I found the extensive oral history collections at the Kennedy Library in Boston, and the Johnson Library in Austin, to be crucial resources, not least because many of those who knew Kennedy best have recently died, and their oral history interviews offer particularly detailed and poignant memories of their last encounters and conversations with Kennedy. I was also granted access to two lengthy oral histories that had been previously closed to researchers, those of Kennedy’s close friends Paul Fay and Lem Billings (the Fay oral history has since been opened to the public). I would like to thank Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., for giving me access to the Billings history, and to Paul Fay’s son for allowing me to read his father’s oral history. In September 2011, the Kennedy Library released Jackie Kennedy’s oral history, and in 2012, it released the last of Kennedy’s Oval Office tapes. Both made it much easier to reconstruct his thoughts and conversations during his last hundred days. Arthur Schlesinger’s extensive journals, published in 2007, were also an important resource. His published journals, however, represented only about 15 percent of the whole, and his other entries, available in the manuscript room of the New York Public Library, proved to be invaluable.
Several authors—most notably Sally Bedell Smith, Richard Reeves, Barbara Leaming, and Robert Dallek—interviewed many key Kennedy figures in the final years of their lives, and the material in their books that is based on their interviews is an oral history in its own right, and I am sure I will not be the last author to be in their debt. Ralph Martin’s A Hero for Our Times (1983) and Seeds of Destruction (1995), both based on extensive interviews with people who knew Kennedy intimately and have since died, are also cited often in my chapter notes. Two former Secret Service agents, Clint Hill and Gerald Blaine, have recently written memoirs, both with the author Lisa McCubbin, that were important sources for my accounts of Kennedy’s trips to Tampa and Texas. John Logsdon’s John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon provided important insights into JFK’s proposal for a joint lunar mission. Dallek’s and Giglio’s books contain groundbreaking analysis of Kennedy’s health, as does Susan Schwartz’s informative biography of Dr. Hans Kraus. I am also grateful to Dr. Heidi Kimberly for reviewing JFK’s medical records with me, and explaining in detail his various illnesses and complaints. For Kennedy’s Vietnam policy I relied on the FRUS material, and books by Rust, Newman, Jones, and Porter, as well as the primary material and analysis found in Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived by Blight, Lang, and Welch. I found Porter’s argument that Kennedy was using the optimistic Pentagon reports and the 1963 Taylor-McNamara mission to justify withdrawing U.S. advisers convincing and supported by the cables and anecdotal evidence. The Kennedys: America’s Emerald Kings by Thomas Maier was particularly perceptive about the importance of JFK’s Irish heritage, and Maier was the first author to reveal the poignant conversations between Jackie and Father McSorley in 1964. In instances where Kennedy’s inaugural address influenced his decisions and approach to an issue, I relied on material from my previous book about the speech, Ask Not.
At the Kennedy Library, Stephen Plotkin and Sharon Kelly were, as usual, wonderfully accommodating and helpful, as was Laurie Austin in the audiovisual department. I consulted the Laura Bergquist Papers at Boston University and the Margaret Coit Papers at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and would like to thank the librarians at both institutions. I am also grateful to Sally Bedell Smith for suggesting that I consult William Manchester’s papers (cited in the notes as “Death of a President”), and to the librarians at the Wesleyan Library manuscript collection for making them available.
Four interviews in particular were especially illuminating, and I would like to thank Ben Bradlee, Harris Wofford, Marie Ridder, and Lee White. For my earlier book about JFK’s inaugural address, Ask Not, I also spoke with Ted Sorensen, Hugh Sidey, Arthur Schlesinger, Paul Fay, Oleg Cassini, Deirdre Henderson, and Charlie Bartlett, among many others, and I have used some material from those interviews in this book as well. Nancy Dutton has provided me with invaluable counsel and encouragement during the writing of this book and my previous one about Robert Kennedy’s 1968 campaign.
I am grateful to Thad and Sarah Beal, and Harry Spence and Robin Ely, for their hospitality and friendship during my frequent trips to Boston. Every winter, Sandy, Stephanie, Lily, and Isobel Carden have welcomed me into their family and home in Florida, and some of my best work has been done while sitting on their pleasant terrace. I am also indebted to George Whitney for hosting me in Florida and Massachusetts, and reminding me that not everyone shares my fascination with JFK. My wife, Antonia, again came to my rescue with some fast word processing and eagle-eyed editing, and my daughters, Phoebe, Edwina, and Sophie, gracefully endured three more years of hearing about the Kennedys. Ben Weir tracked down a copy of Irene Galitzine’s book while spending a junior-year semester in Italy and translated it. He also gave my manuscript a careful and insightful read, proving himself to be a much better editor than any twenty-two-year-old has a right to be. I was sorry to lose Nick Trautwein when he moved from Penguin Press to The New Yorker, but fortunate to be handed over to Ginny Smith, who has been everything an author could want in an editor: sure-footed, enthusiastic, and nurturing. Her able assistant Kaitlyn Flynn has flawlessly handled the many tasks involved in turning my manuscript into a book. I am also grateful to Stefan McGrath and Josephine Greywoode at Allen Lane, my British publisher, for their encouragement and perceptive comments. While this book was being written, the Robbins Office was staffed by a talented and skillful group of professionals that included Karen Close, Katie Hutt, Ian King, Arielle Asher, Rachelle Bergstein, Micah Hauser, and Louise Quayle. I have dedicated the book to my agents Kathy Robbins and David Halpern, with gratitude for their wisdom and enthusiasm over the years.