Hostage to Fortune: The Letters of Joseph P. Kennedy

This volume--covering the life of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. as a family man, businessman and ambassador to the Court of St. James--does not limit itself to letters written by the progenitor of a political dynasty. It also includes much correspondence from his wife, Rose, and his children through nearly five decades (1914-1961), along with carefully chosen entries from his journals, which Smith--a Kennedy granddaughter--claims preserves, as much as possible, an accurate account of the private and public man. The journals, like the letters, have up to now been embargoed by the family, and generally unavailable to scholars; therefore this volume is welcome. More discerning readers, however, aware of Kennedy's well-documented (by Richard Mahoney, Ron Kessler and others) business skulduggery, political opportunism, anti-Semitism and cowardice in the face of Nazism, will find that this collection offers a sanitized, whitewashed image. Smith allows Kennedy's blatantly untrue, disingenuous and self-serving statements to stand unchallenged. The journal accounts concerning meetings with FDR, for example, flatly disagree with the published records of other participants, not to mention with FDR's own secret Oval Office tapes. Still, for the record, these documents are worth having; for the reader familiar with the Kennedy literature, they do much to fill out a portrait of a fascinating clan and a fascinating man. (Jan.) Forecast: First serial rights have been sold to the New Yorker, and the book will be supported by a four-city author tour. There does seem to be an insatiable hunger for Kennedy books, but this one is not likely to have the kind of sales that Sarah Bradford's American Queen is enjoying.