Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...
 Vulgar, but irresistible October 14, 1997
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
We were assigned this rather repellent book for an advanced graduate seminar on the role of the presidency in post-war US history. Our professor raved about it (probably because the author quotes him approvingly on several occasions), saying that it would "force a radical reappraisal of the Johnson presidency". Both he and Shesol (the author) somewhat overstate the case-- I find it hard to believe that a US President, even one as monstruously egotistical as Johnson, could really subordinate policy decisions to personal vendettas to the extent claimed--but Shesol certainly builds a strong argument from presidential documents and personal interviews. Whether or not his case is as solid as he would like to think, Shesol certainly entertains mightily while making it. The book is a rollicking good read, full of hillarious anecdotes, mainly (though not entirely) at Johnson's expense. My favourite was about an Oval Office tape, now in the Johnson library, which, in an earlier era, had been transcribed as the President finishing a telephone call with the words "I have to go now: I have to meet the f--king b---ard". A Johnson biographer had interpreted this as a reference to Bobby Kennedy, but Shesol, with a keen ear and Johnson's appointment list for the day in hand, realised that what the President actually said was "I have to go now: I have to meet the Pakistani Ambassador" !!!!!! Another fine tale bites the dust.... But not to worry, for there are plenty more in this irresistably vulgar, but simultaneously thought-provokingly erudite, book.
a readable, authoritative assessment of a fascinating feud August 15, 1997
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I received a pre-publication review copy of this book and was just bowled over. I had little idea of the central role that RFK/LBJs mutual animosity played in many of the most important events of the 1960s, including the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam and the aftermath of JFK's assassination. Shesol has unearthed a mountain of new information and moulded it into a coherent, convincing and gripping whole. He writes beautifully (unsurprising for a Rhodes Scholar, more so when you discover that he is also a nationally syndicated cartoonist!!), and teases out the complexities of 60s Washington in a remarkably appealing way. Anyone with the slightest interest in US politics, the 1960s, the Kennedys, the Vietnam War, or simply a fascinating, yet previously untold, story, should set aside a weekend to spend with Mr Shesol's tome.
Clearly the best of the recent JFK/LBJ/RFK/White House books October 30, 1997
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Recent months have seen the publication of a spate of books regarding presidential politics in the turbulent decade that was the 1960s. Taking Charge, The Kennedy Tapes, Shadow Play, LBJ's War, Kennedy and Nixon, The Walls of Jericho, The Living and the Dead, Guns and Butter, Dereliction of Duty, The Other Missiles of October---all these books offered some insight into the thoughts, beliefs, actions and geopolitical decisions of the men (and they were all men) who ran our country during that difficult and often painful period. Many of them are well-researched, some are well-written, a few have become best-sellers, but all of them are missing a vital piece of the puzzle, a flaw which leaves each of them, for all af their research and erudition, strangely unsatisfying and incomplete. This magnificent new book supplies that vital missing piece and, in doing so, paradoxically renders each of the others both more valuable and at the same time obsolete. Shesol's thesis, which he amply substantiates with tapes, documents and personal interviews, is that the feud between RFK and LBJ was pivotal not only in the later stages in their respective political careers, but also in a wide range of policy decisions taken by Johnson, as President, and Kennedy, as Attorney General and then as Senator from New York. He enlivens his book with commentary and anecdote from a variety of important figures of the time, inclding Arthur Schlesinger, who is also quoted approvingly on the dust jacket. This is both an important piece of historical research and a thoroghly enjoyable read. This delightfully written, important, book is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the Vietnam War, the Johnson Presidency, the catastrophic results of the Great Society which we are still living with today, or, indeed, the 1960s in general. It should certainly be read in preference to any of the other books mentioned above.
excellent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! November 8, 1997
really well written and fun to read. highly recommended
well written,grippiing,insightful,facinating history November 23, 1997
A book that I could not put down, but read from cover to cover.I believe it to be one of the best books I have read about an era in American history that gives an excellent insight into the character of two of its most important players.
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