![]() ![]() ![]() JFK confronted Khrushchev without igniting a nuclear war, and he concluded the landmark limited test-ban treaty, but he stumbled at the Bay of Pigs, was tugged reluctantly from his view that civil rights involved political rather than moral issues, and became increasingly mired in Vietnam. The cumulative impression is of a natural politician who reacted to events rather than mastering them. Not only are certain neglected aspects of the Kennedy presidency explored in great depth here (e.g., how this bored, restless White House economics student came around to Keynesianism)-but so are topics delved into countless times before. ![]() While finding the President to be "intelligent, detached, candid if not always honest," Reeves also shows him as disorganized, impatient, and addicted to the notion that it was "brains," not ideology or idealism, that counted. Reeves (The Reagan Detour, 1985, etc.) draws on scores of recently released documents (including transcripts of Oval Office audiotapes) and interviews with surviving New Frontiersmen to create a day-to-day, sometimes even minute-by-minute, chronicle of JFK's decision-making. Behind the scenes in the Kennedy Administration-in well- documented, unusually revealing depth. ![]()
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