Jim Lehrer (1934–2020)

Tension City by the man himself, Jim Lehrer, gives us a true insider's look at the U.S. Presidential debates for the past half-century. Watching and listening to candidates going 1-on-1 against each other, the average voter can appreciate that it's not just where a candidate stands on issues, but how that candidate presents the arguments. So much of what makes a good president, or an extraordinary leader in other words, can be gleaned from a live debate. Nonsense you say? I say all the show more necessary information is right there in the presentation. Taking in both the verbal and non-verbal cues, one can get a sense of a candidate's future potential.

As a bonus if you happen to listen to the audiobook, Jim Lehrer narrates and 90% of the presidential quotes come directly from the live debates or from follow-up interviews with the candidates. Hearing a candidate's own voice is a historical treat, one that's impossible from the book alone. show less

A secret service officer charged with keeping President Kennedy safe during the Dallas trip blames himself for the president's death there -- has a complete breakdown in the aftermath of the assassination. No amount of therapy or even electric shock treatment can shake him from his belief that he killed Kennedy by not doing his job. His daughter searches out a reporter who was present that day, hoping he can somehow help her father.
What if....? That's the question Jim Lehrer repeats in this show more novel. And about 100 pages into it I began to wonder why the novel wasn't working -- what if, I wondered, he had written this from the secret service officer's daughter's point of view rather than the reporter's? Because it seems to me that the story lacks energy, I always felt removed from it, and it might be because the tale is filtered, we get it third hand, through the reporter who hears it from the daughter. What if -- we hear it from the daughter directly, the horror and sorrow she feels as she watches her father disintegrate? What Lehrer gives us is her account as she and the reporter sit in a cafe or on a park bench. It's a sad story certainly, but it doesn't touch me as it might have. Also, Lehrer wants us to worry along with the reporter whether he will honor his promise to the daughter that the story is off the record. Several times he assures others he will keep the secret, but Lehrer then tells us he "half-lied." The third or fifth time he repeats that I wanted to shout "I get it! He's conflicted, this story could be his big break." But that could have been told through the daughter's eyes, too, and more effectively, as she worries he might spill the man's private horror.
And then the reporter finally meets the former secret service man. What happens after that, as he attempts to jolt the poor man out of his PTSD, is just bizarre.
What if Jim Lehrer had taken more time and care in writing this novel? What if he had had a clearer understanding of whose story this really is? What if? show less

With the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination this past month, I’ve heard many, many theories, personal stories, “What If’s?” One that grabbed my attention was a radio interview with Jim Lehrer…because his was a personal story (he was working at a Dallas newspaper that fateful day) combined with a “what if”. What if the bubble top HAD been on the car the president was riding in that day?

“Top Down” does a good job exploring the personal reactions of a Secret Service show more agent who is consumed with guilt about his part in that horrible day. How a seemingly minor decision may or may not have been a factor in what happened to the president – and then to the country. Agent Van Walters cannot let go of his fateful decision to have the top removed from JFK’s convertible, and starts to fall apart. Reporter Jack Gilmore, whose question about the top may have led to the decision, is enlisted by Van’s daughter to help.

“And so, I, too, became one of the many people connected to the Kennedy Texas trip who were plagued by varying levels of what-if guilt. A guilt that would stay with us forever.”

A guilt that then has an effect on his daughter and his wife. “I’m a ricochet in this little family drama, Jack. That’s what I am. The shrapnel hit Van front and center and then glanced off and came right at me.”

The book doesn’t go down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole or look at any other possible outcomes had Kennedy lived, but it does do a good job of looking at the impact of that day on people who may not have been considered before. A reporter asks a Secret Service agent a seemingly innocuous question…and possibly changed history.

“Yes, one man really did fire three rifle shots out a Dallas window in a few seconds and change the course of history – forever. For me, the fragility of what we all come to think of as order and normality has been the permanent lesson of the Kennedy assassination. Since that awful day we’ve known we are always only three shots away from chaos.”

Chaos as a country and as a society…and for those who will relive that day over and over again…and ask, “What if?” show less

I enjoyed this book. I thought the mental decline of the father and mother was really well written. Although this is fiction, the author was at Love Field on that fateful day. The whole decline of the family was so devastating to read. The Kennedy assassination has been written to death, and although this novel deals with that, it is a totally different angle. Could Kennedy has been saved with the use of the "bubble top?" That is the question that begs to be answered in this novel.