John F. Kennedy was not only a president, but also a symbol for America's most cherished ideas. In The Kennedy Obsession, John Hellmann takes a thoroughly original approach to understanding Kennedy's star power and his carefully crafted public image. Tracing Kennedy's self-creation as diligent scholar, bashful hero, and sensitive rebel-cued by cultural figures such as Lord Byron, Ernest Hemingway, and Cary Grant-and the images of Kennedy in the aftermath of his assassination, Hellmann reveals the painstaking transformation of private life into public persona, of a man into perhaps the major American myth of our time.

Drawing on archives, memoirs, oral histories, and interviews with his top aides, a congressional historian and political insider looks at JFK's Senate years during which his presidential ambitions were born and first realized.

An illuminating account of John F. Kennedy’s brief but transformative tenure in the White House, from acclaimed author and historian Mark K. Updegrove, head of the LBJ Foundation and presidential historian for ABC News “Tremendously absorbing and inviting… An important book.”—Doris Kearns Goodwin • “Elegant, concise, [and] knowing.”—Michael Beschloss • “Rescues JFK from Camelot mythology.”—Richard Norton Smith Nearly sixty years after his death, JFK still holds an outsize place in the American imagination. While Baby Boomers remember his dazzling presence as president, millennials more likely know him from advertisements for Omega watches or Ray Ban sunglasses. Yet his years in office were marked by more than his style and elegance. His presidency is a story of a fledgling leader forced to meet unprecedented challenges, and to rise above missteps to lead his nation into a new and hopeful era. Kennedy entered office inexperienced but alluring, his reputation more given by an enamored public than earned through achievement. In this gripping new assessment of his time in the Oval Office, Updegrove reveals how JFK’s first months were marred by setbacks: the botched Bay of Pigs invasions, a disastrous summit with the Soviet premier, and a mismanaged approach to the Civil Rights movement. But the young president soon proved that behind the glamour was a leader of uncommon fortitude and vision. A humbled Kennedy conceded his mistakes, and, importantly for our times, drew important lessons from his failures that he used to right wrongs and move forward undaunted. Indeed, Kennedy grew as president, radiating greater possibility as he coolly faced a steady stream of crises before his tragic end. Incomparable Grace compellingly reexamines the dramatic, consequential White House years of a flawed but gifted leader too often defined by the Camelot myth that came after his untimely death.

The New York Times bestselling and extraordinary true story of the critical events leading up to and following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, as told by the Secret Service agents who were firsthand witnesses to one of America’s greatest tragedies. The Secret Service. An elite team of men who share a single mission: to protect the president of the United States. On November 22, 1963, these men failed—and a country would never be the same. Now, for the first time, a member of JFK’s Secret Service detail reveals the inside story of the assassination, the weeks and days that led to it and its heartrending aftermath. This extraordinary book is a moving, intimate portrait of dedication, courage, and loss. Drawing on the memories of his fellow agents, Jerry Blaine captures the energetic, crowd-loving young president, who banned agents from his car and often plunged into raucous crowds with little warning. He describes the careful planning that went into JFK’s Texas swing, the worries and concerns that agents, working long hours with little food or rest, had during the trip. And he describes the intensely private first lady making her first-ever political appearance with her husband, just months after losing a newborn baby. Here are vivid scenes that could come only from inside the Kennedy detail: JFK’s last words to his tearful son when he left Washington for the last time; how a sudden change of weather led to the choice of the open-air convertible limousine that day; Mrs. Kennedy standing blood-soaked outside a Dallas hospital room; the sudden interruption of six-year-old Caroline’s long-anticipated sleepover with a friend at home; the exhausted team of agents immediately reacting to the president’s death with a shift to LBJ and other key governmental figures; the agents’ dismay at Jackie’s decision to walk openly from the White House to St. Matthew’s Cathedral at the state funeral. Most of all, this is a look into the lives of men who devoted their entire beings to protecting the presidential family: the stress of the secrecy they kept, the emotional bonds that developed, the terrible impact on agents’ psyches and families, and their astonishment at the country’s obsession with far-fetched conspiracy theories and finger-pointing. A book fifty years in coming, The Kennedy Detail is a portrait of incredible camaraderie and incredible heartbreak—a true, must-read story of heroism in its most complex and human form.

William L. Kurtz delivers a comprehensive, thought-provoking book about the various theories surrounding the JFK assassination, favoring the conspiracy theory himself.

Based on Oliver Stone's documentary, JFK Revisited, read the transcripts and interviews that will change the way you think about the John F. Kennedy assassination. JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass contains the two working original screenplays for Oliver Stone’s JFK Revisited; both the two-hour version, Through the Looking Glass, and the four-hour version, Destiny Betrayed. These films are the first documentaries to feature the work of the Assassination Records Review Board. The Assassination Records Review Board worked from 1994–98 releasing records that the government has classified in whole or in part on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. They ended up releasing about two million pages or approximately sixty thousand documents. They also pursued an investigation into the autopsy and medical evidence in the JFK case. Although their releases and discoveries were quite important to the evidentiary record, they received very little exposure in the mainstream media. They also released documents relating to Kennedy’s foreign policy in both Cuba and Vietnam. In the former case, these were plans by the Pentagon to create a pretext to invade Cuba. In the latter, documents proved Kennedy was implementing a withdrawal plan from Vietnam. This book is unprecedented. It contains a compendium of information originating from the widest range of authorities on the JFK case ever assembled. This includes luminaries from several fields: pathology, surgery, ballistics, criminal investigation, neurology, history, and journalism. Never before have people like forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht, criminalist Henry Lee, Professor James Galbraith, author David Talbot, journalist Jefferson Morley, intelligence analyst John Newman, Professor Robert Rakove, and more appeared in one book; never have this many illustrious authorities been interviewed about their views on the policies and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The book also includes important witness interviews with Dr. Donald Miller about his colleague Malcolm Perry, Jim Gochenaur of the Church Committee, and Edwin McGehee of both the House Select Committee on Assassinations and the Jim Garrison investigation. The combination of this newly released information plus expert interviews changed the database and calculus of the JFK case. The scripts are included in this book, which were the backbone for Oliver Stone's films. It also includes important excerpts from the many interviews which did not make it into the final cuts of the films. JFK Revisited will challenge everything you thought you know about the JFK assassination.