Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
NAMED ONE OF AMAZON EDITORS' BEST BOOKS OF JULY!
From the New York Times bestselling Kennedy historian and author of Jackie: Public, Private, Secret comes the other side of the story -- her husband's: JFK: Public, Private, Secret.
In this definitive portrait of John Fitzgerald Kennedy--one of America's most consequential and enigmatic presidents--J. Randy Taraborrelli delivers a deeply researched and authoritative biography. More than the story of a presidency, this is an intimate study of a man whose public triumphs were shaped--and at times overshadowed--by the complex realities of his private life, from his legendary family to his marriage to Jacqueline Kennedy.
Drawing from hundreds of interviews conducted over twenty-five years--as well as candid, first-hand oral histories from the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Presidential Library, rare internal reports from the Secret Service, detailed files from the National Archives, and intelligence documents from both the CIA and FBI. This is JFK as never before captured by history: brilliant yet fallible, revered yet human--a figure whose legacy continues to shape America and the world.
Groundbreaking Revelations Include:
* A marriage defined by both devotion and distance--and Jackie's quiet but firm rules regarding her husband's infidelities.
* The romance that posed a potential national security risk--JFK's deep connection with Inga Arvad, a woman he considered his great love, brought to an abrupt end due to FBI concerns over her ties to Nazi intelligence.
* The long-awaited truth about Marilyn Monroe--uncovered at last through the firsthand account of one of her closest confidantes, shattering decades of speculation and exposing the reality of her deeply complicated connection to JFK.
* The woman who might have changed history--Joan Lundberg, the mistress JFK turned to during the darkest time in his marriage, whose clandestine relationship with him threatened to derail his entire political career.
* The Mafia's role in his rise to power--a definitive account that separates fact from fiction and lays bare the extent of organized crime's involvement in JFK's election.
* A presidency tested by betrayal and crisis--why JFK felt undermined by his own cabinet during the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and how he ultimately seized control of his administration during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The JFK presented in Taraborrelli's definitive biography is a complex and endlessly fascinating historical figure--despite, and perhaps even because of, his many flaws.
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Publishers Weekly Review
President John F. Kennedy was a heartless womanizer who managed to evolve into a loving husband just before his death, according to this breathless biography. Camelot chronicler Taraborrelli (Jackie) focuses on Kennedy's personal relationships, starting with his upbringing by his domineering father Joe, whose infidelities set a bad example, and his cold, unmaternal mother Rose, whose bitter acquiescence to Joe's affairs demonstrated that such behavior was tolerable. From there, the episodic narrative moves on to Kennedy's romantic attachments, including a wartime affair with his great love Inga Arpad, a Danish woman rumored to be a German spy--the FBI listened in on their trysts--whom Joe ordered Kennedy to break up with. The book's centerpiece is Kennedy's tense marriage to Jackie Bouvier, which owed more to money and political calculation than love. Taraborrelli foregrounds Jackie's anguish over Kennedy's compulsive dalliances with many mistresses, including Joan Lundberg (Taraborrelli reveals that Kennedy got her pregnant and paid for an abortion). And yet, Taraborrelli contends, love did finally flourish after their baby Patrick died in August 1963, when a guilt-stricken Kennedy fully committed himself to Jackie. While Taraborrelli eschews sensationalism, casting doubt on several lurid Kennedy legends, including the alleged affair with Marilyn Monroe, his emotionally charged portrait still plays the melodrama to the hilt. It's a sentimental and entertaining take on a great American soap opera. (July)
Booklist Review
In this, his sixth biography of the Kennedy family and its various members, journalist and historian Taraborrelli focuses on the person at the center of it all, JFK. Following the same format as in his best-selling Jackie: Public, Private, Secret (2023), Taraborrelli eschews standard biographical structure in favor of nonlinear vignettes to capture the man behind the myth. The result is a profoundly humanized portrait of a son, brother, husband, lover, friend, candidate, politician, and, ultimately, president. With more than 25 years of historical research on which to draw, even including interviews with aides and colleagues from the original Kennedy sphere who were still alive at the time of writing, Taraborrelli's powerfully resourced biography offers incomparable observations from those who knew him well and saw him at his best and worst. Access to such personal source material allows Taraborrelli to chart JFK's metamorphosis from callous youth to compassionate leader, through periods of rank ambition and crippling self-doubt. Decades later, as the U.S. and the world again finds itself teetering on the brink of existential crisis, the ethos demonstrated through Kennedy's public speeches and private musings resonates even more deeply. A welcome addition to the ever-fascinating Kennedy canon.
Kirkus Book Review
The man behind the icon. A Kennedy specialist, Taraborrelli has written six books on the family, yet this is the first on JFK. Americans have idolized subsequent presidents for their political views, but Kennedy and his circle's glamour captivated the world. The author states bluntly that Kennedy was assigned the goal of being president by his father, a wealthy, fiercely ambitious Democrat with eyes on the 1940 election who ruined his career when, as ambassador to Britain, early in the war he repeatedly warned FDR not to support a decrepit nation sure to lose to the Nazis. He transferred his ambition to John, who, after well-publicized heroism in the South Pacific, was elected to the House in 1947, Senate in 1953, and presidency in 1960. Taraborrelli is not the first to disparage his political acumen. Kennedy shared the average voter's fierce anti-communism, kept silent on McCarthyism, and paid little attention to the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement until forced to deal with it as president. Taraborrelli gives priority to his personal life, a disturbing experience for most readers, although his sexual appetite is old news. Plagued throughout life by crippling back pain, he often required crutches, underwent several unsuccessful spinal operations, and patronized dubious personal physicians who kept him going with injections of amphetamines and painkillers. A serial adulterer, JFK's father had no objection to the son's behavior but insisted that anyone he married be suitable for a presidential candidate; Jacqueline met his approval, although neither she nor Jack were in love. Most readers will be shocked at how badly he treated her after their 1953 marriage; she seriously considered divorce, although by his years as president they had achieved a deep affection. Other biographers, led by Robert Dallek, delve more deeply into politics, but Taraborrelli nonetheless has written a commendable history. An excellent biography of the 35th president. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
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