Works Consulted for the Thursday Forum, “The Presidential Legacies of John F. Kennedy
and Lyndon B. Johnson,” November-December 2013
Compiled by Allen Fisher, phone: 363-0879, e-mail: [email protected]
Good, comprehensive overviews that cover this period (1961-1969):
Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin, America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s. Fourth
edition. Oxford University Press, 2011 (321 pages of text).
Allen J. Matusow, The Unraveling of America: A History of Liberalism in the 1960s. University
of Georgia Press, 2009 (a historian provides a more detailed analysis of movements like Black
Power, the New Left, etc., that occurred independently of the Kennedy and Johnson presidencies
but that nonetheless affected them; 439 pages of text).
James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974. Oxford University Press,
1997 (As far as I’m concerned, Patterson’s work is “the gold standard” among American
historians who write about the post-World War II era. It is imposing in length [790 pages of text],
but it is richly rewarding.)
Books about issues that span both the Kennedy and Johnson Presidencies
George C. Herring, America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975, Fourth
edition. McGraw Hill, 2002 (an excellent overview of American involvement in Vietnam by a
distinguished scholar; 368 pages).
G. Calvin Mackenzie and Robert Weisbrot, The Liberal Hour: Washington and the Politics of
Change in the 1960s. Penguin Press, 2008 (a political scientist and a historian argue convincingly
that “the whirligig of counterculture, drugs, and rock and roll had a minimal impact on the
tremendous changes in public policy in the 1960s; 377 pages).
Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership
from Roosevelt to Reagan. The Free Press, 1990 (a discussion of the nature of American
presidential leadership, by the leading scholar on this topic for more than a generation, before his
death in 1993; provides extensive coverage of Kennedy and Johnson; 318 pages).
Katherine S. Newman and Elizabeth S. Jacobs, Who Cares? Public Ambivalence and
Government Activism From the New Deal to the Second Gilded Age. Princeton University Press,
2010 (an informative analysis of American public opinion about policies to assist poor people,
and how presidential leadership is usually essential to get such policies passed and sustained; 166
pages).
James T. Patterson, America’s Struggle Against Poverty, 1900-1994, Harvard University Press,
1994 (an excellent and informative overview of poverty and poverty policy in the past century,
with much attention to the Kennedy and Johnson years; 241 pages).
Irwin Unger, The Best of Intentions: The Triumph and Failure of the Great Society Under
Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. Doubleday, 1996 (an NYU historian looks closely at how poverty
policies were shaped and how they worked, or failed to work, under three presidents; 366 pages).
Biographies of John F. Kennedy
Alan Brinkley, John F. Kennedy, Times Books, Henry Holt and Co., 2012 (a very good short
[158 pages of text] overview and commentary on Kennedy’s life).
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Thurston Clark, JFK’s Last Hundred Days. Penguin Press, 2013 (an attempt to argue that, based
on his performance in office during the last three months of his life, Kennedy was becoming a
great president; 362 pages).
Robert Dallek, John F. Kennedy: An Unfinished Life, 1917-1963. Little, Brown and Co., 2003.
(In my opinion, this is the best biography of Kennedy, although at times I think it treats Kennedy
more generously than he deserves to be. It is rather long, 711 pages, but it is engagingly written.)
Jason K. Duncan, John F. Kennedy: The Burdens of Cold War Liberalism. Routledge, 2013, 256
pages.
Richard Reeves, President Kennedy: Profile of Power. Simon and Schuster, 1993 (an often
bitingly critical but quite insightful and convincing view of the Kennedy years; 662 pages).
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House. HoughtonMifflin, 1965. (an entertaining and informative but practically worshipful account of Kennedy’s
presidency, by an eminent historian who worked in Kennedy’s White House; 1031 pages).
Garry Wills, The Kennedy Imprisonment: A Meditation on Power. Pocket Books, 1982 (a frontal
attack on Kennedy as a president and as a person; often convincing, but sometimes scurrilous;
312 pages).
Books about the 1960 Presidential Campaign
Shaun A. Casey, The Making of a Catholic President: Kennedy vs. Nixon, 1960. Oxford
University Press, 2009 (a thorough and fair-minded account of the influence of religion in the
1960 campaign, with convincing new information about how the Republican National Committee
systematically orchestrated a campaign of religious bigotry against John Kennedy; 206 pages).
Albert J. Menendez, Religion at the Polls, Westminster Press, 1977 (provides two very detailed
chapters of data and meticulous analysis of how religion affected the 1960 election results; 205
pages).
W. J. Rorabaugh, The Real Making of the President: Kennedy, Nixon, and the 1960 Election.
University Press of Kansas, 2009 (highly critical of Kennedy, with analysis of allegations of vote
fraud on his behalf in Illinois and Texas); 204 pages.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Kennedy or Nixon: Does It Make Any Difference? Macmillan, 1960,
51 pages.
Theodore H. White, The Making of the President 1960. Atheneum, 1961 (a good journalist and
excellent writer, but utterly smitten by Kennedy and star-struck about him, so he loses any
objectivity or critical detachment; 382 pages).
Analyses and Commentaries about the Kennedy Presidency
Carl M. Brauer, John F. Kennedy and the Second Reconstruction (a superb account of the
Kennedy administration’s actions concerning race in the U.S.). Columbia University Press, 1977,
320 pages.
Larry J. Sabato, The Kennedy Half-Century: The Presidency, Assassination, and Lasting Legacy
of John F. Kennedy. Bloomsbury, 2013 (a very worthwhile and wide-ranging book, written by an
eminent political scientist, with a helpful discussion of the various theories of the assassination
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and the evidence that supports and challenges them, and with a good deal of new research on how
Americans regard Kennedy 50 years after his death; 427 pages).
Harris Wofford, Of Kennedys and Kings: Making Sense of the Sixties. University of Pittsburgh
Press, 1992 (a hidden gem of a book by a longtime political activist, who was a top aide to
Kennedy on civil rights, deputy director of the Peace Corps, and a close friend and colleague of
Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as President Kennedy; 496 pages).
Books about the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962
Max Frankel, High Noon in the Cold War: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Ballantine Books, 2005 (an excellent introduction to a frightening confrontation between the U.S.
and the Soviet Union; 181 pages).
Ernest R. May and Philip D. Zelikow, editors, The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, The Second Edition. W.W. Norton, 2002. (You can be a “fly on
the wall” in the White House as President Kennedy and his Executive Committee try to decide
how to respond to the Soviets’ attempt to place nuclear missiles in Cuba. It is a riveting
discussion, illuminated by the commentary of two distinguished historians; 450 pages).
Shelton M. Stern, Averting “The Final Failure”: John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile
Crisis Meetings, Stanford University Press, 2003 (provides a clear narrative of the missile crisis,
with much verbatim commentary by Kennedy and his aides incorporated into the narrative; 426
pages).
Ted Widmer, editor, Listening In: The Secret White House Recordings of John F. Kennedy,
Hyperion, 2012 (This book contains transcripts of more Kennedy tapes, not just on the missile
crisis but on civil rights, space, Vietnam, and many other topics; 287 pages).
Books about the Assassination of President Kennedy
Gaeton Fonzi, The Last Investigation, Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1993 (a former federal
investigator for the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the late 1970s tells what
“insiders” like him know about the active suppression of key evidence about the Kennedy
assassination; 435 pages).
Gerald D. McKnight, Breach of Trust: How the Warren Commission Failed the Nation, and Why
University Press of Kansas, 2005 (an academic historian examines over a quarter of a million
pages of government documents and argues strongly that Lee Harvey Oswald was almost
certainly not the lone assassin of Kennedy; 361 pages).
Gerald Posner, Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK. Anchor Books,
2003 (an investigative lawyer “reaches [what he believes is] the only possible conclusion, that
Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone”; it’s convincing, until you read other accounts; 477 pages).
Report of the Warren Commisson on the Assassination of President Kennedy, McGraw Hill Book
Company, 1964, Harrison E. Salisbury, for The New York Times (the report of the commission
appointed by President Johnson right after the assassination, with Chief Justice Earl Warren as its
chair; its conclusion, that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, is still hotly disputed; 446 pages).
Again, Larry Sabato’s new book, The Kennedy Half Century, published by Bloomsbury, provides
a very helpful summary and critique of the assassination literature, on pp. 132-256.
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Books That Focus on Other Members of the Kennedy Family
Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, St. Martin’s Press, 1987 (an
engagingly written very, very long [over 1000 pages] narrative of the two families from which
John Kennedy came; covers the period 1863-1961)
Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy. Interviews with
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., 1964. Hyperion Books, 2011 (consists of interviews conducted with
Mrs. Kennedy just a few months after her husband’s assassination; 349 pages).
Evan Thomas, Robert Kennedy: His Life. Simon and Schuster, 2000 (a fine account by a very
good journalist; avoids the idolatry of RFK that marks other more famous biographies by Arthur
Schlesinger, Jr. and Jack Newfield; 394 pages).
Adam Clymer, Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography: New Updated Edition. Harper Perennial,
2009 (a thorough and honest appraisal of the life and the Senate career of a remarkable though
flawed Senator; 627 pages).
J. Randy Taraborrelli, After Camelot: A Personal History of the Kennedy Family, 1968 to the
Present. Grand Central Publishing, 2012 (documents the fate of the Kennedys after the
assassinations of John and Robert; a gossipy but informative account; 526 pages).
Biographies of Lyndon Johnson
Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Path to Power, Volume I, Vintage Books, 1982
(describes Johnson’s life from his birth up until the late 1940s; 768 pages of text).
Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of Ascent. Volume II, Vintage Books,
1990 (describes Johnson’s demonstrably dishonest victory in his race for the U.S. Senate in 1948;
412 pages of text).
Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate. Volume III, Alfred A.
Knopf, 2002 (a thorough description of Johnson’s years in the Senate and particularly his time as
Senate Majority Leader; 1040 pages of text).
Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power. Volume IV, Alfred A.
Knopf, 2012 (traces Johnson’s life from his contest with John Kennedy for the Democratic
presidential nomination in 1960, up through Kennedy’s assassination and his assuming power,
and then through much of 1964, when Johnson’s legislative skill became apparent; 605 pages of
text).
Robert Dallek, Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times 1908-1960. Oxford University
Press, 1991 (a thorough and fair biography of Johnson from his birth until he was elected Vice
President in 1960; long [nearly 600 pages], but very engagingly written).
Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961-1973. Oxford University
Press, 1998 (same comments as above, but this time Dallek covers Johnson’s life from his time as
Vice President, though his presidency, to his death in 1973, and he takes a bit more than 600
pages).
Eric F. Goldman, The Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson. A Dell Book, 1974 (a Princeton historian who
worked in Johnson’s White House while he was president gives an honest “insider’s” account of
the man and the ways in which he was “out of synch” with much of the country by the time he
left office; 628 pages of text, but written in a very readable style).
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Doris Kearns Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, St. Martin’s Press, 1991 (a
member of Johnson’s White House staff, a historian, and a confidante describes her lengthy
interviews with Johnson and her personal relationship with him; 400 pages of fascinating
reading).
Charles Peters, Lyndon B. Johnson, Times Books, 2010 (an excellent introduction to Johnson’s
life and work, by an experienced and highly respected Washington journalist; it is short [161
pages] and a very good read).
Bruce J. Schulman, Lyndon J. Johnson and American Liberalism: A Brief Biography with
Documents. Second Edition. Beford/St. Martin’s, 2007 (a superb introduction to Johnson’s life, in
fewer than 200 pages, followed by a collection of primary sources, totalling 90 pages, for
example, the text of Johnson’s speech on voting rights is included, as are commentaries about
him from varying perspectives while he was president).
Randall Woods LBJ: Architect of American Ambition, Harvard University Press, 2006 (a very,
very good biography covering all of Johnson’s life in one ambitious [884 pages of text] volume).
Memoirs Written by the Johnsons, and Secret White House Tapes Recorded by LBJ
Lady Bird Johnson, A White House Diary, University of Texas Press, 2007 (a well written and
thoughtful set of diary entries by the First Lady, documenting her husband’s emotional ups and
downs; 783 pages).
Lyndon Baines Johnson, The Vantage Point: Perspectives on the Presidency, 1963-1969, Popular
Library, 1971 (a truly dreadful book; Johnson said that he was bored while writing his own
memoirs, rather than telling them to Doris Kearns Goodwin, and this book shows it; it has almost
none of Johnson’s usual earthiness or insight; 569 pages of very small print).
Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963-1964, edited and with commentary by
Michael R. Beschloss, Simon and Schuster, 1997 (Johnson’s thoughts as he assumes the
presidency, and as the civil rights bill is debated, filibustered, and passed in 1964; 553 pages).
Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson’s Secret White House Tapes, 1964-1965, edited and with
commentary by Michael Beschloss, A Touchstone Book 2001 (fascinating glimpses into
President Johnson’s views of civil rights, Vietnam, etc., and with perceptive and helpful
commentary by a distinguished historian; 433 pages)
Books About Particular Events and Relationships in Lyndon Johnson’s Life
Nick Kotz, Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Laws That
Changed America. Houghton Mifflin, 2005 (a splendid book by an outstanding journalist, which
documents the close and fruitful working relationship between these two extraordinary men, alas,
a relationship which turned rancorous after King began speaking out against the Vietnam war; J.
Edgar Hoover’s racism and Johnson’s paranoia are portrayed “with the bark off”; 434 pages of
riveting reading).
William E. Leuchtenburg, “A Visit with LBJ,” American Heritage, Vol. 41, 4 (June 1990), 47-64,
a distinguished historian tries to get a word in edgewise while “interviewing” President Johnson.
Theodore H. White, The Making of the President, 1964, a Signet Book, 1965 (a noted journalist
tells the story of the 1964 presidential campaign, which resulted in President Johnson defeating
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Senator Barry Goldwater in a landslide; 479 pages of small print, but a very quick read for
political junkies)
Theodore H. White, The Making of the President, 1968: A Narrative History of American Politics
in Action, Pocket Books, 1970 (White describes a tumultuous and often traumatic year, including
the Tet offensive in Vietnam, President Johnson’s decision not to seek re-election, and the
assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert Kennedy. White’s conclusion to
the book, about the “transformation of Richard Nixon, from the combative and vengeful man of
the 1950s, to a cautious and thoughtful man, intent on reconciliation,” is a remarkably ironic and
stunningly naïve observation for a journalist of White’s caliber to have made; 541 pages about
what CBS commentator Eric Sevareid called “a most disastrous year.”)
Four (of Many) Popular Books From This Era, Which Raised Critical Public Issues, and
Which Eventually Inspired Effective Political Action
Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, Houghton Mifflin, 1962 (a pioneering work on the effect of DDT
on the environment. Carson, who died of cancer very shortly after this book was published, is
often credited with having awakened much of the American citizenry to the importance of
environmental issues, and President Kennedy vigorously defended her against attacks by
industrialists who tried to discredit her work.)
Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, W.W. Norton, 1963. This book, about a “problem that
has no name” that Friedan said many American women experienced, is often given substantial
credit for inspiring the modern women’s movement in the U.S. Friedan argued that even
American women who enjoyed a comfortable standard of living were not given the same kinds of
opportunities as men to develop their full potential, outside of the home as well as in their
families. (This book was published just a few years after Democratic presidential candidate Adlai
Stevenson told the graduates of Smith College that he knew no better vocation for women than
that they might assume “the humble role of housewife.”)
Michael Harrington, The Other America, Charles Scribner’s, 1962 (Written by a journalist and
political activist, this book argued that nearly one-quarter of Americans were living in poverty,
and it described their plight in detail. President Kennedy read this book, along with a 50-page
review of it by Dwight McDonald in The New Yorker, and the book and the review are credited
with Kennedy’s decision to ask his chief economist, Walter Heller, to prepare a set of poverty
programs to be launched in 1964.)
Ralph Nader, Unsafe at Any Speed, Bantam Books, 1965. Nader was a young lawyer working in
the Department of Labor for Assistant Secretary Daniel Patrick Moynihan when he was asked to
investigate how American cars could be made safer. The following year, 1966, landmark auto
safety legislation was proposed by President Johnson and passed by Congress. Today the fatality
rate on American highways is only one-fifth (per mile driven) of what it was in 1965, in good part
because of the safety standards that the federal government has put in place, and Nader deserves a
good deal of the credit for that (along with the construction of interstate highways and other
factors).
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