Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History

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In an intimate, deeply revealing memoir from John F. Kennedy's legendary right-hand man, Sorensen recounts his experience advising JFK during some of the most heated moments in history.

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Publisher’s Weekly (03/31/2008)
SignatureReviewed by Michael BeschlossIn this modest, elegant, appealing and introspective autobiography, Ted Sorensen writes about his service to John Kennedy as senator and president with a candor that, he confesses, would have been inconceivable while writing his glowing 1965 reminiscence, Kennedy, or while Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was alive. The Nebraska-born Sorensen describes himself as a moralist not unlike his Unitarian father, C.A. Sorensen, a onetime state attorney general (and a Republican). He reproaches himself for still feeling "shame and stigma" about the emotional illnesses of his Russian-Jewish mother, Annis Chaikin Sorensen, and for his two divorces, which will make him feel "embarrassed until my dying day."Sorensen does not spare the man who remains his old hero. He declines to "defend or rationalize" JFK's "carefree misconduct and broken marriage vows," writing, "It was wrong, and he knew it was wrong." He criticizes Kennedy's failure while a senator in 1954 to help censure the Wisconsin demagogue Joseph McCarthy. Unlike some of Kennedy's most extreme defenders, he does not insist that JFK would have withdrawn American troops from Vietnam after reelection in 1964. Excluded from Kennedy's glittering social life, Sorensen recalls the president's "cool crowd" regarded him with "thinly veiled patronizing." New sidelights include Jackie's later private observation that her husband was "truly frightened" that Lyndon Johnson might someday become president. Sorensen knows that history will view him mainly as architect of much of Kennedy's enduring rhetoric-and the collaborator (at least) on JFK's famous 1956 book, Profiles in Courage. Such prominence unsettled the Kennedys, who wanted JFK's speeches and writings to be taken as his own. Sorensen reveals that after the commercial success of Profiles, Kennedy privately gave him a large share of the book's substantial royalties, and Sorensen wrote his boss a letter pledging not to push for "recognition of my participation" in its writing. The faithful Sorensen felt "crushed" in 1987 when Jackie Onassis wrote him an angry letter implying (unfairly) that Sorensen might be ambitious to seize credit for her husband's speeches. Sorensen says he never knew how much his old frostiness and protectiveness of his relationship with JFK estranged some colleagues. Blessed with a happy third marriage, he has clearly mellowed. But for Sorensen, as this book demonstrates, the 45 years since JFK's assassination-including an important New York legal career, a role advising Robert Kennedy during his presidential race, efforts to win the late Bobby's Senate seat and an aborted nomination to head Jimmy Carter's CIA-have been epilogue. As Sorensen painfully observes, when the Kennedy brothers died, it "robbed me of my future." 16 pages of b&w photos. (May)Michael Beschloss is the author, most recently, of Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789-1989, just published by Simon & Schuster in paperback.

Library Journal (04/15/2008)
For 11 years, from 1953 until President Kennedy's assassination, Sorensen was JFK's indispensable adviser and speechwriter, eventually serving as special counsel and key Kennedy administration official. This warm and touching memoir captures the optimism and energy of those Kennedy years. Sorensen devotes several chapters to his youth in Lincoln, NE, and to his years in New York following Kennedy's death, which included practicing international law, writing the best-selling Kennedy, running unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate, and having his reputation dragged through the mud during his unsuccessful confirmation hearing for CIA director under President Carter. The most fascinating chapters describe the author's special assignments, including his role in writing Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize-winning Profiles in Courage, helping draft the President's iconic 1960 inaugural address, and doing critical, behind-the-scenes work during the harrowing Cuban Missile Crisis. Sorensen offers a refreshing account that doesn't dish the dirt but remains focused on Kennedy's politics, as might be expected from a person "who never wanted to be JFK's drinking buddy [but his] trusted advisor." This graceful narrative by one of the last surviving members of the Kennedy administration is strongly recommended for public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 1/08.]-Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA

ISBN: 0060798718 | EAN: 9780060798710
Publisher: Harper  | Publication Date: May, 2008

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