JFK: RECKLESS YOUTH; by Nigel Hamilton; Random House; $30; 898 pages.
Nigel Hamilton is a British biographer who apparently has an insatiable appetite for John F. Kennedy's allegedly insatiable appetite for sexual gratification. He worked on his recently published book, "JFK: Reckless Youth," for four years while teaching at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.The bulk of his research was done in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library on Columbia Point in Dorchester, a suburb of Boston, where he quickly developed a highly antagonistic relationship with the director, Charles U. Daly, and the staff. In Hamilton's view, the library exists only to promote a positive and adoring picture of Kennedy's place in history, and they will hide documents if necessary to do so.
In fact, Hamilton accuses the library of withholding more information than the CIA is withholding about the assassination. This is nonsense. For approximately six months, I worked on my own Kennedy book every day at the Kennedy Library, where I was treated with only the highest respect. I was given an office in which to do my research, and the staff was thoroughly cooperative, amiable and generous with me. I had quick access to every document I wanted to see.
Hamilton says the library staff was nervous about his consistent, untiring interest in Kennedy's sexuality, and that was undoubtedly true. They had good reasons to suspect that the book jacket itself - which includes only the title - might include hyperbolic material, such as "his early career as a playboy and his passionate love affair with a suspected Nazi spy," or even reference to a persistent urinary tract infection or alleged but unproven venereal disease.
Hamilton spends a considerable amount of time in the book on Kennedy's amorous relationship with the beautiful Danish immigrant, Inga Arvad, who was working as a feature writer in Washington, D.C., in 1941, when Kennedy was an ensign in the Navy working in naval intelligence. J. Edgar Hoover was worried about the liaison and threatened to spread untrue rumors about Arvad to "expose" her as a Nazi spy.
The FBI in fact put her under surveillance, found the Kennedy connection, the information got back to Kennedy's father, and the young Kennedy was whisked away to Charleston, S.C., to get him away from Arvad. Although all Kennedy biographers have known about the Arvad-Kennedy connection, only Hamilton uses previously unpublished letters between the two. They are not titillating - but rather touching and sad. But they serve as a way of helping Hamilton to build his major thesis about Kennedy - that he not only had had an obsession with sex, but that it was a product of a loveless marriage between his parents, Rose and Joe Sr., the unquestionably sleazy sex life of his father, and the failure of either parent to give him the love and the physical affection he craved while growing up.
This thesis alone was enough to cause the brother and sisters of Jack Kennedy to write an impassioned and unprecedented letter to the New York Times condemning the book (Dec. 3). Calling Hamilton's work "reckless," Jean Kennedy Smith, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Patricia Kennedy Lawford and Edward M. Kennedy asserted he had "grossly distorted the essence of our family relationships. No one is better able to judge Mother and Dad as parents than we their children."
The Kennedys also say, "Contrary to the malicious portrayal in this book, they were devoted and caring parents who lavished affection and attention on all of us." They also say that "the author's claim that Mother `never kissed or touched and rarely saw' her children is ridiculous."
Regardless of who is right - Hamilton or the Kennedy clan - it is an interesting book that reads very well. Some critics have already called it the "definitive biography" of the young Kennedy. Personally, I don't believe that such a sensational approach can ever be called definitive.
Hamilton spends far too much time quoting from Kennedy's letters to his college friend, Lem Billings, then interpreting them as solid evidence that Kennedy's psyche was sexually damaged. In fact, it is just as plausible to assume that his letters, while often bawdy, are nothing more than an example of Kennedy's carefree approach to sex. Many of the letters just seem the expected work of a witty and fun-loving young man.
On the other hand, Hamilton is probably right when he concludes that Kennedy was more interested in the "conquest" associated with sex than in any ongoing relationship. In other words, his attitude toward women was exploitative.
But the author's suggestion that Kennedy was obsessed with sex while hating to be touched is completely unsubstantiated.
Hamilton's assertion that Joe Sr. was a disgusting and immoral man who was a bad example for his children is well-known and has been covered at length by others. It's harder to demonstrate on the basis of the author's evidence that Rose was as unfeeling and uninvolved in the business of raising a family as he claims.
Yet it's refreshing that in spite of Hamilton's emphasis on the sexual side of Kennedy's life, he is remarkably insightful about the wit, intellect and political ambition of the future president - more so than any other biographer has been. But the obscene subheadings that turn up throughout this lengthy book detract from its seriousness, and its highly unconventional use of endnotes effectively detracts from its scholarly impact.
There are 796 notes at the end of the book on the sources Hamilton consulted, but it is virtually impossible to match the notes with quotations or assertions made in the text, which contains no footnotes. This won't make any difference to the casual reader, but it drives a scholar crazy. It is an unforgivable approach for a serious writer who purports to be producing the work on Kennedy.
Hamilton is at work on another volume of the more mature Kennedy and his Washington years. If the finished product is more serious and less sensational, he can still make his mark.