Customer Reviews

In Love With Night: The American Romance With Robert Kennedy

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

As a long-time admirer of Robert Kennedy, I have often posed myself the question offered by author Steel as the central issue of this fascinating new book: what is it about Bobby that makes us cling to him - his image, his loss - so many years after the assasination? Ronald Steel comes as close as any scholar to answering this question and showing why it is an issue at the heart of who we are as Americans at the end of the 20th Century. In this too-brief book Steel reviews through secondary sources the major events of Kennedy's life. We go through once again the anguish of JFK's death and its heart-wrenching impact on Bobby and the searing promise of his last campaign. Steel is balanced, sympathetic, eloquent but candid and not overly emotional. An excellent book all around, one that reveals as much about our needs as Americans as it does about the Bobby that we lost.

The book is one of a few by authors who manage to thoughtfully take a look at the reality of the Kennedys. The journalism community, and to a lesser but significant extent the publishing community, tend to look at the Kennedys through the lens of hagiography. That JFK and RFK inspired intense emotional admiration among a large part of our population is creditworthy. But the speak-no-evil atmosphere that the admirers have perpetrated since the assassinations has prevented a discourse from which we can learn the lessons of history. This book is a courageous step toward breaking the collective trance.

This book doesn't even deserve one star. It's nothing more than a forum for the author to vent his apparent personal hostilities toward two great men, JFK and RFK, with whom he obviouly has an ax to grind. No one can realtically say that JFK and RFK were perfect (who among us is?), or that the world would have been a more perfect place had they lived. They, like the rest of us, were human beings, with flaws and weaknesses. However, the discussion in this book is totally one-sided and, even worse, is unsupported by even a modicum of evidence. The author supports his comments mostly through quotations taken out of context. He destroys any credibility he might have had, by making such ludicrous propositions as that JFK's posthumous "image" derived primarily from his widow's decision to pattern his funeral after Lincoln's. I am always interested in an objective, well-balanced and well-researched study of a deceased historical figure. The author of this book missed an opportunity to dod so here. This book--like such other trash as "JFK, Reckless Youth" and "A Question of Character," -- takes the coward's way out by kicking as much dirt as possible on the graves of dead men who can't answer back. Such books are litle more than supermarket tabloids masquerading as "scholarly works." Shameful.

I'm all for a book that shows all sides to a historical figure's personality and life, good and bad. This book is obviously very slanted against Bobby Kennedy. Yes, Bobby Kennedy had his faults. Who doesn't? I find it rather sad that the author felt that there had to be an ulterior motive for everything Bobby did. To even go as far as to suggest that Bobby delibrately capitalized off of his brother's death is sick! He was devestated by his brother's death!

I don't understand his premise for the book at all. Since when is America in love with Robert Kennedy? What overly positive view do we have of him? I hardly ever hear anything about Robert Kennedy, who he was, what he stood for and what he did! When I do, it's usually negative. I've always felt that he's the forgotten Kennedy. This book felt to me like an attempt to try and sway opinion about Bobby Kennedy to the author's. The few facts that the author got wrong make me question all his "facts." If you want an unbiased, thoroughly researched book about Robert Kennedy, read 'Brother Protector' by James Hilty. It only covers Bobby's life until JFK's death. The book on the last part of his life is due out soon (hopefully).

Why do people seem to find it necessary to focus on the dark aspects of a person? I think that's an important question to ask of this book. Steel seems only interested in deconstructing Bobby Kennedy. No consideration is paid to the positive parts (of which there are many) of the man and his legacy. I felt that Steel was merely writing the book to sound clever or different. I really didn't see much substance.

Most, if not all of the Bobby Kennedy legend goes back to Kennedy's brief run at the presidency and assassination by Sirhan Sirhan. Since that time he has been memorialized not for what he accomplished (precious little, in his time in government) but rather for the perceived promise of his candidacy.

But the real Bobby Kennedy was very different from the legend. Those old enough to actually remember his tenure as Attorney General are in their 50s and older, and even those in their 40s today were only in their early teens when he was killed.

Like his older brothers, Bobby died young enough and left little anough of an actual public record that he has been held up as an icon of liberalism- a philosophy he really had little patience for. His first real job in Washington was as an aide to Joseph McCarthy, after all- a task he pursued with zeal. It is a measure of the difference between the real and the actual Bobby Kennedy that his strongest supporters have little to cite in his defense in the way of actual accomplishments; his behavior throughout his career paints a picture very different from the legend.

Some may percieve this book as mean spirited, and perhaps it does go a bit overboard in its criticism- oddly enough, from the extreme left, not the right- but this book is the first real historical treatment of the actual political life of Bobby Kennedy, and as such fill a real void in the history of the politics of the 1950s and 1960s.

No person is without fault and Robert Kennedy was no exception. But, Steel's analysis takes this fact too far, nearly villifying Kennedy while arguing that Bobby, the great man and idealist, was only a myth. He portrays a weak man obsessed with winning power and protecting the family name. His Bobby is a political animal. His actions are portrayed as anything but genuine and used only to obtain his goals. We have idealized Bobby Kennedy, but Steel's conviction that all we admire in him is merely myth lacks thoughtfulness. The only purpose I see in the book is an attempt to diminish the reader's admiration of Kennedy, or to increase his disdain. The author uses facts and quotes to his own purpose, not always putting them in proper context. This forces the reader to question much of what is written in the book.

The purpose of this book is evidently to tarnish and destroy the
memory and legacy of Bobby Kennedy. It is far too negative, picking away at his image with every chapter. It is too harsh in its analysis of RFK, insinuating that all of his deeds and actions had selfish, ulterior motives behind them, and even goes so far as to refer to his followers during his presidential campaign as "animals," something I found to be totally inexcusable. My question is what was the point in writing this book in the first place? No, Bobby Kennedy was not a perfect man, but he was a good man. After reading this book, you might find yourself feeling displeased, or downright angry. Save yourself the hassle- go read a better book about RFK.

I feel the author did a first rate job in presenting the complex personality of Robert Kennedy to the reader. Bobby's father always felt that finishing first was paramount. If you finish second in anything, you might as well finish last. When Brother John was elected president Bobby considered himself to be a deputy president. After John's assassination, Bobby not only felt abandoned, but to think his enemy, Lyndon Johnson, now had the gall to be in his brother's place festered within him. Bobby accepted the Warren Commission's belief of the assassination because he felt Jack's image would be shattered if an investigation dug too deeply which may have uncovered the CIA's efforts to kill Castro and Jack's sharing a mistress with a Mafia leader. Bobby also felt a tremendous amount of guilt because he felt Jack's death to be retribution for his (Bobby's) harrassment of the Mafia. Bobby had a hateful side which he showed to Lyndon Johnson and Senator Eugene McCarthy and a compassionate side which he demonstrated to the downtrowden. As other Kennedys in more recent years Bobby took unnecessary risks, but as he said, "I really don't care about anything happening to me. This really isn't such a happy existence, is it?" The author doesn't believe the 1960's would have been any different had the Kennedys lived. What became Lyndon Johnson's war would have been Jack Kennedy's war. In addition, it was no sure thing that Bobby Kennedy would have been elected president had he lived. Lyndon Johnson accomplished more in the area of civil rights than either of the Kennedys would have pushed for. He, like his brother, had charisma, and we look upon both more highly than if they had lived. As poet A.E. Houseman wrote, in "To An Athlete Dying Young", "Smart lad to slip betimes away from fields where glory does not stay, and early though the laurel grows it withers quicker than the rose...Now you will not swell the rout of lads that wore their honors out. Runners whom renown outran and the name died before the man." Buy the book. It belongs in your bookcase.

The book starts off by wanting to expose the myth behind the legend of RFK. The author plays him self off as someone presenting the truth...as if its Watergate, the clinton scandal...or Iran Contra.


I wanted to read about a Bobby that was NOT what most people thought about him. This book is critical, but reads like a movie that promises to have a good plot, but ends up with so many contadictions and plot holes, you feel disappointed.

It becomes more and more apparent that the author is anti-Kennedy from the start, as opposed to a non-bias writer laying out facts.

Steel's general work has another book or two dispelling the Kennedys.

It may be true that they were "overrated" or perhaps "corrupt", but the author is as credible as James Frey and "a Million little pieces".

I am not going to be a Kennedy liberal tree hugger and give this book a bad review without any proof.



In the first chapter, he says Kennedy never was involved in any important decisions...then he goes and mentions the Cuban Missile Crisis, the drafting of the Civil rights bill, and Kennedy's ruthless investigations into the mafia.

Steel uses secondary sources, often taken out of context, and uses them to paint an ugly picture of Bobby.

First, he says Bobby was a cold hearted ruthless man who supported McCarthytism, architected Vietnam, was indifferent to Civil Rights, and whose prosecutions of the mafia were upsetting civil libertarians...
then he says Bobby was a weak man.

He plays Bobby's toughness during the 50s and early 60s as "anti-liberal" and "ugly".
Whereas, Evan Thomas once called Bobby the greatest Attorney General this country has ever seen.

For every Good deed Bobby did, Steel offers a political and kniving reason for it...and then contradicts himself.
For example:
1)He says Bobby went against the war to oppose Johnson and appease the anti-war crowd and gain political support...he no later than a few sentences says the war had 70% support at the time...

Why would Bobby go against Vietnam for political gains, if the majority of Americans supported it at THE TIME???

2) He would say that Bobby supported blacks and hispanics for purley politcial and electorial reasons...then Steel accounts how his support was disliked by a large portion of Americans and distanced Kennedy from White working class people...
If Kennedy was such a political charlatan, why support an issue that would harm your political credibility??


3)Steel then cites how kennedy was not always a supporter of Civil Rights but did so for the black vote. For example, they said he had Martin Luther King jr released from jail to get the black vote...THEN STEEL writes that doing so made him unpopular with whites...that doesnt seem like political intelligence.

4) Steel writes that Bobby created the myth that JFk never intended tostay in Vietnam and it was Johnson's war.

Actually, 3 years after this book was written Robert McNamara (secretary of Defense) reveals audio tapes and conversations between him and LBJ. LBJ mentions how upset he was at how Kennedy wanted to remove troops from Veitnam. Also, it has been cited that Kennedy and Johnson heavily disagreed over Vietnam, since Johnson felt it was imperative to stay and fight.

SO...Bobby wasnt lying that JFK was planning a pull out, nor was he appeasing the only 30% of America when he went against the war.

5) He attacks Kennedy for being a lap dog for McCarthy. True he was, but so were millions of Americans who beleived that Communists were in our society...including our beloved Ronald Reagan.


These misguided contradictions are then used to make "ASSUMPTIONS" into Kennedy's persona that he didnt care about civil rights, or the poor, or his country, rather he was a lap dog for his brother and wanted to savor all the attention he could based off his brother's legend.



All these assumptions come from secondary sources and there is not ONE, not ONE from civil rights leaders, or anyone who would say anything good about Kennedy, since these ideas would neutralize anything Steel was writing, thus negating his so called "expose".


The Book does highlight a darker side of Bobby kennedy but then uses that dark side to taint every decent thing the man did.


If you're looking for an unbias and straightforward look of RFK, dont read this book.


Its like watching "Star Wars" to better understand space exploration, sadly this book does NOT deliver any of its clear views of RFK