President Kennedy - Profiles in Power

President Kennedy – Profile in Power by Richard Reeves

I watched a series on the 60s on Netflix recently. One episode focused on John F. Kennedy. One of the several historians that was interviewed was a fellow named Richard Reeves. He seemed rather articulate, and the caption said he was the author of a book.  So I thought, “why not?”  A bit of a crapshoot maybe, but the dice rolled up seven. This was an excellent book.

This book is a fairly detailed look at JFK’s presidency. It’s not a biography.  I was a bit leery of that fact.  I had already read a book detailing Kennedy’s presidency – Ted Sorensen’s “Kennedy”.  I didn’t like it.  It REALLY made me nervous when this author actually praised that book early on in THIS book.  I was petrified of a repeat.  Safe to say, this book was much better.

I won’t detail Sorensen’s retrospective, I’ll focus on this book. It seems like this book’s biggest advantage is that the author knows how to keep his readers engaged.  “Profile in Power” is actually the perfect subtitle.  We see how this young, wealthy aristocrat handles the most powerful position in the world. Nothing is sugar coated. We get the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Quite often, the ugly is quite ugly.

He portrays Kennedy as human. The man had flaws, yet I came away with the impression that JFK was a good president.  We read a lot about Khrushchev, Cuba, Vietnam, and Civil Rights. The latter topic was a bit harsh. Contrary to what some historians want to believe, Kennedy was not that much of an advocate for Civil Rights. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in the cause, he just felt issues weren’t a priority. Yes, he made some strides, but many would argue far too little.  We read a lot about the many, now famous, incidents that took place in the early sixties, and one comes away with the feeling that our President really should have done much more in this area.

I enjoyed reading about the tensions with Cuba (i.e. Russia) and Vietnam the best. We see the young president learn from his mistakes, and make some very tough decisions.  The Vietnam parts were also eye-opening. Again, many in the history department have sugar coated Kennedy’s record and involvement. Contrary to what Oliver Stone tells us, Kennedy did not want to “end Vietnam”. We must remember that during Kennedy’s administration, the vast majority of Americans couldn’t even find Vietnam on a map, so it’s only in hindsight that we can be as judgmental as we tend to be.

And, yes, there are a lot of women.  Supposedly, Kennedy was taking some hardcore medication for his back pain which included the side effects of a) having a tan complexion and b) rather amorous. So I guess this would allow many to give the former president a free pass when it came to his consistent infidelities.  You wonder why such medication wouldn’t be available on the black market. But never mind.

Like all great leaders, Kennedy can be tough when he needs to be. We prefer to see our leaders through rose colored glasses, but we see plenty of instances when the leader, at least behind the scenes, attempts to get things done in rather unconventional methods.  One of my favorite episodes concerns little brother Ted. Ted becomes a new senator in Massachusetts solely because of the Kennedy name. When Ted complains to his brother that one of the new policies JFK is enacting is hurting his constituents back home, the president replies, “Tough sh!t”.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. My only complaint is, like Kennedy’s presidency itself, the book ends too abruptly.  As soon as Kennedy leaves for Dallas, the book basically stops.  I mean, we all know that Dallas was the end of Kennedy’s presidency, but I would have liked to have read a bit more.  Maybe the author could have offered his opinions of the LBJ administration and discussed how he felt things could have been different? Of course, it would have all been speculation, but it would have been a rather nice addendum.

My favorite historical accounts of famous people are ones that show an evenly balanced person – good and bad.  Unlike the Ted Sorensen book (the guy was so loyal, I’m convinced he would drink Kennedy’s bathwater if asked), this one is just that.  This book is now over 20 years old, but reads as though it was written yesterday. I doubt you could probably find this book at a bookstore due to its age, but it’s worth ordering online (as I did).    I’m very glad I accidentally stumbled upon this one.

The Generals: The Brotherhood of War

The Generals by W.E.B. Griffin

This is the first of the Brotherhood of War series by W.E.B. Griffin that left me a bit cold.  It’s not that it’s a bad story. No, this book is very similar to those in the series that precede this one.  I think it’s just starting to feel a bit old to me.  It probably doesn’t help that I’ve basically read them all back to back whereas I’m guessing they were released about a year apart.  Maybe had I spent more time between each installment, I would have enjoyed them a bit more.  They’re just too similar.

In addition, there’s a bit too many quirky things about this book that bothered me as well. It’s almost as if the author was a bit tired of the series himself and tried to do too much too soon. First, not that it really matters, but our three main characters never actually make it to “General”.  Yes, there are generals in these stories, and maybe the familiar supporting cast gets a bit more page time than the other books, but in every other book, our trio of Lowell, MacMillan, and Felter usually make it to the rank on the cover of the book somewhere in the story.

Then, this book is divided into two parts.  The first takes place around 1963, and then we abruptly jump to 1969. I never quite figured out why, nor could I figure the connection between the two parts.  At the conclusion of the book, I felt as though, again, the author was trying to just hurry up and finish the series.  I don’t know if it was his intention or not, but he did pen three additional books for this series, and in those books he went back to 1964. So maybe, in hindsight, he would have done things a bit differently.

The biggest sin in this book was that the last 70 pages or so of this book really needed about 350 pages to tell the part of the story adequately.  Griffin seems rushed.  He even concludes the book with a “where are they now” portion since he wrote the book about 17 years or so after the story ends.

Speaking of story, you know the drill by now if you’ve read any of these.  These are “military” books that mix personal with professional.  As I’ve said before, I wish these books had more combat/action as opposed to whisky and women, but Griffin still tells a good story even when he focuses on the bedroom as opposed to the battlefield.  The Craig Lowell schtick still gets old, however.  Whenever we meet a “new” woman in one of these books between the age of 20 and 50, you already know that somehow, someway, she’ll end up in bed with Lowell.  She’ll manage to be repulsed and attracted at the same time because of his wealth, arrogance, and good looks.  It’s getting a tad dry at this point.

I’m interested to read the next installments.  I felt that he left this series a bit unfinished.  I’m not sure if that was his intention, but it sure felt like it.  A good addition to the series, but far from the best.

American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation

American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation by Jon Meaham

Blogger Note: At the beginning of January 2017, I found myself unexpectedly, and abrasively unemployed for the first time in my 28 years of working professionally. This put quite a jolt on my well-being, and I found myself not wanting to read, much less write about what I’ve read.  Fortunately, I now find myself once again happily employed and up to the task of taking up my indulgent hobby.  The upshot of this is that some of these books (such as this one) were read before my above-mentioned travails, causing me to not to remember many of the intricate details of the particular work.  Believe it or not, this was one of the main reasons why I started this project – to have some sort of record of my thoughts while they were still fresh in my mind. So some of these reviews won’t get the due diligence of mass recollection.   And so it goes….

This particular book seems incredibly appropriate for the times, but I’m willing to bet the same could be said for most periods of history in the United States.  It seems as though there’s quite the division amongst the populous as to what role, if any, the Supreme Creator should play in our government.  There are those of the Christian faith (not all Christians, mind you) who believe that all the problems that are nation endures is because we have somehow turned away from God. Once you take God out of schools and government, you can’t reasonably expect anything but a fierce decline in the morale of civilization.  Then, there are those of the Godless (again, not all) that think that religion is, in fact, THE cause of all our problems. Once you take God and religion out of the equation, these folks on the fringe seem to think that man is smart enough to resolve his own issues, and life will one day be peachy keen.

Author Jon Meacham believes neither of these extremes, and recognizes what the founding fathers of our country were smart enough to realize. While God is definitely important for the core of our culture, it is imperative that the church and state remain detached.  This book isn’t so much an argument of such a position, but rather a reflection of how our brightest, smartest leaders have all realized such an important concept. He doesn’t just focus on the founding fathers, but also on leaders throughout our country’s history that have wisely felt the same way. He includes many instances of when such sentiments were reflected in famous speeches and orations by these leaders.

Extremism, on either side, is never a good thing. Maybe it’s the advent of social media and individuals masking their presence behind e-Walls of anonymity that have made it such a prevailing factor, but it seems as though we’re exposed to more and more rhetoric on both sides.  Observe someone making a statement about religion (pro or con) on the World Wide Gossip-Web, and you’ll stir up quite the hornet’s nest.

Calmer heads must prevail, Meacham argues, and fortunately, it seems as though we tend to eventually drift back to the center in the “religion” department.  I seem to remember a quote in the book (and to be fair, maybe I heard it somewhere else. Again, it’s been too long since I’ve read this) that makes the comment that if Jesus didn’t force people to love and believe in him, how can a mere mortal man expect to accomplish the same thing?

I found this to be a great book, but I’m sure that there are those on both sides of the religious fence that will be radically opposed to Meacham’s message.  It’s a shame that both of these camps can’t see themselves in the mirror when they view their “enemy”.