A Thousand Days by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

But Kennedy and Kruschev each agreed to not intervene materially.ĥ.

Southeast Asia was a major concern of the U.S. Laos was in the midst of a civil war in 1961 and was viewed as a key pathway for Communists to get men and supplies to Vietnam and Thailand. Perhaps the most surprising portion of the book. The first major crisis of the Kennedy administration resulted in an embarrassing defeatĤ. The immediate urge envy was how to fill the thousands of vacancies in the government and prep for the transition.I would have liked to see more coverage around the Inauguration.ģ. He spent many days with JFK and Jackie and others in Hyannis Port. This was the most personal part of the book detailing the period when Schlesinger was recruited by Kennedy. Theodore White's book on The Making of a President 1960 covered this campaign period much better in my opinion.Ģ. Then on to the General Election where Kennedy won the presidency.

Some interesting and dramatic material on the Democratic convention in Los Angeles where Kennedy squeaked out the nomination and chose LBJ as his running mate. The latter days of the Kennedy campaign in 1960. This book stands out for its excellent coverage of the numerous foreign policy issues and crises that confronted the administration from 1961-1963.īelow are the major events that arose during Kennedy's tenure that were covered by Schlesinger in some depth in this book.ġ. He was the Special Assistant to President John F Kennedy and already had won a Pulitzer Prize for History. Schlesinger had a front row seat to one of the most extraordinary periods in America’s history. These powerful images add a new dimension to the award-winning text and introduce a new generation to some of the most important and visually iconic moments in our recent past.Ī Thousand Days garnered Schlesinger the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1965. The photos capture private meetings with the president, the Bay of Pigs, the Civil Rights movement, and the Cuban Missile Crisis, as well as official White House memoranda, public speeches, social occasions, and private moments with the Kennedy family. Kennedy Library, the Library of Congress, the Associated Press, Life magazine, and more. The hundreds of photographs and documents included here have been gleaned from such sources as the John F. witnessed firsthand the politics and personalities that influenced some of the most important and dramatic events in modern history. Handpicked by Kennedy to serve as special assistant to the president, historian and Harvard professor Arthur M.

Written by one of our foremost historians and published in 1965, A Thousand Days is still considered the most complete and definitive portrait of John F.

A Thousand Days by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.