JFK: Reckless Youth

In JFK: Reckless Youth, British-American author and scholar Nigel Hamilton presents a biography of the early years of the thirty-fifth American president, John F. Kennedy. First published by Random House in 1992, the book follows Kennedy from his birth and childhood in suburban Boston to his education at elite boarding schools, Princeton, and eventually Harvard, from his relationships with his parents, siblings, and many lovers to his military career. Hamilton draws much of the story from Kennedy's own words, using personal letters, documents, and interviews as source material. The result is a robust portrait of a celebrated American's formative years and an examination of a unique personality that was a mixture of the carefree and the conflicted, the playful and the ambitious, the Everyman and the legend.

On May 29, 1917, John Fitzgerald Kennedy is born in Brookline, Massachusetts, to politician Joseph P. Kennedy and socialite Rose Kennedy. He comes from a deeply Irish Boston background and has a particularly close relationship with his maternal grandfather, John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald. Kennedy's father, Joe, is something of a cheat and a draft-dodger, and his relationship with JFK's mother, Rose, is fraught with discord, due largely in part to Joe's numerous and highly publicized affairs, including one with movie icon Gloria Swanson.

Though many view the Kennedys as the quintessential American family, young JFK grows up in a dysfunctional household, one without much love, affection, or encouragement. In 1931, at the age of fourteen, Kennedy begins attending the prestigious Choate boarding school in Connecticut. There, he engages in all manner of troublemaking and hijinks. In one notable escapade, he and his gang of pranksters explode a toilet seat with a firecracker, drawing the ire of the stern headmaster. However, in the midst of all his rabblerousing, Kennedy also deals with a number of health issues. Doctors think he has leukemia, and they send him to Minnesota's Mayo Clinic, where they then diagnose him with colitis. It is just one in a long line of illnesses that would plague Kennedy for the rest of his life.



Still, he manages to graduate, first planning to attend college at the London School of Economics. But just a month after his arrival in the United Kingdom, illness forces him back home. He then enrolls at Princeton University, but, again, ill health takes its toll, and he withdraws after just a few months. After recovering from the gastrointestinal ailment that derails his education, Kennedy goes to work for a time at an Arizona cattle ranch, and the following year begins his college education at Harvard.

Kennedy's Harvard experiences document the evolution of a golden boy. He tries out for a variety of sports and lands a coveted spot on the swim team. He learns to sail and wins championship races. He makes the Dean's List and writes a college thesis that is so erudite, it is eventually published as a book (Why England Slept), becoming a bestseller. In 1940, Kennedy graduates cum laude with a BA in government and a concentration in international affairs.

The following year, despite a lifetime of ill health, Kennedy joins the United States Naval Reserve. His first commands are a series of patrol torpedo boats. In 1943, he commands PT-109 in the Solomon Islands. On August 1, 1943, he spies a Japanese destroyer and orders his command to attack, but as his PT boat turns to follow his order, the Japanese attack instead, severing the boat in two and killing two on board. It is the only American ship rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer. Kennedy takes just a month off before commanding another PT boat. The Navy promotes him to full lieutenant, but after he helps rescue a large group of Marines, his doctor orders him to step down from his position. By the time he leaves the military in 1944, Kennedy is a decorated and respected serviceman, with honors that include the Purple Heart. He is now poised for a political career that would become the stuff of legend.



Despite his active academic and military careers, Kennedy maintains an equally active personal life. In the early 1940s, Kennedy meets the woman whom Hamilton considers the love of young JFK's life. Her name is Inga Arvad. She is a beautiful Danish journalist—and, perhaps, a German spy, with well-documented meetings with Adolf Hitler under her belt. Kennedy's superiors in the Navy don't take kindly to one of their own cavorting with a woman who is possibly a spy. For a time, they reassign Kennedy to a desk job, a move that Kennedy speculates is the work of then-FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Kennedy and Arvad's affair is relatively brief, but it is one of great intensity and passion. With the FBI trailing their every move, the couple breaks up.

The JFK who emerges in this biography is more than just a playboy. He is a young man on the cusp of a vibrant political career, one of the most storied marriages of all time, and a permanent place in the popular consciousness. In short, he is on the cusp of greatness.

JFK: Reckless Youth was initially planned as the first of a sweeping, three-part biography of Kennedy's life. However, the revelations disclosed in this first volume were reportedly so shocking to the Kennedy family that they denied Hamilton any further access to source materials. The year the book hit shelves, Hamilton and William Broyles, Jr., adapted it into a television miniseries, starring Patrick Dempsey in the title role.