JFK's Last Hundred Days: An Intimate Portrait of a Great President

by Thurston Clarke

A revelatory, minute-by-minute account of JFK’s last hundred days that asks what might have been

Fifty years after his death, President John F. Kennedy’s legend endures. Noted author and historian Thurston Clarke argues that the heart of that legend is what might have been. As we approach the anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination, JFK’s Last Hundred Days reexamines the last months of the president’s life to show a man in the midst of great change, finally on the cusp of making good on his extraordinary promise.

Kennedy’s last hundred days began just after the death of two-day-old Patrick Kennedy, and during this time, the president made strides in the Cold War, civil rights, Vietnam, and his personal life. While Jackie was recuperating, the premature infant and his father were flown to Boston for Patrick’s treatment. Kennedy was holding his son’s hand when Patrick died on August 9, 1963. The loss of his son convinced Kennedy to work harder as a husband and father, and there is ample evidence that he suspended his notorious philandering during these last months of his life.

Also in these months Kennedy finally came to view civil rights as a moral as well as a political issue, and after the March on Washington, he appreciated the power of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., for the first time.

Though he is often depicted as a devout cold warrior, Kennedy pushed through his proudest legislative achievement in this period, the Limited Test Ban Treaty. This success, combined with his warming relations with Nikita Khrushchev in the wake of the Cuban missile crisis, led to a détente that British foreign secretary Sir Alec Douglas- Home hailed as the “beginning of the end of the Cold War.”

Throughout his presidency, Kennedy challenged demands from his advisers and the Pentagon to escalate America’s involvement in Vietnam. Kennedy began a reappraisal in the last hundred days that would have led to the withdrawal of all sixteen thousand U.S. military
advisers by 1965.

JFK’s Last Hundred Days is a gripping account that weaves together Kennedy’s public and private lives, explains why the grief following his assassination has endured so long, and solves the most tantalizing Kennedy mystery of all—not killed him but who he was when he was killed, and where he would have led us.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, Politics, Presidents, American History, Us Presidents

448 pages, Hardcover

First published July 16, 2013

About the author

Thurston Clarke has written eleven widely acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction, including three New York Times Notable Books. His 'Pearl Harbor Ghosts' was the basis for a CBS documentary, and his bestselling 'Lost Hero', a biography of Raoul Wallenberg, was made into an award-winning NBC miniseries.

Clarke's articles have appeared in Vanity Fair, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and many other publications. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and other awards, he lives with his wife and three daughters in upstate New York.

Reviews

[CoachJim · Rating 5 out of 5]

JFK’s Last Hundred Days opens with the birth of Kennedy’s second son Patrick Bouvier Kennedy. The child died two days later on August 9, 1963 which is 105 days prior to the assassination of John Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. This sets the framework for this history. There are plenty of details about events prior to that date, but these are used to add context to the man and his presidency during this time.

Some people have laid the blame for Vietnam on Kennedy and given Lyndon Johnson the credit for The Great Society. That misrepresents the facts. Many of the initiatives of Johnson’s Great Society saw birth during Kennedy’s presidency. The Tax Cut, The Civil Rights Bill, the laws that brought us Medicare and Medicaid and The War on Poverty were all working their way through Congress prior to the November, 1963, trip to Dallas, Texas. Johnson deserves credit for their passage but was helped in large part by the sentiments of the country following Kennedy’s assassination. It was also, without a doubt, a huge factor in Lyndon Johnson’s landslide victory in 1964. But the Goldwater campaign was so poorly run that Kennedy would have also won a resounding victory. He would have enjoyed a democratic majority in Congress making it easier to pass his legislative agenda.

As Kennedy took office he was confronted with two immediate problems. When the invasion of Cuba by some CIA-trained rebels failed he refused a request to provide military support. He also faced a problem in Laos. The Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of Defense McNamara wanted to send U.S. ground forces and begin bombing. Ignoring his advisors including Secretary of State Dean Rusk and National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy he told W. Averell Harriman he wanted a negotiated settlement in Laos. His refusal to intervene revealed his rejection of the domino theory. (Page 57-58)

During a tour of Southeast Asia in 1954 with his brother Bobby he was told by a political counselor from the embassy that the French were involved in an unwinnable ground war. (Page 54)

In the spring of 1961 during a dinner at the White House General Douglas MacArthur told him “anyone who advocated putting American ground troops in Asia should have their head examined.” (page 60)

On Tuesday, August 20, 1963, Senator Mike Mansfield gave Kennedy a memorandum describing his observations about Viet Nam. He suggested that “the fundamental premise” of our involvement was that the outcome of this war was important to the United States. But South Vietnam was peripheral to U.S. interest because it “offered no great economic or commercial advantages.” That “the point at which the cost in men and money to the United States of essentially unilateral action to achieve the objective outweighs any possible advantage which it might provide to the security and welfare of this nation.” (Page 75)

Following the Bay of Pigs fiasco he felt he had been wrong to trust the CIA and military assurances about the success of the operation and he increasingly distrusted his military advisers and the CIA. His handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis showed that he was able to resist their insistence for a military solution. This book has many references to discussions by Kennedy with others expressing a goal to withdraw all military assistance to the South Vietnam government after the 1964 election. As a student of history Kennedy wanted to avoid committing the country to anything resembling the quagmire that resulted in World War I, Korea, and the French experience in Vietnam.

It is frequently mentioned in the last months of his presidency that there were misgivings about making a trip to Texas and specifically Dallas. Handbills with his picture and the phrase “Wanted for Treason” had been posted in Dallas. Also recently Adlai Stevenson had been heckled and attacked while making a speech in Dallas celebrating United Nations Day. Stevenson tried to make light of the incident but said, “You know there was something very ugly and frightening about the atmosphere.” He also wondered whether the President should go to Dallas. (Page 253)

Seven Days in May was a political novel published in 1962. The story is about a general who believes the President is ruining the country. He devises a plot to overthrow the government. His character is based on General Edwin A. Walker, a right-wing anti-communist who had been forced out of the Army for disseminating right-wing propaganda to the troops under his command. In November of 1963 he was describing Kennedy as a “liability to the free world.” (Page 283) This would spawn the conspiracy theories about the assassination of Kennedy as a plot by the military and intelligence people.

In JFK’s Last Hundred Days Thurston Clarke presents a theory of “What Might Have Been” had Kennedy been able to serve two terms as President. In his second term as president he wanted to find a peaceful end to the Cold War, improve relations with the Soviet Union, reach a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing, begin a dialogue with Castro to explore the possibility of establishing relations with Cuba, withdraw a thousand advisors from Vietnam before the end of 1963, attack poverty, pass a tax cut, civil rights and immigration bills. His reelection in 1964 would have freed him from facing the electorate again. But as he began his campaign for the 1964 election he needed to repair a rift in the Democratic Party in Texas between Vice President Johnson and the Texas Senator Ralph Yarborough. This made the trip to Dallas necessary.

Jackie wept first, and from her and from Dallas a tidal wave of tears rolled across the nation and around the world. (Page 347)

[KOMET · Rating 5 out of 5]

Last month, I went to see the author speak about this book at one of the few remaining reputable bookstores in my adopted city. He gave a very compelling presentation, bringing out some things about President Kennedy and his administration that I had not known about. In fact, I was so impressed by the author that I bought the book shortly thereafter.

The book starts off by looking back at December 31, 1962. President Kennedy was vacationing in Florida, where Elaine de Kooning (estranged wife of the famous abstract painter Willem de Kooning) was painting the President's portrait. She had been commissioned by the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library to paint his portrait because of her exceptional talent and ability to finish a portrait in a single sitting. This had earned her the name "the Fastest Brush in the East." She drew the President in a variety of poses and mediums that day, trying to capture what she considered as his essence. But after returning to her home in New York and completing the portrait, de Kooning felt that she hadn't quite captured that essence. She would spend most of the following year "painting only him, papering the walls of her studio with his likenesses and falling, she admitted, 'a teeny little bit in love with him.' "

But, in the main, as the title suggests, the book's focus is on the last 3 months of the Kennedy Administration. As I delved into the early chapters, I had no idea of the impact that the death (on August 9, 1963) of JFK's second son, Patrick, had on both him and his wife. Not generally known as an openly emotive or affectionate person, he wept openly in the hospital where Patrick was undergoing treatment to help him to breathe unaided, scarcely leaving his side. I had known that Jackie Kennedy had been deeply saddened by their son's death. But as for JFK, I hadn't given much thought to his personal life during those last hundred days. The achievements of the Kennedy Administration from the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis to JFK's commencement address at American University (June 10, 1963 - when he spoke about establishing better relations with the USSR, "making the world safe for diversity", and forging a just and meaningful peace that would benefit everyone), his address to the nation on civil rights the following day (defining it as "the moral issue of our time", which led to him presenting Congress with a Civil Rights Bill), his signing of the Equal Pay Act (the first President to support the concept of equal pay for men and women in the same occupations), his trips to Ireland and Berlin, and the signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty were what captured my attention.

Each chapter is set in such a way as to make the reader feel that he/she was witnessing (inasmuch as it was possible, given the author's copious research, a significant part of which was derived from oral histories from people who had worked closely with JFK and some of the tapes that President Kennedy had made of some of his White House staff and official one-on-one meetings) the inner workings of a government from its nerve center.

The chapters in which Kennedy's Vietnam policy and his positions on it were given careful scrutiny convinced me that, had he lived, there would have been no Vietnam War and all the military advisors he had sent there would have likely been brought home by 1965. This is not to suggest that JFK was a pacifist. Far from it. While in the Navy during the Second World War, Kennedy had pulled strings to get out of a stateside desk job in Naval Intelligence to combat service in the South Pacific as a commander of a PT boat, one of the most dangerous jobs available. Thus, he knew the true costs of war. Furthermore, JFK's experience from the Bay of Pigs debacle made him distrustful of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who, had he acceded to their recommendations, would have pressured him to invade Cuba (under false pretences) and keep up the massive infusions of defense spending.

The following citation attests to Kennedy's willingness to stick fast to a policy decision, despite opposition from some of his closest aides and advisors ---

“After Mansfield [the Senate Majority Leader] left, [JFK] turned to O’Donnell and said, ‘In 1965, I’ll become one of the most unpopular Presidents in history. I’ll be damned everywhere as a Communist appeaser. But I don't care. If I tried to pull out completely now from Vietnam, we would have another Joe McCarthy red scare on our hands, but I can do it after I’m reelected. So we better make damn sure I am reelected.’ “

Another part of the book that intrigued me was the distinct possibility of JFK dropping LBJ as Vice President in 1964. Johnson, who felt much diminished after leaving the Senate (where he had been one of the most effective and powerful Majority Leaders in that body's history) to serve as Vice President, wasn't happy in the role. JFK tried to be accommodating to him. But LBJ, being more of the wildly impulsive type who lived and breathed politics almost without letup, was more likely than not to put his foot in his mouth. His visit to Scandinavia in the late summer of 1963 didn't go well at all. LBJ made some impolitic remarks and his suffering from gallstones only exacerbated matters for him.


Mr. Clarke has written a very readable, highly informative and engaging book. There were some matters about the slowly blossoming Bobby Baker scandal (Bobby Baker was known as a mover and shaker, a shady dealer on Capitol Hill and a bosum pal of LBJ from his Senate days) that were very eye-opening. I invite any interested reader of this review to pick up this book and find out what that aborning scandal was all about.


I LOVED this book. But felt very sad as I neared the last chapter, knowing how everything was going to turn out in Dallas. (I wish JFK had heeded the advice from some of his aides and Democratic Party operatives in Texas NOT to visit Dallas, where his UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson had been roughly treated when he had visited the city earlier in 1963.) Nevertheless, I'm so glad I read this book because I learned so much. I feel more than ever that, in President Kennedy, we had a truly unique and remarkable leader who grew significantly during his time in office and showed considerable promise of being a prime catalyst in ushering in a New Renaissance from which a better world (largely free of poverty, racism, and war --- celebrating the arts and sciences) might have emerged.

[Franz · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a sad book. Not sad in any conventional way that comes from the tragedy of Kennedy's assassination. Thankfully Clarke does not dwell on the killing of the president; dozens of other books have already exhausted that ground. The sadness evoked by this book is the realization of how much different and possibly better the world might have been had Kennedy's motorcade made a left turn instead of a right at that crucial intersection in Dallas.

Obviously it's impossible to know what would have transpired had Kennedy lived, but as his brother Robert is quoted as saying, we know what he intended. This book is largely an account of what he intended as well as what he was able to accomplish in his last hundred days.

We follow Kennedy day by day, often hour by hour, beginning with the death of his prematurely born son, Patrick, in August 1963 about a hundred days before Dallas. His grief, which he shared with Jackie, brought him closer to his wife. People noticed how much more solicitous he acted towards her, and how his manner became more tender and caring. Jackie, who feared their marriage would never be real marriage, gratefully returned his affections. Clarke marks this family misfortune as ending Kennedy's compulsive womanizing and the beginning of Jack and Jackie's efforts to rebuild their relationship. Undoubtedly the process was aided by Kennedy's genuine delight for his two children, Caroline and John.

Early on in the book Clarke comments that Kennedy's life was extremely compartmentalized so that no one knew the complete man. He would reveal facets to different people so even his brother Robert was sometimes surprised to learn facts about him from others that he knew nothing about. This gave Kennedy an aura of mystery that was very attractive to others. Those who knew him as a friend or served him in government were drawn to his innate warmth, quick wit, and, qualities rare in an American president, first rate mind coupled with a compassionate heart.

So what did Kennedy intend to accomplish had he lived? For one, he planned on withdrawing American advisers from Vietnam. He had visited the country as a congressman in 1951 with Robert. He saw how the French were creating a colonial disaster and were forced to withdraw a few years later. He saw an unhappy ending for the United States remaining deeply involved in such an unstable country. Imagine if he had lived and been able to follow through. The deaths of 58,000 Americans and the tens of thousands of wounded Americans would have been prevented. The domestic social and cultural upheaval that was the '60s would have unfolded differently without this controversial and destructive war playing the soundtrack. It would have been unlikely that Nixon would have been elected president. Of course, Lyndon Johnson would also not have been president: Kennedy seemed to be of the mind to drop Johnson from the ticket for the 1964 presidential election. Certainly the world would have been a much better place.

For another, bills supporting civil rights, Medicare, anti-poverty programs for which Johnson received credit for passing all had their genesis during the Kennedy administration, and Kennedy was committed to getting them all passed in his second term.

Kennedy, in his last hundred days, was beginning back channel negotiations with the Soviets to cool off the antagonistic relationship between the USA and the USSR. He also sent out feelers to Castro in the hopes of teasing Cuba away from the USSR's influence. His hope was that in his second term he would be able to diffuse tensions sufficiently to end the Cold War. These efforts were squashed with his death.

In foreign policy if there was one theme that motivated Kennedy, it was the demand for peace. As a man who experienced war and when required acted courageously under very difficult circumstances, he feared the wholesale massacre of hundreds of millions in a nuclear war. What disturbed him the most was the wholesale slaughter of children. He felt so strongly about this that he once said that he'd rather have his son red than dead. His advisers were often far more bellicose than he, and he sometimes made policy decisions that almost everyone else in the room opposed. Witness his behavior during the Cuban Missile Crisis when he was almost the only one against either invading Cuba or bombing the missile sites. Either action would have triggered a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, and everyone knew it and were more than willing, some like Curtis Lemay, even eager for the United States to initiate hostilities. Kennedy was the only sane man among a bunch of Dr. Strangeloves. He also engineered through the Senate the Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union to let some steam out of the threat of nuclear war. His intention for future treaties was to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in each nation's possession. Indeed, he even proposed joint space operations with the Soviets, including a joint lunar landing and exploration.

Kennedy assumed he would win a second term because his likely opponent, Barry Goldwater, who Kennedy regarded as a friend, held political views out of touch with most Americans. The Republican opponent he feared the most was the more moderate George Romney.

What emerges from Clarke's book is a man with a common touch who had an understanding of the aspirations of ordinary people and those who were disadvantaged by poverty, race, or both. He liked people, especially those with their feet on the ground and earning an ordinary paycheck. He resented those of great wealth whose noses were stuck in the air. In spite of his own great wealth, he was an Irish Catholic champion of the middle and working classes against the WASP establishment thugs eager and desperate to retain their ill-gotten and undeserved privileges. It's a truism that no one is properly prepared to be President of the United States. But there are those who by temperament are more qualified than others, and Kennedy was one of those.

Unfortunately he took terrible and puzzling risks. He would have been politically destroyed had his earlier chronic womanizing or his lies concerning his various health problems--Addison's disease and severe back pain, among just a couple--become public knowledge; his presidency would have been over. Perhaps it's too much to ask for perfection from any human being.

The international grief among people from all walks of life following his assassination was deep and sincere. Even some Soviet leaders wept. I remember the trauma most Americans felt, including myself as a 10 year old boy. Clarke suggests that what people grieved over was not simply the tragic death of someone who was a vibrant and charismatic leader. More than that, it was the death of the hope for a more peaceful and fairer world represented by a dynamic and visionary leader who embodied the best of American values.

And that is why this is a sad book.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://bestpresidentialbios.com/2017...

Thurston Clarke’s “JFK’s Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President” was published in 2013, four months before the 50th anniversary of Kennedy’s death. Clarke is a journalist and the author of about a dozen books, including two on JFK and one covering Robert Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign.

The book’s sub-title suggests an intent to demonstrate that JFK was on the verge of presidential greatness when he was assassinated. Surprisingly, however, the claim is only briefly addressed – in the book’s final pages – and little supporting evidence is ever offered. But in the end, “JFK’s Last Hundred Days” is less about a hypothesized transformation of the 35th president than it is about providing a unique way to see the last weeks of Kennedy’s life and presidency.

Clarke’s controversial contention aside, this 362-page book is lively, entertaining and easy to read. A prologue tackles the eight days preceding Kennedy’s last “hundred days” with the book’s remaining chapters devoted to chronologically covering the events of the remaining days of his life. The book’s final chapter (“After Dallas”) reviews the reaction to Kennedy’s death, briefly considers his possibly-evolving presidential stature and ponders “what might have been.”

The book is strongest when it explores Kennedy’s day-to-day life, providing the reader with new insights into his final weeks…both his frustrations and joys. Some readers will be intrigued by the book’s last pages where the author briefly ponders what might have been. Clarke proposes that, had Kennedy lived, he would have advanced a groundbreaking legislative agenda, pulled back from Vietnam and enjoyed a stronger relationship with his wife.

The book’s most notable weakness is its lack of continuity – its penchant for constantly jumping around the timeline. Even though it is ostensibly organized around JFK’s last hundred days, the narrative frequently flashes back to earlier periods in Kennedy’s life – ranging from his childhood to his early presidency – to explain aspects of his personality and policy perspectives which would not otherwise be obvious given the book’s scope.

Someone familiar with Kennedy may well find these frequent flashbacks relatively easy to tolerate as they reference (and reinforce) elements of his life which will already be familiar. But someone new to JFK is likely find the constant time-jumping exasperating…and the narrative maddeningly disjointed.

To Clarke’s credit, however, he treats the reader to a unique exploration of the last months of Kennedy’s life drawing on some sources, including recently released Kennedy Oval Office tapes, I have not previously seen referenced. His “glass half full” view of the Kennedy marriage is an optimistic perspective I’ve never encountered and he provides an especially clever and thought-provoking comparison of JFK and LBJ.

Overall, Thurston Clarke’s “JFK’s Last Hundred Days” provides an interesting view of the last months of Kennedy’s life while failing to deliver on its apparent raison d’être – Kennedy’s emerging greatness. Fans of Kennedy will likely find this a satisfying and stimulating read, but readers new to JFK’s life should look elsewhere for an introduction to this complicated and charismatic man.

Overall rating: 3½ stars

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book eleven in my Presidential Reading Challenge. This is the Chowda edition (JFK).

I've always been in awe of JFK without ever really knowing why. He always seemed so youthful and handsome. When a person like this dies young, their image is frozen in time; they never have to go through the disgrace of the natural aging process.

What I wanted to know from this book is what did he accomplish and what would have been different if he hadn't been assassinated.

He was not President for a very long time, less than three years. And this book primarily focuses (as the title says) on the last hundred days of his Presidency. It mentions both the good and the bad.

Good:
- West Berlin Speech
- Cuban Missile Crisis
- Space Race

Bad:
- Bay of Pigs Invasion
- Vietnam

You'll notice that most of the good came from him simply giving speeches. He was able to inspire and make people feel strongly about many issues.

Interestingly, the book points out that many of these issues he didn't actually care about like Civil Rights, the Space Race, and Vietnam. One of his favorite quotes was something to the effect of how the right thing to do is often the politically popular thing to do.

JFK comes across as someone who very much knew how to read which way the political wind was blowing. I would have very much liked to see how his Presidency would have turned out.

Unfortunately, too many people (the author of this book included), I believe read too much into what he WOULD have done if he'd lived. They say he WOULD have ended Vietnam. They say he WOULD have passed Civil Rights legislation. They say he WOULD have made peace with every nation from Cuba to China to Russia.

The author points to quotes from JFK saying he would do these things but the timeline was always after the election and the actions were often things over which he had little to no control.

For those that think I'm being unfair, here's a thought experiment. If President Obama had died 2 1/2 years into his Presidency, don't you think people would be saying, "Man, he would have totally closed Guantanamo! He said he would!" He didn't.

If Teddy Roosevelt had been killed when he was giving that speech where the bible stopped the bullet when he was running for President against Wilson, people would have said, "If he hadn't been shot, he'd have won!" He didn't.

JFK was an inspirational figure but let's not compare him to somebody like Lincoln. Lincoln had already accomplished so much and probably would have accomplished much more. JFK was very ambitious with his goals and probably would have accomplished much more. See the difference?

Favorite side issue: He clearly had a sexual addiction that was very messed up and involved him boning an actress and afterwards asking her if she'd had sex with his father. When she said no, he told her, "Well, that's one place I've been into first." EWWWWWWW!!!!

Also, I love that one of our sickliest Presidents is remembered as one of our youngest and most vibrant. The guy had Addison's Disease, hypothyroidism, and chronic/severe back pain. He makes President Taft look like Michael Phelps!

A solid read from a great author.

[Bryce Zabel · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a book that tells JFK's story in a refreshing new way, it's hard to beat Thurston Clarke's "JFK's Last Hundred Days." The device -- a countdown to the President's assassination -- is used by Clarke to bring in the history of Kennedy's life, career and administration. John F. Kennedy, the man, really feels fully realized here. I've read many Kennedy books and knew most of what's in here, but the organizational structure to the book makes it fresh. I also thought the audiobook was top-notch narration.

[Stan Prager · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review of: JFK’S Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President, by Thurston Clarke
by Stan Prager (11-22-17)


I was only six years old, but I can recall it with great clarity: the principal visited our classroom—the President had been shot. My mother was crying when she picked me up from school; my teacher was crying; everyone was crying. I was too young to remember Eisenhower; John F. Kennedy was the only President I had known. He was THE President. It was hard to wrap my head around the news that he was dead, assassinated—a word I had never heard before. He was so young and handsome, so full of life, so much in command, our savior against the Russians, who I was told wanted to drop nuclear bombs on us and kill us all. And I had a kid’s crush on his beautiful wife, Jacqueline, so much so that I memorized how to print her name. She was on our black and white television that day, her dress covered in blood.
This review goes to press on the fifty-fourth anniversary of that day, November 22, 1963, that ever altered American history. The nation has never been the same since the assassination, and the act itself has never been satisfactorily explained, spawning a wealth of conspiracy theories that still resound in the millennium. Just recently, thousands of classified documents, long shrouded in secrecy, have been released, while some are yet withheld. Like most Americans, I have never accepted the official explanation, that Oswald acted alone. As a historian, I know full well that history is ever replete with irony and coincidence. Still, there has always seemed to be far too many strange circumstances, far too many coincidences, for the Warren Commission conclusions to completely ring true. The mystery clings, but recedes into the past. This year marks one hundred years since Kennedy’s birth, but those of my generation will always see him in a grainy color photo as a vibrant forty-six, flashing white teeth in a wide smile on a ruddy face, seated in a limousine, with an unwittingly wave goodbye to an America about to be damaged so gravely that some might argue it has never fully recovered.
In a remarkable achievement, author Thurston Clarke has adroitly rewound the clock to the time just prior to that great goodbye with JFK’S Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President. I have read more than a half-dozen books on JFK, and I was delighted to find one that actually brought a fresh and surprisingly unique look to a subject that has been covered by so many from so many angles. So much that was Kennedy has become myth; Clarke has presented us with a chronicle of the last days of the living man, and lets us draw our own conclusions.
Kennedy was only President for less than three years, yet his time in office was so tumultuous for America—Bay of Pigs, Berlin Crisis, Civil Rights, Laos, Vietnam, the Cuban Missile Crisis that set us on the edge of nuclear cataclysm—that looking back it seems impossible that so much could have transpired in such a compressed timeline, amounting to a mere 1,036 days. Scion of wealth and notoriety, war hero, intellect, playboy, undistinguished legislator, the dashing and witty Kennedy stumbled into office to push the button on the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion he inherited, then was humiliated in his first summit meeting with Khrushchev, who treated him like a foolish boy. But JFK quickly learned on his feet. He was highly intelligent, had strong instincts, demonstrated flexibility, and ever carried about him a sense of history. His political acumen accorded him that rare ability to be able to peek out from the eyes of his adversaries, and to put that perspective to work to his own advantage. Thus, he deftly negotiated his way out of a looming conflict in Laos, knew where to draw the line in Berlin to protect American interests without provoking war, and—most significantly—brilliantly sidestepped a potential Armageddon with the Soviets over missiles in Cuba so that peace prevailed without dishonor to either side. Kennedy was a markedly changed man after that: the seasoned leader who shepherded the landmark Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to passage was not the truculent cold warrior of three years prior who came to office denouncing a non-existent missile gap. The change echoed beyond that too, in almost everything that informed the remainder of his time in office. Alas, that time was to be very brief, and much hung in the balance.
The standard report card of a new President in the modern era is the “First Hundred Days,” but what about the “Last Hundred?” Is that relevant? Rarely, but as it turns out there are important exceptions. Lincoln’s last hundred included Appomattox, and the light at the end of the long dark tunnel of Civil War, with clues of some significance as to how he might steward Reconstruction. FDR’s final months also edged to the conclusion of a great war, with victory in view but not yet obtained, and hints at how a post-war world might be constructed. Thurston Clarke’s magnificent work demonstrates that Kennedy’s last quarter rivals these in consequence and leaves many more questions.
Clarke does not go there, but many before him have juxtaposed Lincoln and Kennedy, who came to office exactly a century apart, presided over a great existential crisis, and then died at the hands of an assassin. It might be a stretch: Lincoln was clearly the greater figure, the greater President. But there were nevertheless striking parallels in their respective trajectories: Lincoln’s prime directive was to save the union; Kennedy’s was to save the world from nuclear annihilation. This virtually demoted all other considerations into secondary matters, which was a magnet for critics and tarnished their legacies. Ironically, the shared central element was the fate of African-Americans. For Lincoln, it was his failure to embrace and move faster on abolition. For Kennedy, it was his own failure to embrace and move faster on Civil Rights, a direct descendant of Lincoln’s struggle. Both men were solid centrists who continuously fought off pressure from the left and right flanks of their own parties. And both were superb politicians who understood that politics was ever and only the art of the possible. Lincoln came to office with a loathing for slavery tempered by an acceptance of the institution as constitutionally protected; he came to abolition slowly and much later, driven by the events of secession and war. For Lincoln, saving the Union was paramount, with or without slavery.
In JFK’s Last Hundred Days, Clarke echoes the now familiar reproach to Kennedy’s slow journey to the championing of Civil Rights as the great moral cause of his day, although he was indeed moving in that direction. But Clarke does not have to spell out what the great body of his narrative quietly underscores: like Lincoln’s devotion to the Union, for Kennedy—especially after the close call of the Missile Crisis—there was no greater issue than the prospect of nuclear war and how to avert it. Still, it was hardly his only focus. With a 58% approval rating, Kennedy fully expected to be re-elected in 1964, and he was mapping out strategies that looked beyond the need to depend upon the support of the solid bloc of southern Democratic segregationists in Congress, especially with regard to Civil Rights. And that is the great ghost that looms over the narrative. What would Kennedy have done, or strived to do, had he lived?
We know what did happen after he was gone: escalation in Vietnam, race riots, massive protests, a near breakdown of society, violence and more assassinations (including JFK’s brother and political heir), two consecutive failed Presidencies led by men—Johnson and Nixon—Kennedy had privately confided that he thought unfit for office. America cannot help but collectively wonder how history might have been written had JFK not gone to Dallas, but such musings must be informed by the man he was becoming in the months leading up to that day. In the wake of the related yet diametrically opposed extremes of the Missile Crisis and the Test Ban Treaty, for JFK literally everything was on the table. He looked to developing a more permanent détente with the USSR. He considered long-term accommodation with Castro: if Fidel divorced himself from the Soviet orbit, he might treat Cuba as a kind of Caribbean Yugoslavia. For his domestic agenda, he looked beyond a sometime recalcitrant Congress to the aftermath of the next election for both tax cuts and Civil Rights. He wondered whether he could replace LBJ—who lacked Kennedy’s confidence and remained isolated in the administration—on the ’64 ticket. It seems likely that part of his strategy in undertaking the somewhat thorny trip to Dallas was to gauge whether he could carry Texas without Johnson.
The greatest controversy has always swirled about the potential fate of American involvement in Vietnam had Kennedy lived. There is no new material in Clarke’s book, but what there is reinforces what we already know. In his famous interview with Walter Cronkite, as well as his private comments, it seems clear that Kennedy was seeking a way out. The changing relationship with Khrushchev could present opportunities to do just that. The model of both Laos and Berlin demonstrates that Kennedy liked to have that “Big Stick” Theodore Roosevelt once brandished, but—to the frequent consternation of his more hawkish generals—he was reluctant to use it except as last resort. A decorated combat veteran who nearly lost his own life in the Pacific, JFK decried more than once the casual eagerness of those who would lightly spend American lives in war. Ambivalent about blessing the coup to topple Diem that was urged upon him, JFK was truly horrified by Diem’s death—only weeks before Dallas—which seemed to steel his determination to look to pull back the growing corps of “advisors” and seek a non-combat solution. Given all of this, it seems highly unlikely Kennedy would have countenanced the commitment of ground troops in Vietnam, certainly not on the kind of pretext Johnson was to use in the Gulf of Tonkin.
If the subtitle of Clarke’s work— The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President—hints at a kind of fawning, court biography, that is not at all the case. The author clearly admires his subject, but hardly overlooks Kennedy’s many flaws, especially his addiction to serial philandering that ever put his Presidency, and his chances for re-election, at risk. Nor, as noted, does he excuse JFK’s tone deafness to the clarion call of Civil Rights, which won his sympathy but hardly unqualified commitment. Clarke skillfully places all of it in carefully nuanced context, and lets the narrative speak for itself.
That narrative—a numbered countdown of days that just barely contains a palpable sense of impending doom—is ever ominous, bookended early on by the death of Kennedy’s infant son (like Lincoln once more, Kennedy lost a child in the White House), and the assassination. Famously, Kennedy compartmentalized his life, and Jackie—despite the glamour and prestige in her role as First Lady—was frequently the sad and lonely occupant of one of those walled chambers. The tragic death of their baby seems to have brought Jack and Jackie closer together than ever before. Yet, like Lincoln before him, JFK could not really devote the appropriate time to mourn, or to comfort his wife; the fate of the nation, even the world, demanded that he ever be present and in command. Of course, Kennedy himself could only approach each day and ponder his options, while the reader is fraught with the terrible knowledge of how the story will end.
It is said that Lincoln dreamt of his own death in the days that preceded it. There are disturbing harbingers here, as well. It seems eerily prescient when Kennedy muses about his odds of being murdered, once even play-acting his own assassination. He confided to a friend that death by gunshot would be best because “You never know what’s hit you.” As he jousted with the generals—especially LeMay, who to JFK’s horror advocated for first use of nuclear weapons and privately disparaged the President as a coward—Kennedy thought a military coup possible, and perhaps even likely. He read himself into the plot of the recently published novel based on just this scenario, Seven Days in May, which he took as a forewarning of what might befall him. An Ian Fleming fan, Kennedy was also reportedly at work on writing a kind of James Bond style thriller of a coup masterminded by Vice-President Lyndon Johnson. For some reason, no drafts of this effort survive …
In The Phenomenon of Man, Jesuit philosopher Teilhard de Chardin speaks to the process of “becoming,” in which an individual evolves and is transformed each day into a changed human being who has been informed by all of the days that preceded that one. Thurston Clarke’s fine study clearly shows that Kennedy was, on each and every day, likewise “becoming” and transforming. That is, until November 22, 1963.


On the 54th Anniversary of the Assassination, my review of: "JFK’S Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President,” by Thurston Clarke ... https://regarp.com/2017/11/22/review-...

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a biography of Kennedy's literal last 100 days (as the title would suggest), but I thought it was so much more. Each story provided personal, political, and historical context and in many ways was at least a general review of his entire presidency. I really appreciated the passages about Kennedy the person and I thought it was a very fair analysis of his strengths and his flaws.

[Frederik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thurston Clarke giver her et noget dybere og multifacetteret psykologisk indblik i den mystiske og mytiske mand end Robert Dalleks noget mere sterile og opremsende JFK-biografi, også selvom den kun dækker de sidste 100 dage i Kennedys liv. Han åbner også op for “hvad-nu-hvis” diskussionen, og konkluderer frejdigt at Kennedy ville have gennemført samtlige af LBJs velfærdsinitiativer og trukket USA ud af Vietnam. Den konklusion er alle historikere nok ikke helt enige i.

[Chet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoughtful and honest portrayal of JFK focusing on the last 100 days of his presidency and life. Too many of the JFK biographers either swing to one side (great president, could do no wrong) to the other (lousy president, did nothing) -- Clarke has found the right balance I think. Reading the last chapter seriously makes you wonder what the 60's would have been like if JFK was able to serve a 2nd term. I would recommend this book for anyone interested in JFK or the Kennedy family.

[Suzanna Strauss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really loved it, although quite lengthy. I feel like I have a better insight on jfk as a president, but am still keeping in mind that of course this was written with an agenda in mind and that agenda makes your perspective of jfk different than it might be otherwise!

[Owen Tolfrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

My toughest read yet. A lot of researching went on as I traversed this complicated yet fascinating book. I haven’t delved into American history a lot so this really enlightened me to their political system. It seems like JFK was extremely influential in American history.

[Tony Powers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great treatment of a presidency just coming into its own when it was tragically cut short. The author's assessment of where JFK's presidency might have been headed is especially interesting and based upon the evolution of the man and his presidency at the end of his life.
A good read for anyone interested in the early 1960's and the issues that defined that decade- Cold War, Vietnam, civil rights, etc.

[Garry Wilmore · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second of Thurston Clarke's books that I have read, the other being Ask Not, the story of JFK's Inaugural Address, which I read about 2-1/2 years ago. The author is unabashed in his admiration for the nation's 35th President, and in some places Hundred Days comes close to being hagiography. Nevertheless, I found it to be a quick and absorbing read, and perhaps the best JFK book I have read in recent years. I only give five-star ratings to books I know I will want to read again someday, and while this one does not quite merit that distinction, I would have given it slightly more than four if Goodreads had enabled me to do so.

The "Hundred Days" has been an established Presidential benchmark ever since the days of FDR, and Clark deviates from the tradition here only in the sense that his own countdown covers the final stretch of Kennedy's abbreviated presidency rather than the first. Most credible historians, Clarke included, now acknowledge that Kennedy's first year was a disappointment, if not an outright disaster, and Kennedy himself probably would agree with that assessment. As a candidate in 1960, he was often criticized -- deservedly, in my own opinion -- as being callow and immature. But he had a capacity for personal growth, along with the ability to recognize and learn from his own mistakes. Those traits, plus a general improvement in his always-delicate and problematic health, enabled him to hit his stride during his final year in the White House, a period which encompassed a hopeful thaw in U. S.-Soviet relations, the introduction into the legislative process of what would eventually become the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the signing and ratification of the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which Kennedy considered his greatest accomplishment as President.

The final hundred days also included the Diem coup in South Vietnam, in which the Kennedy administration played a pivotal (and unsavory) role, and the book devotes considerable space to the coup and the events leading up to it. Much of Kennedy's continuing hold on the popular imagination is based not on what he actually accomplished as President, but rather on what might have been had he not been assassinated, and that is especially true with regard to Vietnam. For decades historians have speculated and argued endlessly over whether the war in Vietnam would have developed as it did if Kennedy had lived, and plausible arguments can be made on both sides of this never-to-be-resolved issue. Clarke makes the case that Kennedy would have withdrawn from Vietnam rather than escalated American involvement in the conflict, as his successor did, and I lean toward the same conclusion, based ultimately on the fact that John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson were vastly different men in terms of temperament, life experience, individual psychology, and worldview.

For the past fifty years, Americans have generally been willing to pay any price, bear any burden, to learn yet more about the martyred and near-mythical JFK, and I recommend this book to anyone who is so inclined. As a personal reflection, I have always been fascinated by the American Presidency, and laying aside for the moment his role in the history of his time, Kennedy is perhaps the president I would have most enjoyed knowing personally. His charm and wit were compelling, and he and I both share an intellectual curiosity, an appreciation for the written word in general and poetry in particular, and a love of reading -- especially history and biography -- along with a fascination with heroes and modern technology. On the flip side, his womanizing would have repelled me; but then, he was famously adept at compartmentalizing his life, and had we been friends, I doubt that he would have wanted to discuss with me his latest dalliance with a young, nubile Hollywood starlet or White House intern. Say what you will about his presidency and its impact, but taken all in all, he was among the most interesting and complex men ever to occupy the White House. As for what might have been, I believe he had the potential either to become one of the great presidents of all time, or to see his administration and his place in history destroyed by a sex scandal. Unfortunately, based on what we know today, I believe the latter to be by far the more likely of the two possibilities.

[Douglas Graney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another excellent book by Thurston Clarke. It must have taken him years to research. You will feel that you know JFK.

[Pete daPixie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Has Thurston Clarke taken too narrow a time frame to produce an intimate portrait of JFK? For a presidency that only lasted just over a thousand days, I'm not convinced that this writers broad brush strokes captures the image or the history, nor do I fully understand the premise of focusing upon the last hundred days.
Having said that, I quite enjoyed reading this book as I have long been intrigued by the subject and the politics of the 1960's, but this does not compare with the work of Dallek, Schlesinger or Sorensen.
As a work of history we are a little betwixt and between. Clarke's focus is on the day to day appointments diary that he colours predominantly with Oval Office files, Kennedy's personal papers and voice recordings etc. I would have appreciated a little more wide ranging digging under the surface, after all, the copyright of this book is 2013!
The reader is never really exposed to the machinations of Cabot-Lodge in Saigon or the CIA's role through Lucien Conein and Edward Lansdale in the coup overthrow of the Diem government.
Why is there no mention at all in this book of the last minute cancellation of JFK's Chicago visit on November 2nd 1963? Surely readers would find it most interesting that thanks to a tip off by a government agent named 'Lee', a lone-nut shooter, ex-US marine from a U2 base, Camp Otsu in Japan, and a CIA operative who had been training Cuban exiles on Long Island, New York, who was moved back to his native Chicago to a printing job in a warehouse on West Jackson Boulevard, over looking the planned JFK parade route. The patsy's name was Thomas Arthur Vallee. Chicago Secret Service arrested two of the four man assassination team but never located the remaining two, and this resulted in the cancellation of the Kennedy motorcade.
Once the narrative reaches Dallas we are into the realms of Manchester and Bishop, riddled with errors and inaccuracies.
I do realise that Thurston Clarke's agenda is to "address the most tantalising mystery of all-not who killed him but who he was when he was killed, and where he would have led his country and the world."
It's just that I strongly disagree. The most tantalising mystery IS who set up the patsy and who had him killed. That is the required intimate portrait, not these cartoon versions of history.
That's all folks!

[Fiona · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned so much about the Kennedy administration even though I lived through it, albeit as a young child.

What did I learn:

JFK favored the ban on nuclear testy over the civil rights bill. As he said, "domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us".

Lessons learned from:
-- Bay of Pigs -> not to accept unanimous recommendation of civilian and military advisers without rigorous interrogation.
-- Cuban missile crisis -> value of gathering a select group of advisers in a room and listening as they debated policy options but having the courage to make a contradictory decision.

Kennedy was really afraid of a military coup overthrowing his administration. He said he needed 3 Bay of Pigs incidents for a coup to be effective. Okay, he had the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban missile crisis, was there a third? There was military insubordination over the test ban treaty. Kennedy wanted out of Viet Nam. Then, there was the Ellen Rometsch scandal (East German woman with whom Kennedy had an affair). In fact, a journalist who interviewed Joint Chief of Staff Chair General Curtis LeMay and later John Connally (when he was Sec of Navy) both mentioned a military uprising. This idea gave the journalist for the idea of the book & movie Seven Days in May.

No one wanted Kennedy to go to Dallas which was a hotbed of discontent. Adlai Stevenson received rough treatment on a visit a couple months earlier. Even Kennedy couldn't contain the ire of the Texas politicians (LBJ, John Connally, and Ralph Yarborough) who were bickering.

I had always given LBJ credit for the Great Society; however, the war on poverty and also a cutting taxes bill were the initiatives of Kennedy, not Johnson.

I knew Kennedy was a womanizer. I learned, though, after son Patrick's death in 1963, he did try to become a better husband to Jackie. He once had an affair with Marlene Dietrich (sp?) at the White House. When she later visited the White house after Patrick's death, she was not invited upstairs to the bedroom. Okay, that's a small step forward.

There may be some critics who say the author was biased in favor of Kennedy. That may be so. However, I still found this book full of good information and very readable.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Because Americans felt they knew him almost as well as someone sitting across the breakfast table, they wanted more than a distant grave. Once their tears had dried, or before, they began naming roads and bridges, tunnels, highways, and buildings for him, creating a grief stricken empire of asphalt, mortar, brick, and bronze so extensive that if you extinguished every light on earth except those illuminating something named for him, astronauts launched from the Kennedy Space Center would have seen a web of lights stretching across Europe and North America, and others scattered through Africa and Asia- and if proposals to stamp "Land of Kennedy" on every Massachusetts license plate, or rename West Virginia "Kennedyiana" had been approved, they would have seen more."

I absolutely loved this book. After reading it, I felt as though everyone who lived through the Kennedy presidency must have felt: that I knew him and loved him.

Clarke, with his magnificent prose, does not present things in black and white, but puts things into context for the reader to better understand. With remarks like "because these statements were made after Dallas, they cannot escape the suspicion that they were motivated by a desire to paint the couples final days together as happy ones," he allows the reader to make a lot of their own decisions about Kennedy throughout the book.

I went into the book knowing little about Kennedy's presidency, but I enjoyed it immensely. The author includes just the right amount of politics and personal life. I especially enjoyed the offhanded quotes from the president that he included, giving you just a little glimpse into a candid Kennedy.

[David Corleto-Bales · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very detailed, day by day chronicle of President Kennedy's last 100 days in office, in which he suffered through the death of his infant son Patrick, (born prematurely) the passing of the Test Ban Treaty, the crisis in Vietnam over the deteriorating Diem regime and the March on Washington for civil rights. What comes through very strongly here is Kennedy's deep skepticism over the war in Vietnam and his desire for peace with the Soviets; he even set into motion back-channel discussions with Castro, (at the same time while the CIA was trying to overthrow him.) Kennedy's wit, humanity, humor and generosity come through greatly, and his philandering, (which seemed to be momentarily cured after the death of his son; his relationship with Jackie was stronger than ever). Killed at the zenith of his presidency, Kennedy was eagerly looking forward to 1964 and running against Goldwater, but worried about the Civil Rights Bill and the Bobby Baker scandal.

[Karin Slaughter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating book. I thought I knew so much about Kennedy, but this holds some surprises. I've never been one to do the "what if" game of "what if he hadn't died," but reading about his views on Vietnam, and how adamantly this scholar of history was against escalating our involvement in the quagmire alongside the French, made me sad for what came after his death. Here was a president who knew the cost of war first-hand and was determined to avoid it (though not at all costs).

[Lisa Neal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book that minutely details JFK's final 100 days. I really do believe the world would have been a better place if not for the assassination and this book shows what he was working on towards ending the Cold War, pulling out of Vietnam and improving civil rights. What a blessing we had him as president, but what a loss his untimely death caused. Read this book.

[Joseph J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm currently reading this balanced and well written account of JFK's last days, starting with the tragic death of his infant son and punctuated by his desire for a nuclear test ban treaty.

[Justin Nichols · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.6 -- I was very impressed with Thurston Clarke's effort here, not only detailing the basic schedule of the final 100 days of this remarkable President's life, but also disclosing revealing personal anecdotes of those around him and the monumental changes that were happening politically because of his administration's decisions before/during the last few months. He pushed, promoted, and implemented a lot of incredibly important bills and policies during less than a third of one year. And reading at the end what JFK intended to do (a lot of which Johnson enacted and received the credit for) had he been reelected in '64 confirmed my hopes for his presidency and the even larger legacy he would have left if given the chance to live out his dreams and goals for the nation.

I experienced simultaneous excitement and dread when I finally arrived at the 2nd-to-last chapter: Friday, November 22. Even the final couple of days before that (and some of the ominous quotes and information therein) were somehow satisfying and devastating, finding out how he spent them but also knowing what lay just ahead. Clarke didn't dwell much on the assassination itself or too many of the bloody details. He stayed true to the title, and wrapped up his account as soon as the final bullet tore through John F. Kennedy. I appreciated the final chapter, After Dallas, in which he documented the worldwide reaction to the tragedy. It's amazing to read about how many nations/world leaders mourned the death of our president, deeply affected as if he were one of their own.

This was an enlightening read, and I'm very glad I bought it for my collection. I highly recommend.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much like The Last Campaign this book has left me just stunningly sad. The potential of both JFK and RFK being taken in ‘63 and ‘68 just leaves me deeply saddened yet I cant help but return to examine their lives over and over.

Clarke once again was able to craft an enthralling narrative history of a very specific time period, the last one hundred days of JFK’s life. Of course we have the hindsight to know these were the last days but the subject didn’t which makes this so interesting.

Clarke is able to fill in the background and gaps to make this a very well put together history of JFK. We can see how he was crafting his opinions daily, how he reacted to the events in his life and potentially where he was going to go in his next term.

There is a certain sense of dread getting to the end of the book knowing that each page takes you closer to that final day. You get the sense that JFK himself had an eye towards how history would remember him and his presidency, only for that to be cut short in November of 1963. Clarke though through his intimate day by day account shows us the shifting JFK, the one who was already emerging as a great president. The one who could have changed the course of the nation if he had not been cut down by an assassins bullet.

[Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

The goal of this book is to establish JFK as a peacemaker who sought to de-escalate American involvement in Vietnam, a combat veteran who preferred a diplomatic alternative to military displays of force and a middle aged man tentatively embracing his role as husband.

The book opens with artist Elaine de Koonings account of her presidential portrait sessions and her struggle to capture Kennedy the man. The artist's struggle is the symbol of the historian's struggle to distill JFK in history.

I loved this book and learned many new things. Taking a look at Kennedy through the chronological lens of is last 100 days is manageable. The way a person spends their time shows what they value. I appreciated that Clarke acknowledged Kennedy's sexual escapades and risky personal behaviors without investing too much detail. It is well covered territory by others and I've had my fill.

I recommend this book to lovers of history, a reader concerned with insights into the last months of Kennedy's life as it does include details about his times with Jackie and his children. Thurston Clarke strives to describe his personality via incident as well as his historical legacy. It's really good.

[Kathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

As described in the title, this book focuses on the last one hundred days of the Kennedy presidency. Unfortunately, in order to give context to those events, the author has to jump back to earlier dates, which was a little confusing at times. This author, like so many, is determined to make you like Kennedy, despite all evidence to the contrary.

It's like they all look at him as say something like... Wasn't he great? Oh, sure he was a spoiled womanizer, but he was so charming. That charisma was really something. Sure, sure he was really naïve in the beginning and messed a lot of things up overall, but the growth he showed over two short years, amazing! And yeah, he was addicted to drugs and unfaithful and absent and ambitious for ambition's say, but don't you just love him?!

No. Not really.

But, he is a fascinatingly frustrating character.

If only in the last one hundred days of a man's life does he show any promise of not only being a "great president" but a good man, I'm not impressed. The author even clearly states towards the end that Kennedy is venerated as much for his legacy as his potential.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

A remarkable book that focuses on the last 100 days of JFK's life, and which I found hard to put down.

First of all, there is a constant theme of no one having the full picture of this remarkably complex man, a fact made clear by the woman who tried to paint him at the start of the book. I felt sorry for him as he lost his baby son and felt that perhaps he was on the path to abandoning his womanizing ways.

On a side note, it's a pity that he never wrote down notes for that James Bond-esque book he was considering him writing - his brief mention of it sounds fascinating.

Most importantly, the book only briefly touches on the assassination itself, instead focusing on it's impact on Americans. The passage about how many places are named after the slain President is a highlight.

In conclusion, it's a great book which I hope the author feels proud of for writing.

[Brendan Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good mix of day to day recounting of the last 100 days of JFK's life and administration and contextual history. With a story telling narrative, Clarke weaves together the week to week if not day to day thoughts and activities of the president as he navigates easing tensions with the Soviet Union, scaling back US involvement in Vietnam, assessing the value of the space program, as well as his personal relationships. A reader does not need to be a Kennedy scholar to appreciate the book as Clarke also offers some background history for context. As the subtitle suggests, the thesis is Kennedy was or was to be a great president had he survived past those last 100 days, so the bias shows through. But it is till a page turning account for a reader interested in JFK's presidency. It is not a book for the read interested in his assassination as the narrative ends with the morning in Dallas.

[Chris Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thurston Clarke told some stories in this countdown to an assassination that I had not heard before, and for that alone, it was a worthy read. A reader could tell that the research here was not simply done with archives, but by conducting and listening to countless first-hand interviews. The tale goes deep into the personal habits of JFK and toys some with the policy issues facing him. I learned more about the Bay of Pigs than I expected, and more about the space race, but less about JFK's avant garde views on civil rights. That credit seems to have gone to a surprising antagonist in this tale: LBJ. While this era of politics has more nuance than most, the tone is almost that LBJ played a hand in the bullet-bought transfer of power.

[Michael (Mike) A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rented the hardback from my local library. I may end up buying my own copy though.

I wish I annotated certain quotes and ideas I read.

Of the four books I was reading at once, this one sort fell at the bottom of the list. This certainly wasn't a "bad book" in any sense though.

The writing style of minute-by-minute accounts took me a bit of getting used to. For example, it might talking about a trip Jack took to a place in 1963, then talk about his trip in 1961 to that same destination, and then jump back to 1963. Once I got use to it the book picked up a bit.

I felt I got to know Jack Kennedy after reading this book. That being said, he was a very complex individual and the author certainly explains this well.