D - Misc books/video related to JFK Years

**Academy Award Winner - 2003 Best Documentary Feature**
Former Secretary of Defense, under President Kennedy and President Johnson, Robert S. McNamara was one of the most controversial and influencial political figures of the 20th century. Now -for the first time ever - he sits down one on one with award-winning director Errol Morris to offer a candid and intimate journey through some of the most seminal events in contemporary American history.

Novel.
A brilliant new novel by Laurie Graham set in wartime London, which follows Kick Kennedy, sister of future US President JFK, as she takes London society by storm.
Nora Brennan is a country girl from Westmeath. When she lands herself a position as nursery maid to a family in Brookline, Massachusetts, she little thinks it will place her at the heart of American history. But it's the Kennedy family. In 1917 Joseph Kennedy is on his way to his first million and he has plans to found a dynasty and ensure that his baby son, Joe Junior, will be the first Catholic President of the United States.
As nursemaid to all nine Kennedy children, Nora witnesses every moment, public and private. She sees the boys coached at their father's knee to believe everything they'll ever want in life can be bought. She sees the girls trained by their mother to be good Catholic wives. World War II changes everything.
At the outbreak of war the Kennedys are living the high life in London, where Joseph Kennedy is the American ambassador. His reaction is to send the entire household back across the Atlantic to safety, but Nora, surprised by midlife love, chooses to stay in England and do her bit. Separated from her Kennedys by an ocean she nevertheless remains the warm, approachable sun around which the older children orbit: Joe, Jack, Rosemary, and in particular Kick, who throws the first spanner in the Kennedy works by marrying an English Protestant.
Laurie Graham's poignant new novel views the Kennedys from below stairs, with the humour and candour that only an ex-nursemaid dare employ.

Novel about JFK Assassination and Lee Harvey Oswald.

A historical novel by J.Arthur Jensen.

In this play of historical fiction, J.Arthur Jensen presents the story of Joseph Kennedy's service as Ambassador to England prior to and during the early months of World War II. This dramatization illustrates that negotiation rather than military conflict might have been used to address the Nazi threat.
In 1938, with tensions rising in Europe, President Franklin Roosevelt appointed Joseph P. Kennedy to be the United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James with instructions to support efforts to maintain the peace. Kennedy learned that much of the political tension was rooted in Nazi anger over the Treaty of Versailles-- the treaty which twenty years earlier had concluded the Great War. After he assessed the political choices, Kennedy supported Prime Minister Chamberlain's effort to maintain European peace by allowing the re-unification of the German people of the Sudetenland with Nazi Germany but he realized that the key to long term European peace was to create a mechanism for legal migration of Jews out of Germany. Kennedy lobbied for a plan which had been previously explored by British and American diplomats: allow Jewish migration to multiple different countries. Christened "the Kennedy Plan" by the press, the plan quickly brought condemnation from non-Jews who did not want new Jewish immigration and from Jews who favored only immigration to Palestine. As Hitler demonstrated the power of his new Luftwaffe and German Panzers, Kennedy urged negotiation and compromise. Voices to maintain peace were overwhelmed by voices for war and we are left to wonder if the Nazi threat was handled properly by the governments of the west. Might negotiation have avoided the massive loss of life that resulted from the Second World War?

Donald H.Wolfe has written a startling portrait of the twentieth century's greatest film star that not only redefines her place in entertainment history but also reveals what the author thinks have been the secret conspiracy that surrounded her during her last days.

Novel about JFK Assassination.
"The most shocking conspiracy theory of our time... is no longer a theory".

This superbly readable biography is a sweeping drama of power, money and politics on the grand scale. It chronicles one of the great political stories of our era, the life of a son of the Texas dust bowl who rose almost to the pinnacle of power in America.
"Connally is an Olympian figure" says james Reston,Jr "By virtue of his eloquence and sheer force of personality, he dominated Texas and Washington for more than twenty years. At the center of three presidencies, he came as close to becoming a president himself as he did to being a lesser martyr when Kennedy was assassinated. His life has drama of epic proportions."
John Bowden Connally, Jr. (February 27, 1917 – June 15, 1993), was an American politician. As a Democrat he served as the 39th Governor of Texas, as Secretary of the Navy under President John F. Kennedy, and as Secretary of the Treasury under President Richard Nixon. As Treasury Secretary, Connally is best remembered for removing the U.S. dollar from the gold standard in 1971, an event known as the Nixon shock. On November 22, 1963, Connally, at the time the Governor of Texas, was a passenger in the car in which President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and was seriously wounded during the shooting.
In 1973 he switched parties to become a Republican, and ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for President in 1980.

Philip H.Melanson, Ph.D., is one of the U.S. leading experts on the history of American political violence. He found much lacking in the "official" explanation of the King assassination, so he conducted an independent investigations into the murder of King and discovered astonishingly flaws in the government's conclusions.
Questioning the "official" findings, he went on to uncover vast amount of new data that has never been considered in the case and that leads to unavoidable re-evaluations.

This is Earl Warren's story, told in his own words - the personal narrative of an extraordinary life...
Warren was appointed by President Eisenhower to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he served as Chief Justice for sixteen years through some of the bitterest judicial controversies of 60s in US.
In this book Warren describes also his involvement in what came to be known as the "Warren Commission" investigating the assassination of John F.Kennedy. He ends with a strong defence of the Commission's conduct and findings.

A novel.
THE MEMOIRS OF JFK imagines that John F. Kennedy survived Dallas, that he served two terms and then wrote a flawed memoir in which he fails to confront many of the questions that had arisen in the aftermath of the assassination attempt. A worried publisher sends a seasoned ghostwriter to try to persuade Kennedy to deal with these omissions. Their combat is the engine of this novel. Although THE MEMOIRS OF JFK is an invention, both its factual aspects and post-assassination conjectures are informed by the author's interviews with some 50 sources-many of them members of Kennedy's administration, some of them journalists he favored, a few of them close friends. No one, of course, can know for certain what decisions Kennedy would have taken, but given the nature of the man and his expressed intent, the world described in the novel is one we might well have lived in had he survived Dallas.

Historical analysis of development of a new Government agency organization and management of policy for Public Administration.
 Early Peace Corps history has many lessons to teach about politics of public administration policy. Executive Actions to create U.S. Peace Corps and NASA were very different than the Executive Actions today and increasingly of interest to many college courses today. This past history of recent Executive Actions are problematic as the are fully progressed from an idea to reality. Yet, the idea was not so novel when seen from developmental and historical perspectives. In many ways, it represented secularization of many deeply-rooted humanitarian non-secular missionary volunteer traditions of American views, beliefs, and sincere desires to share freedom and prosperity to all. The first Peace Corps volunteers of the Sixties were doing, without religious connotation, what Christian missionaries had done for many decades. This book provides detailed documentation of the many people involved in creation of the U.S. Peace Corps by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, in the years of the "American Camelot", and for the first 25 years of the Peace Corps -- with insights for the future of such humanitarian movements to the present day and beyond. Special emphasis is given to previously unpublished insights into early influence and interests of the first Director of U.S. Peace Corps, Sargent Shriver. This book can be very useful as additional readings for courses and seminars as well as independent study for Political Science and History of government agency and for understanding of effective roles between Congress and executive government agency management. This book provides historical insights into early use of Presidential Executive Orders for fast action while working with Congress to permanently fund and organize new agencies to address critical national needs, as pioneered by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson for Peace Corps and NASA.

The first history of the private relationships among modern American presidents - their backroom deals, rescue missions, secret alliances and enduring rivalries.
The President Club, established at Dwight Eisenhower's inauguration by Harry Truman and Herbert Hoover, is a complicated place : its members are bound forever by the experience at the Oval Office and yet are eternal rivals for history's favor. Among their secrets : Ho Jack Kennedy tried to blame Ike for the Bay of Pigs. How Ike quietly helped Reagan win his first race in 1966. Ho Richard Nixon conspired with Lyndon Johnson to get elected and then betrayed him. How Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter turned a deep enmity into an alliance. The letter from Nixon that Bill Clinton rereads every year. The unspoken pact between a father and a son named Bush. And the roots of the rivalry between Clinton and Barack Obama.
Journalists and presidential historians Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy offer a new tool to understand the presidency by exploring the club as a hidden instrument of power that has changed the course of history.

President-elect Kennedy spends November 18, 1960, alone at his parents' home on Palm Beach. He meets Enid, an attractive painter, by the water. The chance encounter triggers his puzzling decision to return to Florida immediately after Thanksgiving, leaving his heavily pregnant wife Jacqueline behind. Enid becomes the President's best kept secret and, unbeknown to him, much more than that. This presidency is strewn with dark mysteries from the demise of Marilyn Monroe to that of JFK himself; passing by the sidelining of lover Judith Exner, the forced repatriation of german model Ellen Rometsch, the wrath of Sinatra, the motives of Mafia bosses Giancana and Trafficante, the ominous warning to Press Secretary Salinger and the political survival of Edgar Hoover. Because Enid is not whom she seems. So who is this intelligent redhead, with gazelle eyes, who loves and dreams in the shadow of a president? Is she acting for others? If she is genuinely enamoured with JFK, she doesn't save him from the gun. And why does Mary Meyer, JFK's lifelong friend, meet the same fate thereafter? Masterly crafted around historical accounts, The Quiet Companion captures the reader in a fascinating web of intrigue until the last breathtaking page.

The Red Diaries was released as a four-issue series with each issue running 48 pages, about the Kennedy / Mob / CIA and other connections with Marilyn.
Written by Gary Reed, it featured artwork from Chris Jones, Laurence Campbell, Larry Shuput, and Ken Meyer, Jr. In addition to the story line, there is background information that will provide a wider view on the story line. These short segments include a history of the CIA, the Kennedy family, the formal reports on the Kennedy Assassination, Monroe's death, and more.

A two-disc set containing the important and famous speeches of John F.Kennedy, Martin Luther King,Jr, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.
John F.Kennedy was dynamic, poised and relaxed at all times. The program focuses on Kennedy, the public orator and features every major address during his three years in the White House.
Martin Luther King Jr was perhaps the most inspirational speaker of all time. Follow his electrifying speeches from the early days as a young pastor in Montgomery to the great march on Washington, including the final prophetic speech in Memphis just days before his tragic assassination.

Novel.
Stephen Hunter takes on one of the most shocking crimes in American history when his celebrated hero ex-Marine sniper Bob Lee Swagger follows the smallest hint of a lead to its staggering conclusion...about the fateful third bullet that ended the life of President John F.Kennedy.

Novel.
In a riveting novel rooted in one of American history's great "what if", Jim Lehrer tells the story of two men haunted by the events leading up to John F. Kennedy's assassination.

President John F.Kennedy is quoted five times in this book.

Year-by-year highlights of World Events a they happened : 1960.
DVD of 1h 36m.

Year-by-year highlights of World Events a they happened : 1961-1963.
DVD of 1h 43m.

Italian version of the book "A world of secrets".
An assessment of U.S. intelligence gathering pinpoints its successes and failures and examines where improvements are needed based on an analysis of previously inaccessible material and personal interviews with leaders of government and the intelligence.
One chapter is dedicated to the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 during the Kennedy Presidency.

At the heart of this provocative book lies the fundamental question: Does it matter who is President on issues of war and peace? The Vietnam War was one of the most catastrophic and bloody in living memory, and its lessons take on resonance in light of America's devastating involvement in Iraq. Tackling head-on the most controversial and debated "what if" in US Foreign policy, this unique work explores what President John F.Kennedy would have done in Vietnam if he had not been assassinated in 1963.

Few phrases garner as much attention as "We interrupt this broadcast...". Wherever we may happen to be , our lives stop for a moment, and we experience those few seconds of anxiety between the interruption and the actual announcement of what has happened. In words and images - and on two audio CDs- this book brings to life 43 famous and infamous moments that were announced  with those four chilling words, including the JFK assassination on Nov.22,1963.

It's a vintage 1962 book entitled, "Who's In Charge Here?" by Gerald Gardner. This book features the JFK  era at White House in a very humorous light. Cover features JFK speaking to former President Eisenhower, and Eisenhower says, "So the bathroom still leaks-" Every possible Kennedy-era personality is in the book, including Fidel Castro, Queen Elizabeth II, Caroline Kennedy and many more.

A whistleblower looks too deeply into a president’s assassination in this darkly satiric conspiracy thriller from the author of The Manchurian Candidate.

It has been more than a decade since the assassination of US President Timothy Kegan, who was gunned down while riding in a motorcade through the streets of Philadelphia. The “lone gunman” responsible was arrested and convicted, and the country has moved on.
President Kegan’s half-brother Nick tries to move on as well—until he overhears the deathbed confession of a man who claims to have been a second shooter. Suddenly Nick’s embroiled in a Kafkaesque conspiracy that stretches from Washington DC to Cuba and all the way into England’s Court of St. James. He’s surrounded by mobsters, oil magnates, crooked cops, religious leaders, CIA “spooks,” Hollywood celebrities, and international power brokers—including the renowned Washington hostess, fixer, and femme fatale, Lola Camonte—all of whom seem intent upon doing him in. And the closer Nick comes to the startling truth about the assassination, the less he really wants to know.
Winter Kills is an outrageously dark and funny take on the John F. Kennedy assassination and the conspiracy furor that followed it, from the master storyteller who brought you The Manchurian Candidate and Prizzi’s Honor.