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Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History | |||||||
 
| 80% Recommended by our customers. Publisher: Harper Catalog: Book Release date: 2008-05-06 Media: Hardcover Number of pages: 576 Ean: 9780060798710 Book Isbn: 0060798718  Tip: compare prices with similar booksAuthor:
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In this gripping memoir, John F. Kennedy's closest advisor recounts in full for the first time his experience counseling Kennedy through the most dramatic moments in American history. Sorensen returns to January 1953, when he and the freshman senator from Massachusetts began their extraordinary professional and personal relationship. Rising from legislative assistant to speechwriter and advisor, the young lawyer from Nebraska worked closely with JFK on his most important speeches, as well as his book Profiles in Courage. Sorensen encouraged the junior senator's political ambitions—from a failed bid for the vice presidential nomination in 1956 to the successful presidential campaign in 1960, after which he was named Special Counsel to the President. Sorensen describes in thrilling detail his experience advising JFK during some of the most crucial days of his presidency, from the decision to go to the moon to the Cuban Missile Crisis, when JFK requested that the thirty-four-year-old Sorensen draft the key letter to Khrushchev at the most critical point of the world's first nuclear confrontation. After Kennedy was assassinated, Sorensen stayed with President Johnson for a few months before leaving to write a biography of JFK. In 1968 he returned to Washington to help run Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign. Through it all, Sorensen never lost sight of the ideals that brought him to Washington and to the White House, working tirelessly to promote and defend free, peaceful societies. Illuminating, revelatory, and utterly compelling, Counselor is the brilliant, long-awaited memoir from the remarkable man who shaped the presidency and the legacy of one of the greatest leaders America has ever known. |
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Written on June 14, 2008 Summary: Classic Memoir I listened to the audio of this book, read by Ted Sorensen, the author. I highly recommend the audio, especially if you lived through this period or would like to know more about it. It will be a classic audio for the ages. Mr. Sorensen relates some really interesting episodes that I didn't know or had forgotten. He says President Kennedy called the New York Times to get them to fire the late brilliant prophetic journalist and author David Halberstam, because Halberstram was trying to warn America against escalating involvement in the Vietnam conflict. Halberstram later wrote "The Best and the Brightest", relating the irony of the brightest brains in America under Kennedy and Johnson lead America into such a disastorous war in Vietnam. Ted Sorensen says, quite credibly, that he advised both President Kennedy and President Johnson against escalation in Vietnam. Tragically Sorensen's advise was not taken by either Kennedy or Johnson. Sorensen was the idealist, the pacifist, in the Kennedy brain trust. As couselor to President Kennedy says in this book that he knew President Kennedy was thinking of making an overture to Communist China in JFK's 2nd term in office, should JFK be reelected. In light of this, Serensen may wish to provide a sequel to this book, in which he could give his full analysis of Presdent Nixon's trip of reconcilliation to China, with Henry Kissinger, which effectively laid the groundwork for peace in Vietnam, and hopefully an end to America's wars in the Far East. Most unfortunately, but understandably, Serensen does not mention Nixon's historic trip to China, in this book. This is a geat disappointment, because Serensen could provide great insight. Nixon and Kennedy were of course direct political opponents. So the absence of any mention of Nixon's most historic trip to China is understandably not mentioned at all in this book. Also, in light of Kennedy's near tragic confrontations with the Soviet Union in Berlin and in Cuba, it would be fascinating to learn of Serensen's views of the fall of the Berlin Wall and indeed of the entire Soviet Union and its empire during the Reagan-Bush Administrations. Serensen does voice his view that Kennedy would not have have made the terribly tragic escalations of the war in Vietnam, had he lived, and his Vice President Johnson not become President upon the death of President Kennedy. Although Johnson was a Kennedy appointee of course, and Johnson' war cabinet were virtually all Kennedy appointees as well, it is plausible that with Serensen advising Kennedy, Kennedy would have avoided the terribly tragic mistakes of the Johnson Administration in Vietman. Although it is Sorensen's conjecture, we don't know. It is not hard to believe that JFK would have avoided the major escallation of the war in Vietnam that occurred after LBJ's landslide election of 1964. With 20/20 hindsight, we wonder about the wisdom of JFK picking LBJ has his Vice Presidential running mate. The argument that JFK needed someone from the South makes sense, but one wonder's whether it would been better judgement to pick another Southern politician whom JFK had more confidence in as a prospective President. One of the more amazing stories of the JFK era, and its aftermath, is the Nixon-Kissinger trip to China, which may be also one of the most important and brilliant foreign policy events in all of American history. Since Nixon and JFK were closely linked as opponents and as Cold Warriors involved in the Chinese-Vietnamese confict, it is a shame that Ted Soronsen did not mention it at all, or offer his own assessment.  Written on June 12, 2008 Summary: This history was part of my life Ted Sorensen's narrative about his association with JFK , throughout his days as Senator, his run for the presidency and his short time as president, brought back many memories. This book changed my opinion of President Kennedy. I have a new found respect for JFK that hadn't existed before reading this. Sorensen was on the scene when the Bay of Pigs happened. The Cuban missile crisis, and many other major crisies of the times. It was very interesting to relive these situations from the inside.  Written on June 11, 2008 Summary: I Don't Think So Well, I could not finish this effort and so the reader must take that into account. That said, Mr. Sorensen is a marginal reader -- whatever may be said of the text. I was never clear on the vision here except that we all understand just what a swell guy Ted Sorensen is. Point noted. Written on June 10, 2008 Summary: A great read This is a great book. Informative and personal, from a man who has seen so much and done so much. A must read for anyone who has a passion for politics or 20th Century American History. Written on June 9, 2008 Summary: A profound, timeless memoir Some of the criticism leveled against Theodore Sorensen's new book, "Counselor", has to do with his close relationship to President Kennedy, thereby suggesting a literary hagiography. These sentiments could not be farther from the truth. In "Counselor", Sorensen offers up the good and the bad, the wise and the mediocre and provides what must be the definitive accounting of the Kennedy years. It's a fair and moving tribute to our thirty-fifth president and a terrific look at the man who spent so many years with him. Sorensen's background, a Danish, Unitarian-Jewish kid from Nebraska, couldn't have been more than the oddest of pairings to John F. Kennedy. But they complemented each other in ways that both men found remarkable. Sorensen was, in many ways, Kennedy's eyes and ears for the eleven years in which they worked together and the author's eyewitness to history is a welcome addition to anyone who remembers that time. Describing in detail the Cuban Missile Crisis, Sorensen is at his best and this chapter is, indeed, the best of the book. He's also candid about what his service to the president meant to his own life....the break-up of his first marriage, his absence from his sons and countless numbers of sleepless nights. Along the way, Sorensen reminds the reader of his liberal roots and his continuing liberalism to this day. It's refreshing to know that one of the last surviving members of the Kennedy inner circle, while recently losing most of his eyesight, has not lost his fervor and passion. Sorensen saves up some of his harshest comments for the end....a ringing indictment of the Bush administration and it comes precisely at a time when the country is in desperate need of new leadership. It doesn't go unnoticed that the final photo in the book is one of Sorensen and Barack Obama, taken last October. The spark of imagination that President Kennedy left seems to be in the air today. "Counselor" is a deeply moving and personal work and every page is to be savored. It is particularly reflective for those of us old enough to remember President Kennedy and his times, but also a wonderful introduction to those young enough who might have felt a loss of inspiration because of the past eight years in Washington. I highly recommend "Counselor" for Theodore Sorensen's detailed remembrances of his role in American history and I mirror his hopes that life in America can be so much better. |
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| Catalog | Book | Book | Book | Book | Book | Book |
| Release date | 2008-05-06 | 2008-05-27 | 2008-05-28 | 2008-05-05 | 2008-05-13 | 2008-04-15 |
| Media | Hardcover | Hardcover | Hardcover | Hardcover | Hardcover | Hardcover |
| Number of pages | 576 | 336 | 368 | 288 | 896 | 592 |
| Ean | 9780060798710 | 9780805077926 | 9781586485566 | 9780393062359 | 9780743243025 | 9780743291699 |
| Book Isbn | 0060798718 | 0805077928 | 1586485563 | 039306235X | 0743243021 | 0743291697 |
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