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Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History
by: Ted Sorensen

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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.922092
EAN: 9780060798710
ISBN: 0060798718
Label: Harper
Manufacturer: Harper
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 576
Publication Date: May 01, 2008
Publisher: Harper
Release Date: May 06, 2008
Sales Rank: 269
Studio: Harper

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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.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- 82 & Counting
This is the most moving, realistic depiction of JFK I have ever seen. Many will forever rant and rave over his personal peccadillos, but this man was a leader. His speech at American University, which was his way of dealing with Soviet & American feelings about nuclear war included the following. "For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet; we all breathe the same air; we all cherish our children's future; and we are all mortal." I heard that speech as a young man. I am now 82 and it still rings in my ears. I was raised an avid republican, but I am proud to have helped vote him into office. His like hasn't been seen since.

Rating:

- Best Political Memoir of Our Time
Ted Sorensen subtitles his memoir Counselor as "A Life at the Edge of History." It is, in fact, a rarely candid and insightful account of a life at the very center of history.

Sorensen is widely known as JKF's speechwriter, but he was much more. He was JFK's liberal conscience and go-to-guy for everything from the handling of the "Catholic issue" in Kennedy's run for the White House to the writing of the letter to Khrushchev during the Cuban missile crisis. The combination of keen intellect and inspiring idealism that anchored Sorensen at the center of JFK's political life is crystallized on the pages of a retrospective clearly aimed at bringing both the author and his country closure on the shattering of that brief window of greatness.

Don't come expecting a tell-all from this member of the Kennedy inner-circle (not just JFK, but Robert and Teddy, as well). Surely Sorensen is the ... Read More

Rating:

- More Than Kennedy's Speechwriter
Sorenson

Ted Sorenson's autobiography is told in three parts: his early life, his years with JFK, and his post-November 1963 experiences. Within the three parts, the book deals with episodes or themes of Sorenson's life rather than a chronological, day in and day out retelling of his experiences.

Sorenson's early years are interesting, but the book really takes off when he moves to Washington, DC. His rise is quick, as within a short time of his arrival in DC he is already the confidante and a top aide to a rising star in the Senate. It is in the chapters on JFK's Senate career and presidency that most readers will be most focused. While interesting, there are not too many new insights on the major events here that cannot be found in other works on Kennedy, including Sorenson's own book, Kennedy. What was enlightening for me was the extent of Sorenson's work and relationship with Kennedy. ... Read More

Rating:

- Up Close And Historical!
John Kennedy was a great man and would have been a transformer of Washington politics. That's why they killed him!!! Ted Sorenson tells the up close and personal story of why we no longer have Jack kennedy among us.

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