Update To My Kennedy Book Collection (2022)

It has now been two years since the passing of Jean Kennedy Smith (1928-2020), and I wanted to do something to honor her memory. So, I thought I would create a blog entry on two new acquisitions to my Kennedy Book Collection, which I have referred to as my "Kennedy Corner." This is the first update on my collection I have published as a blog entry since October 25, 2021, which totals to 7 months and 42 days. I will admit that in my previous update that I would not buy another book on the Kennedys since I have been running out of room for the collection and wanted to save money. I have no excuses. I just wanted to get just two more books.

The first book I acquired was a book called "Farewell, Jackie: A Portrait of Her Final Days" by Edward Klein. I initially did not want to order it because it has so many negative reviews. There are charges that some sources used were "anonymous," which leads me to suspect that there may be inaccuracies and omissions in this book. Nevertheless, against my own judgement, I decided to order because I only have four books specifically about Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis and wanted to add at least one more on her to add to my collection.

The book arrived last week on June 7th, and I have placed it in my top shelf with the smaller hardcover books I have on the Kennedys. I placed it on the top right next to my copies of “The Nine of Us: Growing Up Kennedy” by Jean Kennedy Smith (signed by the author), “The Kennedy Brothers: The Rise and Fall of Jack and Bobby” by Richard D. Mahoney (which my friend Mai Lee gave to me) and a vintage WA Smith chalkware bust of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy (a companion piece to the chalkware bust of her husband). I thought it was fitting since the book was placed next to a bust of its main protagonist.

The second and final book I acquired was a copy of “Public Papers of the Presidents - John F. Kennedy 1961,” which arrived five days ago on June 13. I was also not going to purchase it because I thought it would be too expensive for my small budget. However, the seller on Ebay offered to sell it to me for ten dollars less than its original price. I knew I could not get a better deal anywhere else since the seller’s original price on Ebay was thirty dollars less than the actual retail price, so I agreed to purchase it.

According to the Office of the Federal Register (OFR), “each Public Papers volume contains the papers and speeches of the President of the United States that were issued by the Office of the Press Secretary during the specified time period. The material is presented in chronological order, and the dates shown in the headings are the dates of the documents or events.” In other words, my copy of “Public Papers of the Presidents - John F. Kennedy 1961,” has every speech and press conference transcripts that President Kennedy stated in 1961 that has been allowed to be made public.

For a person, who aspires to be a scholar on President Kennedy this is a must have item. I wish I could acquire all three hardcover volumes from 1961 to 1963, but that would be far too expensive for me to purchase so I will have to settle with just my 1961 volume of Kennedy’s public papers. I am apt to believe that it will help me later on if I am ever writing a paper on President Kennedy for whenever I return to school, I could use it as a primary source and maybe for future writing projects as well.  

I have also recently acquired two more hardcover copies of “JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917–1956,” written by Pulitzer Prize winning historian Fredrik Logevall, who teaches History at Harvard University, where John F. Kennedy studied and graduated from in 1940. 

I had already acquired a copy last year, but I decided to get two more for two different reasons. I purchased one copy that I could take with me read one on sunny and warm afternoons at John F. Kennedy Memorial Park in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I also thought it would be amusing to read a Kennedy book by historian who teaches at the university Kennedy graduated from in a Kennedy Park behind a school of government named after Kennedy near the grounds where he attended university as a student.

Another reason for the acquisitions of the two copies is because at a previous job in a nursing home nearby, I became friends with a retired Harvard University professor and have brought books to give to him since he didn’t like any of the reading materials the nursing home offered. I thought a book by a colleague he never met would be an interesting gift to give to him. I hope he likes the book. I’ll have to begin reading it myself and with the summer now upon us at this time of year, it would be appropriate to put the book to my summer reading list.

Since this is also the anniversary of the passing of Jean Kennedy Smith, I wanted to write some thoughts on what meeting her had indirectly done for me. As I have written before, in meeting her I felt as though that was as close as I would get to meeting her brothers, including President Kennedy. 

She also inspired me to take an interest in learning more about the world around us, particularly events in Europe and Asia and in promoting global diplomacy and world peace as her brother President Kennedy hoped would come to pass in his lifetime. Both President Kennedy and Ambassador Smith inspire me to this day in looking to the past for inspiration and to glean knowledge from their experiences in global affairs. I hope that I can one day contribute to the work they set out to do while they were alive and honor their legacies so that their names can live on.

I want to conclude this blog entry with the final remarks that President Kennedy delivered to the United Nations General Assembly on September 25, 1961:

“But I come here today to look across this world of threats to a world of peace. In that search we cannot expect any final triumph--for new problems will always arise. We cannot expect that all nations will adopt like systems--for conformity is the jailor of freedom, and the enemy of growth. Nor can we expect to reach our goal by contrivance, by fiat or even by the wishes of all. But however close we sometimes seem to that dark and final abyss, let no man of peace and freedom despair. For he does not stand alone. If we all can persevere, if we can in every land and office look beyond our own shores and ambitions, then surely the age will dawn in which the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.

 Ladies and gentlemen of this Assembly, the decision is ours. Never have the nations of the world had so much to lose, or so much to gain. Together we shall save our planet, or together we shall perish in its flames. Save it we can--and save it we must--and then shall we earn the eternal thanks of mankind and, as peacemakers, the eternal blessing of God.”