Let me finish tonight with this.
I spent a good bit of time pulling together the powerful, unknown story of the late President John F. Kennedy. I wrote the book in an unusual way for an historic figure. I based it on people who knew him personally—very personally—guys who worked for him in politics, pals from the Navy, prep school chums, people he served in politics with.
The book attempts to answer that question that Jack Kennedy himself said was the reason people read biography or even history. “What’s he like?”
In searching for Jack Kennedy, I found a fascinating man—a man of deeply hidden health problems, an inveterate reader, especially of history, a true war hero. I found a fighting prince never free from pain, never far from trouble, never accepting the world he found, never wanting to be his father’s son. He was a far greater hero than he ever wished us to know.
Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero is now out in paperback. I hope you get a chance to get it, read it, and, for the first time, understand. It is the kind of book you want to read at this time of year.
We need heroes. We can give thanks that here we truly had one.
Chris Matthews