An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963

John F Kennedy is perhaps best known, for better or worse, for his assassination, and it is easy to understand why. Now, even over 50 years later, the public at large is still unsatisfied with the answers provided, as many do not believe that Lee Harvey Oswald killed him with a rifle from the book depository.

Still, there is much to learn about Kennedy. He came of political age as a senator when the Cold War was just approaching, and he would lead the fight for America and the West as President. There was the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, the fight for Vietnam internationally, and the fight for Civil Rights here at home.

With all this in mind, I began his biography by Robert Dallek. Dallek's biography is unique in that it is the first biography to be released since Kennedy's medical records were made available to the public. Dallek makes full use of this by exploring Kennedy's medical problems in great detail. But did this make for an engaging biography? Overall, I would say no.

Not to say that Dallek doesn't try. He uses the medical records to explore many of Kennedy's issues in early life. One thing that surprised me was how his medical problems started when he was very young. I had always believed that Kennedy's problems with his back started after his service in the Navy and the infamous PT 109 episode, but I was wrong. Many of his medical issues happened before then, and his father had to convince some people to let him into the Navy despite his health issues. Kennedy had many medical issues that are only now being understood, among them being a variation of Addison's disease, which he would suffer from throughout his life. This is something that Dallek covers to a great extent and should be commended for.

Dallek also covers Kennedy in the White House very well considering how short a time he had in office. Dallek outlines all of the major issues Kennedy faced and how he dealt with them. This includes why Kennedy would have started various projects, and how he sold them to the public to gain their support. Dallek minces no words when it comes to Kennedy. He was a politician, through and through, with motives behind motives for everything he did, and, for better or worse, many of these were kept from the public.

And this leads me to another thing I like about this biography: Dallek doesn't let Kennedy off the hook as President. With many Presidents it can be easy to make them into legends, ignoring their more off-color qualities. This is not so here. Dallek does not let Kennedy slide when it comes to the things that were wrong at the time and should not have been done. One of which would be the fact that Kennedy's brother, Robert F Kennedy, may have had a hand in covering up his many affairs while John was President. Also, there is Kennedy's viewpoint on Civil Rights. Kennedy himself would see African Americans as people who needed their rights to be protected, and he showed his support in speeches, but that was as far as he got when it came to giving them equal rights. They would have to wait for Johnson before the Equal Rights Amendment was passed. Kennedy was just too afraid of losing Southern support for the other bills he wanted passed so he had to keep the rights of African Americans to a minimum.

However, there are some times when this biography falls short. One of which is the very thing I praised it for earlier. Remember how I mentioned that Dallek used Kennedy's medical records in the first fourth of the book? Well, there were times when I think he tended to focus a little too much on his medical problems. Kennedy spent most of his teen and early adult years in and out of hospitals with the result that Dallek's writing becomes tedious on this point. We hear multiple times about how Kennedy winds up in a hospital...again. He has problems with his back and digestive tract...again. His doctors can't seem to find out what is wrong with him...again. This all made me wonder, early on, if this book was worth reading. I am happy to say that after the PT 109 episode, Dallek seems to taper off the discussion of Kennedy's medical problems so that they have minimal intrusion on the rest of the book, only popping up here and there when necessary.

But that leads me to another point: Dallek writes with a certain detached exactitude which I feel leaves me wanting more. Perhaps it is because the Kennedys have always been private with the press, but there is not the feeling like I knew Kennedy the man from the public persona of Kennedy the President. Even despite this, Dallek's writing is not on the same level as McCullough or Meacham. He does not seem to be telling you a story focused on people, but rather a historian focused on certain events, something that I found disappointing.

So, I would say that this book is good if you want to know more about Kennedy's medical issues in his life, but not so much beyond that. I give it a three out of five.