent disclosures about the medications he was taking when he died, according to a new book.

The 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.

Yet almost three years later, his secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, discovered that the brain and other autopsy materials were 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 his younger brother 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," he said.

Historians have since unearthed records detailing the cocktail of drugs Kennedy was taking to combat a string of medical problems as well as for anxiety and sleep disorder.

He took codeine, demerol and methadone to tackle pain relating to his osteoporosis of the lower back, which caused him intense discomfort and led him to wear a back brace.