Originally published: 1996. Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents:
Dramatis personae -- Introduction -- Students -- Chapter 1: World War II was their greatest campaign manager -- Chapter 2: Strangers on a train -- Chapter 3: While Kennedy slept -- Chapter 4: Castle or the outhouse -- Chapter 5: Cloth coats and lace curtains -- Chapter 6: Hall mates -- Chapter 7: Profiles in ambition -- Chapter 8: Two men on third -- Chapter 9: Kennedy versus Nixon -- Chapter 10: Great debate -- Chapter 11: Bearing any burden -- Chapter 12: Verdict -- Chapter 13: If -- Chapter 14: Bay of Pigs -- Chapter 15: Coup de grace -- Chapter 16: Diem -- Chapter 17: Dallas -- Chapter 18: Eternal flame -- Chapter 19: New Nixon -- Chapter 20: 1968 -- Chapter 21: Haunting -- Chapter 22: Escalation -- Chapter 23: Interlude -- Chapter 24: Targeting Teddy -- Chapter 25: Smoking gun -- Chapter 26: Kennedy versus Nixon-again -- Chapter 27: Death of a presidency -- Epilogue: Twilight struggle -- Afterword: White House tapes -- Notes -- Index.
Summary:
Overview: John Kennedy and Richard Nixon shared a dream of being the great young leader of their age. Starting as congressmen in the class of 1946, the two men developed a friendship and admiration for each other that would last for more than a decade. But what drove history, Matthews shows, was the enmity between these two towering figures whose 1960 presidential contest would set the nation's bitter course for years to come. In this startling dual portrait - a modern-day Amadeus, with Nixon as the talented, frustrated, always outdone Salieri to Kennedy's Mozart, the charismatic genius - Matthews shows how the early fondness between the two men (Kennedy told a trusted friend that if he didn't receive the Democratic nomination in 1960, he would vote for Nixon) degenerated into distrust and paranoia, the same emotions that, in the early 1970s, ravaged the nation. Christopher Matthews's revealing book sheds new light on this complicated relationship and the role that it played in shaping America's history.
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