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Book Talk: JFK: Public, Private, Secret.

Author J. Randy Taraborelli has taken on a subject that has been futile ground for book sellers for many years – the private life of John F. Kennedy. A companion book to his best seller, Jackie: Public, Private, Secret., So much has been written about the drugs, women, Kennedy family foibles, and the shady politics of Joe Kennedy – what else do we need to know about these tabloid subjects?

Taraborelli manages to put the man and the myth into perspective, and separate what is truth verses popular mythology. At first, I thought, this is just rehash, why am I reading this? Then I realized that Taraborelli was really measuring the degree of truth and going into the sources. Admittedly, some stories will remain unverifiable: time, conflicting witnesses and documentation, and lining up alleged happenings with the context of reality (could it have really taken place given facts surrounding it), make some stories impossible to know 100 percent.

Taraborelli approaches this material more like an archaeologist than an author. The book is full of quotes from the written and oral history of those who were there, from published and unpublished sources. As much as I’ve read about JFK, I still learned a great deal. There are a lot of salacious stories and events in the JFK universe, and over time, much of that has been accepted as fact. Threads of truth have been embellished, distorted and dramatized for effect and profit. What we know is that JFK was a complicated man, a member of a complicated family, and existed at a time vastly different from today.

JFK liked women, we know that as fact. He was unfaithful to his wife with several women, and he is rumored to have had affairs with others, but the most famously reported affairs may hold little basis in reality, at least as written by Taraborelli. Were Marilyn Monroe and Judith Campbell among his sexual conquests? Maybe not. Certainly Joan Lundberg and Mary Meyer were, and had long relationships with him, and Jackie was aware of them. Lundberg even had an abortion known to be JFK’s.

“When you have a conscience, your behavior, if it’s unconscionable, really hits you hard,” Taraborelli said in an interview with WTOP’s Terik King.

“Accountability (is) what people want from their leaders,” he said. “I think that’s a hopeful story to tell in these really fractured times … that kind of hope, I think, is needed right now.”

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Taraborrelli said that his research ultimately revealed a man who was ready to “come face-to-face with and confront his demons,” adding that JFK was about to experience a “full evolution of character.” His marriage to Jackie was an indication of this change, as they had moved through various stages, at one point having a written marriage agreement when it looked like they were headed for divorce. The loss of two children (one stillborn and the only living a few days) served as galvanizing events in their marriage.

Taraborelli writes what may be the book on JFK I’ve ever read. I don’t sense any hyperbole or giving in to myths. If you draw one thing from the book, the man was evolving, and becoming more attuned to his actions, both personally and those as President.

This is the fifth book Taraborelli has written on the Kennedys, and once worked with Jackie Onassis at Doubleday.