The Kennedy Men: 1901-1963 [Hardcover]

Laurence Leamer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 16, 2001

In this triumphant new work already hailed as a powerful American epic, Laurence Leamer chronicles the Kennedy men and their struggle to create the most powerful family in the United States. The Kennedy Men is the first volume in a multi-generational history that will forever change the way America views its most famous family. Beginning in 1901 with twelve-year-old Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. delivering hats to Boston's social elite and ending in 1963 with the assassination of his son, President John F. Kennedy, Leamer seamlessly unites the complex strands of their economic, political, and social rise.

This magnificent new volume is based on four years of interviews with Kennedy insiders and experts, as well as in-depth research including unprecedented new sources and materials: the private archives of JFK's longtime secretary Evelyn Lincoln, secret tapes JFK recorded in the Oval Office, revealing letters from the president's doctors, Rose Kennedy's never-before-heard interview tapes, and interviews with CIA operatives and Kennedy family members.

Throughout, The Kennedy Men brings to life five bold, ambitious men. The Kennedy patriarch, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., was one of the richest, strongest men in America's history. His firstborn son, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., was the heir apparent, a handsome, gregarious youth who died a hero's death. John F. Kennedy picked up his brother's fallen mantle and carried it all the way to the White House. Leamer details the heartbreaking story of President Kennedy's health and how it affected not only him, but also America and the world. Robert F. Kennedy, his brother's liege, was an attorney general of unprecedented power, fighting both organized crime and a secret war against Castro. Edward M. Kennedy, the youngest of that generation of Kennedy men, was a fun-loving athlete who reluctantly headed up the hard road to power.

Combining powerful dramatic narrative with impeccably researched detail, Leamer illuminates the Kennedys' aspirations and love of family, their accomplishments and failures, their heroism and frailty, their loves and passions, and their patriotism and selfishness. Filled with startling revelations from headline-making stories of great events within the Oval Office such as the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis to the secret untold tales of their wives and lovers-the story of the Kennedy men is here in all its triumph and tragedy. It is a spellbinding personal history of individuals and a journey of character through time told by a brilliant, masterful writer.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Journalist Leamer (The Kennedy Women) provides a stirring narrative of the Kennedy men but comes up short as regards analysis of the byzantine motivations, complex psychology and persistent moral failures that lie behind the events he otherwise describes so well. Putting his own spin on well-known anecdotes (including all the most popular tales from so many other books that document Joe Sr.'s rise in business and politics, his failure to recognize the menace of Hitler and his sponsorship of his children's careers) Leamer steadfastly refuses to shed a critical light on the proclivities of Kennedy pŠre. The author soft-pedals, for example, the Kennedy partriarch's well-documented anti-Semitism. The same lack of critical analysis despite Leamer's access to never-before available materials constitutes a considerable flaw throughout the book. Although offering engaging and fast-moving accounts of such events as Joe Jr.'s death and Jack's rise in politics through means both fair and foul, Leamer consistently refrains from considering the ethical implications of his stories, or the evident shortcomings in the character of more than one Kennedy. He seems, for example, to step back in awe when considering the brilliance and audacity of the Kennedys' stealing Cook County and therefore the election during the 1960 presidential race. In the final analysis, Leamer is a fan, idealizing his subjects. The result is a good read, though not necessarily a balanced history. Leamer's book is the first of a projected two-volume set. 32 pages b&w photos not seen by PW. Agent, Joy Harris. (Oct. 16) Forecast: The Kennedy Women sold 350,000 copies, and this new book will probably be the biggest Kennedy book in a big Kennedy season; it's a BOMC main selection. Leamer will be on the Today show on Oct. 17, and there will be a cover story in USA Weekend, a 15-city TV satellite tour and a 15-city radio campaign.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

While this is a work of political and family history, as any Kennedy book must be, it is best described as an extended character study of Joseph Kennedy and his sons, Joseph Jr., John, Robert, and Edward. It is not a celebration of triumphs or an undraping of frailties but instead offers much of both in an evenhanded narrative of courage, meanness, ambition, hypocrisy, patriotism, anti-Semitism, duty, and wantonness. Few tales can be more familiar, yet the writing is always tight and often graceful. How the men of this family lived their lives both publicly and privately is the real subject of this book, even as the cinema of Leamer's plot projects scenes featuring the likes of Roosevelt, King, Monroe, Castro, and Nixon. Although Leamer aims primarily at a general audience, scholars will take note of his considerable primary research, in printed and recorded material, and dozens of his own interviews. Worthy of being placed on the same shelf with Doris Kearns Goodwin's The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, this book follows Leamer's The Kennedy Women and precedes a planned second volume. For all libraries.
- Robert F. Nardini, Chichester, NH
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 896 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1st edition (October 16, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688163157
• ISBN-13: 978-0688163150
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,482,960 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Kennedy Men...Both of them., January 26, 2002

By 

Charles P. Frank (Walden, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Kennedy Men: 1901-1963 (Hardcover)

If you want to read about Jack Kennedy and his dad, with a little more information about Joe Jr., then this is a book for you. Mr. Leamer never delivers the promise his title suggests. This is not to say the book fails to be interesting, but it paints a rather incomplete picture of the Kennedy history. He spends a great deal of time on Joe Sr, and goes through a fairly deep analysis of the relationship between Joe Jr. and John, but we se only fleeting glimpses of Ted as he runs for senate. We only see detail on Bobby when he becomes his brothers AG. We never see the depth of information on Bobby, who played such a significant part in JFK's life.

The book also fails to give a complete picture of any of the men by failing to explaing the relationship that occurred with Rose. We are shown that she tolerated her husband's indiscretions, but we see hardly any interplay with her sons at all. Any decent psychologist will tell you that you can't understand a man without understanding his relationship with his mother. We never see it at all.

Although I found the information delivered to be interesting, I also found it to be quite one-sided, as though it had been written by a strong fan. It gave a good amount of information into the events the Kennedy men lived (and died) through, yet left out much of the day to day information that would have filled out the image. Bottom line; interesting read, but not a detailed analysis...not by a long shot.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Refreshing Change From the "Kennedy Myths", June 30, 2003

By 

givbatam3 "givbatam3" (REHOVOT Israel) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Kennedy Men: 1901-1963 (Hardcover)

In the years since John F Kennedy was elected President two kinds of "Kennedy Myths" have developed. The positive one portrays John, Robert and Ted Kennedy as liberal "saints" committed to a progressive revolution in America. The negative one shows the Kennedys to be rapacious libertines who throw off all social conventions in their personal and political lives. Leamer's book transcends these over-simplistic views and covers the lives of patriarch Joseph P Kennedy and his four sons, bringing out the complexity of this unique group of people.

Those who hold a negative view of the Kennedys will find much material to confirm their beliefs. In truth, Joe Kennedy seems to be a man with almost no redeeming virtues, a virulent anti-Semite and pro-Nazi, greedy and miserly, manipulative man. The second generation of Kennedys learned not to ask where the family's money came from. Yet Joe Kennedy went on to implement needed reforms in the Security and Exchange commission to which he was appointed, supported the progressive FDR and became the most powerful Catholic in the US.

Similarly, JFK went on to be an incredibly reckless philanderer who possibly compromised the very security of the US with liasons with women involved with organized crime and possibly even East German intelligence, but at the same time, he inspired young people to volunteer for the Peace Corps and set American on course to landing on the Moon. RFK goes to work for family friend Senator Joe McCarthy and works with the Mafia in order to destablize Castro's regime in Cuba, but then also works vigorously against the same Mafia and institutionalized racial discrimination (and somehow escapes the taint of his association with McCarthy).

Leamer show that JFK and RFK were definitely not "soft liberals". JFK was the best friend the "military-industrial complex" ever had, pouring unprecedented amounts of money into defense and space projects. They supported a very tough anti-Communist policy in Cuba and Vietnam which almost led to nuclear war and did lead to the quagmire in Southeast Asia. One important point about the book is that Leamer does not demonize various "bad guys" from the positive Kennedy Myth, such as General Curtis Lemay and other military men from the Cuban Missile Crisis, FBI Director J Edgar Hoover who was friendly for many years with Joe Kennedy and showed great forebearance with the many indiscretions of his sons and had good reason to be concerned with JFK's behavior and finally Lyndon Johnson who loyally served the Kennedy Administration and yet was treated with contempt by RFK and many of JFK's advisors (although not by JFK himself).

Finally, the author has come to the same conclusion that other investigators have arrived at regarding JFK's assassination, namely, that it is very likely that the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald was motivated, either with or without the knowledge of agents of Fidel Castro, to kill Kennedy in revenge for the Kennedys' attempt to kill him.

It is not easy to cover the lives of five different men in a singel book, and much had to be left out, but as an introduction to this remarkable tribe of American aristocracy, this book is indispensable.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New and Shocking Information about the Kennedys, October 24, 2001

By 

William (Raleigh, North Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Kennedy Men: 1901-1963 (Hardcover)

When the next Kennedy tragedy or triumph occurs, make sure this book "The Kennedy Men" is nearby, because it anticipates today what will probably become headlines tomorrow. The author Laurence Leamer tells the real truth about the accomplishments and the failures of the Kennedy family and their charismatic male leaders. This is an accurate and well-researched account of the power-driven Kennedy men, beginning with the Patriach, Joe Kennedy whose leachery and treachery in business, politics, and sex has never been more accurately researched than in this work. Leamer exposes new, shocking and valuable information about John F. Kennedy, his Presidency, and his brothers Joe Jr.,Bobby and Ted. We learn that JFK ordered napalm to be dropped on Cuban citizens during the Bay of Pigs invasion. Few Americans know how extensively JFK taped personal and telephone conversations until Leamer describes them in detail the conversations. This book documents how sorely afflicted JFK was by medication, injury, and emotional stress. By the time the bullets strike JFK in Dallas, the reader sighs with relief that the President is finally out of lifelong physical pain and severe emotional stress, and sexual dysfunction. Leamer shows the bad and the good in the Kennedy clan, much of it unreported or uninterpreted before. Secret files from the CIA, FBI, and Secret Service files are revealed in this book to document both the acheivements and glory of Camelot. Every glamorous accomplishment and detail about JFK, Jackie and Kennedy family members is well researched in these pages, just as are the dirty little secrets of petty jealousies and passions that racked the Kennedy men as they live out their spectacular lives of high drama as America's unofficial royal family. Open this book to any page and be hooked into one of the best told and most fully researched biographical histories about the Kennedy men you can find. You will need it for tomorrow's headlines!