There's a cute photo of JFK and Jackie reading a copy of William Manchester's book, with the President pointing and smiling at a page, which made me realise that I had only read the author's Death of a President and not the earlier Portrait. Sadly, this book didn't have quite the same effect on me, apart from the introduction and epilogue written after the assassination. 'Portrait of a President is journalism,' Manchester states, covering a year of the Kennedy administration between April 1961 and April 1962, but adds that 'today's journalism is tomorrow's history'. All too poignantly true in this case.

Deciding against returning to 'recast everything in the past', the author let his brief study of a living leader stand. Instead, Jackie Kennedy asked Manchester to write the sad and shocking Death of a President in 1964, which is far more engrossing and emotive than this dated political commentary. There are a few moments in the earlier account which must have been what Manchester meant when he said he 'devoutly wished that he could run a few pages through the typewriter once more', such as:

I wonder how much he will be loved by the people, in the Lincoln sense. Liked - yes. But loved?
Certainly John Kennedy is not as loveable as Abe. He has a weaker grip on the nation's heartstrings, and the reason isn't that he hasn't been shot.

Ouch.

There are some interesting personal details, like Kennedy's friends dropping his nickname of 'Jack' when he became president, which I can't believe, and being rather thin skinned about criticism in the press. Much of the rest is about party politics and the same old Kennedy family anecdotes, which I'm either not bothered about reading or have read before.

A worthy historical snapshot but Manchester had better honed his craft, and his love of the late President, when writing about JFK's death. ( )