The Chris Matthews Biography of John F. Kennedy

Chris Matthews – Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero

Chris Matthews of CSNBC is enamored with Jack Kennedy. This book is a light biography written by a CNBC journalist. It borders on hagiography, but I like it.

JFK was rather wild and reckless as a youth, constantly plagued by medical problems, spent so much time reading in bed alone, went to the elite prep school Choate, and then on to Harvard.

His senior thesis at Harvard which turned into the book WHY ENGLAND SLEPT opposed his father's appeasement toward Hitler, which ultimately led to his father's downfall. P. 37

"Jack felt deeply the emotional weight of the valor, committment, and sacrifice demanded by war. Nothing makes this clearer than his beloved PILGRIM'S WAY, the autobiography of John Buchan, famous for writing THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS. Published, in 1940, it immediately became a favorite and would remain the best-loved book of his life. Most significant, in his pages he again encountered the widely mourned figure of Raymond Asquith, about whom Churchill had written so movingly." P. 38-39

JFK truly was heroic in the South Pacific in the PT-14 incident. Chapter 3

JFK attends the founding of the UN in San Francisco in April of 1945. P. 69

JFK was noted for his ironic detachment. It’s easy to be ironic and detached when you are protected by money. P. 73

It’s hard to believe, but Kennedy fashioned himself as a “fighting conservative” in his election to Congress in 1946. He took a hard line toward the Soviet Union and was hardened by what he considered FDR’s giveaway of Eastern Europe to Stalin at Yalta. It seems to me that he was liberal on domestic matters but conservative vs. the liberal wing of the Democratic Party on foreign affairs at the time. P. 87

One of the amazing facts of Kennedy's life is that he was friends with Richard Nixon from the time both of them entered Congress in 1946. Apparently JFK thought Nixon was quite intelligent. Go figure. P. 89

In this book JFK comes across like a Republican & as a Cold War warrior. P. 112

The author reminds the reader of the debt the world owes to JFK as he defused the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Any other President might have launched an attack on those missle sites in Cuba leading to a catastrophic nuclear exchange between the US and the USSR. JFK deserves to be called a great leader just because of that one heroic act.

It seems from this book that Democratic liberals of the time never fully trusted Jack Kennedy. One reason, good enough for Eleanor Roosevelt, is that he did not vote to censure Sen. Joe McCarthy. McCarthy was good friends with the Kennedy clan.

I think the main thing I gleaned from this view of Jack Kennedy is that coming into the presidency his main concern as a vaunted Cold Warrior stirred by war and the events that came after WWII was foreign relatsions; specifically, containing the Soviet Union and the spread of communism and seeking peace with the USSR. His focus was on foreign affirs and not so much on domestic affairs.