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Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History | 
 enlarge | Author: Ted Sorensen
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 2956
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 576
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 1.9
ISBN: 0060798718
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.922092
EAN: 9780060798710
ASIN: 0060798718
Publication Date: May 1, 2008
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Product Description
In this gripping memoir, John F. Kennedy's closest advisor recounts in full for the first time his experience counseling Kennedy through the most dramatic moments in American history. Sorensen returns to January 1953, when he and the freshman senator from Massachusetts began their extraordinary professional and personal relationship. Rising from legislative assistant to speechwriter and advisor, the young lawyer from Nebraska worked closely with JFK on his most important speeches, as well as his book Profiles in Courage. Sorensen encouraged the junior senator's political ambitions—from a failed bid for the vice presidential nomination in 1956 to the successful presidential campaign in 1960, after which he was named Special Counsel to the President. Sorensen describes in thrilling detail his experience advising JFK during some of the most crucial days of his presidency, from the decision to go to the moon to the Cuban Missile Crisis, when JFK requested that the thirty-four-year-old Sorensen draft the key letter to Khrushchev at the most critical point of the world's first nuclear confrontation. After Kennedy was assassinated, Sorensen stayed with President Johnson for a few months before leaving to write a biography of JFK. In 1968 he returned to Washington to help run Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign. Through it all, Sorensen never lost sight of the ideals that brought him to Washington and to the White House, working tirelessly to promote and defend free, peaceful societies. Illuminating, revelatory, and utterly compelling, Counselor is the brilliant, long-awaited memoir from the remarkable man who shaped the presidency and the legacy of one of the greatest leaders America has ever known.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 23 more reviews...
 A Great Read. Buy it. August 11, 2008
A thoroughly enjoyable read if you are interested in the JFK era. Sorensen loved (in the most genuinely platonic sense) his hero Kennedy. While some of his praise for the assassinated President borders on cloying, the overall book is an excellent read. As a keynote speaker, (I reference the Kennedy brand in a jaundiced manner in Why Ireland Never Invaded America) I have a deep and abiding fascination for great wordsmiths and by any standards President Kennedy's Counselor is a great speech writer.
The author shows us how he and Kennedy wrote some of their great speeches. He is extraordinarily self-effacing in terms of his own contribution to Kennedy's work. This is most obvious when discussing Profiles in Courage where despite all evidence to the contrary, he still maintains Kennedy was the sole author of the book because it was his (Kennedy's) ideas and direction that produced the book. Maybe so, but there is not another person alive today who would not at least claim co-authorship if he or she were to contribute as much as Sorensen did.
He would never claim to be objective about JFK, which I accept, but this lack of serious objectivity stretches to almost anyone bearing a Kennedy name as he provides brief commentary on RFK, Ted and Jackie Kennedy.
As with most Kennedy fans, he suggests his boss would have kept the US out of Vietnam. Who knows? But the facts are that the domino strategy ruled American policy at that time, the people who convinced LBJ to get more involved in Vietnam were not dissimilar to Kennedy's team e.g. Robert McNamara, and North Vietnam would never have settled for anything less than a unified country in order to finish a war it believed was a war of independence.
Proof that opposites attract find evidence in the Kennedy / Sorensen relationship. To put it gently, Sorenson comes across as intense, boring and not particularly popular as he jealously guarded his extremely productive relationship with Kennedy. One could query how Sorensen was so effective given the level of apparent adulation that comes across in the book, but he was. He was hugely effective and a man whom Nixon, LBJ and others wished was on their side to advise them.
Even though he comes across generally as dry, he does have a wicked sense of humor and recounts some very humorous anecdotes about his time in Washington.
I skimmed his early life and was tempted to leave the book once he was finished with JFK. I'm glad I did not. One of the most fascinating chapters relates to his nomination for Director of CIA. The bottom line is that Jimmy Carter had not done his homework before nominating Sorensen. The nasty world of politics halted the nomination because Sorensen was a conscientious objector. This riveting chapter shows the dirtier side of politics and some of the blatant hypocrisy that pervades Washington.
Overall, a top class read. Buy it.
Preliminary Review August 3, 2008
I am currently reading the book, which I found to be enjoyable and mesmerizing from the first word. The author's use of the English language is superb and I enjoy the beauty of his prose as much as I enjoy his content.
A very good book August 2, 2008
I had a hard time getting used to Sorensen's life being discussed by theme (how he joined Senator Kennedy, his evolving role on the staff, speechwriting, the issue of religion, etc) rather than chronologically. I couldn't help but think that this made his recollections seem a bit shallow, since we are deprived from the moment-to-moment aspect of presidential decision-making and have to rely instead on what are just recollections decades earlier.
But the book provides a fascinating account of the Kennedy years and it is a good way to check the record on specific issues, such as Kennedy's civil rights initiative, without having to hop from one place to another seventy pages later, as would be the case for more traditional biographies. Sorensen was obviously devoted to JFK and feels immense pride and nostalgia at having been his special counsel. He doesn't pretend he was making the decisions for JFK, or anything remotely close to that - he has far too much respect for Kennedy's intelligence to suggest such a thing. Of course, one reason Sorensen was so attached to Kennedy was that he (Sorensen) advised him on far-ranging policies; he liked very much the behind-the-scenes impact he was having on critical issues. (We all would, if we were in his situation.)
The most beautiful chapter by far is the account of Kennedy's assassination and its aftermath. There is a beautiful sentence in that chapter where Sorensen explains that Kennedy's death robbed him (Sorensen) of his future, and later, when he considers other jobs, he quotes his brother as saying (I paraphrase) that the only job Ted Sorensen ever wanted was special counsel to President John F Kennedy, and that job wasn't available any more.
Sorensen makes no mysteries of his dislike of the current Bush administration and his strong support of Obama's campaign for President. The memo for all "presidential hopefuls" on pp.480-484 seems intended for Obama, although Sorensen is probably only repeating ideas he has already shared with the presidential candidate in person. (The last picture in the photo insert is a picture of him with Obama.)
This book will be most appreciated by people who have already read about the Kennedy administration, or just want to focus on a few issues and skip the other chapters.
 A fascinating, boring read July 30, 2008
The 50's and 60's certainly were fascinating times in American politics, and I can't seem to put books like this down. There is no question that it delivers insight into this era (and of course later years)from a unique point of view. However, it is very difficult to digest the heavy doses of egotism mingled with the "I'm just a lucky everyman from Nebraska" stuff. If you can get past that, the parts about the JFK years are interesting. The rest is mostly intolerable.
Part 1 of the book, dealing with his upbringing in Nebraska, is really meant to establish his liberal pedigree. But anyone with the mildest knowledge of Mr. Sorensen would already know this, and the point of all this seems to be to say, lest there be any doubt, that he is most emphatically NOT a conservative. Very trendy. Skip this part unless you really are interested in the family history.
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.'s recently published journals (great reading but very snobby) provide an interesting anecdote which I'll paraphrase. There was a meeting of Schlesinger and other writers (perhaps their first meeting; I can't recall) with Sorensen about a JFK speech. As they all waited to start the meeting, Sorensen put on an "important phone call act", then wheeled around and said, "JFK is very difficult to write for". Hilarious.
Interesting tidbits here and there, interesting on the JFK years, but Sorensen, and this book, are otherwise just too much to take.
Magnificent Read July 27, 2008
This is a book written by the author as a full review of a life lived in service of ideals. From his early life, through his years with JFK, and after .
Mr. Sorenson has lived a life worthy of praise, and his book makes for an engrossing and captivating read.
Very enjoyable and captivating book.
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