Chronicles the story of three generations of the Fitzgeralds and Kennedys, beginning in 1863 with the inauguration of John Fitzgerald Kennedy in January 1961. An account of the triumphs and tragedies of three generations of the Fitzgerald and Kennedy families, drawing on interviews and private family papers to provide new insights. "The noted biographer of Lyndon B. Johnson has written the story of three generations of the Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys. The saga begins on a bitter cold winter's day in 1863 with the baptism of John Francis Fitzgerald, and comes to its dramatic climax when his grandson and namesake, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, is sworn in as president in January 1961. In those 100 years the families rose from poverty and obscurity to a glory and glamour unmatched by any other political family in the history of the United States. The saga unfolds, appropriately, on a large canvas, as befits a family whose eventual triumphs, strengths, weaknesses and mortalities would be inscribed in the chronicles of the world. Act I of The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys is the rise of the Fitzgerald family through the traditional means of big city politics. It is dominated by John Francis Fitzgerald, 'Honey Fitz, ' Mayor of Boston and founder of the political dynasty. The first Fitzgerald daughter, Rose, is her father's favorite. She is shrewdly political, fiercely religious, unyielding, critical and far more independent and worldly than she has been traditionally portrayed. This becomes clear in Act II, which tells not only about the amassing of the vast Kennedy fortune by Joseph P. Kennedy but about the marriage partnership between Joe and Rose. Doris Kearns Goodwin draws a surprising and unforgettable portrait of the Kennedy patriarch. With access to records never before made public, the author describes just how Kennedy Senior gained the financial power that he had determined would set his children free of practical constraints. But though he was distant to outsiders, ruthless in business, and a womanizer, to his children Joseph Kennedy was the more forgiving and tolerant parent. Act III is dominated by the three eldest siblings (another older sister was retarded), Joe, Jr., Kathleen (Kick) and Jack, the Golden Trio. They were each other's best friends. The oldest son, heir to his father's heart's desire, was killed on a secret mission when his Navy plane exploded over the English Channel in 1944. Kathleen, married to the heir of the dukedom of Devonshire, then widowed in World War II, died herself a couple of years later in a plane crash in France. It is John Fitzgerald Kennedy, sickly all his young life, wounded when his PT boat sank in the South Pacific and devastated by the loss of his brother and sister, who must now slowly recover and take his place as oldest son. There is great drama in the forging of a new bond between father and second son and in the younger Kennedy's choice of a political career. From this point on, until he assumes the Presidency and serves his thousand days, it is this Kennedy who will dominate his family. The others will revolve around the brightest sun."--Jacket.