An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy 1917-1963 [Large Print]

When my son was about 20, the two of us saw Oliver Stone's JFK. This semi-hysterical film, based on the theories of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, posited a conspiracy in the death of President Kennedy. My son asked me about the film's historicity. I replied that I doubted its historical veracity, but that it caused me to remember what was lost when President Kennedy died. "The assassin," I said, "stole our future from us." As a 57-year-old male European-American, I certainly believe that the history of the past forty years would have been different had President Kennedy lived. Robert Dallek helped me to understand why I feel that way, and that's one of the marks of great biography. Americans who were not yet born in 1965 cannot always understand the catastrophe that was Vietnam. It changed America in fundamental ways, prolonging the Cold War, dividing the country in equally fundamental ways, paving the way for the radical Republicanism that now dominates our foreign and domestic policy. Kennedy saw the seeds of all three things in the bitterly divisive debate over Vietnam occurring in his administration in 1963. It caused him to lament that his government was coming apart. Dallek convinces me that, had Kennedy returned alive from Dallas, the President would have ended American involvement in Vietnam.

A second way Dallek touches me is in his description of the role of West Virginia in the 1960 campaign. For decades, I had assumed that Daddy Joe's money bought the state for JFK, an assumption (erroneously) repeated by several of these reviewers. The President himself said, "I owe my presidency to the people of West Virginia." Dallek demonstrates that the situation was at once more simple and more complicated. The unique nature of West Virginia politics, which turns on the "slate" system, encourages candidates to "spread money around." When I was a pastor in WV, the richest (and most troublesome) man in the congregation was married to the daughter of the former sheriff of our county. She was the one with the money, because her father had collected (and kept) money from candidates who wished to be placed on the slate in our county. The Kennedys understood this system and used it better than their opponents, but that doesn't mean they "bought" the election. The President meant that WV had proven that a Catholic candidate could win in a predominantly Protestant state.

In the Acknowledgements, Dallek thanks his son and daughter for showing him the things younger Americans need to know in order to appreciate the Kennedy presidency. The lasting value of Dallek's biography, I believe, will be its ability to instruct such citizens in their own history--that there once was a time when presidents thought less of re-election and more of statesmanship, in which war, particularly nuclear war, was considered abhorrent, in which the notion of impeaching a president for sexual dalliances was laughable, in which personal courage and fortitude trumped political correctness. If this is a definition of Camelot, then I say, "bring it on."

So much has been written about John F. Kennedy and his family that it perhaps hard to conceive of a book that could add much to a discussion about the meaning and purpose of his life. Yet that is exactly what this erudite and well-written new biography by acclaimed biographer and historian Robert Dallek accomplishes. For those of us steeped in the flood of Kennedy biographies that flowed after his assassination, this refreshing and revealing new look by famed historian Robert Dallek is a Godsend. It mines a lot of previously unavailable material only recently made available, and interprets this new information in a way that both questions and extends the Kennedy legend.

JFK has become so much a figure of legend that it is useful to see him in the way that he is masterfully portrayed here, as a much more ordinary human being than he is often pictured as being, a person more profoundly sidelined and marginalized by serious illness and physical handicaps than is generally known. Yet by revealing these aspects of John Kennedy's existential circumstances, JFK inevitably becomes a much more admirable public and private figure, as someone who was able, often through sheer force of will, to make the most of out of every single day. Kennedy was a great believer in the commonplace Zen notion of "being here now", on focusing on the immediate present and enjoying every moment by wringing it of all its intrinsic possibilities.

As a man in constant pain, for example, it brings new meaning to other aspects of his known personality, such as his admiration for Green Berets and active sports. As compromised as he was by his physical limitations, he did his damnedest to fully engage himself in life. It is revealing, too, in its relevance toward his admiration of Hemingway, and Hemingway's coda regarding what constitutes courage; grace under pressure. And Kennedy fits the definition of a courageous man along a number of dimensions.

On the other hand, new facts surrounding the way the Kennedy family hid such aspects of JFK's life from view are cause for consternation, as they show the extent to which Joe Kennedy, JFK's imperious and ambitious father, was willing to go to further his son's political ambitions en route to the White House. He twisted facts, withheld important medical reports, and paid off officials to guard against the truth regarding his son's medical condition becoming public. Moreover, the degree to which the elder Kennedy used corrupt political practices to further JFK's efforts to become the Democratic nominee, while long suspected and much discussed previously, are even more scandalous.

Finally, Dallek shows the ways in which JFK was a man living on the edge, a man willing to risk it all for an infantile sexual tryst with an under-aged cheerleader while on the campaign trail in 1960, a man who evidently got a kick out of sneaking hookers into the White House for pool parties while Jackie was away with the children. In sum, this is a biography bound to become the new standard bearer for Kennedy works precisely because he is so successful in showing all the many and often-contradictory strands of Kennedy's personality and life circumstances made him such a pivotal figure in contemporary American history. This is a great book I recommend for anyone as a good choice for an entertaining and informative summer read! Enjoy!

Having read Robert Dallek's two volume biography of LBJ, which, though comprehensive, pales in comparison with the stellar work in progress by Robert Caro, I approached this biography with enthusiasm, to be sure, but something less than highest expectations.
I should not have worried. This is by far the best biogaphy of JFK that I have read; and I have read pretty much all of the ones worth reading (that leaves the Victor Laskys of the world out). Dallek is an academician by training: and his writing has sometimes suffered for this (this was my major problem with the LBJ volumes, which are otherwise excellent and which I highly recommend.) But he has captured, perfectly I think, the essential paradox that was at the core of JFK's personality. The only other JFK book that remotely apporaches this one is Nigel Hamilton's supurb JFK: RESTLESS YOUTH. It is a pity that the Kennedy family got so upset about the Hamilton work (because of its depiction of Rose); because any careful reader of Hamilton's book comes away with what Dallek makes explicit: that John F. Kennedy was truly a heroic man who struggled to overcome a plethora of illnesses and handicaps which would have left many other people in the dust, no matter how wealthy they happened to be. That JFK did not allow self-pity and a life of ease to overtake him is one of the psychologically triumphant stories of political history, and one which Dallek relates with informed expertise and sympathy.
It is clear that Dallek admires Kennedy. I have no problems with this, as I do too. But he is no blind acolyte; and for this reason, his account is far more credible than those of Schlesinger and Sorenson, although these were admittingly penned in a time of intense grief for the recently murdered leader. Dallek takes Kennedy to task for a variety of things: from his intemperate and reckless pursuit of women to his hesitancy on civil rights. But his criticism of the Kennedy record is tempered with what I am convinced is an accurate sense of what was possible at the time.
Dallek is at his best in making the case that JFK would not have done what Lyndon Johnson did in Vietnam. Much is made of his skepticism of the military; but another reviewer -- I think it was in the Washington Post -- made the point that Dallek could have easily added that Kennedy's civilian advisors were also subject to his scrutiny, and that JFK did best, particularly in foreign affairs, when he trusted his own judgment on an issue. It is inconceivable to anyone reading the account herein of the Cuban Missile crisis that Kennedy could have blindly followed the advice of the Taylors and Westmorelands of the Vietnam conflict.
To his credit, Dallek passes through the assassination quickly. I have always thought that Kennedy's life should eclipse the attention given his death, and this book makes that point in a subtle manner befitting its subject.
This is, in short, an excellent book about a man who strove to excel, who was convinced that making the effort to be your best in a field of endeavor is the only way to live and be happy. I think that John F. Kennedy would be very happy with this book.

Who'd think that there would be another Kennedy book with something left to say? Well, there is. This book is done in a scholarly way, but mostly readable. We are getting far away enough now to have some perspective on Kennedy. For those of us who were there when he ran, and saw him as the breath of fresh air that he was - for all the failings we hear about now - this is a must read. A lot of new information, concentration on his political career and what he fought for, and a new look at all his physical problems, make this book interesting from cover to cover.

THere have been so many books written about the Kennedys (and JFK especially) so my reaction to the news that there was to be yet another JFK tell-all was a big yawn. But when I first read some of Robert Dallek's revelations in Atlantic Monthly last year, I felt compelled to check out An Unfinished Life.

I was not disappointed.

This is an extremely well-researched and complete look at a man who, considering his public profile, led a very private life. Without spoiling the book, I must say that the information about JFK's health in An Unfinished Life are reason enough to pick this one up.

Although the media has been making much hay about Kennedy's own "Monicagate," that revelation is not at all the backbone of the book. Without taking sides, Dallek has given us the first look at the man behind the image. It's refreshing to see JFK not as an icon, but merely as a man who happened to be President of the USA...and like everybody, his life was not perfect.

Kennedy fans will learn new things (both good and bad) and others will catch a glimpse of a man who became one of the prime newsmakers of the 20th century. A great read.