Conversations with Kennedy

Benjamin C. Bradlee

• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780393301892
• eBook ISBN: 9781480477513
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Biographies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Distinguished journalist Benjamin C. Bradlee's intimate biography of President John F. Kennedy and his Camelot years.
Conversations with Kennedy is legendary reporter and executive Benjamin C. Bradlee's account of his intimate dialogues with JFK—a man he counted as a confidante and friend. Beginning in 1958, when Kennedy was a US senator running for president, and continuing until 1963, the year that Kennedy died, Bradlee shared a close professional and personal relationship with the charismatic politician. Both men were war veterans, idealists, and up-and-coming American leaders, and they shared values that drove their friendship.
 
Kennedy was a politician equally at home with the bruising intellects he appointed to government posts and his working-class constituents. He respected his complicated father, understood his brothers, admired women, and had few illusions about human nature. Bradlee's eye for detail reveals JFK's views on everything from Communism to conservatism to freedom of the press.
 
From parties at the White House to weekends at Palm Beach to JFK's enduring influence on Bradlee's own life, this is an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at the man behind a myth, written by a giant of American journalism.
 
 

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Gaps in the Record
• “John’s Other Wife—Part One”
• “Is it too late to change covers?”
• “Hard-boiled … but, or soft-boiled … if”
• “The Jackie Kennedy Show”
• “Better than defeat”
• “The coral reef … building up”
• “Who said Freund?”
• “WASPs go in more for stealing”
• “He’s a cheap bastard. That’s all …”
• “I just want to read you a wire”
• “To Billie Sol Bradlee” or “Better not let that one out of here”
• “You want to read something fantastic?”
• “Everyone’s going mad up there”
• “Don’t worry. Just call collect”
• “Bobby and I smile sardonically”
• “Oh, hi. How’ve you been?”
• Lollipops
• Everybody loves everybody again
• “Department stores … $40,000”
• “They are always there with their pencils out”
• “When we don’t have to go through you bastards”
• “Some pipeline I have into the White House”
• “17,000 Soviet troops in Cuba” and“27,000 U.S. troops in Turkey”
• “What the hell do we need those for?”
• “You can’t beat brains”
• “I sure was mad, but I forget why now”
• “He’s going to do a helluva business”
• “Sometimes you have to eat it”
• Kiss-and-tell journalism
• “He’ll carry me before I carry him”
• “Everyone ought to run for office”
• “Let’s sing a little song for Dad”
• “Eyes Only, Secret, and Everything”
• “Something about twenty-one or twenty-two”
• “You are my ideal, Jacqueline”
• “I can’t believe we’ll be that lucky”
• “Congress? They’re impossible”
• “Not three French wines. Only one—domestic”
• “Come in Yachting Clothes”
• “Do you think you could get used to this kind of life?”
• “If the Russians want to build Skybolt, good luck to them”
• “You could carry Bombay the way you carry Boston”
• Paul Bunyan rides again
• “Maybe now you’ll come with us to Texas” “Sure I will, Jack”
• “How many pairs of shoes do you have, George?”
• “Boy, the dirt he has on those senators”
• “You’re about to see a president trampled to death by a horse”
• Epilogue
• Index
• About the Author
• Copyright