Remembering America: A Voice from the Sixties

by Richard N. Goodwin

Book Overview

In this inspiring memoir, adviser and speechwriter Richard N. Goodwin evokes the hopes, dreams, and ideals of an extraordinary and turbulent decade.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060972416
• ISBN13: 9780060972417
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Length: 552 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Terrific book on fascinating era

This is one of the best books I have ever come across on the sixties. Great stories about JFK, LBJ and RFK.

1960's Democratic speechwriter and husband of Doris Kearns Goodwin

I thought this book was great!!! A real behind the scenes look at the Kennedy and Johnson administrations in the early 60's. Mr Goodwin graduated number one from Harvard Law School and clerked for Felix Frankfurter. Goodwin penned some of the most memorable speeches of the decade and coined phrases such as the Alliance for Progress and the Great Society. He witnessed LBJ at his best, (Civil Rights), worst (Vietnam paranoia) and hilarious, an on the toilet meeting with LBJ and swimming naked in the White House pool with LBJ and Bill Moyers. He grew disillusioned with Johnson's war in Vietnam and left the administration in 1965. He was an intimate of Bobby Kennedy and worked for both him and Eugene McCarthy in 1968. The interesting thing about this book is how much relevance it has today with the war in Iraq. A president from Texas, low approval ratings, congressional investigations, and a closed and paranoid White House. Some things never change.

A Definitive Insight into the 60's

Richard N. Goodwin gives a detailed analysis on of the most intriguing and eventful era's in U.S. history. His personal account and experience with the most powerful leaders was strikingly fascinating. The book begins with a brief description of his childhood. From Goodwin's Anti-Semitic dilemmas to his scholastic achievement that lead to his admission to New York's Columbia University. After his graduating at the top of his class at Harvard Law School,he received a clerical job working for a Supreme Court justice. To the justice's disgusts, Goodwin decides to work on a presidential campaign for then Mass. Senator, John F. Kennedy. Richard N. Goodwin proceeds through his exciting and successful election of 1960. JFK awarded Goodwin for his splendid work on the campaign , as a top consultant to Latin America. After the assasination, he is forced to work with LBJ. Not content at first, he sees Johnson under a different limelight. The author is more pleased and optimistic about Johnson, only to be let down with Vietnam. LBJ's erratic behavior and his paranoid personality, leads to an early exit from The White House. I highly recommend this book to to individual's who enjoy reading about contemporary American History. As someone who was fortunate to be born a decade later , I was still able to appreciate the historical significance Goodwin's rise and fall within the political arena.

A speechwriter for Presidents remembers the sixties

Through Dick Goodwin's masterful retelling of this chapter in history, we are given the opportunity to be a fly on the wall inside the political machinery of one of the most exciting and, at the same time disappointing, decades in our history.

A look at a time from a different point of view; excellent.

This is a great book by Richard Goodwin who's place in history is unique to no one other. He was envolved deeply in the quiz show scandal of the late 1950's, the Kennedy and Johnson administrations as well as Mccarthy's and Robert Kennedy's run for the white house in 1968. I highly recommend tis book for all interested in that era as America lost it's simplicity.