Lawrence J. Haas - The Kennedys in the World: How Jack, Bobby, and Ted Remade Americas Empire

In The Kennedys in the World, Larry Haas expertly shows how three brothers shaped the course of Americas history. With vivid storytelling detailing previously unexplored chapters of their lives, Haas brings to life not just an era of our past but a remarkable family sailing the stormy waters of the turbulent twentieth century. Jack, Bobby, and Ted shared a tough-minded internationalism and a conviction that America belonged on the side of the oppressed and not the overlords, but each applied that legacy to different challenges in distinct ways. Now the torch has been passed to our generation, and this book serves as a powerful reminder of who we are as Americans and who we can be.

Andrei Cherny, author of The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and Americas Finest Hour

In this vivid, fast-paced study, Haas makes brilliant use of his White House insiders understanding of politics and his mastery of narrative history. Like his superb Harry and Arthur, this important new book compels us to see these major personalities in a global context, showing not just how the Kennedys influenced the world but how the world influenced the Kennedys.

Richard Aldous, author of Schlesinger: The Imperial Historian

In his very engaging new book, Haas tells not only an untold story about Jack, Bobby, and Ted Kennedy but an important one. He explores why all three brothers were so interested in the world at large and reveals their dramatic impact on Americas global role over the course of more than sixty years. I recommend it highly.

Joseph I. Lieberman, former U.S. senator

The Kennedys in the World is not only a wonderful read, but its also now the definitive work on the origins and evolution of the national security ideas that Jack, Bobby, and Ted Kennedy pursued so effectively.

Herman Pirchner Jr., president of the American Foreign Policy Council

Lawrence J. Haas

Potomac Books

An imprint of the University of Nebraska Press

2021 by Lawrence J. Haas

Cover designed by University of Nebraska Press; cover image Getty Images / Hulton Archive.

Author photo by Samantha Haas.

All rights reserved. Potomac Books is an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Haas, Lawrence J., author.

Title: The Kennedys in the world: how Jack, Bobby, and Ted remade Americas empire / Lawrence J. Haas.

Description: Lincoln: Potomac Books, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020025022

ISBN 9781640123847 (hardback)

ISBN 9781640124455 (epub)

ISBN 9781640124462 (mobi)

ISBN 9781640124479 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH : Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 19171963. | Kennedy, Robert F., 19251968. | Kennedy, Edward M. (Edward Moore), 19322009. | Kennedy family. | United StatesPolitics and government19451989. | United StatesPolitics and government1989

Classification: LCC E 842 . H 34 2021 | DDC 973.922092/2dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020025022

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

To Marjie, my heartbeat

To Samantha, my hero

No man is an island, wrote the poet John Donne, and the sentiment has special meaning for the man who wrote The Kennedys in the World. I could not have done it without the assistance and support of a wide range of family, friends, and colleagues over the course of more than three years.

At the American Foreign Policy Council, where I hold the title of senior fellow, President Herman Pirchner, Senior Vice President Ilan Berman, and Vice President Richard Harrison provided me with the time of many of their research interns, who tracked down tens of thousands of pages of primary and secondary material for me: Christina Armes, Christy Beauchemin, Gabriella Bettino, Liam Bobyak, Brian Carpowich, Ulas Cini, Cannon Counsellor, Hayden Gilmore, Alexandria Hickey, Evelyn Johns, Nicholas Labecki, Jacob Levitan, Garrett Lynch, Lucas Lyons, Matt Maldonado, Tilly Moross, Robin Naylor, Piper Quinn, Tyler Russell, Gabrielle Timm, and Hannah Wallace. I thank them for their assistance, and I thank Annie Swingen, AFPC s director of external relations, and my other AFPC colleagues for their support.

The Alexander Hamilton Society, where I hold no title whatsoever, nevertheless provided generous support as well. I thank Executive Director Gabriel Scheinmann and Marketing and Development Associate Sydney Scribner for suggesting that the bright and energetic student members of AHS s chapters on university campuses across the country might help with my research, and I thank the students who did: Joshua Chang, Layne Smith, Kathryn Selinger, and Cameron Vega.

My AFPC and AHS researchers received the assistance of knowledgeable, patient, and helpful librarians at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, which holds the papers of Jack, Bobby, and Ted Kennedy. It has an enormous stock of speeches, oral history interviews, letters, and other material available online, and it makes more material available on an ongoing basis. The librarians pointed me in the right direction on numerous occasions, and they digitized material for me that is not yet available online.

My photography researcher, Caroline Couig, worked tirelessly to find the photos that would bring this book further to life. She was a joyful, collaborative, and dedicated colleague and a true partner.

At the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, Alumni Relations Coordinator Tara Rendon proved a great source of ideas and assistance. Most importantly, she connected me with a host of ex-staffers to Ted Kennedy and with others in the Kennedy orbit. I thank those ex-staffers who generously allowed me to interview them and provided fresh insights about their former boss.

Betty Koed, the U.S. Senate historian, and her staff opened their files on the Kennedy brothers, all of whom served in the Senate, and they provided open access to the copy machine right next to my workspace.

At the University of Virginias Miller Center, where she is director of presidential studies, Barbara Perry enhanced my research by providing her insights and offering her thoughts about others to contact. In addition, her 2013 biography, Rose Kennedy: The Life and Times of a Political Matriarch, was an important source of information for me.

Through our collaboration on my book proposal, my agent, Peter Bernstein, greatly improved the book. He has a keen appreciation of history and a refined sense of narrative, and he forces me to think harder about the focus of my efforts and how best to tell a story.

I thank Richard Cohen, Mark Fife, Marjorie Segel Haas, Matt Maldonado, Tilly Moross, Herman Pirchner, Kathryn Selinger, and Elizabeth Wood for reading the manuscript, providing helpful comments, and catching errors. I also thank Peter Bernstein who, in reading multiple drafts of my book proposal, read sample chapters and provided useful insights. I take sole responsibility for any errors that remain.

I was delighted to publish a second book with Potomac Books, which transformed my manuscript for The Kennedys in the World into published form with the same care and professionalism that it brought to Harry and Arthur: Truman, Vandenberg, and the Partnership That Created the Free World