Synopsis
An objective view of John F. Kennedy's presidency offers insights into the Bay of Pigs crisis, the civil rights battles, his commitment toward Vietnam, and other key events. By the author of American Journey. 75,000 first printing. Tour.
Reviews
According to Reeves, Kennedy had little ideology. "And he had less emotion. What he had was attitude . . . ." Based on hundreds of interviews and close study of presidential papers and telephone transcripts, New Yorker writer Reeves ( Reagan Detour ) traces JFK's thoughts and actions through his nearly three years as president. No previous profile has included as many details on how he dealt with the Bay of Pigs, the conflict with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev over Berlin, the Cuban missile crisis, Southeast Asia and other foreign policy issues. On the domestic front, Reeves offers fresh material about JFK's equivocating initial response to the civil rights movement and the bold decision to integrate Southern universities that followed. Nor does Reeves ignore the inner life of the White House, bringing into sharper focus JFK's physical disabilities, the preliminary plans for the 1964 campaign and the role Attorney General Robert Kennedy played as "a sort of surrogate President" at crucial moments. Precise and penetrating in its analysis, Reeves's microscopic examination of Kennedy during his presidency makes for compelling reading right down to such trivialities as his little economies (he was "cheap in the way rich people often are"), and even his throwaway lines as, after seeing one popularity poll, JFK quipped, "Jesus, it's like Ike. The worse you do, the better they like you." Photos. First serial to American Heritage; BOMC and History Book Club alternates; author tour. Photos.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Behind the scenes in the Kennedy Administration--in well- documented, unusually revealing depth. Reeves (The Reagan Detour, 1985, etc.) draws on scores of recently released documents (including transcripts of Oval Office audiotapes) and interviews with surviving New Frontiersmen to create a day-to-day, sometimes even minute-by-minute, chronicle of JFK's decision-making. While finding the President to be ``intelligent, detached, [and] candid if not always honest,'' Reeves also shows him as disorganized, impatient, and addicted to the notion that it was ``brains,'' not ideology or idealism, that counted. Not only are certain neglected aspects of the Kennedy presidency explored in great depth here (e.g., how this bored, restless White House economics student came around to Keynesianism)--but so are topics delved into countless times before. The cumulative impression is of a natural politician who reacted to events rather than mastering them. JFK confronted Khrushchev without igniting a nuclear war, and he concluded the landmark limited test-ban treaty, but he stumbled at the Bay of Pigs, was tugged reluctantly from his view that civil rights involved political rather than moral issues, and became increasingly mired in Vietnam. Kennedy's philandering is acknowledged, but without hyperbolic attention, and his use of drugs to counteract Addison's disease is discussed in relation to the effect on his performance (notably at his disastrous Vienna summit with Khrushchev). Reeves's narrative could use more commentary on how Kennedy either enhanced or diminished his office, as well as a fuller explanation of how his forceful father affected his thinking. But the author excels at examining how the President dealt with the burdens of office--seething at generals' stupidity, picking the brains of all he met, chuckling at the ironies of the political game. Neither Camelot elegy nor scathing revisionism--but the kind of cool, dispassionate narrative that JFK himself might have appreciated. (Sixteen pages of b&w photographs--not seen) (First serial to American Heritage) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Reeves, the veteran journalist who has written books on Presidents Ford and Reagan, here offers an excellent study of Kennedy as crisis manager. He presents Kennedy as neither an amoral playboy nor the ruler of Camelot but a poorly prepared president with mediocre congressional experience. Each chapter presents a different day in the administration--a unique format that effectively reveals how Kennedy responded to simultaneous harrowing issues. The Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crises, Vietnam, and the diplomacy of arms reduction illustrate how Kennedy was constrained by the unshakable Cold War fear of monolithic communism. This approachable investigation of Kennedy's use of power, read in tandem with Nigel Hamilton's JFK: Reckless Youth ( LJ 10/15/92), provides a thorough, even-handed review of the Kennedy years. Highly recommended for most public libraries and all subject collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/1/93. -- Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, Pa.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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