Let Us Begin Anew: An Oral History of the Kennedy Presidency

Based on more than 120 interviews conducted from 1989 to 1992, this ``oral history'' is a sometimes enlightening, more often frustrating attempt to recount, not analyze, Kennedy's presidency. Gerald S. Storber ( American Jews: Community in Crisis ) and his wife, Deborah H. Strober, editor of Newsbreak , organize their material in rough chronological order, beginning with the 1960 campaign, proceeding to Kennedy's political philosophy and Cabinet appointments, and considering crises like Vietnam and the Bay of Pigs. Their interviewees are mainly former Washington insiders, like Abraham Ribicoff, Pierre Salinger and Adlai Stevenson III. Such activists as the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr. and John Lewis, chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, are also heard from, as are Soviet foes like Khruschev's son-in-law Alexei Adzhubei, the former editor of Izvestia. There are potent reminiscences: then national security adviser Walt Rostow remembers how Kennedy felt death was near and always sought excellence; Commentary editor Norman Podhoretz criticizes Arthur Schlesinger Jr., the president's special adviser, as Kennedy's ``apologist''; John Seigenthaler, then administrative assistant to the attorney general, remembers how Robert F. Kennedy, unlike his older brother, the president, was ``willing to be vulnerable.'' While the book is hardly hagiographic--interviewees are divided on Kennedy's legacy--it sufers from its format: the Strobers do not explain how the opinions and reflections gathered here compare to or otherwise illuminate the public record. Author tour. (Apr.)