Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History by Ted Sorensen
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Book Reviews of Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History
Book Review: The Keeper of the Kennedy Flame
Summary: 4 Stars
Ted Sorensen, who was as much a Kennedy alter ego as he was a speechwriter, is the keeper of the Kennedy flame. In that capacity he wrote Kennedy's biography in 1965. But that book was wooden and lacking in perspective. This book is written after Sorensen has lived a full lifetime and enjoys the perspective of history. He's somewhat more capable of being critical of Kennedy than he was in 1965, but he's still a Kennedy booster. And this time around, he is armed with the vindication brought by 40 years of history. Best of all, Sorensen is capable, at this stage of his life, in being extraordinarily candid. The result is quite moving.
Sorensen's own life history -- his idealistic politician father, his mentally ill mother, and his large extended family -- is quite interesting in its own right. And he tells the tale with great grace.
Sorensen's relationship with Kennedy, and absolute devotion to the man, is told with great insight and passion. Sorensen's best service to history is to demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that Kennedy was a man of great substance and idealism. This is not some empty suit, some diletante repeating lines fed to him by advisors hired by his rich daddy. This criticism of Kennedy has resonated over the years given the plethora of shallow Kennedy want-to-bes and given all the disclosures about Kennedy's poor health and border-line addictive sex life. Apart from appealing to our prurient interests, such criticisms appeal to our baser instincts that delight in dragging down the good and the mighty.
Sorensen portrays Kennedy's intelligence, wit, and judgment. Most importantly, Kennedy was a leader with the ability to inspire and to get the most out of people. This included Sorensen himself, who under Kennedy's spell wrote some of the best speeches of the century and who helped to run a successful presidential campaign and administration. Without Kennedy, Sorensen is lost, at least in his abortive attempts at a post-Kennedy political career. He's a highly intelligent, successful lawyer without Kennedy, but with Kennedy he's able to scale far greater heights.
But there is also something quite tragic about Sorensen's absolute devotion to Kennedy, which, he acknowledges, cost him his family. Sorensen's grief over Kennedy's death is conveyed in very moving terms.
On the matter of Kennedy' speeches and publications, Sorensen takes the position that Kennedy is the author in the truest sense of the word, though Sorensen (much like a highly effective judical law clerk) is writing much of the text. Sorensen stresses his partnership with Kennedy, how he was in tune with Kennedy on policy matters, and how he would borrow from Kennedy's previous speeches or conversations to write first drafts that were then edited heavily by Kennedy. What matters for me is not so much that Kennedy, like Lincoln, had to write every word of his speech, but that Kennedy was highly engaged in policy formulation, policy expression, and speech writing. It's unrealistic in the modern age to expect a President to have the time to write every word of every speech. Kennedy used his time well so that he could perform all of the functions of his office and had the indispensable abiity to inspire and to delegate to others.
Sorensen delivers a withering evaluation of George W. Bush and the wrong turn the country took in the Reagan era. Kennedy stood for the importance of the public sector, for shared sacrifice, and for creation of an economically just society. The worship of the private sector, the view of government as a problem not a solution, and the pursuit of social wedge issues have made Kennedy obsolete for many years. History has seemed to vindicate Kennedy as we view the wreckage of the American economy and foreign policy in 2008 -- and as we see the emergence of a new President who Sorensen views as Kennedy's rightful heir.
Whatever your politics, Sorensen has written a moving and insightful autobiography that makes the best case for Kennedy that can be made.
Book Review: Classic Memoir
Summary: 4 Stars
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.
Book Review: Sorensen, before, during and after JFK
Summary: 4 Stars
Should fairly obscure and relatively little known people write autobiographies? Answers to this question will vary, of course, but if the person's name is Theodore C. Sorensen, my answer would be 'definitely'. Indeed, Sorensen is one of several persons I identified several years ago in a category I labelled "I hope he writes and I can read his life story". [In case anyone is interested, the other two were musicians: Frederick Fennell (1914-2004) and Mitch Miller (1911-2010).]
Ted Sorensen is one of those figures who essentially went from nowhere to become one of the closest aides to President John F. Kennedy. Readers of this memoir will be most interested in Sorensen's life between 1953 and Novemeber 22, 1963, during which he served as one of JFK's closest advisers ("Special Counsel" was his official title from 1961 to 1963) and his top speech writer.
There are many ideas a reviewer of this book could comment on. I will mention a few that especially interested me.
So, according to Sorensen, the following are accurate:
-- JFK was the person who conceived and was the main writer of his famous "Profiles in Courage" book, though he did receive lots of assistance from Sorensen.
--Kennedy "showed no courage" in avoiding voting on the censure of Senator Joe McCarthy during the 1950s.
--JFK did err (in accepting assurance of success from CIA leaders) in the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, but he recovered, learned from his experience, and was brilliant during the Cuban Missile Crisis, especially in triumphing over his hawkish associates.
--Kennedy took greater initiative in civil rights than any of the presidents before him.
--We really don't know what JFK would have done with respect to US involvement in Vietnam.
Here are a few additional revelations. Sorensen was responsible for the faux pas JFK made in his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech in Berlin. The Kennedys and Lyndon Johnson really did not get along well, and JFK thought LBJ was just about useless as Vice President. There was much friction between Sorensen and JFK associates/advisers Ken O'Donnell and Richard Goodwin.
Regarding the JFK assassination, Sorensen was, along with many of JFK's close associates, too shocked and numbed by his death to give much thought to the question of who did it. But over the decades Sorensen has come around to accepting what most of the American people have believed: more persons than Lee Oswald were involved in this unsolved and unpunished crime.
The epilogue is extremely useful as a concise summary of Sorensen's view of JFK's strengths, weaknesses, triumphs, failures -- both personal and as a public figure. If one does not read all 530 pages of the book, at least read this epilogue.
I believe the book justified my hopes expressed in the first paragraph of this review. The writing is superb, for the most part candid, and full of humor. If the 1950s and 1960s interest you at all, this is a book to investigate.
Tim Koerner
August 2008
Book Review: Camelot Fondly Remembered
Summary: 4 Stars
For me, the name Ted Sorensen (formerly Theodore C. Sorensen) will be forever linked to John F. Kennedy. More than just your average speechwriter, Sorensen was, in effect, Kennedy's alter ego. Sorensen's words gave Kennedy's thoughts elegance and a persuasive edge. It is not surprising that approximately 90% of this book is about JFK and the Kennedy family. Also, it should be no surprise that there are no scandalous revelations of misconduct. To the contrary, where there is any sign of damage to the Kennedy interests, there is also damage control.
Sorensen can be excused if he exaggerates his own importance. After all, by definition a memoir presents things the way that he saw it. Sorensen does not see himself as just a speechwriter; he sees himself as an advisor to the president on a variety of important issues. (Still, his chapter on speechwriting is one of the most interesting parts of the book.) Very briefly covered are Sorensen's Nebraska roots, his post-Kennedy years as a lawyer with the New York firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, and his three marriages.
The coverage of some events is spotty - another deficiency inherent in memoirs. Inconsistent coverage of civil rights makes one wonder whether most of Kennedy's advice on that subject came from the president's brother Robert. Sorensen states that he was not in the loop with respect to Vietnam. However, that does not stop him from absolving Kennedy of all blame for the assassination of Vietnam's President Diem, nor does it stop him from speculating about how Kennedy would have dealt with Vietnam in his second term. (He would have withdrawn all American troops; he did not commit combat troops.) Sorensen seems to have forgotten that JFK ordered the landing of a combat battalion of Marines in Thailand in July 1962, and that a brigade of combat-ready Marines was aboard ships just off the coast of Cuba in October 1962, ready to launch an amphibious assault at a moment's notice.
The most troubling aspect of this book is Sorensen's repeated fawning over JFK and other members of the Kennedy family. Some observers have called it "hero-worship;" but it is more than that. Sorensen is too bright not to recognize what plainly appears in his words. Someday, the reason for this fawning treatment may become known. In the meanwhile it is a major annoyance to the readers of this book.
Interestingly, Sorensen's recollections sparked my renewed interest in contemporary writings of the JFK era - histories by Schlesinger and Manchester, as well as the one written by Sorensen. I purchased those books in the 1960s but could not bring myself to read them. Online, I found a recent Vanity Fair article about the irrational efforts of Jacqueline Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy to silence William Manchester (through a lawsuit brought by Sorensen's law firm). It is a credit to Sorensen's memoir that it provoked so much additional thought and activity.
Regardless of its shortcomings, this is a worthwhile book.
Book Review: Eleven Years
Summary: 4 Stars
Theodore ("Ted") Sorensen graduated from the University of Nebraska College of Law in 1951 at age 23 and decided to move to Washington, D.C. After the 1952 election, with his temporary job at the Joint Committee on Railroad Retirement about to expire, he began looking for a staff position on Capitol Hill. There were jobs available with newly elected Senators, and Sorensen eventually got offers from two of them: Henry ("Scoop") Jackson of Washington, and John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts. The choice was not obvious, and half a century later he still marvels at having made what for him was the right choice. For the next eleven years, Sorenson was a speechwriter and adviser to Kennedy, living (as the subtitle puts it) "at the edge of history."
Sorensen has no new revelations about JFK or his contemporaries (that ground has been well plowed), but his account is interesting in other ways. Sorensen was "Special Counsel" to the President, whose duties included speechwriting and "counsel" on a wide variety of matters. He seems to make a conscientious effort to avoid exaggerating his own influence on the decisions to which he contributed; nor does he try to claim credit for the achievements of his boss. In particular, when he was "out of the loop," as on decisions relating to policy toward Vietnam, he says so. This is refreshing candor in a book of this kind, and it contributes to the author's success not only in explaining his own role, but in showing how decisions were made and implemented. Like other New Frontier insiders, however, he tends to remember what is best about John F. Kennedy, and only with excruciating reluctance includes a chapter in which he tries to come to terms with recent revelations about Kennedy's marital infidelities and indiscretions.
Although Sorensen remained a participant in power politics for the next four decades, his eleven years with John F. Kennedy were the most important of his life and are the core of this book. The first 90 or so pages, about growing up in Nebraska, are an interesting prologue; the last 150 or so, covering 1964-2007, are somewhat anticlimactic. Like most memoirists, he cannot resist including details that are of interest only to his family (do we really care who were the ring-bearers at his daughter's wedding?) Even this section, however, includes an extremely interesting chapter on Sorensen's failed nomination to be Jimmy Carter's CIA director, an early indication of the weaknesses of Carter's Presidency that later became clear.
Sorensen summarizes his years with JFK this way: "For eleven years, I loved him, respected him, and believed in him. I still do." With that perspective in mind, this is a worthwhile book, but don't expect any "aha!" moments.