Dimensions
140 x 210 x 51mm
In January 1953, freshman Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts hired a 24-year old Unitarian from Nebraska as his Number Two legislative assistant-on a trial basis. Despite the differences in their backgrounds, Sorensen in the eleven years that followed became known as Kennedy's "intellectual blood-bank," "top policy aide," and "alter ego."
Sorensen knew Kennedy the man, the Senator, the candidate, and the President as no other associate did throughout these eleven years. He was with him during the key crises and turning points-including the spectacular race for the Vice Presidency at the 1956 convention, the launching of Kennedy's Presidential candidacy, the speech to the Protestant clergy of Houston, the TV debates with Nixon, and election night at Hyannis Port. The first appointment made by the new President was to name Ted Sorensen his Special Counsel. Sorensen relates the role of the White House staff and evaluates Kennedy's relations with his Cabinet and other appointees. He reveals Kennedy's errors on the Bay of Pigs, his attitudes toward the press, Congress, and the Joints Chiefs of Staff. Sorensen saw firsthand Kennedy's actions in the Cuban missile crises and the evolution of his beliefs on civil rights and arms control.
Three months to the day after Dallas, Sorensen left the White House to write the account of those eleven years that only he could write. He admits at the outset the bias of so personal a memoir. Yet he recounts failures as well as successes with surprising candor and objectivity-producing not only a perceptive biography of an extraordinary man but one of the most important sources of history in this century.
