Kennedy’s presidency appears so admirable in part because of who followed him in office. Compare the unmet hopes of his unfinished term with the policy blunders and malevolent acts committed or excused by nearly every president since then. It was only after the murder in Dallas that there began the deluge of unnecessary full-blown wars, scandals, and infamous characters that soured Americans on the promise of a benevolent, efficient government. Soon after JFK’s death, his widow described their White House tenure as “a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot”—quoting a song from the musical, based on the Arthurian myth, that opened on Broadway the year he was elected president. It remains a lovely metaphor to set against the horrid realities of My Lai, Watergate, Iran-contra, Abu Ghraib, the heartless response to Hurricane Katrina—and nearly every action the dark lord of Mar-a-Lago took in the Oval Office or bragged about at his rallies.
But a good biography can be an excellent leveler. As the Harvard historian Fredrik Logevall describes in engrossing detail in this first of a two-volume work, Kennedy groomed himself for power by taking full advantage of his privileged upbringing while developing a penchant for ideological opportunism and a limitless appetite for sexual conquest. That he did so as he self-consciously prepared to lead what policymakers from both parties still call “the indispensable nation” suggests both his extraordinary political talent and a determined hubris that his less alluring successors imitated, to their peril and ours. One can empathize with the Kennedy romance—after all, he was a charismatic leader—while still confronting the myopia and moral shortcomings of his career.
Jack Kennedy had the fortune to be born into a family whose political history and financial resources served his ambition to gain high office. His maternal grandfather and namesake, John Fitzgerald, served three terms in the House of Representatives as a Democrat from Boston and two stints as the city’s mayor. Born during the Civil War, “Honey Fitz” lived long enough to advise his grandson’s first campaign for Congress in 1946 and to treat the victory party to a rendition of “Sweet Adeline,” which he made a habit of singing on public occasions, sometimes accompanied on the piano by his daughter (and Jack’s mother) Rose.