The Kennedy Men: 1901-1963 (164 page)

Although we live in a culture of mistrust, I was extremely blessed by the people who talked to me. Some of these sources spoke with me for the first time, and most of them spoke with compelling candor and depth. This is not in any way an authorized book, and I am especially grateful to the various Kennedys I have interviewed during the writing of my books on their family: Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Joan Kennedy, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Patricia Kennedy Lawford, Jean Kennedy Smith, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Robert Kennedy Jr., Christopher Kennedy, Douglas Kennedy, Timothy Shriver, Mark Shriver, Anthony Shriver, Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, and Rory Kennedy.

I am not including in these acknowledgments the names of people I interviewed for volume 2 of this work,
The Kennedy Men, 1963—2003.
Those people I have interviewed about the Kennedys over the years about the period through 1963, or who have helped me in other ways, include: Sam
Adams, Kristina Rebelo Anderson, Andrew, Duke of Devonshire, Manuel Angulo, Carl Anthony, Bradley Earl Ayers, Bobby Baker, Larry Baker, Charles Bartlett, Dr. David Becker, Ed Becker, Edward Behr, Arnold Beichman, Kai Bird, Brad Blank, Marvin Blank, Joseph Boccehir, Ben Bradlee, Ham Brown, Joan Winmill Brown, Dino Brugioni, Robert Bunshaft, Nina Burleigh, Dan Burns, John Burns, Fox Butterfield, William C. Chapman, Blair Clark, Adam Clymer, Fred Cohen, Jeanne Conway, Alan K. Corsair, Pat Coughlin, Archibald Cox, John Henry Cutler, Mark Dalton, Zel Davis, Cartha DeLoach, Ann Denove, Ahmed Desouky, Frank Dillow, Dr. Mauro G. Di Pasquale, Joe Dolan, Janet Donovan, Luella Hennessey Donovan, William Douglas-Home, Robert Duffy, Milt Ebbins, Luis Estevez, Paul B. Fay Jr., Myer Feldman, Bob Filardi, Tom Finneran, Carey Fisher, Benedict Fitzgerald, Patrick Flynn, Wally Flynn, Janet Des Rosiers Fontaine, Harry Fowler, Alan Gage, John Kenneth Galbraith, Patty McGinty Gallagher, Barbara Gamarekian, Nancy Gardiner, Joe Gargan, Wilson Gathings, Chuck Glynn, Fred Good, Milton Gould, Arthur Grace, John Greenya, Edwin Guthman, Milton Gwirtzman, David Hackett, Alexander Haig, Sam Halpern, Geraldine Hannon, Pamela Harriman, Colonel Jack Hawkins, Bob Healy, Deirdre Henderson, Burton Hersh, Seymour Hersh, Sally Roche Higgins, Gerri Hirshey, Claude Hooton Jr., Maria Hooton, David Horowitz, Ron Howard, William Hundley, Q. Byrum Hurst, Mrs. Max Jacobson, Terry Kahn, Professor William Kaufman, Pierce Kierney, Malcolm Kilduff, Tom Killefer, Harvey Klemmer, Peter Kornbluh, Bryant Larson, Paul Lazarro, Helen Leamer, Evelyn Lincoln, Dick Livingston, Grayston Lynch, Scott Malone, Phil Manuel, Francis McAdoo, Mrs. James McCahey, Senator Eugene McCarthy, Kerry McCarthy, Mary Lou McCarthy, Lisa McCormick, Robert J. McDonnell, Priscilla Johnson McMillan, Lynn McTaggart, Elizabeth Mehren, Joe Miller, Melody Miller, Stanley Montunnas, Paul Morgan, Joe Naar, Timothy Naftali, Bob Neal, Pat Newcomb, Larry Newman, John Nolan, Ken Norwick, Mark Obenhaus, Mirko Obradovic, Ivanka Ostojic, Joe Paolella, June Payne, Charles Peters, Barrett E. Prettyman Jr., Dick Prentice, Robert Purdy, Charles Rappleye, Marcus Raskin, Coates Redmon, Martha Sweatt Reed, Howard Reed, Jewel Reed, Shafica Reed, Marie Rider, Marilyn Riesman, Bill Robinson, Terri Robinson, Nick Rodis, Teno Roncalio, Maurice Rosenblatt, John Rosenthal, James Rousmaniere, Mary Ryan, Pierre Salinger, Roberto San Roman, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., John Seigenthaler, Joe Shimon, Ed Shorter, Hugh Sidey, Lorraine Silberthau, George Smathers, Liz Smith, Mark Soden, Augustus Soule Jr., Betty Coxe Spalding, Chuck Spalding, Dan Stewart, Pat Lawford Stewart, Anthony Summers, Bruce Sundlun, Bill Sutton, Kingsley Swan, Lee Tomic, Michael Tomic, Seymour Topping, Walter Trohan, Dorothy Tubirdy,
William Vanden Heuvel, Sue Vogelsinger, Gunilla Von Post, Frank Waldrop, Edwin Weisl Jr., Richard Whalen, John White, Bonnie Williams, David Wilson, Bill Wilson, Nadine Witkin, and Holton Wood.

I must also acknowledge Melody Miller in Senator Edward Kennedy’s office. I have disagreed with her at times over matters concerning the family she loves so much and serves so well, but I’ve always known that I was dealing with a person of the highest integrity and honor. I am also deeply indebted to the many other authors whose work I have found insightful.

I will not list here the various libraries and research institutions I visited since they are listed in the endnotes. I would, however, like especially to thank Harriet Young of Orlando, Florida, for giving me her wonderful collection of Kennedy materials that she has collected over a lifetime of interest in the family. I would like to make special note of the foreign relations series on the U.S. State Department web site. The documents about the Kennedy administration have been wonderfully annotated, and they are accessible to everyone. This speaks eloquently of a government agency that is not afraid of the truth.

The Kennedy Men
employs dialogue and long narrative scenes in many places. These passages are neither invented nor imaginative reconstructions, but are based on sources cited in the endnotes including interviews, oral histories, diaries, letters, and tapes. The most important of these sources are the wide range of telephone conversations and meetings secretly recorded by President Kennedy from the summer of 1962 until his death.
The Kennedy Men
is the first book to make full use of these recordings. Kennedy intended these tapes for his own personal purposes. There is no indication that he thought that historians would ever use them. They are hardly the calculated utterances of a president aware that he is being recorded for posterity. The Kennedys destroyed some of these tapes before they were given to the Kennedy Presidential Library; others probably would have been destroyed if Kennedy’s secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, had not secreted them away. I transcribed many of these tapes. In a few places where I was not sure of the speaker, I asked Myer Feldman and Sheldon Stern to listen and to give their best judgments.

At the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, I would especially like to thank Megan F. Desnoyers, who, during her tenure as the acting archivist, performed splendid service to the American public. Allan Goodrich and his associate in the audiovisual division, James Hill, do an exemplary job. In the library itself, Maura Porter, June Payne, and Steve Plotkin have unfailingly helped to answer my endless questions. My stays in Boston were always a pleasure thanks in part to Skip Brandt, the security director at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel. As always, Kenneth Norwick, my literary attorney, offered astute advice.

My agent, Joy Harris, is legendary for her commitment to her authors. In taking this book to William Morrow, she brought me into contact with the best team of professionals with whom I have ever worked. Paul Bresnick originally acquired the book before his early retirement. Meaghan Dowling gave the manuscript a deeply nuanced, sensitive edit, only one of the many contributions she made to this project. Her assistant, Kelli Martin, is a backup catcher whom the New York Mets should consider signing. Sharyn Rosenblum is a sterling publicist who daily performs at least one miracle for a William Morrow author. Other members of the William Morrow team that I would like to thank include its publisher, Michael Morrison, Lisa Gallagher and Libby Jordan in marketing, Brenda Segel and Michele Corallo in sub rights, Cindy Buck and Andrea Molitor in copyediting, and Jim Fox in legal, with whom I am working for the third time.

Mike Foster is now a teacher and librarian and did not work for me full-time, as he did on
The Kennedy Women,
but he was still highly helpful. Don Spencer is now working in television, but he has continued to transcribe all my interviews. I could not have written this book in the time I did without Zootsoftware, and I want to thank Tom Davis, the program’s inventor, for his support.

I must mention my daughter, Daniela, whose valuable work as a teacher helps to inspire me, and my two brothers, Edward and Robert. Many times these past years I have thought that you do not have to be a Kennedy man to have great and true brothers. I want to thank Vesna Obraduvic Learner, my wife, last of all. Vesna’s contributions are immeasurable. She helps me in the research and is forever running out to the library, tracking down some fact or another. She saves me from innumerable errors, the least of which would have appeared in the pages of my books. By rights, I should dedicate every word that I write to her, and in a way, I do.

About the Author

L
AURENCE
L
EAMER
is the author of nine books, including the
New York Times
bestseller
The Kennedy Women
. He has written for numerous publications, including
Harper’s, Playboy, The New Republic, New York, Washingtonian
, and the
New York Times Magazine
. He lives in Washington, D.C., and Palm Beach, Florida.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

For audio excerpts of John F. Kennedy’s secret tapes, speeches, and other archive materials go to www.kennedymen.com.

ALSO BY LAURENCE LEAMER

Three Chords and the Truth: Hope and Heartbreak and Changing Fortunes in Nashville

The Kennedy Women: The Saga of an American Family

King of the Night: The Life of Johnny Carson

As Time Goes By: The Life of Ingrid Bergman

Make-Believe: The Story of Nancy and Ronald Reagan

Ascent: The Spiritual and Physical Quest of Willi Unsoeld

Assignment: A Novel

Playing for Keeps: In Washington

The Paper Revolutionaries:
The Rise of the Underground Press

Copyright

THE KENNEDY MEN: 1901–1963. Copyright © 2001 by Laurence Leamer.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition © OCTOBER 2010 ISBN: 978-0-062-03988-0

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Leamer, Laurence.
The Kennedy men : 1901–1963 / Laurence Leamer.
    p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-688-16315-7
1. Kennedy, Joseph P. (Joseph Patrick), 1888–1969. 2. Kennedy, Joseph P. (Joseph Patrick), 1888–1969—Family. 3. Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917–1963. 4. Kennedy, family. 5. Politicians—United States—Biography. 6. Men—United States—Biography. I. Title.

E748.K376L43      2001
973.9′092—dc21
[B]       2001031689

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