Quotes by David Pietrusza

Politics look very simple to the outsider whether he is a businessman or a soldier – it is only when you get into it that all the angles and hard work become apparent. James Forrestal

No matter what office LBJ assumed he lifted greater than when he found it.

JFK had to act before his fragile body betrayed him.

Jack and Bobby Kennedy were too young, too attached to real family to transfer affection and loyalty to those that of their blood or region or upbringing.

In front of an audience of Protestant clergy, the Catholic JFK was drawing strength from his vulnerability.

Be civilized. Grudges are for Neanderthals. – Hubert Humphrey

John F. Kennedy is, in reality, a deeply serious man, reflective in his mental habits, historically minded, and given to seeing men and nations and events in the sobering context that history provides.As a human being, he is often humorous, easily bored by total routine but open to all fresh experiences, careless of the superficialities of life, warmly loyal to his friends, and oddly detached about himself. His most curious trait, in fact, is his way of discussing his most vital affairs with the dry humor and cool analytical remoteness that most people reserve for the affairs of others. – Joseph Alsop

Author points out in Woodrow Wilson the flipside of the positive we might call big picture vision. He observes that as college president Wilson resorted to the language of a national crusade when he met resistance in a local, academic issue.

As the pace of the campaign quickened, politics began to clash with Kennedys innate sense of responsibility. – Arthur Schlesinger

Woodrow Wilson intimate Edward House urged that his boss never first be approached by argument. Instead, the President could be made most receptive by laying a groundwork of common hatred.

JFK had a way of grabbing grandeur from mishap.

Presidential campaign observer Teddy White on the second Kennedy-Nixon debate in which the candidates spoke from separate television studios: It was as if, separated by comments from his adversary, Richard Nixon was more at ease and could speak directly to the nation that lay between them.

TR on using extramarital accusations against Wilson: It wont work. You cant cast a man as Romeo who looks and acts like an apothecarys clerk.

For Jack Kennedy, who only made campaigning LOOK easy, it was, in fact, anything but.