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Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History | 
| Author: Ted Sorensen
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 1580
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 576
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 1.9
ISBN: 0060798718
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.922092
EAN: 9780060798710
ASIN: 0060798718
Publication Date: May 1, 2008
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Product Description
In this gripping memoir, John F. Kennedy's closest advisor recounts in full for the first time his experience counseling Kennedy through the most dramatic moments in American history. Sorensen returns to January 1953, when he and the freshman senator from Massachusetts began their extraordinary professional and personal relationship. Rising from legislative assistant to speechwriter and advisor, the young lawyer from Nebraska worked closely with JFK on his most important speeches, as well as his book Profiles in Courage. Sorensen encouraged the junior senator's political ambitions—from a failed bid for the vice presidential nomination in 1956 to the successful presidential campaign in 1960, after which he was named Special Counsel to the President. Sorensen describes in thrilling detail his experience advising JFK during some of the most crucial days of his presidency, from the decision to go to the moon to the Cuban Missile Crisis, when JFK requested that the thirty-four-year-old Sorensen draft the key letter to Khrushchev at the most critical point of the world's first nuclear confrontation. After Kennedy was assassinated, Sorensen stayed with President Johnson for a few months before leaving to write a biography of JFK. In 1968 he returned to Washington to help run Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign. Through it all, Sorensen never lost sight of the ideals that brought him to Washington and to the White House, working tirelessly to promote and defend free, peaceful societies. Illuminating, revelatory, and utterly compelling, Counselor is the brilliant, long-awaited memoir from the remarkable man who shaped the presidency and the legacy of one of the greatest leaders America has ever known.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
 Counselor July 14, 2008
An intriguing insight into the Kennedy presidency. Mr. Sorensen writes a very compelling account of known crisis of that time, and many accounts of happenings only known by one who was there. It is an excellent historical book.
 "Counselor" Could Have Used Some Counseling July 11, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History I was very disappointed in Sorensen's book, primarily because about the only thing he gives JFK credit for is his hiring him! It is as if he believes he was the president himself. Most offending is that clearly he does not connect his speechwriting rules "less is more" to his biography. After almost every description of a positive development in JFK's, Sorensen adds a paranthetical note crediting himself or noting how he predicted the outcome, making it an aggravating read. Sorensen has forgotten that he was part of a team and should have left the credit with the subject that is interesting; JFK and his administration (and subsequent relationships).
His opening comment is completely disengenous about his being uncomfortable about too many "I's". This is a man that is so full of himself...
Sorensen deserves credit for his service to the country, as I am sure he is a phenominal individual and was instrumental in shaping policies to the benefit of his sponsor and the US. But he is not an individual that one should devote the first 90 pages about his upbringing and background about...he simply is not that interesting...he was not the president of the United States...and this book is not that interesting because of it.
 In Praise of Camelot July 8, 2008
Few would disagree that John F. Kennedy was one of our most inspirational presidents and that it was a tragedy that he was assassinated. Since the 1950s, it was well known that some of the most memorable words that Kennedy inspired us with were drafted if not written in total by Ted Sorensen, Kennedy's dedicated staffer who played many roles in addition to helping write speeches, books, and articles. Speculation about Sorensen's role was fed by Mr. Sorensen's humble deflection of praise that others aimed in his direction.
Imagine what it would have been like to talk to JFK every day and to see him most days. Imagine, even more, if you were walking on history's stage in your role: You weren't just pouring him coffee.
You could re-title this book as "Dream Job" and you wouldn't be far off.
In Counselor, Mr. Sorensen reveals more than in the past about his personal relationship with President Kennedy, who did what and when, his views about Kennedy's decisions and legacy, and what the lessons for historians are from that era. In letting down his hair, Mr. Sorensen is a loyal heir to the Kennedy legend: He doesn't criticize more than an independent observer would who knew the surface facts. Naturally, he also defends where many would not (he's gentle on Kennedy for increasing the number of military advisors in South Vietnam and letting the military leaders there murder the country's political leader). Further, he seems to have amnesia about what any president did before Kennedy who was not a Democrat (he writes as though there was no space program before Kennedy took office).
One of the most interesting episodes in the book comes long after President Kennedy was killed in the description of Mr. Sorensen's nomination to be CIA head by President Carter. The contrast between Kennedy and Carter could not be clearer in reading how this was handled.
I think we should be generous with Mr. Sorensen. It's been many years. He's almost the last of those who served in those years who knows the inside stories. He also suffered a substantial stroke that affected his vision and made writing this book extremely difficult. I commend Mr. Sorensen for making the effort. There are many lessons here that new administrations can learn from.
I also honor him for his service to the nation, to John F. Kennedy, and to my youthful idealistic dreams by inspiring them with his timeless words. Many will always remember him as a speech writer, but he was truly more . . . especially during those potentially deadly days during the Cuban missile crisis.
Thank you, Mr. Sorensen.
82 & Counting July 2, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is the most moving, realistic depiction of JFK I have ever seen. Many will forever rant and rave over his personal peccadillos, but this man was a leader. His speech at American University, which was his way of dealing with Soviet & American feelings about nuclear war included the following. "For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet; we all breathe the same air; we all cherish our children's future; and we are all mortal." I heard that speech as a young man. I am now 82 and it still rings in my ears. I was raised an avid republican, but I am proud to have helped vote him into office. His like hasn't been seen since.
Best Political Memoir of Our Time June 24, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Ted Sorensen subtitles his memoir Counselor as "A Life at the Edge of History." It is, in fact, a rarely candid and insightful account of a life at the very center of history.
Sorensen is widely known as JKF's speechwriter, but he was much more. He was JFK's liberal conscience and go-to-guy for everything from the handling of the "Catholic issue" in Kennedy's run for the White House to the writing of the letter to Khrushchev during the Cuban missile crisis. The combination of keen intellect and inspiring idealism that anchored Sorensen at the center of JFK's political life is crystallized on the pages of a retrospective clearly aimed at bringing both the author and his country closure on the shattering of that brief window of greatness.
Don't come expecting a tell-all from this member of the Kennedy inner-circle (not just JFK, but Robert and Teddy, as well). Surely Sorensen is the faithful keeper of many secrets. He traveled with JFK throughout his campaigns, competed with RFK in the White House, enjoyed a close friendship with Jackie, and jeopardized his own political future by helping the family "handle" Chappaquiddick; but beyond the general and widely known stories, you'll get nothing new from Sorensen. He remains, as he has always been, the loyal keeper of the flame. What Sorensen does provide is a clear-eyed and frank view of his own life and its sizeable impact on political history of our times.
For anyone who still remembers where he or she was when the gunshots rang out in Dallas, this book is a behind-the-scenes revelation of a history we lived, but never really knew. For those too young to remember, the book is, as JFK himself would have wanted, a torch of liberal idealism passed to a new generation. To that end, Sorensen has accomplished with book the goal he set. He has completed his service to the President he loved.
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