Rating: 
Summary: Right On!
Review: ....This is a totally unbiased and un-dramatized profile of an amazing presidency and an amazing man. For instance, the book does not take us into the thousands of conspiracy theories surrounding JFK's death, but simply and blantly tells us that he was killed and when. READ IT!
Rating:
Summary: The best and most balanced one-volume JFK biography...
Review: Along with Herbert Parmet's "Jack: The Struggles of John F. Kennedy", Richard Reeve's "President Kennedy" are the best two books ever written about a legendary (and much-romanticized) American President. Unlike Thomas Reeve's hatchet-job "A Question of Character", which basically could be called a job in "character assassination"; or books such as Arthur Schlesinger's "A Thousand Days", which idolize Kennedy and ignore his flaws and failures as President, Richard Reeve's book maintains an admirably objective and balanced view of our 35th President. Reeve's Kennedy is neither a liberal saint nor a debauched devil, but is instead a complicated and often frustrating man who is woefully unprepared for the Oval Office when he moves in in January 1961, but does possess a great many gifts that save him when he gets into trouble. Reeve's Kennedy makes many mistakes early on in his Administration - the Bay of Pigs, his disastrous summit with the Soviet Union's Nikita Krushchev in Vienna, and his reckless womanizing in private, which as Reeves notes might well have become public knowledge if some enterprising reporter had ever followed JFK's movements very closely. Yet Kennedy does learn from at least some of his mistakes, and his handling of the Berlin Wall Crisis and the Cuban Missile Crisis was excellent. Whether Kennedy would ever have grown into a great President is a matter of debate among historians, and after reading this book I had my answer - JFK was a good President in many ways, but he probably would never have become a great one, due to his overly cautious nature on civil rights and the other great issues of the sixties. In short, this is a very well-written, impressively researched, and very fair-minded look at one of our most difficult Presidents to study and write about...this should be required reading for anyone who's interested in the 1960's, the Kennedys, or American politics.
Rating:
Summary: Reeves gives judgments about JFK repose
Review: An extradorinarily well-done book. Closer to an objective and comprehensive portrait than one could imagine. Neither glorification nor indictment. Pre-presidency poolitical biography, followed by an often daily view from Kennedy's desk of the contradictory information unfoling from various sources about events and public opinion. What a sense of the rush of issues seeming to present themselves! A member of the Vietnam generation, I was too young for the idealism and optimism associated with part of the New Frontier. I felt troubled by JFK: both his policies and personality seemed so varied and contradictory, he never really made sense. Because of this book, now he does.
Rating: 
Summary: A behind-the-scenes look at the Kennedy presidency
Review: From our perspective of today, I thought that the Kennedy presidency was very successful and that the days of Camelot were indeed magical. This book has shown me that the programs and successes from Kennedy's presidency were not as easy as I thought.First, I was not aware at how sick JFK actually was. I knew about his fight with Addison's disease, but I didn't know about his back pain. This book talks briefly about how his living off treatments to fight his pain affected his everyday work in the White House. Second, JFK and his administration were keenly aware of what was politic and what was not. Their focus on the Soviet Union, Berlin, Vietnam, and Cuba took most of their time and kept them from taking a more active role in the civil rights movement here in the United States. The idea of reelection never seemed to be far from their thoughts. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting a view of the goings-on during the Kennedy presidency.
Rating:
Summary: A behind-the-scenes look at the Kennedy presidency
Review: From our perspective of today, I thought that the Kennedy presidency was very successful and that the days of Camelot were indeed magical. This book has shown me that the programs and successes from Kennedy's presidency were not as easy as I thought. First, I was not aware at how sick JFK actually was. I knew about his fight with Addison's disease, but I didn't know about his back pain. This book talks briefly about how his living off treatments to fight his pain affected his everyday work in the White House. Second, JFK and his administration were keenly aware of what was politic and what was not. Their focus on the Soviet Union, Berlin, Vietnam, and Cuba took most of their time and kept them from taking a more active role in the civil rights movement here in the United States. The idea of reelection never seemed to be far from their thoughts. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting a view of the goings-on during the Kennedy presidency.
Rating:
Summary: Camelot without tears
Review: I have read my share of books on Kennedy, both fawning works and works that like to portray the New Frontier as Babylon on the Potomac. However this book is a bit of a first, it presents us with the details of the administration's workings and gives us a sense of what really happened in the White House and elsewhere during 1961-1963. What I came away from in reading this book was a time in which Kennedy frequently found himself in over his head. The best moment, and the one that illustrates this for me perfectly was an encounter with Charles de Gaule in Paris. Like a student that is too cleaver, JFK makes a cleaver remark regarding Indo-China. De Gaule counters by trying to warn Kennedy away and providing a basis for doing so. The French had been in Vietnam before and probably, at least in this instance, had some insight. Kennedy declined to take de Gaulle's advice, but fearful that the former general might make these remarks public demanded silence in return. De Gaulle indicated that he was not in the habit of behaving in this fashion and that was the end of that session. No, moments like this do not make it into the movies in which people with good hair and teeth mouth homilies, but they are genuine and are probably more indicative of how things really worked than the sorts of things that have pretended to be historical works over the years.
Rating:
Summary: A Spectacular Book
Review: I just finished Richard Reeves' excellent book about President Kennedy and I enjoyed it very much. I am only 13 years old, so this book took me over month to to read, but I was interested for almost every page. The only part I got bored and uninterested at was the talk about economics. However, I do understand the importance of those sections.
Anyone, no matter how old they are should read this book if they have an interest in history or in Kennedy himself. The book also gives a good picture of how things are done in the White House. My only problem with the book was that it ended so abruptly. I recognize that the book was about kennedy's presidency, but Reeves could have written something at all about the assassination. Overall, this was an excellent book. I am looking forward to reading the Nixon book (Alone in the White House by Richard Reeves) as well.
Rating:
Summary: An Outstanding Dispassionate View of Kennedy's Presidency
Review: I've read a ton of biographies but this would definitely make it into my top 5. It's a real goldmine of information for those who want an objective look at Kennedy's presidency without too much muckraking. What I liked most about this book is that because it is a day by day presentation of Kennedy's 1000 days, it gives you a terrific view of what it is like to be President. Reeves' presentation of the Bay of Pigs disaster is particularly interesting, as is Reeves' revelation that it was often Robert Kennedy who was the hatchet man for Kennedy. This is particularly important when RFK tries to pass the buck for to the cabinet for floundering in the Bay of Pigs. To be honest, I am not sure I like JFK as much as I used to (Kennedy's handling of the steel companies was a disgrace), but he did handle the Cuban Missile Crisis with aplomb (although in the book Dean Acheson attributes his success in Cuba to "pure dumb luck"). In any event, this book was terrific.
Rating:
Summary: A true Kennedy Presidential history...
Review: It seems that every one has the same overall opinion of this account of the JFK Whitehouse years..."balanced". It really is refreshing to read a history of the Kennedy administration these days without going into the "mud-slinging". I'd compare this book to the Lou Cannon account of Reagan for clear concise Presidential history with minimal diversion and it's made me want to pursue other well-known histories of the JFK years like Schlesingers "Thousand Days"...etc. Excellent read.
Rating:
Summary: Balanced and Informative -- JFK Analyzed, Not Cannonized
Review: My frustration with much of the literature on JFK is that the air of boosterism too often governs how his life and presidency are depicted. Reeves does not follow this path. Instead, he has delivered a well researched, balanced and ultimately fascinating study of the president and his presidency. I learned a lot of new information in this book. The author appears to have uncovered documents used for the first time here. There are also abundent interviews with people not always found in other Kennedy manuscripts. His work is very fresh due to this painstaking assembling of new information and sources. President Kennedy was very good at some things, such as motivating followers and creating an aura that helped him govern, and not so good at others. Among his flaws, Reeves sees his system of managing the government. Kennedy had much information flow to him directly -- a "hub and wheel" organization for managing the govenrment -- as oppossed to a solid staff system that could make ordained decisions on small issues in keeping with administration philosophy and reserve the president's time for the big issues that ultimately matter. His personal failings are also laid bare and counted as a flaw in this book. This is a balanced book of a president who too often public memory reflects differently from reality. Reeves has written a very solid and fascinating portrait of the reality.
| 
