by Theodore Harold White
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Amazon.com Review
Students of politics and political reporting should cheer: This too- long-out-of-print classic is coming back. The book and the campaign it covered are throwbacks to an era more and more citizens, increasingly mired in sound-bites and tabloidism, are at least subconsciously desperate to resuscitate. You'll be amazed at how knowledgeable (and sometimes even wise) both White and the candidates he covers--Kennedy and Nixon--seem. Yes, it was too good to be true, but what a nice idea.
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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 A gift to my friend, 2008-07-25
A gift to my old friend who ever read few
books from the same authors.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
History Joins Humanity in Legendary 1960 Election Chronicle, 2008-07-04
Senator John F. Kennedy's slim victory (less than 150,000 votes) over Vice-President Richard M. Nixon in 1960 was arguably the 20th century's most iconic. Kennedy's generation, "born in this century," linked American history and heroes with still-modern inventions of instant polling and television to face the legacy of a beloved war hero president, his formidable vice-president and eight years of their "peace and prosperity."
Theodore H. White's influential bestseller, "The Making of the President 1960," not only chronicles the primaries, speeches, strategy sessions, debates, and final tallies, but was largely where 1960's election, and its victor, began owning their singular places in U.S. history.
Beginning fittingly at campaign's end with Kennedy's stressful, exhilarating victory night, the book unfolds candidate strategies from primary to convention to the weeks between Bill Mazeroski's World Series-ending home run and that November 7. White is novelist, journalist and historian chronicling the Democratic party torch passing from hero Adlai Stevenson (a reluctant if overpoweringly influential candidate) to Kennedy at the Los Angeles convention. With unprecedented access to President Kennedy, campaign manager Bobby Kennedy (provocatively described as a Catholic "Boston Puritan"), and their brain trusts, White sketches the candidate's vigor, intellect, and humor making him cultural equal to era icons Franklin Roosevelt and Elvis Presley.
Without nearly the access to the then-vice president or his staff (part of Nixon's hostility to press which reached dizzying heights a decade later) White's views on Nixon are observational, quotes from formally prepared speeches or advisors speaking off-record. Eisenhower's Republican torch becomes a hot potato jumping from New York governor Nelson Rockefeller to industry captains supporting the party to what White describes as Nixon's mix of stubbornness (with a 50-state strategy), bad luck, bad TV imagery, and a touch of greed. This led Nixon to make decisions perceived strategically right over those morally right (both candidates' reaction to Dr. Martin Luther King's Georgia imprisonment weeks before the election being a watershed example.)
But for its merits in describing Kennedy and Nixon's exhausting marathon to the Oval Office (and hardships of accompanying staffers and even reporters), White's most valuable chapter for today's reader is "Retrospect on Yesterday's Future." Any political science or sociology student must read White's chronicle of 1960's changing demographics: contrasts between black/white, urban/suburban, regional/ethnic ("red" and "blue" state values are spot-on described without color) and, most notably, Catholic/Protestant. (Kennedy's famous speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, taking his religious and presidential responsibilities head-on, is reprinted as an appendix.)
White gives this humanity and immediacy making particular episodes (Nixon's Atlanta rally, Hubert Humphrey's long bus ride in Wisconsin and his awkward TV telethon, Kennedy's final speech as candidate in Connecticut) seem fresh and evocative of their time. White shows 1960 as slamming shut the "simpler time" many envision the 1950s to be. This not only stems because of the horrible tragedies awaiting both men, but Big Media's ever-larger bytes and swallows of political discussion and drama.
Anyone wanting to understand modern American politics, strategiesm and motivations in place even to this year's election must start here. "The Making of the President 1960" should be required for any voter helping to make one in 2008 and beyond.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 They Don't Make Them Like This Anymore, 2008-01-13
Nowadays, when a campaign book is written it amounts to little more than a collection of Newsweek articles. Theodore White's Making of the Presidency 1960 on the other hand gets into the nuts and bolts of presidential campaigns, party machinery, and voter demographics in a way not really seen anymore. It's about the big ideas that shape national elections and the individual people that make it all operate.
Given the current political process, some of the 1960 action seems quite distant. First, several candidates were aiming for a convention strategy, completely ignoring the primaries that were then far less important. Second, at one point the book mentions eight minute statements given by Kennedy and Nixon during one of their debates. Nowadays, we are lucky if a debate statement on the most important national issue lasts for more than two minutes.
The book's publication in 1961 also makes it interesting, as it leaves the reader at the threshold of the Kennedy presidency but is completely unaware of the events to follow. Not only does this include the assassination of two Kennedy brothers, but also the election of Richard Nixon to the presidency in 1968.
I have also read the Making of the Presidency 1964, but not the two successive volumes. I highly recommend this and the follow-up.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Interesting, well written history of a milestone election, 2007-08-28
I very much enjoyed reading this book - having polished it off in a day. This book really takes you back into a very different era of American politics and culture. Indeed, there were only 3 major television networks, 2 wire services (which fed local newspapers), and no cable or internet. Moreover, the Presidential nomination process was quite different from what it is today. Back then, party conventions actually conducted substantive business, with deals and compromises being made, and floor battles beign waged (whereas today's conventions are largely a waste of time and money). Also, both major Presidential candidates sought to carry the broad segment of the electorate, not just certain geographic regions (there was not the concept of "Red" states and "Blue" states that exists today - many of the states were "in play" for most of the campaign).
I also enjoyed Mr. White's interesting analysis of American culture and society, circa 1960. He takes readers through a colorful discussion of trends and changes that have occurred and connects them with the political scene. This definitely puts the unfolding of the campaign and election into a greater perspective.
I have read a number of criticisms that Mr. White was unduly biased toward John F. Kennedy in this book. I do not see this as being accurate - he does not present Kennedy as some sort of secular saint. Moreover, (and I am no great admirer of Kennedy), Kennedy did have a great deal of charisma that lent itself to positive press coverage. In a later book, Mr. White takes a similar tack toward Ronald Reagan. Mr. White does show some empathy toward Richard Nixon, though he rightly criticizes him for not making better use of President Eisenhower's immense popularity and goodwill with the American people. Nixon, of course, will ultimately win a Presidential contest, though under a different set of circumstances.
Interestingly, I don't think that either Kennedy or Nixon would have won their respective party's Presidential nomination in the current political climate. This is because both men were, at heart, center-leaning pragmatists. They were not given to the ideological orthodoxy that exists today in both parties.
On a critical note, Mr. White does not mention the controversial election returns that took place in Chicago and Texas, or about the dubious (to put it nicely) dealings of Joseph P. Kennedy, who took an active role in the campaign, despite an appearance of aloofness. I think that Mr. White should have included this, and that doing so would not have harmed the book.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
A well-paced book, 2007-08-12
While it would seem this book would be very dated, I found it to be incredibly interesting and unintentionally relevant to the modern political world. First though, the book reads incredibly easy. Ted White was a journalist and thus this feels more like a direct piece, rather than an academic's thesis. The story of the election moves along with a few pauses for in-depth analysis. The focus shifts in every chapter, so it doesn't become monotonous.
I especially liked reading the book because it was about John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon and written from a perspective that is hard to find: before JFK was shot and Nixon resigned. Instead the book treats them just as two young pols, eager to ascend to the highest office.
Additionally, many of the positions of the Democrats and Republicans, as well as response by the American people seems unchanged despite the past nearly 50 years. Looking at the parties as they began to form their present state provides insight into how our political scene today developed.
All in all, I recommend this book to anyone who's interested either in Nixon, Kennedy, or presidential campaigning in general. They'll find it almost humorous in how some descriptions written in 1961 still apply in 2007, and how most tactics are still being used.
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