JFK's Last Hundred Days

June 3, 2013
Set to coincide with the 50th anniversary of his assassination, this intimate look at J.F.K.’s last 100 days makes the case that had he survived that fateful November afternoon, his political star would’ve only continued to rise in a seemingly assured second term. Clarke (Lost Hero) contends that Kennedy’s successful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, as well as his popular stances on civil rights, lunar exploration, arms reduction, and tax cuts would’ve overshadowed his romantic scandals, tensions relating to Vietnam, and the public’s frustration with Jackie’s exotic European vacations. Clarke’s portrait of the president is highly favorable; plenty of background information is provided, but many unsavory—and well-known—facts are excised. Effusive encomiums on Kennedy’s charm and pithy anecdotes from big-name admirers take the spotlight, leaving the president’s iciness, penchant for sporadic cruelty, and mercurial tendencies to flit about the wings. Still, Clarke has a taste for a good tangent, and Camelot devotees will relish insider details, from descriptions of an obviously depressed Vice President Johnson “growling at anyone who disturbed him” to dismissive jabs at Sen. Barry Goldwater taken from the president’s official diary. Agent: Kathy Robbins and David Halpern, Robbins Office.

Starred review from June 15, 2013
Prolific popular historian Clarke (The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days that Inspired America, 2008, etc.) argues that the charismatic president, whose achievements are generally low-rated by scholars, in his final months revealed himself as a great statesman. The book opens on August 7, 1963, when Jackie delivered a premature son whose devastating death brought the couple together. The author spends much time on JFK's personal life, not avoiding his well-known sexual appetite and often crippling medical problems. On the political front, this period saw the approval of the first nuclear test ban treaty. Kennedy was not so fortunate with his proposals to Congress for a strong civil rights bill and a tax cut to lower the very high rates Americans had been paying since World War II. Both bills stalled: Southern legislators opposed any law advancing civil rights, and Republicans, in those far-off days, considered the tax cut fiscally irresponsible. Their passage required the political skills of JFK's successor and unhappy vice president, Lyndon Johnson, universally despised by Kennedy aides as "Uncle Cornpone." Clarke emphasizes that JFK yearned to withdraw American advisers from Vietnam, which seems true, but since most aides and ultimately Kennedy himself decided that a noncommunist South Vietnam was vital to American security, intervention was inevitable once it became clear that South Vietnam's army couldn't defeat the Vietcong. Clarke certainly demonstrates that three often painful years in office had taught Kennedy valuable lessons. No one can say what would have happened if he had lived, but no one will deny that he was a spectacularly appealing character, and Clarke delivers a thoroughly delightful portrait. This detailed, mostly worshipful account will not convince everyone, but few will put it down.

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July 1, 2013
Do President Kennedy's final 100 days offer hints about what sort of leader (and man) he might have become? Author-historian Clarke thinks they do. The period began in tragedy: the death of the Kennedys' two-day-old son, Patrick. Both parents were devastated; Jack's concern for Jackie, who had suffered postpartum depression after John's birth, seems to have led him to a serious effort to be a better husband and father. Certainly, Jackie seems to have discerned a genuine improvement that autumn. Clarke vividly portrays the welter of issues a U.S. president juggles. In foreign policy, the test-ban treaty, Vietnam, and Cuba were central, but Kennedy also aimed to reframe long-term relationships with the USSR, China, Europe, and Latin America. On the home front, civil rights was clearly dominant, but, during these days, Kennedy was pressing Congress to pass the stimulus tax cut and immigration reform as well as the civil rights bill and working with advisors and cabinet members on what would become Medicare and the War on Poverty. A fascinating analysis of what was . . . and what might have been.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

March 1, 2013

The author of three New York Times Notable Books, Clarke can be expected to take a more sober-minded approach to Kennedy's last days in office than Andersen (see These Few Precious Days, previewed above), though he does argue that the death of two-day-old Patrick Kennedy persuaded the President to be a better husband and father. Clarke focuses more on Kennedy as politician, pondering issues like civil rights, the Cold War, and Vietnam and on the verge of coming to decisions that would demonstrate the greatness we never got to see.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2013

Clarke (Ask Not: The Inauguration of John F. Kennedy and the Speech That Changed America) offers a graceful, bittersweet chronicle of President Kennedy's final months, when he was poised to bring to fruition his vision for a more inclusive nation. Despite the book's subtitle, Clarke shows Kennedy to be a presidential work in progress and not yet a great president. Kennedy, as the author points out, made diplomatic overtures to Khrushchev and Castro and was adamant about removing military advisers from Vietnam, despite the protests of Henry Cabot Lodge, ambassador to South Vietnam, and the hawkish drumbeat from the departments of state and defense. JFK also marshaled through Congress a limited nuclear-arms ban and a compromise civil rights bill, which became the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He drew closer to his children and wife, despite his continued philandering. Clarke's last chapter hauntingly describes the assassination's aftermath, a time of worldwide grief for a man who inspired so much hope. VERDICT Clarke clearly admires Kennedy but does not ignore his flaws. General readers, both those who remember Kennedy and those too young to do so, will find this an absorbing narrative. It complements David Kaiser's American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of the Vietnam War and Robert Dallek's An Unfinished Life.--Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.