Killing Kennedy

warmth, and sheer presence are palpable.
    The authors owe a special debt to the team of Laurie Austin and Stacey Chandler at the Kennedy Library. No research request was too big or too small, and suffice it to say that it was quite a historical rush to receive, for instance, copies of John Kennedy’s actual daily schedule, showing his precise location, the names of different people at various meetings, and the time each afternoon he slipped off to the pool or to “the Mansion.” To read these schedules was to see the president’s day come alive and gave a vivid feel of what life was like in the White House. When in Boston, a visit to the Kennedy Library is a must.
    Special recognition must also go to William Manchester’s Death of a President , which was written shortly after the assassination and built around first-person interviews with almost everyone who was with JFK in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Manchester’s work was written with the complete cooperation of Jackie and the Kennedy family. The level of detail is fantastic for that very fact and proved invaluable as the ultimate answer to many questions when other resources conflicted with one another.
    The backbone of this book are books, magazine articles, videos, the much-maligned but always fascinating Warren Commission Report, and visits to places such as Dallas, Washington, Galway, and the Texas Hill Country. The authors owe a debt of gratitude to the many brilliant researchers who have immersed themselves in the life and times of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. What follows is a detailed reference to sources. This list, however, is not exhaustive and includes only those works used for the heavy lifting of writing history.
    Prologue : Arthur Schlesinger’s A Thousand Days , Doris Kearns Goodwin’s The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys , Karen Price Hossell’s John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Speech, and Thurston Clarke’s Ask Not: The Inauguration of John F. Kennedy and the Speech That Changed America . Todd S. Purdum’s February 2011 Vanity Fair piece on the inauguration was also very helpful, as were the National Archives database and the Warren Commission Report.
    Chapter 1 : John Hersey’s 1944 New Yorker story about PT-109 provided the best account of the ordeal. Lance Morrow’s The Best Years of Their Lives , which is a quick and fascinating read, nicely counterbalances Hersey’s sometimes fawning version of events. Details about the Gold Star Mothers speech and the birth of the Irish Mafia can be found in William Manchester’s One Brief Shining Moment .
    Chapter 2 : The White House Museum website offers a fine map of the entire building, along with its history in words and pictures. Also, Robert Dallek’s writing on JFK’s myriad medical woes was very helpful in our getting a handle on the many medications the president was required to take. The Kennedy Library’s website is a great source of detail on life in the White House. Information on Jackie comes courtesy of Sally Bedell Smith’s Grace and Power .
    Chapter 3 : William R. Fails’s Marines and Helicopters details the evolution of presidential transportation, while Dallek’s An Unfinished Life and Humberto Fontova’s Fidel: Hollywood’s Favorite Tyrant lend detail to the Castro atrocities. The weather comes courtesy of the Farmers’ Almanac, while Manchester’s Brief Shining Moment adds behind-the-scenes comments on the president’s thoughts on the Bay of Pigs. Other notable resources: Dean Rusk’s As I Saw It , Edward R. Drachman and Alan Shank’s Presidents and Foreign Policy , Michael O’Brien’s John F. Kennedy: A Biography , Thomas G. Paterson’s Kennedy’s Quest for Victory , Jim Rasenberger’s The Brilliant Disaster , James Hilty’s Robert Kennedy , Richard Mahoney’s Sons and Brothers , and Richard Goodwin’s excellent Remembering America .
    Chapter 4 : The reader is directed to go online and watch Jackie’s excellent White House tour, particularly the body language between the president and First Lady at the end. Seymour Hersh’s The Dark Side of Camelot was only too happy to spill the secrets of White House infidelities, while Sally Bedell Smith’s Grace and Power , Christopher Andersen’s Jack and Jackie , Laurence Leamer’s The Kennedy Women , and C. David Heymann’s A Woman Named Jackie seem more intent on understanding the reasons why.
    Chapter 5 : The JFK Library and Jackie’s own words in Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy speak to