‘Image’ Is All

For months rumors have circulated concerning a study of the Kennedy Administration by Victor Lasky. The New Frontier, it was whispered, had taken steps to forestall publication, with the result that appearance of the volume was at first placed in doubt, and ultimately was delayed for many months These days, neither author nor publisher is talking with regard to such reports; the book is out, and it is apparent that—whether the Kennedy regime did or did not try to suppress it-—the President would have been a far happier man had Lasky never put pen to paper.

J.F.K.: The Man and The Myth is the first full-length criticism ever leveled at the Kennedy “image.” Puzzling aspects of Kennedy’s career have hitherto been discussed in occasional articles, to fade from memory in the press of events, or have reposed safely in the nether pages of otherwise flattering biographies. Drawing on these sources, plus a vast fund of additional research, Lasky has put all the pieces together for the first time, in a journalistic venture at once merciless and courageous. Merciless, because the author has no compunction about sleuthing up oddments of the Kennedy past over which others might discreetly have drawn the veil, or about piling blow upon sledgehammer blow until nothing is left of the cherished image but tousled mane and incandescent teeth. Courageous, because in an era when official wrath is vented on those who deviate but slightly from the prevailing orthodoxy, one can imagine the furies Mr. Lasky’s painstaking exposure will arouse in the Presidential breast.

MS

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M. Stanton Evans

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John F. Kennedy

For months rumors have circulated concerning a study of the Kennedy Administration by Victor Lasky. The New Frontier, it was whispered, had taken steps to forestall publication, with the result that appearance of the volume was at first placed in doubt, and ultimately was delayed for many months These days, neither author nor publisher is talking with regard to such reports; the book is out, and it is apparent that—whether the Kennedy regime did or did not try to suppress it-—the President would have been a far happier man had Lasky never put pen to paper.

J.F.K.: The Man and The Myth is the first full-length criticism ever leveled at the Kennedy “image.” Puzzling aspects of Kennedy’s career have hitherto been discussed in occasional articles, to fade from memory in the press of events, or have reposed safely in the nether pages of otherwise flattering biographies. Drawing on these sources, plus a vast fund of additional research, Lasky has put all the pieces together for the first time, in a journalistic venture at once merciless and courageous. Merciless, because the author has no compunction about sleuthing up oddments of the Kennedy past over which others might discreetly have drawn the veil, or about piling blow upon sledgehammer blow until nothing is left of the cherished image but tousled mane and incandescent teeth. Courageous, because in an era when official wrath is vented on those who deviate but slightly from the prevailing orthodoxy, one can imagine the furies Mr. Lasky’s painstaking exposure will arouse in the Presidential breast.