Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History
by: Ted Sorensen
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In this gripping memoir, John F. Kennedy's closest advisor recounts in full for the first time his experience counseling Kennedy through the most dramatic moments in American history.
Sorensen returns to January 1953, when he and the freshman senator from Massachusetts began their extraordinary professional and personal relationship. Rising from legislative assistant to speechwriter and advisor, the young lawyer from Nebraska worked closely with JFK on his most important speeches, as well as his book Profiles in Courage. Sorensen encouraged the junior senator's political ambitions—from a failed bid for the vice presidential nomination in 1956 to the successful presidential campaign in 1960, after which he was named Special Counsel to the President.
Sorensen describes in thrilling detail his experience advising JFK during some of the most crucial days of his presidency, from the decision to go to the moon to the Cuban Missile Crisis, when JFK requested that the thirty-four-year-old Sorensen draft the key letter to Khrushchev at the most critical point of the world's first nuclear confrontation. After Kennedy was assassinated, Sorensen stayed with President Johnson for a few months before leaving to write a biography of JFK. In 1968 he returned to Washington to help run Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign. Through it all, Sorensen never lost sight of the ideals that brought him to Washington and to the White House, working tirelessly to promote and defend free, peaceful societies.
Illuminating, revelatory, and utterly compelling, Counselor is the brilliant, long-awaited memoir from the remarkable man who shaped the presidency and the legacy of one of the greatest leaders America has ever known.
In this gripping memoir, John F. Kennedy's closest advisor recounts in full for the first time his experience counseling Kennedy through the most dramatic moments in American history.
Sorensen returns to January 1953, when he and the freshman senator from Massachusetts began their extraordinary professional and personal relationship. Rising from legislative assistant to speechwriter and advisor, the young lawyer from Nebraska worked closely with JFK on his most important speeches, as well as his book Profiles in Courage. Sorensen encouraged the junior senator's political ambitions—from a failed bid for the vice presidential nomination in 1956 to the successful presidential campaign in 1960, after which he was named Special Counsel to the President.
Sorensen describes in thrilling detail his experience advising JFK during some of the most crucial days of his presidency, from the decision to go to the moon to the Cuban Missile Crisis, when JFK requested that the thirty-four-year-old Sorensen draft the key letter to Khrushchev at the most critical point of the world's first nuclear confrontation. After Kennedy was assassinated, Sorensen stayed with President Johnson for a few months before leaving to write a biography of JFK. In 1968 he returned to Washington to help run Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign. Through it all, Sorensen never lost sight of the ideals that brought him to Washington and to the White House, working tirelessly to promote and defend free, peaceful societies.
Illuminating, revelatory, and utterly compelling, Counselor is the brilliant, long-awaited memoir from the remarkable man who shaped the presidency and the legacy of one of the greatest leaders America has ever known.
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Customer Reviews
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Rating: 
- Ted Sorensen's 2008 Convention Speech
Ted Sorensen's 2008 Convention Speech
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at 03:20 PM
"In my more than 50 years of national conventions, this is one of the most important. Our 8 year national nightmare of mendacity, mediocrity and economic misery--with millions of Americans losing their jobs, their savings, their homes and their hopes--will soon end with the election of Barack Obama.
I have long dreamed that our party would produce another president matching John F. Kennedy's ... Read More
Rating: 
- Sorenson audio-book review
A fascinating look at a fascinating time from a unique perspective, Ted Sorenson. Sorenson's own words & voice inflections are preserved for future generations. Anyone interested in the Kennedy Presidential era should add this to their collection. A must!
Rating: - Sorensen, before, during and after JFK
Should fairly obscure and relatively little known people write autobiographies?Answers to this question will vary, of course, but if the person's name is Theodore C. Sorensen, my answer would be 'definitely'.Indeed, Sorensen is one of several persons I identified several years ago in a category I labelled "I hope he writes and I can read his life story".[In case anyone is interested, the other two were/are musicians: Frederick Fennell (1914-2004) and Mitch Miller (1911-).]
Ted ... Read More
Rating: - Inspiring in places, the book lacks the human touch.
I am an Irish Catholic, born six months prior to JFK's murder; the admiration for JFK as lost leader has been a backround to my life, and is deeply felt in my society.I have been thrilled on the speeches - `A man on the moon this decade' represents, for me, the it audacity, ambition and directness that I associate with the USA-so I am up for the whole Camelot ticket.I admire what Ted Kennedy has done for the Irish Peace process, and am willing to go along with the Obama endorsement.So ... Read More
Rating: - A Great Read. Buy it.
A thoroughly enjoyable read if you are interested in the JFK era. Sorensen loved (in the most genuinely platonic sense) his hero Kennedy. While some of his praise for the assassinated President borders on cloying, the overall book is an excellent read. As a keynote speaker, (I reference the Kennedy brand in a jaundiced manner in Why Ireland Never Invaded America) I have a deep and abiding fascination for great wordsmiths and by any standards President Kennedy's Counselor is a great speech writer.
Read More
- Ted Sorensen's 2008 Convention SpeechTed Sorensen's 2008 Convention Speech
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at 03:20 PM
"In my more than 50 years of national conventions, this is one of the most important. Our 8 year national nightmare of mendacity, mediocrity and economic misery--with millions of Americans losing their jobs, their savings, their homes and their hopes--will soon end with the election of Barack Obama.
I have long dreamed that our party would produce another president matching John F. Kennedy's ... Read More
- Sorenson audio-book reviewA fascinating look at a fascinating time from a unique perspective, Ted Sorenson. Sorenson's own words & voice inflections are preserved for future generations. Anyone interested in the Kennedy Presidential era should add this to their collection. A must!
- Sorensen, before, during and after JFKShould fairly obscure and relatively little known people write autobiographies?Answers to this question will vary, of course, but if the person's name is Theodore C. Sorensen, my answer would be 'definitely'.Indeed, Sorensen is one of several persons I identified several years ago in a category I labelled "I hope he writes and I can read his life story".[In case anyone is interested, the other two were/are musicians: Frederick Fennell (1914-2004) and Mitch Miller (1911-).]
Ted ... Read More
- Inspiring in places, the book lacks the human touch.I am an Irish Catholic, born six months prior to JFK's murder; the admiration for JFK as lost leader has been a backround to my life, and is deeply felt in my society.I have been thrilled on the speeches - `A man on the moon this decade' represents, for me, the it audacity, ambition and directness that I associate with the USA-so I am up for the whole Camelot ticket.I admire what Ted Kennedy has done for the Irish Peace process, and am willing to go along with the Obama endorsement.So ... Read More
- A Great Read. Buy it.A thoroughly enjoyable read if you are interested in the JFK era. Sorensen loved (in the most genuinely platonic sense) his hero Kennedy. While some of his praise for the assassinated President borders on cloying, the overall book is an excellent read. As a keynote speaker, (I reference the Kennedy brand in a jaundiced manner in Why Ireland Never Invaded America) I have a deep and abiding fascination for great wordsmiths and by any standards President Kennedy's Counselor is a great speech writer.
Read More
