JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917–1956

JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, (1917–1956) is a 2020 biography written by historian Fredrik Logevall. Published by Random House in September 2020, the work examines the education, military service, and political career of an American president who had acquired a great deal of his knowledge of international relations in his early years. According to Logevall, it was Kennedy's knowledge of international relations gained in his youth that allowed him to steer the nation through the perilous deadlocks, short-term victories, and failures of the Cold War.

The book unveils John F. Kennedy's early relationships, his formative WWII experiences, his ideas, writings and political aspirations, which the author believed took shape at an early age and were independent of his father's desire for him to enter public life. The author follows Kennedy through the birth of the Cold War, first showing Kennedy's awareness as a young journalist in 1945 of the threat of an imperialistic Russia.

Logevall observed that Kennedy's awareness of the imperialistic nature of Russia during the Cold War and his wariness of the nature of communist expansionism later influenced his goals as president to keep America first in diplomacy, improve ties with foreign countries in the Americas, and to keep America first in scientific and military technology. This focus led Kennedy to later establish the Peace Corps, Alliance for Progress with Latin America, and the continuation of the Apollo program with the goal of landing a man on the Moon before 1970.

Logevall attributes Kennedy's grasp of international relations in part to his Harvard education in government with a concentration in international relations, as well as the familiarity he gained from assessing the views of the many world leaders he met in his early life as a wealthy son of the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1938 to 1940. It is Logevall's belief that Kennedy's early grasp of international relations would later guide him in the critical decisions he later made as president. Kennedy would learn more about the international climate during his brief college travels in Western Europe and Germany prior to 1940, and his far-ranging global junkets in 1951 as a young senator.

Author description

Fredrik Logevall, a professor of international affairs and history at the Harvard Kennedy School had previously written over ten books on the topic of foreign relations. In 2012, he published Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam, which covered US motivations for entering the Vietnam War and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for History and the Francis Parkman Prize. In 2020, he published America's Cold War: The Politics of Insecurity, which examined the successes and failures of US involvement in the Cold War.Description of author's qualifications in Logevall, Fredrik, JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956, (2020) New York, Random House, Author description at back of book.

Content Family background

Logevall's heavily researched biography begins with a brief description of the life of Kennedy's grandparents and takes note of the early life of his father Joseph as a good, though not exceptional, student at Boston Latin, and a particularly high-achieving athlete in High School. A description of the political life of JFK's grandfathers further supports Logevall's views that Kennedy was well groomed to a life in public service through early life experiences with his family. The author includes important detail often omitted from other works, including the early stock investments that netted Joseph P. Kennedy his first million as a trader with Hayden, Stone, and Company, and his earlier work as a manager of the Fore River Shipyard where he first met Franklin Roosevelt, who was at the time Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Joseph Kennedy's work as chair of the U.S. Maritime Commission gave him important contacts in the Navy.

Alluding to the research of Daniel Okrent and 2012 Joseph Kennedy biographer David Nasaw, Logevall agreed that there was little substantive evidence in the widely held belief that Joseph Kennedy partnered with mob figures to make a part of his fortune in bootlegging during Prohibition in the 1920s. As Logevall noted, Joseph Kennedy did expand his fortune by gaining distribution rights to several brands of Scotch whiskey, and later through real estate investments, and ownership and management of RKO and other Hollywood interests. Others may continue to believe that a significant portion of Joseph Kennedy's early wealth was acquired through ruthless business tactics and what would today be considered insider securities trading, a view that Nasaw and Logevall did not entirely discount. It could be noted that in the 1920s and early 1930s, laws codifying the nature of insider business trading were scarce. These took greater shape during the birth of the Security and Exchange Commission, which Joseph Kennedy piloted from 1934 to 1935 after his appointment by Franklin Roosevelt.Joseph Kennedy did not engage in bootlegging in Logevall, Fredrik, JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917–1956, (2020) New York, Random House, p. 55

Lack of parental affection

Interestingly, Logevall notes that Rose Kennedy's rare displays of physical affection towards her children, for which she often took criticism from other Kennedy biographers, and which many Kennedy biographers, including Nigel Hamilton, consider an important factor in the development of JFK's promiscuity, was likely influenced by Rose's familiarity with the works of child psychologists of the day who discouraged such displays as being detrimental to proper childhood development. Logevall observed that the authors of magazine articles of the period from 1910 to 1935, as well as the noted psychologist John B. Watson, "considered 'too much love' to be the greatest threat to a child's welfare."Logevall, Fredrik, JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917–1956, (2020) New York, Random House, From jacket cover blurb Watson, author of Psychological Care of Infant and Child (1928), believed "since society does not overly comfort children as they become young adults in the real world, parents should not set up these unrealistic expectations.""Watson, John Broadus." pp. 662–63 in The Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology (2nd ed.), edited by B. Strickland. Detroit: Gale. 2001. The widely read authority on parenting young children, L. Emmet Holt, "warned mothers against coddling children or playing with them or displaying a lot of affection with them."Logevall, Fredrik, JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917–1956, (2020) New York, Random House, p. 48

Independent political aspirations

Logevall writes that Joseph Kennedy Sr. had harbored stronger political aspirations for John's brother Joseph Kennedy Jr., whom the elder Kennedy may have viewed as more capable and intelligent, as evidenced by his higher school grades, better health, and the fact that JFK was nearly kicked out of his prep-school Choate for mischief. Central to his book's theme, Logevall strongly presses the point that Kennedy chose his career in public service and politics, and was not forced into it by his father to substitute for the life in politics Kennedy Sr. had hoped for Joe Junior, hopes that were lost when Joe Junior died prematurely in WWII.

To support Logevall's view that John Kennedy and not his father chose politics as his profession, Logevall cites Kennedy's choice of government, history, and international relations as his college major at Harvard, Kennedy's love of travel where he could learn more about foreign cultures, leaders, and governments, and the author's belief that JFK, from his own statements, was more intrigued with the prospect of a life of public service than that of working as a writer or academic. Kennedy discussed his desire to have a life in politics with some of his early friends, including Inga Arvad during WWII. As noted by Logevall, in 1942, he and Arvad had mused at length about him running for office, not excluding the presidency.Discussion with Arvad about running for office in 1942 in Logevall, Fredrik, JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917–1956, (2020) New York, Random House, p. 381 He also noted that though his father wanted him to make his first political run as Massachusetts's lieutenant governor, Kennedy strongly preferred a run for the House of Representatives where he could use his knowledge of foreign relations to play a stronger role in America's future. This demonstrated that Kennedy's choices of public office were not exclusively the result of his father's influence or direction. As Logevall observed, long before making the choice to lead a life of public service by running for office, Kennedy was in the center of world politics through his travels, particularly while meeting several of the British members of Parliament while his father was Ambassador to Great Britain.

America's entry into WWII At only 22, after a seven-month trip from Moscow to Jerusalem, having questioned his father's isolationism, Kennedy was in Berlin in early September 1939, to witness firsthand Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announce Britain's intent to enter the war. Kennedy was more moved however, by Churchill's idealistic speech on September 3 as chairman of the Admiralty that the war would "establish the rights of the individual", and would be a "war to establish and revive the stature of man." Logevall also noted that as a great admirer of Churchill, JFK's speeches may have at times been written in a similar tone and cadence.Logevall, Fredrik, JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917–1956, (2020) New York, Random House, p. 224

Logevall stressed Kennedy's strong belief in the need for America to enter WWII, though it differed markedly from his father's isolationist stance as Ambassador to Britain, and noted importantly that Kennedy advised his father after he lost his post as Ambassador to Britain on how to softly modify and explain his isolationist views.

Why England Slept, 1940