The Road to Camelot

Starred review from March 15, 2017
Accepting the challenge that Theodore White laid out in The Making of the President 1960: to -tell the story of the quest for power in 1960 in more precise terms with a greater wealth of established fact.-In this successful acceptance of White's challenge, Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe journalist Oliphant (Utter Incompetents: Ego and Ideology in the Age of Bush, 2007, etc.) and former Globe foreign correspondent Wilkie (Journalism/Univ. of Mississippi; The Fall of the House of Zeus: The Rise and Ruin of America's Most Powerful Trial Lawyer, 2010) begin before John F. Kennedy's run to be Adlai Stevenson's running mate in 1956. Although popular opinion claims that JFK's father directed his decisions and campaigns, JFK was always in charge and not afraid to oppose or ignore his father. He surrounded himself with shrewd advisers whose philosophy was brash and very successful. Most importantly to his later success, JFK started early. Then he bypassed the party bosses and labor unions and set up representatives in small towns to build support and lists of contacts. He and his team knew how to work the grass-roots strategy, giving tea parties for women, circulating petitions, and, most importantly, using TV ads. One of the first to closely monitor public opinion, JFK was handsome and popular, and the press loved his quotable accessibility. However, he was no shoo-in. His record in the Senate was weak, and his meek responses to Joe McCarthy worked against him. Race and religion were major undercurrents throughout the race, and the lead flipped back and forth multiple times. White was spot-on in his prediction of the availability of new information. Oliphant and Wilkie mined a wealth of fresh material to show how Kennedy approached his campaign in innovative ways. The authors impressively navigate all the new information to present a compelling story, easily shifting geographically and supplying background vital to understanding the whole picture. An excellent chronicle of JFK's innovations, his true personality, and how close he came to losing.

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April 1, 2017

After his unsuccessful attempt to earn the vice presidency in 1956, John F. Kennedy arguably served as a principal strategist, constructing a winning coalition of young campaigners, union members, party bosses, and fellow Catholics, among others. Included in this group of followers was Lou Harris, the first on-staff presidential pollster. Boston Globe journalists Oliphant (Utter Incompetents) and Wilkie (The Fall of the House of Zeus) provide an in-depth narrative based on oral histories, personal interviews, and secondary sources. After campaigning on the Cold War missile gap and a lackluster economy, Kennedy, an inexperienced but persuasive senator from Massachusetts, become U.S. president in 1960. This analytical rather than celebratory work suggests Kennedy's win offers a replicable template of preparing early, securing print bylines and TV advertisements, serving as an agent for change, and quickly responding to verbal attacks. The authors add a new perspective to literature on Kennedy by focusing on his electioneering efforts rather than his persona and policy outcomes. VERDICT This book will interest everyone from history buffs to those nostalgic for the days of favorite-son candidates to readers interested in contested conventions. [See Prepub Alert, 11/14/16.]--Frederick J. Augustyn Jr., Lib. of Congress, Washington, DC

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2016

Washington columnist for the Boston Globe, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Oliphant joins with Globe national reporter Wilkie to show how John F. Kennedy and his support staff invented the modern presidential campaign. Resources include over 1,600 oral histories at the John F. Kennedy Library.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2017
Former Boston Globe journalists Oliphant and Wilkie rely on their long experience and close exposure to many of the principals to tell the exciting and illuminating tale of John F. Kennedy's calculated run for the presidency and his very narrow victory in the 1960 election, modeling their book on Theodore White's classic The Making of the President, 1960. Starting with Kennedy's takeover of Massachusetts politics and his battle against Estes Kefauver for the vice-presidential nomination in 1956, and covering the transition of Kennedy's Catholicism from a liability to a questionable asset, the authors make 60-year-old history fresh. JFK started earlier than his rivals (Johnson, Humphrey, Stevenson, et al.) and beat them in every respect. His instincts and positions on everything from policy and polling to strategy and the use of television are dealt with comprehensively and are shown to have a great deal to do with Kennedy's success. Profiles of the principal playersbrother Robert Kennedy, father Joe (disagreements with whom surpass the conventional take), speechwriter and adviser Ted Sorensen, and campaign director Lawrence O'Brien, among othersalso make engrossing reading. Though the authors attempt to be balanced in coverage, their affection for JFK and their delicacy in handling his shortcomings are evident throughout. Still, as a look back at events that are no longer front and center in the minds of many modern readers, this is a very compelling account of a landmark election.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)