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Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History |  | Author: Ted Sorensen
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
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Rating:  44 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Edition: First
Pages: 576
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.8
ISBN: 0060798718
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.922092
EAN: 9780060798710
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Product Description
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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Showing reviews 1-5 of 44
 Extraordinary personal history May 6, 2008
Pranay Gupte (Brooklyn, NY United States)
103 out of 110 found this review helpful
I know Ted Sorensen well, so what I have to say about his extraordinary personal history is obviously being written as a friend and admirer. As a friend, I can say that Ted speaks truth to power; as an admirer, I can say that he speaks truth forcefully and candidly. He was arguably John Kennedy's alter ego. At the very least, Ted was the man who shaped JFK's lyrical, intellectually vigorous speeches. But Ted was also a canny adviser, the lawyer who marshaled his facts well, made the connections between random thoughts and workable ideas, and produced a consistent body of work for the president he loved and trusted. Ted once told me that not a day goes by without him thinking of JFK -- of the man JFK was, and about what might have been. Like his late friend Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Ted occupied an honored place at the table in Camelot. What his memoir makes plain -- in his own special, witty way -- is how much Ted shaped JFK's Camelot itself.
Out of Nebraska May 12, 2008
Christian Schlect (Yakima, Washington/USA)
45 out of 51 found this review helpful
The well-written memoirs of a man forever to be identified with John F. Kennedy's political career, especially the White House days. While not telling all, this book is the candid product of a bright, honest, but still politically driven man, a 1960s liberal, who writes in the twilight of his life.
Mr. Sorensen is one of the last living central participants of JFK's Administration and his story would have value for this fact alone. Readers wishing to learn about presidential political campaigning, the art of speech writing, and more on such important historical events as the Cuban Missile Crisis and the presidential transition from JFK to LBJ will profit from reading this book.
While material on his later private law practice is not as interesting as the rest of the text, this is only to be expected. In terms of his post White House career, I did find of value his description of his ill-fated nomination by President Carter as DCI and noted the fact there is little mention of President Clinton's years. (A prominent picture of Senator Obama and Ted Sorensen is in this book. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that the author sees the current junior senator from Illinois as his pick for this year's Democratic Party nominee for president--and the direct and true successor to JFK's legacy.)
Sorensen Hits Home Run May 9, 2008
Philip Steele Krone (Chicago, Illinois United States)
46 out of 54 found this review helpful
I know Ted Sorensen through our common support of Barack Obama and was eager to read this magnificent biography. I bought it on Tuesday, May 6 the first day it was published and I didn't put it down ( with the exception of eating, showering and sleeping about four hours each of the last two nights) until a few hours ago when I finished reading it.
It is a magnificent opus. The writing is superb. Rarely do the heart and head come together so well without sacrificing or compromising either.
Modest without being falsely self effacing, this truly is an indispensable book for any American citizen or world citizen. And its an absolute must for any political junkie from Al Franken to Ann Coulter.
Stop what you're doing. Run out and get it. Its a great gift for anyone's birthday in May (June is too late -- its that good).
Ted Sorensen is a historical figure in his own right. He was indispensable to Kennedy and now to Obama.
There are many reasons to read this book. Not just for its great insights with an unobscured and unobstructed perspective, but because of new information into the life of JFK whose reputation will be enhanced by this near reverential but still candid volume.
A mutual friend of Ted Sorensen's just forwarded me the first reviews including the Wall Street Journal. To say they were raves is to understate them.
A profound, timeless memoir June 9, 2008
Jon Hunt (Old Greenwich, Ct. USA)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
Some of the criticism leveled against Theodore Sorensen's new book, "Counselor", has to do with his close relationship to President Kennedy, thereby suggesting a literary hagiography. These sentiments could not be farther from the truth. In "Counselor", Sorensen offers up the good and the bad, the wise and the mediocre and provides what must be the definitive accounting of the Kennedy years. It's a fair and moving tribute to our thirty-fifth president and a terrific look at the man who spent so many years with him.
Sorensen's background, a Danish, Unitarian-Jewish kid from Nebraska, couldn't have been more than the oddest of pairings to John F. Kennedy. But they complemented each other in ways that both men found remarkable. Sorensen was, in many ways, Kennedy's eyes and ears for the eleven years in which they worked together and the author's eyewitness to history is a welcome addition to anyone who remembers that time. Describing in detail the Cuban Missile Crisis, Sorensen is at his best and this chapter is, indeed, the best of the book. He's also candid about what his service to the president meant to his own life....the break-up of his first marriage, his absence from his sons and countless numbers of sleepless nights. Along the way, Sorensen reminds the reader of his liberal roots and his continuing liberalism to this day. It's refreshing to know that one of the last surviving members of the Kennedy inner circle, while recently losing most of his eyesight, has not lost his fervor and passion.
Sorensen saves up some of his harshest comments for the end....a ringing indictment of the Bush administration and it comes precisely at a time when the country is in desperate need of new leadership. It doesn't go unnoticed that the final photo in the book is one of Sorensen and Barack Obama, taken last October. The spark of imagination that President Kennedy left seems to be in the air today.
"Counselor" is a deeply moving and personal work and every page is to be savored. It is particularly reflective for those of us old enough to remember President Kennedy and his times, but also a wonderful introduction to those young enough who might have felt a loss of inspiration because of the past eight years in Washington. I highly recommend "Counselor" for Theodore Sorensen's detailed remembrances of his role in American history and I mirror his hopes that life in America can be so much better.
82 & Counting July 2, 2008
William Gleason
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This is the most moving, realistic depiction of JFK I have ever seen. Many will forever rant and rave over his personal peccadillos, but this man was a leader. His speech at American University, which was his way of dealing with Soviet & American feelings about nuclear war included the following. "For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet; we all breathe the same air; we all cherish our children's future; and we are all mortal." I heard that speech as a young man. I am now 82 and it still rings in my ears. I was raised an avid republican, but I am proud to have helped vote him into office. His like hasn't been seen since.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 44
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