Theodore Sorensen And The Kennedys

In this gripping memoir, John F. Kennedy's closest advisor recounts in full for the first time his experience counseling Kennedy through the most dramatic moments in American history. Sorensen returns to January 1953, when he and the freshman senator from Massachusetts began their extraordinary professional and personal relationship. Rising from legislative assistant to speechwriter and advisor, the young lawyer from Nebraska worked closely with JFK on his most important speeches, as well as his book Profiles in Courage. Sorensen encouraged the junior senator's political ambitions—from a failed bid for the vice presidential nomination in 1956 to the successful presidential campaign in 1960, after which he was named Special Counsel to the President. Sorensen describes in thrilling detail his experience advising JFK during some of the most crucial days of his presidency, from the decision to go to the moon to the Cuban Missile Crisis, when JFK requested that the thirty-four-year-old Sorensen draft the key letter to Khrushchev at the most critical point of the world's first nuclear confrontation. After Kennedy was assassinated, Sorensen stayed with President Johnson for a few months before leaving to write a biography of JFK. In 1968 he returned to Washington to help run Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign. Through it all, Sorensen never lost sight of the ideals that brought him to Washington and to the White House, working tirelessly to promote and defend free, peaceful societies. Illuminating, revelatory, and utterly compelling, Counselor is the brilliant, long-awaited memoir from the remarkable man who shaped the presidency and the legacy of one of the greatest leaders America has ever known.

“A brilliant and essential document about the man, the President, and his times. In all the millions of words which have been written about the martyred President, this book must remain unique. . . . It is John F. Kennedy’s life, his personality, his thinking which informed his action and that action itself described with honest and candor which illuminate and enliven the crowded pages of this book. Sorensen has managed to portray Kennedy in realistic human terms and not as the hero of a myth. . . . It is the richness of detail, anecdotes, incidents, conversations, descriptions rather than any gossip or startling revelations which gives the book its compelling readability.” — Los Angeles Times The classic, intimate, and #1 national bestselling biography of JFK by his great advisor Ted Sorensen. In January 1953, freshman senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts hired a twenty-four-year-old from Nebraska as his Number Two legislative assistant—on a trial basis. Despite the differences in their backgrounds, in the eleven years that followed Ted Sorensen 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. From his role as a legislative assistant to Kennedy's death in 1963, Sorensen 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 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. In Kennedy, Sorensen recounts failures as well as successes with surprising candor and objectivity. He reveals Kennedy's errors on the Bay of Pigs, and his attitudes toward the press, Congress, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Sorensen saw firsthand Kennedy's actions in the Cuban missile crisis, and the evolution of his beliefs on civil rights and arms control. First published in 1965 and reissued here with a new preface, Kennedy is an intimate biography of an extraordinary man, and one of the most important historical accounts of the twentieth century.

Of the hundreds of books written about John F. Kennedy, none have yet taken the full measure of the role that Theodore Sorensen played in shaping his presidency. Serving as President Kennedy’s speechwriter from 1952 until 1963, Sorensen was a key advisor in the White House and a gatekeeper of the Kennedy legacy in the years after his assassination. This book presents a compelling portrait of Sorensen’s life and place in the American political landscape. He became an outspoken critic of corruption in politics, a vocal opponent of the militarist foreign policy approach that successive administrations adopted, and an advisor to Democratic presidential candidates such as Robert F. Kennedy and Barack Obama. Taking up questions about the role of presidential advisors and the concept of public service, an ideal that was central to the most famous of the speeches that Sorensen wrote for President Kennedy, Michelle A. Ulyatt offers new insight into Sorensen’s influence on the Kennedy years and the generation of leaders who came after.

“I’d rather win a Pulitzer Prize than be President of the United States,” John F. Kennedy confided to author Margaret Coit shortly after his election to the Senate in 1953. Kennedy got his wish four years later, when his book Profiles in Courage was awarded the Pulitzer for biography—even though it wasn’t among the finalists for the prize. Furthermore, the role of Ted Sorensen in drafting the main chapters in the book was never acknowledged by Kennedy’s inner circle, and Kennedy himself was hyper-sensitive until his dying day about rumors that cast doubt on his ownership of Profiles in Courage. Still, Jack Kennedy the writer is part of the Kennedy narrative that helped propel his political career. And he did indeed work for a time as a journalist, and brought a measures of erudition, wit, and charm to his speeches. But if the rumors surrounding authorship of Profiles in Courage were proven to be true prior to his ascendance to the Presidency, there might have been no brief and shining moment in America called Camelot.

Collected in one illuminating volume, the writings and speeches of John F. Kennedy reveal the man and president who inspired a generation. Here are the words that propelled a nation and moved the world, offering an important portrayal of the 35th president's entire career. Photographs throughout.

"Theodore C. Sorensen spent nearly two decades closely associated with the ideas and ideals of John and Robert F. Kennedy as a trusted adviser and friend. Known as John F. Kennedy's "alter ego," lawyer, adviser and speechwriter for eleven years, he was Special Counsel to the President from 1961 to 1964. After the publication of his bestseller Kennedy, he went back into private law practice and continued to advise and consult old friend Robert F. Kennedy on policy and politics, eventually becoming his campaign manager and working unwaveringly until Robert, too, was assassinated. With the rejection by the 1968 Democratic Convention of the Vietnam "peace plank" and the subsequent movement of popular political thought toward conservatism, it was widely assumed that the concepts and philosophy of John and Robert Kennedy had also died in that Los Angeles hospital." "With the current political climate, it is now more obvious than ever that The Kennedy Legacy is a work of great importance, as timely and evocative now as it was almost twenty-five years ago. The Kennedy Legacy speaks clearly and gracefully, offering hope and reason to millions of despairing young Americans of every creed, sex and color, and to the less fortunate throughout the world. This twenty-fifth anniversary edition is a reclaiming of those values and ideals that have always been important to us. Also included is a new foreword by the author for this special edition, placing this volume in perspective for the coming years." "The Kennedy Legacy is not a biography. It traces the genesis, development, contrasts and contents of the Kennedy ideals as they evolved in the lives and behind-the-scenes thoughts of these two remarkable brothers. Because Sorensen was privy to the shaping of that legacy for over sixteen years, his first-hand accounts prove to be historically invaluable. Sorensen covers such topics as the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam; the feud between Robert Kennedy and LBJ; and what the Kennedys thought about Dean Rusk, the CIA, Communist China and wire-tapping." "But most importantly, The Kennedy Legacy looks ahead, hoping to provide compassionate, commonsense answers to the impersonal and anachronistic establishment that seems to have evolved where our government should be."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Outlines the differences between Republicans and Democrats, and argues the reasons why, in the author's view, Democratic policies are better for America

"This book is based on the Gino Speranza Lectures for 1963, delivered at Columbia University on April 18 and May 9, 1963"--P. [vii].