Dan Snow's History Hit - John F. Kennedy

Episode Date: September 7, 2020

Fredrik Logevall joined me on the pod to discuss the life and legacy of John F. Kennedy. By the time of his assassination in 1963, John F. Kennedy stood at the helm of the greatest power the world had ever seen. Born in 1917 to a striving Irish-American family that had ascended the ranks of Boston's political machine, Kennedy was bred for public service and he rose meteorically to become America's youngest president.Subscribe to History Hit and you'll get access to hundreds of history documentaries, as well as every single episode of this podcast from the beginning (400 extra episodes). We're running live podcasts on Zoom, we've got weekly quizzes where you can win prizes, and exclusive subscriber only articles. It's the ultimate history package. Just go to historyhit.tv to subscribe. Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/€/$1.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History. You join me as I'm standing inside the hangar, the giant hangar at the RAF Museum in Hendon, North London. I'm just underneath, oh I'm actually next to a hurricane here, which is appropriate because 80 years ago the Battle of Britain was reaching a crescendo. I'm here filming a very exciting new project for History Hit TV. We've got lots of wonderful historians around, we've got some of the team, we've got Victoria Taylor, we've got Luke Pepperer, we've got all um and so you but that will be coming soon to a uh to a streaming service near you this episode of history has got well not much to the battle of britain well actually it does have something to do with the battle of britain in fact here we go this episode of dan snow's

history here is all about jfk one of the most remarkable celebrated occupants of the office of President of the United States of America. Frederick Lugerval is a professor of international affairs at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School and he's also a professor of history at Harvard. He's such an engaging, remarkable, remarkable historian. He's won the Pulitzer Prize before, in fact many prizes, and he came on to talk to me about the first volume of his remarkable new biography of JFK, all about his young life, his family, his experiences in Britain in the build-up to the Second World War, and then obviously his own wartime service

and early political career as well. Super interesting. Frederick is such a great guy. So enjoy this podcast. If you do want to subscribe to History Hit TV and see this new documentary we're making about the Battle of Britain, you just go to historyhit.tv.

Simple as that. The world's best history channel, actually. No aliens, all good. And then you use the code POD1, P-O-D-1, and you get a month for free and your second month for just one pound, euro or dollar. So go and check it out. But in the meantime, here's Frederick Lagoval.

Enjoy. Fred, good to see you again. Thank you for coming on. Oh, it's a pleasure to be with you, always. I guess my first question is, when I was growing up in the 80s, JFK was the dominant political figure in many ways, particularly in the liberal metropolitan circles I grew up in, Anglo-American circles I grew up in. Do you think, does he, you've written this giant biography, particularly in the liberal metropolitan circles I grew up in, Anglo-American circles I grew up in.

Do you think, does he, you've written this giant biography. Do you have subsequent, as Clinton, Obama, other people around the world, have they taken some of the luster off his reputation? Or do you think he still occupies that extraordinary position? You know, I think he's probably been, they've probably taken some of the luster, maybe in particular Obama, I would say less so Clinton. But you know, to an extraordinary degree, Dan, if you poll Americans regarding their favorite, say, post-war president, invariably, JFK will still be at the top of the list, at least in the ones that I have seen, or he'll be right up there. And if you go further back and you start talking about FDR and others,

they're, of course, holding a lofty position. But I think he still holds that, largely speaking, still holds that position of primacy. Does that reputation, that extraordinary reputation, given that much of the civil rights legislation, et cetera, was passed by his successor, does he, this is a ridiculous question, but does he deserve that? Or was he like Churchill, very assiduous in making sure that he wrote the history books? In his case, of course, his court historian wrote the history books. But was he just a brilliant manager of reputation? Or is there something important in that, the memory we have of him? No, I don't think it's a ridiculous question at all.

It's a really good question, actually. And I think it's, you know, I think he was an assiduous protector of his reputation. And his widow after his death, Jackie, was superb at this. And I do think that helps to account for this exalted position that I think he holds among Americans. His legislative record was relatively meager, although I will show in volume two, this is certainly one of my research findings, that, for example, with respect to civil rights, though Kennedy was late in coming to the table the decisions that he made and in particular the decision to make civil rights

a moral issue which it really hadn't been before when he did that in 63 in particular I think it was very very important it helped LBJ to pass that later so it's mixed here I think the reason fundamentally why I think he's held in such high regard, and I think maybe we need this message today, frankly, given where we are in our politics, is that he believed, Kennedy believed in government, not that it would solve all of our problems, but that government had a vital role

to play in creating a more equitable and just society. He believed in politics and gave, I think, Americans a heightened belief that government could speak to their highest aspirations. There's something about that idealistic message that I think matters too. And he remains, as you say, the kind of platonic ideal form of a young charismatic politician that seems to have endured. It's fascinating. But let's talk about the Kennedys. We talk days after one Kennedy descendant, not descendant, sign of the Kennedy family

was just foiled in his attempt to snatch a Senate seat off a fellow Democrat in Massachusetts. So who are the Kennedys? Who were the Kennedys when this young man was born? Well, it's one of the reasons I decided to write this book is that I find it an absolutely extraordinary story. It is one of the great American stories. I really think it is. We have Joe Kennedy, the patriarch,

and we have Rose Kennedy, and they have nine children. Irish Catholics, they become fabulously wealthy in part because of Joe's masterful insider trading, but they amass a huge fortune and they become kind of American aristocracy, but nevertheless have to be sort of outside it in, if I can put it that way. And Joe in particular feels slighted throughout his life that the Boston Brahmins will never fully accept him. I think that conditions how he raises his kids, to always stick together as Kennedys,

always win if we can. And he has great ambitions, especially for his sons. And I think it's in that milieu that Jack Kennedy comes of age as the second son. After Joe Jr., who is supposed to be the one that becomes president, and he, of course, is killed in 1944 in the war. And then it becomes up to Jack to sort of carry this mantle. And that's what this first volume really discusses. I find it a completely fascinating story.

Well, it's the old Henry VIII, Charles I's second son problem, when they have greatness thrust upon them. But Jack grows up sickly. Yeah, I mean, he is one of the things that surprised me in this research. I had expected to find a rather callow, immature, sort of playboy, but I think it's instilled in him, and his mother's role is often underestimated. I think Rose, his mother, was really important in Jack's upbringing, and I think she insisted, really, on all the kids that they become readers,

that they pay attention to history, that they pay attention to the wider world. Jack, in particular, develops a kind of international sensibility that I think is really important in his formative years. And this belief in civic duty and public service is something that I think that the parents, for all of their foibles, it was in some ways a rather dysfunctional marriage. And they had quirky aspects, to say the least, to their personalities. Nevertheless, Jack and his siblings got these messages, and it helped make him the person that he was. He's also, I indicate, very much his own master. So there's a sense, I suggest, that he's of the family, but also apart from the family that I find really interesting.

And you talk about having an international sensibility. He actually grows up partly in Europe, doesn't he? Yeah, there's a lot of travels that he undertakes when he's at Harvard as an undergraduate. Spends a number of months in Europe, first in 1937. Then the most important one is probably in 1939. It's amazing to see him crisscrossing the European continent, and to some extent he's also in the Middle East, and he travels to the Soviet Union, right on the cusp of war. I mean, he's in Berlin a week before the invasion of Poland, and in fact carries a secret message from the

U.S. embassy in Berlin back to London, where his father, Joe, is now ambassador. And that message basically says, Hitler is going to invade Poland within a week, which is basically what he does. That's more or less the correct timetable. So Jack is right there observing some of these really dramatic moments.

God, that's fascinating. It reminds me of the young George Washington flailing about during the Seven Years' War. I mean, even as a very young man, he's at the very centre of world affairs. It's a really interesting comparison, actually. And I've thought about that one, the two of them. And of course, John Quincy Adams later becomes president. But he, under his father, is in London when his father is ambassador and has some of these same kinds of experiences. But JFK, did he or did he not, he disagreed with his father about Churchill, about Britain, did he?

Yeah, I mean, this is again when I say he was his own man in many respects, much more so, by the way, than Joe Jr. Joe Jr. tended to parrot his father's position. His father, their father was an arch appeaser, strong proponent of what Chamberlain was seeking to do and head off war. More than that, Joe Sr. said, I do not want my sons fighting in a war. I don't want the United States to enter this war. Jack, little by little, as I show in the book, who's a very devoted son, very loyal son, nevertheless, he steadily distances himself from his father's position.

And well before Pearl Harbor, well before U.S. entry into the war, Jack is an interventionist. His father remains staunchly, staunchly opposed to any kind of intervention. And by the way, a fascinating subplot is that Joe Kennedy is very close to Neville Chamberlain early on in the ambassadorship. But as he becomes more and more bearish, more and more gloomy, and especially after the British enter the war,

you see the two of them drifting apart and they're no longer close allies. It's really interesting. How is his health as a young man? Because we hear about the presidency, the great pains that were taken to hide his conditions. I've always thought his health was as a result of wounds sustained during the Second World War, but you show in this book that there was a whole bunch of different things going on. Can you take us through them? Yeah, I mean, he was a sickly child to begin with. I guess maybe that's the general way of putting it, best way to put it, because it's a little

hard to determine actually what he's suffered from. He had all the childhood diseases. He was prone to be feverish. He was prone to have stomach pains. I think this is something he was, they call it the Kennedy stomach. This was something that kind of ran in the family. His sister Eunice also had it. The most serious thing he had ultimately was Addison's disease and again some of the details here, at least I was not able to determine when he developed it, how it developed. The thing that I would say about his health travails that we probably make a mistake, serious though they were, and he had last rights delivered three times during his life. So this is a guy who came close to death. Nevertheless, we should also acknowledge that

this is a guy who had tremendous energy, who could go all day long when he was on the campaign trail, and in fact did in 1946 when he ran for the House, 1952 when he ran for the Senate, 1960 for the presidency. His aides were exhausted by his willingness to just go, go, go, which was a secret of his success. So there are those health problems, but he, in a very important way, overcomes them. And I don't think we should therefore exaggerate, I suppose, their import in terms of him as a public figure. Well, or as a military figure. What did you find out

about his military career that in many ways, the sort of foundation myth, if you like, of JFK is this youthful, topless, bare-chested, was it a patrol boat captain in the South Pacific? Yeah, he was a commander of a PT-109 was his number. It was 1943 in the South Pacific. And I suggest in the book that, and I'm not the first, I think, to do this. And I suggest in the book that, and I'm not the first, I think, to do this, it was a profoundly important experience for him because I think now he was a leader of men in combat. The PT boats were pretty flimsy boats with mahogany shells. They were kind of floating infernos.

If they were hit by Japanese aircraft, you were a goner, basically. And so he's in a dangerous situation. hit by Japanese aircraft, you are a goner basically. And so he is in a dangerous situation. The boat infamously is rammed one night in August 1943 and they survive, all but two of them survive. It becomes up to Kennedy to then try to figure out what to do to save his crew. And it's a rather epic story in which they do save themselves by swimming a long distance to an island and then swimming to another one and then ultimately they're rescued. But the point is that for Kennedy, I think the experience

matured him. It also had one other interesting result. I think forever after Kennedy was leery of the military, of the military as an instrument of policy, I think we see this later on in the Cuban Missile Crisis, which will be in Volume 2, that he's reluctant to take the advice of his military chiefs. And I think some of that skepticism about the blunt instrument of military power, I think it goes back to World War II. So it has a lasting effect in that regard too. And I always struck what's interesting about him in the Petrobras is

you have more autonomy. He's a junior lieutenant, but he's actually in command of his own vessel, isn't he? I mean, had he gone as a junior lieutenant on an aircraft carrier, he's a tiny cog in a giant machine. There's a sense of that kind of slight wiggle room, isn't he? I mean, had he gone as a junior lieutenant on an aircraft carrier, he's a tiny cog in a giant machine. There's a sense of that kind of slight wiggle room, the autonomy that he enjoyed in the Pacific that must have shaped his leadership style. Oh, it's such a good point. You are exactly right. And I think that he talks about this

in some of his letters. His closest friend, really right to the end in Dallas, was a fellow named Lem Billings. And he writes to Lem, basically that. He says, you know, if I had been on an aircraft carrier in a junior position, he writes this while it's going on. He says, I wouldn't be having this freedom. I wouldn't be able to, because he was a very experienced sailor,

so he loved being out on the water in command of his own vessel. He now got a chance to do this. I think his father's influence also made a difference here. It's interesting, his father was adamant that his sons not have to be in harm's way. But to Joe Kennedy's credit, when Jack said, no, I want to command a PT boat, Joe didn't stand in his way. And I think he had friends in the Navy. And though I can't prove this, I do think that Joe Sr. pulled some strings to get Jack that PT command.

And then he was on his way to the Pacific. land a viking longship on island shores scramble over the dunes of ancient egypt and avoid the poisoner's cup in renaissance florence each week on echoes of history we uncover the epic stories that inspire assassin's creed we're stepping into feudal japan in our special series chasing shadows where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories,

listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. And then the war comes to an end. And then he has this other Forrest Gump moment, doesn't he? Because he ends up in Europe in 45. Yeah, the Forrest Gump moment. I love it. It's perfect. Yes. So he is a journalist, first at the UN conference in San Francisco. The Hearst newspapers hire him to be a stringer, basically, to be reporting from San Francisco, which he does. A fascinating set of articles that he pens about what's going on at the UN, and he talks about the growing tensions between the Soviet

Union and the Western powers, and shows, I think, I suggest this in the book, that he could have had a career as a journalist, no question. He had already, at this point, published his senior thesis at Harvard, became a minor bestseller, Why England Slept, which was about Britain and appeasement in the lead-up to the war. So he had writerly chops. And then he goes from San Francisco and the UN conference to cover the British election. He is very fond of, he looks up to Winston Churchill. And so he wants to see whether the great man can survive this election, which of course he does not.

So he's covering that. And then from there, the Forrest Gump moment, maybe, is that he's in Potsdam when the conference goes on there at the end of the European War, after the European War. And he's rubbing elbows with all these senior people. One of the things I say in the book is that nobody knew it at the time, but at Potsdam in 1945 was the 33rd president, namely Truman, the 34th president, Eisenhower,

and the 35th president, the young John F. Kennedy. Why was he able to leave the Navy in time? Do we see his father's influence there? When his big brother died, was he suddenly needed back on family duty? No, it's possible that his father in in ways that we don't know because it's been lost to history that his father helped um engineer something there but he went before a medical board in the navy in late

1944 uh and because of his back problems which i think had had been made worse by the PT-109 incident in the South Pacific, they determined that he, in fact, could retire from the service. So I think it became official in early 1945, but it was a medical board that released him, if you will. He then went, as I said, to San Francisco, had this journalistic stint, and it's the following year that he then begins his political rise. Was that his choice or his father's? It was his choice. You know, this is where I think other biographers have exaggerated Joe Sr.'s role. There's this suggestion among some of these authors

that Joe figuratively said, okay, your brother's gone, it's your turn. But I show, I think I have good evidence in the book, that he's musing about political office long before Joe Jr. dies. And I think he comes to this, I'm sure his father's encouragement mattered, no question. But I think this is JFK's own decision that politics is a noble calling. This is a new generation that is coming back from the war, and I want to be part of this. Remember that his grandfather, his maternal grandfather, Honey Fitz Fitzgerald, legendary figure in Boston politics. And I think JFK,

even though he was a very different kind of political personality, I think he wanted to be, he wanted to follow in his grandfather's footsteps. What were elections like? I mean, how dirty was Massachusetts politics back then? Did his father spend money to help him get elected in nefarious or in totally legal ways? It was pretty dirty politics in Boston in those days. Everything and anything seemed to be acceptable, or at least was practiced. It's hard to know exactly what happened, but a roguish figure named James Curley held a congressional seat, but he was itching to get back to the mayor's office. He actually found Washington sort of stifling. He wanted to be in the hurly-burly of the Boston mayor's office. And so he resigned. And the question is, did Joe Kennedy Sr. give him a hefty sum of money

to help up his mind and make up his mind, if I can put it that way? Or did he simply give him a small loan? Because there's some money exchanged, I'm almost certain. The question is how much. But the bottom line is, Curley leaves Congress. It opens up a seat in the 11th District in Massachusetts for a young fellow named John F. Kennedy that he then seizes. He is, by the way, somewhat ambivalent about whether he should pursue this.

He's not quite, he's always his own best critic, John F. Kennedy, and he's not quite sure that he can pull this off yet, but he takes the plunge. He wins a really interesting race. And yeah, his father, at least on some level, helped make this happen. We're used to hearing about JFK's oratory once he becomes president. Is that apparent from

the beginning? Is he a good machine politician? Is he good at shaking hands, kissing babies? What is evident at this point of his political career? Yeah, he's not. I found this interesting because this was all new to me in my research, this part of the story. I had a general sense of some of the other things from other things I've written, but here I had to go in and do my own research, much of it at the Kennedy Library, which is an astonishing repository. He was not an effective speaker. He spoke at too high a pitch. He spoke too quickly.

He was not good at extemporizing, so when he tried to riff, he got himself into trouble. So that made him more inclined to stick to the text. That made him more inclined than to sound sort of robotic, and he was not very effective. That comes later, and by the way, it becomes because of hard work. And in all areas of his life, JFK was capable of tremendous work. This is a little bit later, but he would practice his speeches constantly. Jackie, when they married, coached him, helped coach him how to lower his tone and how to use better rhythms in his speech and so forth. She's actually really interesting in all of this. Nor, by the way, was he much of a, you know,

really interesting in all of this. Nor, by the way, was he much of a, you know, he wasn't one to kiss babies or to get into a crowd and shake everybody's hand. There was a reticence to John F. Kennedy as an early politician. I suggest it ultimately played to his advantage that Boston, especially Irish Catholic politicians, had been so rambunctious and so voluble that they were almost kind of embarrassing to voters. And here along comes this shy war veteran, skinny 29-year-old, who seemed sincere, who had important things to say about service and about what the war generation was bringing to politics. And it worked for him, along with his father's money, to be sure, because they spent some serious money on that campaign. You mentioned the Kennedy Library. I am not suggesting that this is an easy posting for you, Professor. But when you're setting out to write one of these

gigantic presidential biographies that we love and that come out of the states it is it is it kind of is it easier because you just go to the president's presidential library and take up residence there for months and just they bring you everything has ever been written by to and from the uh the person in question i mean there's no doubt that you know the fact that it's just down the road, I can get on the subway or get in my car, and I can be down at that Kennedy Library in mere minutes really makes a difference. I should say I signed the contract to write this book when I was still teaching at Cornell, which is several hundred miles to the west from here. It's in central New York.

So I didn't know. I didn't, you know, this had no bearing on my decision to pursue a Kennedy biography. I did it because I find him to be completely fascinating, and I think he's an important figure in American history, and one can use Kennedy. This is the conceit of the book, really. I can use Kennedy's rise, the story of his rise, to also write about the story of America's rise. But you're absolutely right that I can be at the Kennedy Library, at least when it's open. It's closed now because of the pandemic, and I need them for Volume 2 to reopen

so that I can get back into my seat over there. But yeah, it's a great thing to be able to have the superb staff bring boxes. And by the way, the holdings, absolutely amazing. And I have this sense that a lot of them haven't really been looked at. So that makes it really special. What do you think this extraordinary rise to a position of global hegemony, superpower,

some people call it hyperpower, that the US experiences really over the course of this young man's life and now he's into politics. How do you think he does embody that? I think he, that's a really interesting question. I think he does embody it. I think he himself, as we've been saying, is youthful. He's full of energy.

There is a kind of powerful marriage of idealism and pragmatism in the young John F. Kennedy. And I think you could say those things, maybe this is stretching it a bit too far, but you could say those things about this young nation, relatively speaking to the other great powers, that has seen this incredible rise, partly because of demographic and geographic reasons. I mean, it's where the United States is situated. It's the protection provided by the two oceans. It's this extraordinary burgeoning population with immigrants coming in by the millions. And then the resources of the country that make it, I think, inevitable. I mean, even Tocqueville early in the 19th century saw the time when the United States was going to be dominant over a large part of the world.

It happened, and it happens to be when John F. Kennedy, as you say, is rising. But yeah, I think he embodies that in his persona. Maybe that's the wrong way of putting it, but he embodies that in a really interesting way. with the crop of politicians after the First World War who flirted again with isolationism. Kennedy, this was America passionate about global engagement. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a really good point that that debate, which is a really vociferous one that I go into in some detail, between the isolationists and the interventionists, Both of those terms are a little bit problematic, but we use them. They were used at the time. I'm using them here. That was a really bitter debate. And I think we see in this younger generation that's coming up,

so John F. Kennedy, as you say, as compared to his father, that shift. And it's not to say that there aren't isolationists after the war. In fact, there are. I talk a little bit about Robert Taft, for example, a very prominent Republican who could well have become president. Taft and his supporters are in many respects retaining that attachment to an isolationist position, a kind of fortress America position whereby the nation will not be in a leadership position in the world, but will mind its own business at home.

So one doesn't want to say that 1945 ends this debate in any sense. But nevertheless, I think Kennedy and many of those who come of political age, who come to power in Congress after the war, embody this new position which says, no, the United States, working in concert with other nations, has to be in a leadership position. We've got a new threat in the Soviet Union and we, this is Kennedy speaking but it could be others, we have to take a leading role. No question.

Okay, so last question. I have to ask anyone who writes biography because they fall in love with their subjects. You've got to tell me the worst. What's the worst thing you found out about JFK? You know, I think he could be heedless of people. To some extent, and I say this, I think, in my preface, he and many of the other Kennedys tended to see people as interchangeable.

It was family first with the Kennedys, and others would sometimes be shunted to the side. That said, he also had friends who were deeply loyal to him and he was loyal to them throughout his life. So I don't want to overstate the point. Two other things. I'll say that he was cautious to a fault on some policy issues, on McCarthyism, the scourge of Joe McCarthy. JFK, to my mind, and I talk about this, was much to, even if he had to, he had to be mindful of the fact that Massachusetts had a lot of McCarthy supporters, a lot of Irish Catholics in Massachusetts. Nevertheless, he was cautious there.

He was cautious on civil rights to look ahead a bit. The big thing I think is that he saw women as objects. His father had, you know, done the same. His father had said to Joe Jr. and to Jack, in so many words, I expect you to be a skirt chaser. I expect you to get as many women as you can. That's the name of the game. Look at how I'm doing. He would on occasion bring a mistress home for dinner when the boys were growing up, which I think must have confused them no end. But I can't say that it's the father's fault, because if I'm going to argue in the book that JFK is his own man with respect to politics and with respect to philosophy, worldview, then I must also argue that he should be able to be his own man in this area. And so that treatment of women,

and he's very successful with them. And I should say, at least in this first volume, there's nothing predatory about JFK's pursuit that I can see. Later, I think that will become more problematic in volume two when he's in the White House. And that incredible power differential must matter. But he cheats on Jackie before their wedding and he cheats on her afterwards. And that's something to reckon with, especially in a Me Too age, but I think even apart from that. Well, thank you very much, Nidhi.

I hope you can get back in that library soon enough because I need volume two. I need volume two. Is it a two volumes is the plan, is it? I pledge to you here and now that it'll be just two volumes. Kennedy's shadow, we talk about it among the population. Do you think politicians still think of Kennedy? Do you think they channeled Kennedy? Do you think they define themselves somehow against or with Kennedy, even to this day? I think that they do. And I think Joe Biden is an interesting case here. Joe Biden, who is the Democratic nominee, is of course, he's not a young man, far from it at 77. And he's a different political personality in many

ways than JFK. But we know that the young Joe Biden, when he was entering politics, modeled himself on JFK. They're both Irish Catholics. He was drawn to public service by Kennedy's inspirational message, ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country. That resonated not just with Joe Biden, of course, but with a whole generation of Americans, or maybe a couple of generations of them. And I think it still resonates with a lot of Americans, that this sense also that you can summon the narrative of American hope,

that you can offer a kind of pluralist liberal outlook, at least if you're a Democrat. This seems to be much harder to do these days in the Republican Party, probably impossible, and win office. But among Democrats, that kind of Kennedy vision, I think, resonates. And I think Americans need to be reengaged with civic life. And I think Kennedy, on some level, can show them the way. Kennedy on some level can show them the way. And that's one reason why I think he still speaks to this deeply partisan,

this cynical age in which we now live. Amazing thought, Joe Biden. I think one political office, local political office, only six years after Kennedy was assassinated. So that's an amazing overlap. Sorry, I've just a spoiler alert for volume two, everybody. It doesn't end well for Kennedy. Thank you very much, Fred, for coming back on this podcast. It's been a huge honour having you.

When the book is called? The book is called, in your neck of the world, JFK, 1917 to 1956. The US edition has a slightly longer subtitle. But you're great to have the u.s edition has a slightly longer subtitle but you're great to have me on it's just a pleasure to chat with you about all this and i look forward to having you on for volume two whenever that may be i'll be i'll be here i'll be ready Hi everyone, it's me, Dan Snow. Just a quick request. It's so annoying, and I hate it when other podcasts do this,

but now I'm doing it, and I hate myself. Please, please go onto iTunes, wherever you get your podcasts, and give us a five-star rating and a review. It really helps, and basically boosts up the chart, which is good, and then more people listen, which is nice. So if you could do that, I'd be very grateful. I understand if you don't want to subscribe to my TV channel. I understand if you don't subscribe to my TV channel. I understand if you don't buy my calendar, but this is free. Come on, do me a favour. Thanks.