Questioning how the less than exemplary life of JFK related to the actions and decisions of his public career, Thomas Reeves probes the bewildering vagaries of Kennedy's character. He shows in particular the effects of his father's ruthless political tutelage and follows JFK through a career marked by an ever widening gap between the public image of a courageous and caring intellectual leader and the private reality of indifference to those values of fidelity, compassion, and concern he extolled. Drawing extensively on both published and archival materials, Reeves shows how "the best and the brightest" whom Kennedy attracted in life glorified him in death and transformed a man personally and politically ambivalent about such issues as civil rights into the fallen champion of the subsequent reforms of the Great Society.
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No issue is more hotly debated than how, or even if, a politician's private life affects his public competence. In A Question of Character John F. Kennedy's two lives?public and private?are examined to answer this timely question. Respected historian and biographer Thomas C. Reeves reveals discrepancies between JFK's public persona, which has reached mythic proportions, and his scandalous private behavior. Most illuminating is the constant theme or Joe Kennedy's almost total control of JFK's behavior and politics throughout most of his son's career.
"The John Kennedy who emerges from these pages was not a man of good moral character. He was reared not to be good but to win." ? Los Angeles Times
Reeves has provided the most truthful and balanced assessment of John F. Kennedy to date. Written more in sorrow than in anger, A Question of Character explores the sensitive and difficult question of how people, and history itself, ought to judge the relationship between personal character and national leadership.
"Readers interested in a serious revisionist examination of Kennedy's life and record should look at A Question of Character, . . . a book that, judging by Hersh's 'Chapter Notes,' seems not to have come to his attention. If it had, perhaps we would have been spared The Dark Side of Camelot."— Jonathan Yardley, in his Washington Post review of Seymour Hersh's The Dark Side of Camelot.
"The John Kennedy who emerges from these pages was not a man of good moral character. He was reared not to be good but to win."— Los Angeles Times
"It is the Marilyn Monroe chapter that speaks the loudest in this book of the incredible hubris of Jack and Bobby Kennedy. You have to read it to believe it."— Liz Smith
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Book Description Free Press, 1991. Hardcover. Book Condition: New. Hardcover and dust jacket. Good binding and cover. Clean, unmarked pages. Ships daily. Bookseller Inventory # 81248906
Book Description Free Press, 1991. Hardcover. Book Condition: New. book. Bookseller Inventory # 0029259657
Book Description Free Press, 1991. Hardcover. Book Condition: New. Bookseller Inventory # DADAX0029259657
Book Description Free Press, 1991. Book Condition: new. Shiny and new! Expect delivery in 2-3 weeks. Bookseller Inventory # 9780029259658-1
Book Description Free Press, 1991. Hardcover. Book Condition: New. Bookseller Inventory # P110029259657
Book Description Free Press, New York, NY, U.S.A., 1991. Hardcover. Book Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. 1st Edition. 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall. First Edition, with correct number line sequence, no writing, marks, underlining, or bookplates. No remainder marks. Spine is tight and crisp. Boards are flat and true and the corners are square. Dust jacket is not price-clipped. This collectible, " NEW" condition first edition/first printing copy is protected with a polyester archival dust jacket cover. Beautiful collectible copy. GIFT QUALITY. Bookseller Inventory # 002613
Book Description Free Press. Hardcover. Book Condition: New. 0029259657 New Condition. Bookseller Inventory # NEW6.1014562