JFK's Last Hundred Days

The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President

By: Thurston Clarke

Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner

Length: 14 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

A revelatory, minute-by-minute account of JFK’s final days that asks what might have been.

Fifty years after his assassination, President John F. Kennedy’s legend endures. Noted author and historian Thurston Clarke reexamines the last months of the president’s life to show a man in the midst of great change, both in his family and in the key issues of his day: The Cold War, Civil Rights, and Vietnam, finally on the cusp of making good on his extraordinary promise. JFK’s Last Hundred Days presents a gripping account that weaves together Kennedy’s public and private lives, explains why the grief following his assassination has endured so long, and solves the most tantalizing Kennedy mystery of them all - not who killed him but who he was when he was killed and where he would have led us.

©2013 Thurston Clarke (P)2013 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

Christian Science Monitor's 10 Best Books of July

An Amazon Best History Pick July 2013

A Daily Beast "Brainy Beach Read"

An Apple iBooks Best Book of August

"[A] vivid portrait of Kennedy as an immensely complex human being: by turns detached and charismatic, a hard-nosed pol and a closet romantic, cautious in his decision making but reckless in his womanizing." (Michicko Kakutani, New York Times)

“JFK's Last Hundred Days is a superb piece of writing - richly detailed and, considering that the end is all too well known, surprisingly enthralling." (The Wall Street Journal)

“Clarke does an interesting and in many ways persuasive job of what he proposes at the beginning: ‘to view John F. Kennedy through every prism and search through all his compartments during the crucial last hundred days of his life - days that saw him finally beginning to realize his potential as a man and a president - in order to solve the most tantalizing mystery of all: not who killed him, but who he was when he was killed, and where he would have led us'." (Washington Post)

wears better as it progresses

Having devoured almost every book, magazine and video on the subject of Kennedy and his administration, life, family and times, and coming from the same context (my Dad hailed from Harvard and Harvard Law School simultaneously with Jack and Joe and sat on the bench and was dear friends with Kennedy associate and family friend Frank Morrissey and they all started in East Boston) I found some of this old wine in new bottles. Up to Ch 11 nothing new. Schlesinger, Kearns Goodwin, Sidey, White, Sorensen, Dallek, Reeves, Herschel, Burns, Powers and O Donnell et al. have said it all before. But...This is a new angle around which to focus everything...the last 100 days instead of 1000 days he himself spoke of. What interested me were quotes I'd never heard before, the predictions about Vietnam and detente with Russia and Cuba and relationship with Johnson, but I am tired of hearing about the womanizing...we know already. I guess 50 yrs after the fact a new crop of history buffs has come up who hasn t read it all so Thurston Clarke is aiming for them. The voice, however, is a bit of a drone...should ve varied according to different characters quoted to obtain nuance. Do wish for the days of this crowd of adult, not adolescent, thinkers at the helm of government tempered by war and the fear of holocaust, educated by geniuses at LSE and Oxford and the Ivy Leagues, who valued and aimed for peaceful coexistence rather than combat...what we have now are just seat warmers in Washington and the state capitals of government, so politicized and buried in the mire of lobbyists and PACs and special interests that gridlock is the norm...as we wait for the return of the best and the brightest...futilely.

Good listen...want to buy the book.

One of the better JFK books out there

One of the better JFK books I have ever read. The use of first hand accounts and words of the actual men who lived the moments provide unmatched insight. This book makes the reader think about what JFK was striving for. Often we forget that history can remember a man far differently than the man he truly was. The evidence provided in this book does make you question how much blame JFK should really be given for the policy choices that he may never have intended. I recomend this to anyone and is well worth the one credit price AUDIBLE 20 REVIEW SWEEPSTAKES ENTRY

Great book on JFK’s last days

This book provides a comprehensive look at the last 100 days of JFK’s Presidency. The author explains throughout the book how JFK’s views evolved and where his focus was as he went to Dallas on November 22. A really good book!

What a great book about a great leader.

I was a fourth grader with Ms. McQueen, walked in the classroom and told us little kids, that the president had been shot. I thought it had to do with Vietnam war. But Sadly that was not true. This book does a great service to a great man, and a great country.

Truly enjoyed this book

Any additional comments?

I truly enjoyed the book, a lot of new information about JFK, at least for me. Narration is great too.

JFK, what can you say

First time author, this book was recommended to me by several people. We all have moments in our lives where we remember exactly where we were when we heard some momentous news. JFK's death was one of those times for me. I was 12 years old in 6th grade and it was lunch time. One of the teachers came by some of us standing outside the school building and said that the president had been shot. We all went back into the classroom. The 5th grade from across the hall came in and shared our seats while our teacher, Mrs. Kessler, put the radio on. We were all sitting there when the announcer came on and said the president was dead. There was a lot going on in the US and world during JFK's last 100 days and the author delves into his life in great detail going over it almost day by day. it started with his second son, Patrick, passing after being alive just a few days. There was a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the Civil Rights Bill he was trying to get voted on (which LBJ finished), Vietnam was in the early days and JFK was refusing to put combat troops on the ground and instead wanted to decrease the number of advisers. The author goes into his womanizing in great detail, his relationship with Jackie and kids, really every aspect of his life at that time. This book isn't like a thriller where you can't put it down but it was interesting enough that you wanted to keep with it. I, like many Americans of the time, was fascinated with all things Kennedy after this. It's a well done story.

In Depth and Beautifully Written

An exquisite biography of JFK.. many insights. An intense, educational chronology of Vietnam. Had he served a second term our soldiers and country would not have had to undergo that cataclysm; The last chapters about the murder and the tears of the world were precise and I know. I was a young person then in my freshman year of college in New York City and I cried as if i had lost a brother. A sad yet healing book for those of us who lived through that trauma. A great man, a wordsmith who was evolving, learning and growing- up to the end including his marriage that was destined to survive and endure.

Cynical

One would learn nothing so good about JFK from reading this book. This is like soap opera rather than a solid history that displays his struggles and fights to do the good.