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erickibler4's review
5.0
A great in-depth look into the politics and policies of the Kennedy administration by a respected historian who had a front row seat as a special advisor to the President.
JFK didn't have a lot of time in office, but he accomplished a lot. First and foremost he cooled the Cold War. By 1960, the U.S. and the Soviet Union were playing a game of chicken with the existence of the human race. This was called "nuclear diplomacy". In essence, each told the other side, "Do anything antagonistic, and we will respond with an all-out nuclear strike." Conventional forces were all but abandoned in favor of brandishing this big threat. Kennedy and his advisors realized this was an unplayable and dangerous game. The world was complex and required the freedom to respond to aggression in varied ways, rather than threatening to pull one big lever. The U.S., having had the bomb longer, had had more time to think through all of its implications. The Soviet Union had not. So when Khrushchev began surreptitiously shipping nuclear missiles to Cuba and building launching platforms, he probably didn't realize the utter recklessness of this move. Kennedy did. His cool, firm, measured response to this move is why we are still here today. And Kennedy built our conventional forces back up, so that we could respond to crises in flexible ways.
In foreign policy, he was largely successful in having the U.S. lead by example, rather than by fomenting coups and propping up dictators, although with his absence, the U.S. went back to its former ways. Kennedy made a lot of headway in developing trust with the nations of Latin America and Africa, although these gains were later squandered.
Many pages in this book are devoted to what is now called the "Deep State". Particularly in the State Department, Kennedy had a lot to contend with, as his foreign policy ideas were opposed by many in State, who would often ignore directives. But as we see in the time of Donald Trump, the sword of the Deep State cuts both ways, and can act as a damper on a reckless, foolish Chief Executive.
Economically, his method was to cut taxes, yet continue to spend at a deficit. I'm no economist. Frankly, the subject flummoxes me. I need to drag myself through a volume of Keynes some day.
In civil rights, he made a good start. His brother Bobby, the Attorney General, aggressively pursued civil rights matters, and school integration standoffs in Alabama resolved with the governors of those states finally backing down. At the time of Kennedy's death, civil rights legislation was waiting in the wings, ready for LBJ's arm-twisting skills to bring it to fruition.
JFK was cool headed, intellectual, witty, and pragmatic. He was the model of what a President should be. I was too young to remember him, but we were lucky enough to have a similar personality in the White House, Barack Obama, for eight years.
JFK didn't have a lot of time in office, but he accomplished a lot. First and foremost he cooled the Cold War. By 1960, the U.S. and the Soviet Union were playing a game of chicken with the existence of the human race. This was called "nuclear diplomacy". In essence, each told the other side, "Do anything antagonistic, and we will respond with an all-out nuclear strike." Conventional forces were all but abandoned in favor of brandishing this big threat. Kennedy and his advisors realized this was an unplayable and dangerous game. The world was complex and required the freedom to respond to aggression in varied ways, rather than threatening to pull one big lever. The U.S., having had the bomb longer, had had more time to think through all of its implications. The Soviet Union had not. So when Khrushchev began surreptitiously shipping nuclear missiles to Cuba and building launching platforms, he probably didn't realize the utter recklessness of this move. Kennedy did. His cool, firm, measured response to this move is why we are still here today. And Kennedy built our conventional forces back up, so that we could respond to crises in flexible ways.
In foreign policy, he was largely successful in having the U.S. lead by example, rather than by fomenting coups and propping up dictators, although with his absence, the U.S. went back to its former ways. Kennedy made a lot of headway in developing trust with the nations of Latin America and Africa, although these gains were later squandered.
Many pages in this book are devoted to what is now called the "Deep State". Particularly in the State Department, Kennedy had a lot to contend with, as his foreign policy ideas were opposed by many in State, who would often ignore directives. But as we see in the time of Donald Trump, the sword of the Deep State cuts both ways, and can act as a damper on a reckless, foolish Chief Executive.
Economically, his method was to cut taxes, yet continue to spend at a deficit. I'm no economist. Frankly, the subject flummoxes me. I need to drag myself through a volume of Keynes some day.
In civil rights, he made a good start. His brother Bobby, the Attorney General, aggressively pursued civil rights matters, and school integration standoffs in Alabama resolved with the governors of those states finally backing down. At the time of Kennedy's death, civil rights legislation was waiting in the wings, ready for LBJ's arm-twisting skills to bring it to fruition.
JFK was cool headed, intellectual, witty, and pragmatic. He was the model of what a President should be. I was too young to remember him, but we were lucky enough to have a similar personality in the White House, Barack Obama, for eight years.
1outside's review
4.0
AMSJr won a Pulitzer for this book back in the day, and over half a century later it's still a great book.
A Long As Fuck book, but I think those who read it in its abridged form, (which would have been me had I know that was an option), missed a lot of context.
The immediacy and the lack of distance are the book's biggest strengths. Schlesinger writes using his historian mind, but could not use a historian's hindsight. And so you get chapters on what would in later books on JFK become paragraphs or mere sentences.
It's the strength of this book, but for someone who usually avoids Long As Fuck books it also is a bit of a weakness. I had to take breaks (in which I'd read other books).
I could be wrong but it seems to me important historical figures often become disconnected from their environment as if they lived in their own realm. They become drama-fied. It's just them and a few others they can play off of. People love a good story, self included.
Schlesinger makes a point (unconsciously, I'm almost sure), that even such pragmatic intellectuals/micromanagers as JFK seemed to have been, live in a context full of existing structures, family support, media, international opinions of all sorts, faulty intelligence, rigidity, stupidity etc etc. So yes, an extremely long book but one that's going to make me look even more for the messiness that went on around The Main Person the next time I read a biography.
A Long As Fuck book, but I think those who read it in its abridged form, (which would have been me had I know that was an option), missed a lot of context.
The immediacy and the lack of distance are the book's biggest strengths. Schlesinger writes using his historian mind, but could not use a historian's hindsight. And so you get chapters on what would in later books on JFK become paragraphs or mere sentences.
It's the strength of this book, but for someone who usually avoids Long As Fuck books it also is a bit of a weakness. I had to take breaks (in which I'd read other books).
I could be wrong but it seems to me important historical figures often become disconnected from their environment as if they lived in their own realm. They become drama-fied. It's just them and a few others they can play off of. People love a good story, self included.
Schlesinger makes a point (unconsciously, I'm almost sure), that even such pragmatic intellectuals/micromanagers as JFK seemed to have been, live in a context full of existing structures, family support, media, international opinions of all sorts, faulty intelligence, rigidity, stupidity etc etc. So yes, an extremely long book but one that's going to make me look even more for the messiness that went on around The Main Person the next time I read a biography.
lastidealist's review
3.0
The author has difficulty seeing the wood for the trees- it’s an engaging 600 page book trapped inside 1000 pages of frequently turgid material.
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