Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} JFK Reckless Youth by Nigel Hamilton ISBN 13: 9780679412168. The first in a multi-volume new biography of John F. Kennedy encompasses the early years of Kennedy's career, his youth and Harvard education, the story of PT-109, his affair with a suspected Nazi spy, and more. 100,000 first printing. $150,000 ad/promo. Tour. "synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title. "Nigel Hamilton's story, told with great intelligence and sympathy, is of how Jack came to terms with his inheritance and frightful upbringing." - Daily Telegraph. "The definitive life of JFK. shows us, better than ever before, how the ambitious playboy began his transformation into the charismatic President." - Mail on Sunday. About the Author : Nigel Hamilton is the author of Monty , a three-volume official life of Field Marshal Montgomery which won the Whitbread Award and the Templer medal. He is currently working on the second and final volume of JFK: Life and Death of an American President . Review of “JFK: Reckless Youth” by Nigel Hamilton. Nigel Hamilton’s “JFK: Reckless Youth” was published in 1992 and was intended to be the first installment in projected three-volume series on John Kennedy. This New York Times bestseller was also the inspiration behind an ABC mini-series which aired in 1993. Hamilton is a British- born biographer and Senior Fellow at the University of Massachusetts. Among his recent works are a two-volume series on Bill Clinton and two volumes focusing on FDR during WWII. Unfortunately, this is the only volume in Hamilton’s series ever published. Almost immediately after publication it became the subject of enormous controversy – much of it generated by the Kennedy family (with the help of Doris Goodwin and others). As a result of his unflattering portrayal of the Kennedys in this first volume, Hamilton lost access to critical primary source documents and was forced to abandon the series. With 800 pages of text, this volume proves an exhaustive but riveting account of JFK’s early life up through his election as a twenty-nine-year-old Massachusetts Congressman. Nearly every aspect of Kennedy’s youth is examined with encyclopedic – and occasionally graphic – detail. The book’s strengths are numerous; among them are a lively, expressive and captivating narrative and the author’s incorporation of historical context throughout the text. On a more granular level, Hamilton provides better insight into JFK’s relationship with his parents than almost any other biographer and a more thoughtful view of JFK’s older brother than I’ve seen elsewhere. Hamilton also provides a more thorough discussion of Joseph P. Kennedy’s life (including his volatile relationship with FDR), the most descriptive and interesting discussion of JFK’s military service in the Pacific and the best introduction to Inga Arvad (one of Kennedy’s more infamous girlfriends) of any JFK biography I’ve read. The author is favorably disposed to his subject, praising him for his intellectual and interpersonal strengths, but rarely fails to castigate JFK for his appalling foibles. While Hamilton shows reasonable balance toward his subject, however, he demonstrates clear contempt for Kennedy’s father who is portrayed as a swindler, a coward, an abusive spouse and a serial philanderer. JFK’s mother fares little better as a repressed, emotionally distant Victorian figure whose response to her flawed marriage is to travel abroad without her family. For better – and for worse – much of the narrative’s vibrancy is derived at the expense of JFK and his father whose “extracurricular relationships” are often described in significant detail. While helping to debunk the “Camelot myth” and adding texture to the narrative, much of this extra insight is gratuitous and unnecessary. In addition, the author’s aversion to JFK’s father is displayed with a frequency and ferocity that seems almost pathological. If providing the reader a thick layer of historical context is a notable strength of this book, at times it is also a weakness. There are several occasions when this volume seems more like an engrossing history textbook than a biography. In many of these moments it is also clear the book’s length dilutes the central themes regarding JFK which the author intends to impress upon the reader. And during the more numerous moments when the book does feel like a biography, it frequently reads a dual- biography (of both JFK and his frequently-mentioned father). It is hard to imagine any of Joseph P. Kennedy’s traditional biographers capturing more of the man than has Hamilton…in a book ostensibly focused on JFK. Overall, “JFK: Reckless Youth” is a fascinating if flawed study of the young John F. Kennedy. No biography I have read on any president dives into its subject’s early life with the depth or color Hamilton provides…though others have come close (and with fewer distractions). For all its faults, this introductory volume to John Kennedy is a compelling read and it is regrettable Hamilton was unable to complete the series. New England Journal of Public Policy. What goes into the making of a president? To what extent are the mind and character of the American commander in chief determined by his background, his family — and his education? This article represents a transcript of two lectures Nigel Hamilton presented in the spring and fall of 1989 at the Massachusetts State Archives. They were derived from the preliminary sketches for the author's full-scale biography of John F. Kennedy, to be published by Houghton Mifflin in 1992 on the anniversary of the birth of the thirty-fifth president. What If John F. Kennedy Had Lived? Alternate histories about John F. Kennedy’s assassination range from liberal fantasies, in which the Vietnam War didn’t escalate and Kennedy harmonizes race relations in the United States, to — less commonly — conservative fantasies, in which JFK establishes a Catholic dynasty that rules America forever. Most books fall somewhere in between. Better America. Nigel Hamilton, who wrote JFK: Reckless Youth (1992), speculated in a 2003 article for The New York Times that Kennedy would have withdrawn from Vietnam and negotiated détente with the new Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev. Civil rights legislation fails, triggering race riots. Lyndon Johnson is elected president in 1968 with Robert Kennedy as his vice president. Medicaid and Medicare pass in 1969. Johnson, who suffered a heart attack in 1955, dies from another that same year. Robert Kennedy is sworn in as president and appoints Martin Luther King as his vice president. Civil rights pass. The second President Kennedy signs a non-expansion pact with Brezhnev. North and South Vietnam reunite. King oversees a national desegregation program. The United States normalizes trade relations with Cuba in 1971. Riding on a conservative backlash, Ronald Reagan wins the 1972 election. It is Reagan, not Richard Nixon, who restores relations with communist China. Kennedy wins back the White House in 1980 with New York lieutenant governor Mario Cuomo as his running mate. Leonid Brezhnev Lyndon Johnson Robert Kennedy Martin Luther King. In the real world, Reagan lost the 1968 Republican nomination to Nixon and the 1976 nomination to Gerald Ford before finally winning in 1980. Walter Mondale considered asking Cuomo to be his vice presidential candidate in 1984 but decided to nominate Geraldine Ferraro. Cuomo was himself considered a frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 1992 but declined to run both times. Simon Burns, in “What if Lee Harvey Oswald had missed?” published in Prime Minister Portillo… and other things that never happened: A Collection of Political Counterfactuals (2003), agrees Kennedy would have withdrawn from Vietnam and overseen a less aggressive civil rights campaign, but a better anti-poverty program, than Johnson. In Stephen Baxter’s Voyage (1996), Kennedy survives the assassination attempt but is badly wounded and does not seek reelection in 1964. At Kennedy’s urging, his successor, Richard Nixon, invests in the space program, leading to a Moon landing in 1969 and a Mars landing in 1986. Largely the same. Historian Robert Dallek, who wrote An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963 (2003), argues in “JFK’s Second Term,” published in The Atlantic (June 2003), that a second Kennedy Administration would have been like Johnson’s domestically, with a focus on civil rights and poverty reduction, but different abroad. Dallek believes Kennedy would have defied the advice of his generals and avoided escalation in Vietnam. He also thinks JFK may have attempted rapprochement with Cuba. Dallek makes similar arguments in “JFK Lives,” published in What Ifs? of American History: Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Might Have Been , edited by Robert Cowley (2013): Kennedy would have passed civil rights, but only just, and Republicans would have been more successful against him in the 1964 and 1966 elections than they were against Johnson. Journalist Jeff Greenfield postulates in If Kennedy Lived: The First and Second Terms of President John F. Kennedy: An Alternate History (2013) that, with his brother Bobby as defense secretary, Kennedy would have withdrawn from Vietnam but backed away from civil rights. All the Way with JFK: An Alternate History of 1964 (2017) by F.C. Schaefer sees Kennedy pulling out of Vietnam but invading Cuba to remove Fidel Castro. Kennedy grapples with hostile Texas oil barons, the mafia and Jimmy Hoffa’s Teamsters. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy are still killed. JFK in ’64 (2018), by Mark Huffman, imagines how Kennedy would have fought reelection against Berry Goldwater. Worse. In Rick Katze’s “Bobbygate,” published in Alternate Kennedys , edited by Mike Resnick (1992), JFK is not killed but — in a reversal of Watergate — his brother Bobby is implicated in a break-in at Republican Party headquarters. Chris Bunch, in “Murdering Uncle Ho,” published in Alternate Generals III , edited by Harry Turtledove and Roland J. Green (2005), breaks with the consensus. He has the Gulf of Tonkin incident happening as it did in the real world and Kennedy committing to defending South Vietnam. The war doesn’t go better for him than it did for Johnson. In 1970, a President Nelson Rockefeller orders the assassination of North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh. Rockefeller, the long-serving governor of New York, in reality failed to win the Republican presidential nomination in 1960, ’64 and ’68. He was hampered the first time by Nixon’s popularity, the second time by his recent divorce and remarriage, and the third time by the demise of liberal Republicanism. If centrist voters, disappointed by Kennedy’s war in Vietnam, had flocked to the Republican Party in ’68, it might have given Rockefeller the edge he needed to defeat Nixon and Reagan. In Bryce Zabel’s Surrounded by Enemies: What If Kennedy Survived Dallas? (2014), the investigation into the failed assassination becomes the Watergate of its time. Every JFK conspiracy theory is revealed to be true. There really was a second shooter on the grassy knoll. The CIA, mafia, Texas oilmen and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover were all involved. So was Vice President Lyndon Johnson, who is sentenced to prison. Kennedy resigns in scandal. Richard Nixon serves two full terms. Reagan is elected in 1976. Ronald Reagan at the 1976 Republican National Convention Robert Kennedy confers with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Crazy. National Lampoon devoted its February 1977 issue to Kennedy’s fifth term. It imagined Kennedy’s wife Jacqueline had died in Dallas on November 22, 1963. John F. wins reelection in a landslide in 1964. Cardinal Richard Cushing becomes the first American pope. A Summer Vatican is established in Coral Gables, Florida. America withdraws from Vietnam and normalizes relations with China. Fidel Castro flees his homeland after several assassination attempts. The Twenty-second Amendment to the Constitution, which limits presidents to serving two consecutive terms, is repealed. Kennedy marries Christina Onassis. (In the real world, his widow married Christina’s father, Aristotle.) When riots erupt in Northern Ireland in August 1969 (which in the real world led to a 37-year British Army presence in the province), Kennedy orders a military intervention. He stacks the Supreme Court with members of his family. Year after year, Kennedy forces Khrushchev to back down in missile crises in the Aleutian Islands, Virgin Islands, Bermuda… Richard Nixon runs against Kennedy in ’64, ’68, ’72, ’76, and loses every time. In Camelot Revisited: The Alternate History of America Since November 22, 1963 (1996), Alex Jack imagines a war in Central America, the Soviets reaching the Moon first and America creating a fifty-first state, Camelot, in the middle of the country, devoted to progressive ideals. The tabloid Weekly World News ran various headlines in the early 1990s alleging Kennedy had survived assassination in Dallas. One story, published on November 6, 1990, alleged the FBI, CIA, Castro and Kennedy’s younger brother, Bobby, were all in on the plot to kill JFK, who was still alive — crippled and frail — on a Greek island owned by shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. Another story in Weekly World News revealed Kennedy was shot to prevent him revealing the truth about aliens and UFOs, which is also a popular theory among conspiracy theorists online. 3 comments. It is said that one historian, asked how he thought history would have changed if Nikita Kruschev had been assassinated in December 1963 instead of JFK, could only suggest that Aristotle Onassis probably would not have married Mrs. Kruschev… Stephen King’s 11/22/63 is probably the best alternative fiction work on what would have happened if JFK’s assassination had been prevented. Gets a little cheap-sci fi at the end, but it’s excellent otherwise. The mini-series actually worked out well (and ditched the sci-fi aspect, focusing only on the butterfly effect). Well worth a read and then a viewing. 'JFK: Reckless Youth' As an early and longtime friend of John F. Kennedy's, I offer these comments having read the Op-Ed piece in The New York Times of Dec. 3 written by members of the Kennedy family, criticizing "JFK: Reckless Youth." Nigel Hamilton's readings of materials on the Kennedy family appear to have been far more exhaustive than those of any other writer to date. The book is meticulously documented, with many notes to each page as well as a long index of sources. It is a scholarly production. Mr. Hamilton, of course, is not alone in writing on this subject. The Library of Congress shows that more than 450 books have been written on various phases of J.F.K.'s life. It must be noted, though, that over 400 of these treat only the assassination. This biography of his early years is the most complete to date. The Kennedy family Op-Ed piece would be more disturbing were it not for a circumstance occurring in 1990. Mr. Hamilton teaches history at the University of Massachusetts. The texts of his early lectures on J.F.K. were printed by the university. In 1990 he received a phone call from a Washington attorney speaking for some members of the Kennedy family who were critical of the lectures' contents. The attorney subsequently presented Mr. Hamilton with marked-up copies delineating sections to which objections were made. The attorney asked him to justify his judgments of the family life provided by father and mother, Joseph and Rose Kennedy. Mr. Hamilton said his judgments were based on documents available in the Library of Congress and the John F. Kennedy Library -- letters, etc. Mr. Hamilton requested at that time access to many letters in the J.F.K. Library that had not been made available to him. He said that these would be useful in assessing his judgments, and that he would willingly correct them if their contents indicated that he should do so. Mr. Hamilton was advised by the attorney that a request would be made to Kennedy family members to allow access to such letters with the understanding that he had stated. After several weeks, the attorney replied that such letters would not be made available, and they have not been. In any event, "JFK: Reckless Youth" is an excellent report. JAMES ROUSMANIERE Southbury, Conn.