Customer Reviews

The Best Year of Their Lives: Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon in 1948: Learning the Secrets of Power

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I should have known better. The last book I read that had a title, subtitle, and sub-subtitle confused me and that seems to have happened again. Morrow offers three titles, labels, or come ons: "The best years of their lives," "Learning the secrets of power," and "Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon in 1948." I'm still not sure which one is the `real' title. The three concepts each had promise. These are three American icons, both loved and despised. The year - 1948 - happened to be a pivotal year, not just for these three, but also for the rest of America. The hot war was cold, and the cold was getting hot, and the Baby Boom was booming. Opportunity and optimism seemed unlimited, especially to young, power hungry politicians like Nixon, Johnson and Kennedy.

The disappointment I felt was that none of the promises implied in the three labels for the book earned much attention from the author. Morrow tells us more about Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss than Richard Nixon, about George Smathers and Joe Kennedy than Jack Kennedy, and Coke Stevenson and Lady Bird rather than Lyndon Johnson. If these three presidents of the future learned any secrets of power in 1948, the secrets remain undiscovered by me. Maybe I'm not reading well enough into the analysis. Morrow waxes poetic about eerie parallels in lives, like Lana Turner and Richard Nixon, notes the impact of all the dead, diseased and disturbed relatives and their effects on the three main characters, and offers an encyclopedia of armchair psychoanalysis and cultural sidebars, mixing religion, crucifixion complexes, politics, Hollywood, and Albert Kinsey. Theories, not secrets.

It is not even clear how -if at all - that 1948 was the best year of each man's life. The attempt to link these three lives to the Hollywood film reminded me that 1948 was the best year of "our" lives, so I guess all Americans had a pretty good year in 1948, especially war veterans. But Johnson was not much of a veteran (Johnson's Silver Star makes John Kerry's Purple Hearts look like Medals of Honor) and Kennedy, well Morrow acknowledges that the PT-109 story was more of a court martial offense than the makings of a heroic legend. Even Nixon was more of a Mr. Roberts than any battle-scarred veteran. These men had more to be embarrassed about than proud when it comes to war service, but politics makes legends out of molehills and Morrow provides us with three moles. Morrow's tangential summary description of the role, character and accomplishments of George Marshall makes these three men look like the three blind mice.

Reading on, looking for integration or even a consistent narrative, the pages slipped away, leaving me scratching my head. When a 300-page book has only four chapters, maybe that should have been a sign. The stories jump all around, often into Jack Kennedy's sex life and his coarse way of rationalizing his need for sex, and Morrow seems to obsess about dark secrets, homosexuality, suicide, drunkenness and bankruptcy. These may be secrets a lot of people would like to keep a secret, but they don't tell me anything about "the secrets of power."

Stephen Ambrose (Nixon), Thomas Reeves (Kennedy) and Robert Caro (Johnson) are much better chroniclers of the more complete, factual, historic versions of the lives of thee important figures, including 1948.

As reading the other reviews shows you, Morrow's style is polarizing. His authoritative voice and pedantic vocabulary borders on pomposity in my opinion, and he has a curious obsession with not only movies but all 3 men's libido (or lack thereof). However, I can see how his bold approach appeals to some. In my mind the book compares unfavorably to Theodore White's In Search of History (White was in the middle of what he described and crafted a far more readable book.)

This book starts with a great premise -- three future Presidents at a common turning point in their lives, 1948. I bought this book thinking it was history. But I soon discovered that the occasional random historical nugget was buried among piles and piles of pretentious psychobabble, strained metaphors, obscure pop culture references, and delusions of literary grandeur. I'm not sure what's more bizarre -- the discussion of Nixon's sex life, or the pages and pages exploring the similarities between Nixon and Lana Turner.

A history of these three presidents in 1948 would make a great book. Maybe someday someone will actually write it.

This fascinating book chronicles a pivotal year in the lives of three ambitious politicians each of whom became President. In 1948, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon were all on the rise as young congressmen who according to author Lance Morrow, went to great pains - physically, psychologically and morally - to ensure their place on the American political scene. Like David Halberstam who wrote the classic "The Best and the Brightest", journalist Lance Morrow is able to shape a cohesive chapter of American history through seemingly unrelated events and brings a present-day relevance to what he writes.

LBJ won the U.S. senate seat for Texas by a highly suspicious 87 late-counted votes over the more popular Coke Stevenson. In one of the bellwether events of Communist witch-hunting, Nixon used the headline-grabbing Alger Hiss case as a springboard for national prominence, and it indeed led to him to become Eisenhower's running-mate in 1952. And JFK, despite the image of youthful vigor, was dealing with the death of his glamorous sister "Kick" (Kathleen) and hiding the debilitating effects of Addison's disease. Morrow does a superb job intertwining these three men by focusing on the secrets each kept to move to the next level of political ascendancy. Why this takes on a greater relevance is what the year 1948 represents in American history - the redefining period between the end of WWII and the crystallization of the Cold War. Many held secrets far larger in scope than these three. After all, the Cold War was all about Communist infiltration within the U.S. government, concealed knowledge courtesy of informers under the guise of friends, clandestine acts of espionage and who would end up detonating the A-bomb. That's why the secrets held by LBJ, JFK and Nixon seem so indicative of the prevalent behavior - LBJ did anything, no matter how unscrupulous, to take attention off the controversial votes that sent him off to the Senate; Nixon destroyed civil liberties and took witch-hunting to a new level with his obsessive pursuit of Hiss and Whittaker Chambers; and JFK went to great lengths to hide his medical condition knowing he would never otherwise have a chance to become President. Each drama turned on secrets.

What Morrow does best is show how the rather amoral behavior of each shaped each of their destinies and how each was challenged later on when Vietnam brought down LBJ and Watergate did the same for Nixon. Vietnam almost proved to be JFK's undoing, though we'll never know as his life was cut short in Dallas. Each was not so much into breaking rules as much as they saw them as irrelevant to them. Their shared priority was in creating their legacies no matter the cost. 1948 saw many more prominent turning points - Gandhi's assassination, the birth of Israel, the Kinsey Report was published - but this comprehensive history book really shows how the next generation of leaders were formed and ultimately damaged by the decisions they made at that critical juncture. Strongly recommended.

I thought Mr. Morrow was a Senior Editor of Time, not the National Enquirer. This is an abysmal attempt to summarize and extrapolate on Caro's Years of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Morriss' Years of Richard Nixon, and most especially Garry Wills' Nixon Agonistes. Wills especially should sue Morrow for impersonation.

Almost 300 pages of nothing - including several pages wasted on the camparison of Nixon to Lana Turner (I still cannot make the connection). Morrow rambles on endlessly about minor details of the 3 main characters lives - and most of it is BS. This book was horrible - no wonder why it was in the discount section of the bookstore. What a waste !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Forget what "overblown silliness" says below. Lance Morrow's 1948 is one of the freshest, most insightful pieces of popular history to come around in ages. In looking at both the lives of JFK, LBJ, and Nixon in 1948 and the historical significance of that year for the United States as she really came into her own in the post-war world, Morrow gives an incredible insight both into the lives of the respective politicians, and the country itself.

What is most interesting, though, is that underlying all the post-war rah-rah optimism, Morrow captures a current of worry, of anxiety, and of moral unease: the US won World War II, Morrow suggests, but also lost a certain innocence in the process. New technologies (atom bombs, television) and a new breed of politician all came on the scene in this critical year, and Morrow's book captures it brilliantly.

This book is a must-read for anyone who is interested in modern American history, and how we became what we are today.

Johnson & Nixon. The title, taken from the best movie of 1946 is apt. The cold war still persisted in the years they collectively served 1961-74, as it did in 1948 with the Soviets. Lance Morrow approaches his subjects in several different ways. He delves into their childhood which was the great depression. JFK was born to a very well to do family on the verge of becoming very rich. He actually never had to work hard physically. Privledge opened doors as his father held government positions before the war. Growing up he was a very sickly child & not believed to live long. He inherited his father promiscuity & competitive sprit. Nixon childhood was shadowed by an overbearing but loving mother, a Quacker, who would withhold affection from young Richard as she saw fit. He experienced the death of two younger brothers & a hard scrabble poor existence. His father was a hardworking man but basically a loser. Little of LBJ early years is revealed except that they were poor. His father was a hard drinker who had lost all of the Texas farmland the family had once owned. LBJ lived a childhood with his family basically always in debt. As he grew JFK social life picked up. Sexual recklessness seemed to be a Kennedy trait. Except perhaps for Pat, Nixon's sex life was not much of factor. Politics was his all cosuming passion. LBJ was a pig. His toilet habits revealed an arrested sexual development. Gentlemen don't refer to their wives as "the best lay in Texas". Morrow even takes a dip into the Seven Deadly Sins pool. JFK, lust but couragous. LBJ, avarice but generous. Nixon, anger but diligence. JFK won his congressional seat in 1948. He might have lost had it been revealed he was near death much of the year. That was hidden from the voters. LBJ won his Senate seat that year by stuffing the ballot boxes in a run-off that apparently his opponent had won. He became Senator Johnson by a ridiculously small margin. He was known as "Landslide Lyndon". It was a most important year for Congressman Nixon, as he was rooting out Communists. The book spends considerable time on Congressional hearings involving the Whitaker Chambers/Alger Hiss case. Nixon was very involved in the questioning & made a national name for himself. Alas, 26 years later they had all come to grief. In 1973, LBJ died a broken man. His handling of the Vietnam War ruined him politically. Nixon was run out of the White House two years early by the Watergate scandal. JFK suffered no such fate, but was tragically murdered. This book does not cover the years after 1948. Much of this had been published previously but Morrow brought it together in an enjoyable way.

If you want to read about what caused "the great degringolade of Watergate" according to Lance Morrow, this is the book for you. If you want to actually read a fact-based history, stay away.

Wow! I really expected more out of this book. Anyone who knows the slightest thing about the three men already knew the facts that were published here. I expected the stories to be interwoven in an interesting manner or at least some new information presented to us. In this book, you get neither. Save some time and get three different books about these presidents and their fascinating rises to the top spot in U.S. politics.