Robert Kennedy: His Life

From the New York Times bestselling author of Being Nixon and Road to Surrender, an objective, scrupulously researched biography of Robert Kennedy.

Robert Kennedy has been viewed as hero and villain—as the “Good Bobby” who, as his brother Ted Kennedy eulogized him, “saw wrong and tried to right it...saw suffering and tried to heal it,” but aslo as the “Bad Bobby” of countless conspiracy theories, the ruthless and manipulative bully who plotted with the Mafia to kill Castro and lusted after Marilyn Monroe. Robert Kennedy presents RFK as a human being and brings to life an extraordinarily complex man who was at once kind and cruel, devious and honest, fearful and brave.

By accessing RFK’s private papers and interviewing all of Kennedy’s closest aides and advisers—many of whom were forthcoming in ways they had not been before—journalist Evan Thomas paints a portrait that is sympathetic, fair-minded, and always readable. It is packed with new detail about Kennedy’s early life and his behind-the-scenes machinations: his involvement in a cheating incident in prep school; his first attempt at romance; and his many back-channel political operations. He includes new revelations about the 1960 and 1968 presidential campaigns, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and RFK’s long struggles with J. Edgar Hoover and Lyndon B. Johnson, both of whom were subtly and not-so-subtly trying to blackmail the Kennedys.

In a clear and fast-paced narrative, Thomas cuts through the mythology to reveal a character who remains one of the century’s most fascinating men.