TheEconomistOctober 17th 2020 711J
ohnfitzgeraldkennedywasjust 43
when he became president—a whipper-
snapper compared with Donald Trump,
who was 70 when he was first elected, or
with Joe Biden, who is 77. His administra-
tion exuded an air of youthful energy and
glamour, but also a sense of high public
purpose. JFK believed that lucky people like
him had a duty to serve the public and
lucky countries like the United States had a
duty to serve the world.
Fredrik Logevall’s blockbuster of a book
follows JFK’s life from his birth in 1917 to
1956, when he decided once and for all to
run for the presidency (a second volume
will tell the rest of the story). It is as good as
anything that has been published about its
subject, based on years toiling in the ar-
chives but written with a delightfully light
touch. At times it reads more like a novel
than a biography, so vivid is the prose and
so extraordinary the material. It is also per-
fectly timed, with America in the dol-
drums,itspoliticspolarised,itsglobalrep-
utation shot to pieces and its political
class,particularlyontheRepublicanside,
discredited.“JFK”remindsreadersofwhat
Americaoncewas—andcouldbeagain.
Perhaps the greatest difficulty in writ-
ing a biography of Jack (as he was always
known by friends, family and journalists)
is that he is surrounded by legends. The
Kennedys and their courtiers bear primary
responsibility for this: Jack’s father, Joe,
managed his image as a man of destiny
from an early age and later his professional
acolytes, particularly Arthur Schlesinger
junior, turned instant history into hagiog-
raphy. Nature lent a hand: Jack and Jackie
Bouvier, whom he married in 1953, were a
ridiculously good-looking couple and the
Kennedy clan were a picturesque bunch.
Myths inevitably provoked counter-
myths. Joe Kennedy, the founder of the
family’s fortune and America’s ambassa-
dor to Britain in the late 1930s, is often pre-
sented as a right-wing monster who had
his mentally ill daughter, Rosemary, lobo-
tomised when she showed an interest insex.Jack himselfisoftenportrayed as a
spoiltrichkidwhowentintopolitics only
athisfather’sbiddingandtreated women
liketrash.
MrLogevall,a professoratHarvard Uni-
versity,dealswiththelegends deftly, de-
fusingthemashegoesalongbut never al-
lowingthemtodominatehisnarrative. He
doesn’tsugar-coat “the Ambassador”, as
thefamilypatriarchwascalled: he was an
isolationistreactionarywhotried to keep
Americaoutofthesecondworld war, had a
softspotforJosephMcCarthy and behaved
appallinglytowomen.Buthehad his good
points:“saywhatonewillabout Joseph P.
Kennedy”,theauthorwrites,“it’s not every
multi-millionaire father who takes such
broad interest in his children, who believes
in them so fervently and who, together
with his wife, instils in them, from a young
age, a firm commitment to public service.”
His nuanced picture of the young JFK pre-
sents him as a fully rounded human being
rather than a hero or villain—a figure
cursed by a sense of entitlement (particu-
larly when it came to women), yet blessed
with a profound desire to understand the
world and improve it.
Jack was far from a passive vehicle of his
family’s political ambitions. He struggled
to free himself from his father’s prejudices:
his first book, “Why England Slept” (1940),
was a critique of appeasement of Hitler,
and he matured into a leading supporter of
liberal internationalism. He also broke
from the populist political style that his
family had adopted, presenting himself asAmericanhistory
TheroadtoCamelot
Amasterfulbiographyofa fabledpresidentisa reminderofimperilledideals
JFK: Coming of Age in the American
Century, 1917-1956.By Fredrik Logevall.
Random House; 816 pages; $40. Viking; £30
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