Hostage to Fortune: The Letters of Joseph P. Kennedy

"Yes, it did! It’s a great book; it’s a collection of letters to and from Kennedy, most of them from his children (though there are a lot of other letters in there as well). When I was doing a biography of William Randolph Hearst, I got in touch with Amanda Smith, the editor of Hostages to Fortune , to see if she had any correspondence between Hearst and Kennedy; so I was originally introduced to Kennedy through this Hearst project. It was in his correspondence with Hearst that I discovered that, rather than being this predatory vulture who was swooping down on the Hearst empire, Kennedy really took a liking to the old man, and tried to rescue him from bankruptcy. So that was my introduction, through Amanda, and through Hearst, to Kennedy. One of the things that comes across so clearly in this book is the family’s extraordinary sense of humour. This is a family – I mean, if they didn’t go into public life, they could have been performers and comedians, humourists! One is more hysterical than the next. It’s really a terrific book, even just for diving in and diving out. Nobody except lunatics like me is going to read it all through. Listen – I tell this to my students as well – every archive is constructed. There is no archive in the universe that has not been constructed, either by the subject or by the subject’s followers or family. So this archive, and these letters – there’s stuff left out. Nonetheless, you will never find a book or a collection of letters as honest as this one. It is absolutely extraordinary. Yeah! There’s stuff in here that really does not put various members of the family in the best light. It’s frank, it’s direct; it’s quite an honest and full selection. That’s why it’s an amazing book. Amanda is a Kennedy granddaughter [by adoption], and yet she did an extraordinary book – and the family let her do it. The family is very smart about that kind of thing. I spent a lot of time negotiating the terms of my book with Senator [Ted] Kennedy, and he knew full well that, unless he chose someone who had some standing as an academic historian to write this book, and put no restrictions on the research or the writing, nobody was going to believe the book. So I have no restrictions whatsoever on what I can look at or what I can write about, and I think Amanda – as far as I can see in this book – also had a free rein. Anybody who dives into this collection thinking that they’re just going to get a love-feast, that this is put together to add to the greater glory, and only the glory, of Joseph P. Kennedy… they’re going to find something else there."