J. Randy Taraborrelli

I hadn’t read one of these “tell all” biographies by Randy Taraborrelli before. It was great escapist fare loaded with brilliantly researched behind the scenes stories that will have you gasping. Randy surely knows how to pull the reader into this world of politics, infidelity and class. The competitiveness between sisters Jackie and Lee is mind blowing. Who knew that Lee had an affair with Aristotle Onnasis before Jackie married him? The book documents the PTSD that Jackie suffered show more from after the assassination. The ambiguous sexuality of Lee’s first husband and Herbert Ross is explored. Despite the mother and daughter issues surrounding money, marriage and love you develop a sympathy for them. show less

I was in elementary school when a friend asked if my family was voting for Kennedy for president. I was totally unaware of politics and went home and asked Mom. I learned she was a Democrat and would vote for Kennedy. I was in sixth grade when we were sent home early from school having learned that President Kennedy had been shot. It was a terrifying time for a child who thought the president was an all powerful protector.

I have read a number of biographies of Kennedy. JFK:Public, Private, show more Secret, is focused on his personal life, his family and lovers and wife, while still covering his career and service.

Taraborrelli shows all the man’s flaws and weaknesses. His main idea is that Kennedy had come to a reckoning and was evidencing a moral change, on his way to becoming a better man and husband and father, when he was assassinated.

With an unhappy, distant mother and a demanding father whose morals were secondary to his need for power, the author shows a JFK who was cut off emotionally and gave into his weaknesses while forging a demanding career in spite of significant pain and illnesses.

JFK’s relationships with his wife Jackie, mother Rose Kennedy, and Jackie’s mother are central to the book. Joe Kennedy Sr. kept JFK from marrying his first love who was accused of being a Nazi spy, which would have curtailed any political future. He and Jackie didn’t marry for love, but the author shows that after ten years they had forged a real love.

And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free. President John F. Kennedy quoted in JFK: Public, Private, Secret

JFK’s memorable and inspirational speeches have made him an idealised legend. His words inspire this day. He was a deep thinker who was evolving with the times, learning empathy.

His war experience made him work to avoid war. During the Cuban Missile Crisis he and his family like the rest of the nation waited as nuclear war hung in the balance. I remember the frightening time when the adults were worried and fixated to the television. We learn of a secret pact he made to avoid war.

Arthur Schlesinger said, “I once asked him how he’d define himself and he said, ‘An idealist without illusions.’ from JFK: Publice, Private, Secret

I felt the author was soft on Joe Kennedy Sr. who in another book I had read supported fascism as the natural development of democracy. But his role in secretly allowing his daughter to undergo a lobotomy, institutionalizing her for life, and his involvement with the Mafia, and toxic expectations are clearly defined.

The book draws from first hand sources, interviews, and oral histories with quotations. There are scenes of narrative nonfiction, reimagining details I doubt anyone documented.

Nearly my entire life, JFK has been a cultural icon and national fixation. Perhaps Jackie’s first impression of him represents it best: “I listened to what he had to say, and how he felt about people and the way he wanted to serve, I suppose, and the things he wanted to do with his life to make things better, and I thought, my God, just look at him–those blue eyes, that hair, that face, and just the way he is…the way he thinks about the world and the way he talks about the world and the way he is in the word. He’s just so…beautiful.”

It is a compelling book.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book. show less

I have read a ton of books on JFK and the family as I find them all quite interesting, a real life soap opera. This is one of the better ones as it digs deep into the behind the scenes drama that clearly was John Kennedy in every aspect.

Taraborrelli has written a bio on Jaqueline appropriately titled "Jackie Public, Private, Secret which I haven't read but became a best seller as likely this one is. He says he gets his public, private, and secret from his contacts and interviews with many show more who had intimate contact with Kennedy or someone close in the family. What makes the book more interesting than most on this man is the supposedly private conversations, crisis, and struggles often involving Jackie and often relating to his many dalliance's. The author seems on balance sympathetic to his subject and also skips the white house staff affairs. He also dismisses the involvement with Marilyn as not significant.

It has been over 60 years since the fateful day in November and still we are haunted by the many what was and what ifs of what his life could have meant and its impact on the world stage. The book deals with many of the great events often revolving around Cuba, or Cuber as JFK pronounced it. But Vietnam and his great concerns over the path we were on is an equally fascinating topic. What would have been would have been monumental one way or the other; and 50,000 young lives were on the line.

Aside from the political events of his presidency we of course get the life leading up to his election and the impact of that family and of certainly his relationship with Joe and Rose. And then comes Jackie and his involvement with her family, primarily her mother Janet. She saw through him early on but their relationship evolved into a transformation that came with his maturing which took to his forties.

Finally we get a the measured detail of the other relationships with the other women. Or at least three that are covered in this detail; That being Inga Arvad, Joan Lundberg, and Mary Pinchot. Inga's story has been covered often and we learn it was her he truly loved as much and maybe more than Jackie. Joan was an unknown to me and I was surprised to find she hailed from my hometown, Racine, Wisconsin. It lead to an abortion and that again was a surprise though I'm sure not the only. And finally Mary who became an emotional crutch well into his presidency that took the edge off of his political crises, that were frequent.

This book is a real page turner, never dull, because JFK's life was never dull. There is so much packed into this 500 page tome that it is almost worth a second reading to ensure, did I read that right? who knew. Well now we know a lot more of this incredible person, for better and for worse. show less

If ever an adage was true, it does indeed ring of the Kennedys. Money cannot buy happiness. Money cannot beat the inevitability of death, and money cannot buy respect.

This is 624 well written pages of the life stories of the American royalty. While at times scathing, mainly it was a look at the joys and the tragedies.

I was eleven when JFK was murdered. Fast forward to grade ten, and the television came to life as programs were interrupted with the tragic news that Robert Kennedy was gunned show more down and murdered. Tears, including mine, were shed, as well they should have been.

Then, years later, came the blatant disregard for life by the son who held promise to carry the torch. The news reported that Mary Jo Kopechne was found dead in a car-- in fact, she died the night before as Teddy drove the car off a ramp, escaping, never bothering to find help. Finding an air pocket at the top of the car, she died slowly. There was time to save her. Trying to get friends to take the blame, it wasn't until the next morning when he decided he had to face up to his liability.

While each man held bright promise, each man also carried the tradition of their father in using women as their playing ground while wives stayed at home on the compound, watching the kids and looking pretty.

While Ethel's three eldest boys were out of control with drugs, fast driving and throwing around the Kennedy name, Jackie carefully guarded her children's exposure to the rough ones. When Ethel's oldest son Joe drove a jeep round and round and round, spinning the wheels as it turned upside down, paralyzing David's girlfriend, she was promptly dumped by David and paid to go away.

When Papa Joe Kennedy produced a beautiful, but mentally challenged daughter, without the consult of his wife, he decided that the best path to choose was a lobotomy.

Ethel held fast to Bobby's legacy. Joan sobered up and left Teddy. Jackie escaped with Ari Onassis and provided stability for her two children in the hope of getting them out of harms way.

Make no mistake about it -- there were scandals and out of control behaviors. But, there were shining promises. There were three men who cared deeply about the future of America. These men brought hope and a new direction. The Peace Corps, The Special Olympics, and Ted's dedicated activism and fight for health care reform were but a few of the major accomplishments of these troubled souls.

The light did shine brightly on the Kennedys. They inherited wealth, were raised with strong Catholic values by a staunch mother, and they had a supreme mandate to try to make the country better than it was. show less