Much has been written about both the life and death of President John F. Kennedy, some interesting and some not, some historically accurate and some not.  This book qualifies as both fascinating and historically accurate and is definitely not “just another book about Kennedy”.  If you only read one book about the life and death of Kennedy, it should be this one.  You will be both entertained and learn something in a most painless manner.

JFK was initially hired to lead the U.S. because he was young, good looking, charismatic, and had the power and money of Joseph Kennedy Sr. backing him.  It didn’t hurt that he had a beautiful wife by his side.  It was enough to get him elected, but was it enough to lead the nation, to wisely make the tough decisions that every president must make?  In the beginning, no, it wasn’t and Kennedy made his share of mistakes and bungles. However with time and difficult lessons learned, Kennedy grew into the position and became a true leader of men and nations, though he had serious flaws, both personally and professionally that would never be resolved.  Would JFK have been re-elected in 1964 had he not been assassinated a year earlier?  Almost certainly.

In the end, this book brings us back, those of us old enough to remember, to the shining days that were known as Camelot and just for a few hours we are transported to a world we loved, a world of heroes and of conquering exciting new frontiers – racial equality, space exploration, and new frontiers for global democracy. 

This book also peels back some of the glitter of those days, the sexual liaisons, political jealousies and jockeying, lies and half-truths.  But it doesn’t shatter the image … these men, particularly Kennedy, whom we so admired were not perfect, they weren’t saints, they were men.  The comparison to Camelot put forth by Jackie K has, in the words of the authors, “… shaped how (her) husband’s presidency is remembered to this day.” Nonetheless, they are heroes and will always be in our eyes, as they forged their way into uncharted new territories of which the nation’s founders could never have even dreamed.

If this book brings to mind the lovely carousel ride that was the Kennedy’s Camelot, the afterword reminds us of the roller-coaster ride that was the aftermath of conspiracy theories, Vietnam, and the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

The book also treats us to a look into the life of Lee Harvey Oswald, the man whose destiny was to kill Kennedy and end the legacy of Camelot.  Oswald did not hate Kennedy and really had no beef about the man, but Oswald believed that he was born to be a great man, to be known by all as a great man, and it is in this that his life was filled with bitter disappointment for he was the definition of a loser.  In the end, his decision to kill the president boiled down to a simple equation:  if his wife would take him back, he would put his plan aside, otherwise, with nothing left to lose, he would go down in history as “the man who killed President Kennedy”. 

For those of us who have not extensively studied this era and the principals involved, there is much to be learned from this book.  Those of us who are of a certain age certainly remember that there was much written about Kennedy’s womanizing, rumors of his communist leanings, the beginnings of our involvement in Vietnam and the struggle to win racial equality.  But throughout this book are many tidbits that most of us probably didn’t know, for example the deviousness of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and Martin Luther King’s excesses which were similar to Kennedy’s.

This is the second book written by the team of O’Reilly/Duggard … the first was Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever which I have not yet read, but certainly plan to now.  I also hope to see more from these two accomplished writers.  This is a book well worth the time spent reading it and one that you will remember for a long time.