Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History
by Ted Sorensen
List Price:
Our Price: $6.00
You Save: $21.99 (79%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.15 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Ted SorensenEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-05-06
ISBN: 0060798718
Number of pages: 576
Publisher: Harper
Book Reviews of Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History
Book Review: Stunning insights from a presidential speechwriter
Summary: 5 Stars
JFK speechwriter Ted Sorensen's book Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History is required reading for anyone calling themselves a speechwriter.
Sorensen witnessed many historical moments in his 11 years as JFK's chief speechwriter and Special Counsel to the President. This book reveals the challenges and rewards of such unparalleled access to one of the greatest American presidents.
There's over 500 pages of compelling narrative in his striking honest autobiography. It covers his Unitarian origins in the soil of Nebraska, to Washington DC and the Kennedy years, to the recent past. While it does not include his endorsement of Barack Obama there is no doubt that his political sympathies are on the left of the Democratic Party.
Speechwriting Tips
The book contains a fascinating number of insights into speechwriting and the role of the speechwriter:
* Speechwriters should have a "passion of anonymity" so as not to diminish the principals' stature by accepting any credit for the speech. (p. 131)
* Sorensen writes speeches in longhand, with painstaking precision, requiring uninterrupted time, with piles of notes gathered on the floor around him, each pile reflecting a different topic in the outline. (p. 136)
* The six basic rules of speechwriting (p. 138-141) are:
1. Less is almost always better than more.
2. Choose each word as a precision tool.
3. Organize the text to simplify, clarify, emphasize.
4. Use variety and literary devices to reinforce memorability, not confuse or distract.
5. Employ elevated but not grandiose language.
6. Substantive ideas are the most important part of any speech.
Nevertheless, Sorensen warns, "Saying it so doesn't make it so" :
"Rare is the speaker who has the power to make others listen, and, if they listen, to act, and if they act, to do so in the manner he advocates. Nevertheless, I do not dismiss the potential of the right speech on the right topic delivered by the right speaker in the right way at the right moment. It can ignite a fire, change men's minds, open their eyes, alter their votes, bring hope to their lives, and, in all these ways, change the world. I know, I saw it happen."
Kennedy's impact on the world
As fascinating as the `inside baseball' view of speechwriting is, the real value of the book is Sorensen's role as witness to the defining crises of JFK's Presidency. Supreme among these was the Cuban Missile crisis, the thirteen days in October 1962 when the world teetered on the brink of destruction. Sorensen had a ring-side seat as a member of the ExComm group who met daily in the White House as the situation unfolded. Many senior advisers encouraged Kennedy to invade or bomb Cuba. Former secretary of state Dean Acheson advised bombing both Cuba and Soviet missile sites in Russia.
Kennedy, as we know, chose the option of blockading Cuba against that of gung-ho military aggression. Sorensen notes that "It is not difficult to amass public support for a belligerent policy against a national adversary... (but)... I believe that a president who refrains from going to war may actually be showing more courage than one who follows the more politically popular course and launches military combat." (p. 296)
Sorensen's role as trusted policy adviser during the crisis elevates him far above that of any other speechwriter in history. His drafting of key communiques to Khrushchev helped save the world.
The chapter on Kennedy's assassination is heart-wrenching for any of us alive on November 21, 1963. More than anyone except Kennedy's immediate family he felt the loss which robbed him of his future.
Sorensen's view of 21st century politics
His epilogue reveals his utter contempt for the Bush/Cheney policies. In early 2004 he stated:
"The damage done to this country by its own misconduct in the last few months and years, to its very heart and soul, is far greater and longer lasting than any damage that any terrorist could possibly inflict upon us."
Nevertheless, he remained optimistic that "a one-man aberration, however disastrous, is not permanent...Inept political leaders can be replaced."
He's lucky to have lived to see the replacement take office. It remains to be seen if Obama fulfills the promise that Kennedy heralded.
Summary of Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History
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.
Political Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Political Books
Peter the Greatby Robert K. Massie
Ballantine Books; Published: 1986-01-12; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $45.31
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritanceby Barack Obama
Crown; Published: 2007-01-09; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.71
Price in other shops:
Mussolini's Shadow: The Double Life of Count Galeazzo Cianoby Mr. Ray Moseley
Yale University Press; Published: 2000-02-09; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $30.00
Price in other shops:
Theodore Roosevelt: A Biographyby Henry F. Pringle
Mariner Books; Published: 1956-02-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.20
Price in other shops:
Godfather of the Kremlin: The Decline of Russia in the Age of Gangster Capitalismby Paul Klebnikov
Mariner Books; Published: 2001-09-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.07
Price in other shops:
Chasing the Flame: One Man's Fight to Save the Worldby Samantha Power
Penguin Books; Published: 2008-12-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.44
Price in other shops:
Autobiography (Penguin Classics)by John Stuart Mill
Penguin Classics; Published: 1990-04-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.88
Price in other shops:
Going Rogueby Sarah Palin
HarperAudio; Published: 2009-11-24; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $3.83
Price in other shops:
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers (P.S.)by Loung Ung
Harper Perennial; Published: 2006-04-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.50
Price in other shops:
Trusted Moleby Milos Stankovic
Harpercollins Pub Ltd; Published: 2001-03; Hardcover; Book
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
A Thousand Days - John F. Kennedy in the White Houseby Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
Houghton Mifflin Company; Published: 1965; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $24.00
Profiles in Courageby John F. Kennedy
Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Published: 2006-04-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.52
Price in other shops:
Robert Kennedy and His Timesby Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
Mariner Books; Published: 2002-06-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.99
Price in other shops:
The Kennedy Detail: JFK's Secret Service Agents Break Their Silenceby Gerald Blaine, Lisa McCubbin
Gallery Books; Published: 2010-11-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.12
Price in other shops:
An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917 - 1963 (Morland Dynasty)by Robert Dallek
Back Bay Books; Published: 2004-05-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.22
Price in other shops:
Counselor: A Life at the Edge of Historyby Ted Sorensen
Harper Perennial; Published: 2009-05-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.51
Price in other shops:
Kennedyby Ted Sorensen
William S Konecky Assoc; Published: 1999-03-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $7.70
Price in other shops:
A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White Houseby Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
Mariner Books; Published: 2002-06-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.95
Price in other shops:
Let the Word Go Forth: The Speeches, Statements, and Writings of John F. Kennedy 1947 to 1963Delta; Published: 1991-10-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.09
Price in other shops:
Kennedy: The Classic Biography (Harper Perennial Political Classics)by Ted Sorensen
Harper Perennial; Published: 2009-10-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.18
Price in other shops: