President Kennedy The profile of Power by Richard Reeves contains six hundred sixty two pages of fascinating material allowing the reader to witness the troubled life of President John F Kennedy. The book was originally printed in 1993 and was considered the best non-fiction book of the year. President Kennedy is the compelling, dramatic history of JFK's thousand days in office. It illuminates the presidential center of power by providing an in depth look at the day-by-day decisions and dilemmas of the thirty-fifth president as he faced everything from the threat of nuclear war abroad to racial unrest at home. While finding the President to be ``intelligent, detached, [and] candid if not always honest,'' Reeves shows him as disorganized, impatient, and addicted to the notion that it was ``brains,'' not ideology or idealism, that counted. Reeves's narrative could use more commentary on how Kennedy either enhanced or diminished his office, as well as a fuller explanation of how his forceful father affected his thinking. But the author excels at examining how the President dealt with the burdens of office--seething at generals' stupidity, picking the brains of all he met, chuckling at the ironies of the political game. Reeves account beautifully illustrates how the rich playboy-president miscalculates Khrushev. Neither Camelot elegy nor scathing revisionism--but the kind of cool, dispassionate narrative that JFK himself might have appreciated. Richard Reeves, Visiting Professor of Journalism at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, is an author and syndicated columnist who has made a number of award-winning documentary films. His ninth book, President Kennedy: Profile of Power, was chosen by Time magazine as the Best Non-Fiction Book of 1993. His other best-selling books include Convention and American Journey: Traveling with Tocqueville in Search of Democracy in America.
