Remembering America: A Voice from the Sixties

by Richard N. Goodwin

Overview

From the speechwriter and top adviser to presidents Kennedy and Johnson: A behind-the-scenes history of the most momentous decade in American politics.

Richard N. Goodwin entered public service in 1958 as a law clerk for Supreme Court Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter. He left politics ten years later in the aftermath of Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination. Over the course of one extraordinary decade, Goodwin orchestrated some of the noblest achievements in the history of the US government and bore witness to two of its greatest tragedies. His eloquent and inspirational memoir is one of the most captivating chronicles of those turbulent years ever published.

From the Twenty-One quiz-show scandal to the heady days of John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign to President Lyndon Johnson’s heroic vote wrangling on behalf of civil rights legislation, Remembering America brings to life the most fascinating figures and events of the era. As a member of the Kennedy administration, Goodwin charted a new course for US relations with Latin America and met in secret with Che Guevara in Uruguay. He wrote Johnson’s historic civil rights speech, “We Shall Overcome,” in support of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and formulated the concept of the Great Society and its programs, which sought to eradicate poverty and racial injustice. After breaking with Johnson over the president’s commitment to the Vietnam War, Goodwin played a pivotal role in bringing antiwar candidate Eugene McCarthy to within a few hundred votes of victory in the 1968 New Hampshire primary. Three months later, he was with his good friend Robert F. Kennedy in Los Angeles the night that the young senator’s life—and the progressive movement that had rapidly brought about such significant change—came to a devastating end.

Throughout this critical decade, Goodwin held steadfast to the passions and principles that had first led him to public service. Remembering America is a thrilling account of the breathtaking victories and heartbreaking disappointments of the 1960s, and a rousing call to action for readers committed to justice today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781497676572
Publisher:	Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
Publication date:	09/30/2014
Pages:	828
Sales rank:	217,634
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.90(h) x 2.10(d)

About the Author

A graduate of Tufts University and Harvard Law School, Richard N. Goodwin (1931–2018) began his career as a law clerk to Supreme Court Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter and as special counsel to the congressional subcommittee investigating the quiz-show scandals. During the Kennedy administration, Goodwin served as deputy assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs and as secretary-general of the Peace Corps. In 1964, he became a special assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson, for whom he wrote the landmark “We Shall Overcome” speech in support of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and also originated the Great Society programs. After leaving government service, Goodwin taught at Wesleyan University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and wrote several books, including Promises to Keep and Remembering America. He died in 2018 and is survived by his wife, Doris Kearns Goodwin.
 

Table of Contents

• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Prelude
• Part I Preparation
  • 1 Beginnings
  • 2 The Justice
  • 3 Investigating the Quiz Shows
• Part II The Kennedy Years
  • 4 The Nomination
  • 5 Seed Ground of the Sixties
  • 6 The Election
  • 7 To the White House
  • 8 Alianza para el Progreso
  • 9 The Bay of Pigs
  • 10 Meeting with Che Guevara
  • 11 From the Inside Out
  • 12 Coda
• Part III Johnson
  • 13 An Unexpected Return
  • 14 The Master at Work
  • 15 The Great Society
  • 16 Lyndon’s Landslide
  • 17 We Shall Overcome
  • 18 Beyond Civil Rights
  • 19 Digging the Ditch
  • 20 The Impossible War
  • 21 Descent
  • 22 Leaving the White House
• Part IV The Insurgents
  • 23 Bobby
  • 24 Joining the Resistance
  • 25 “Bobby’s Dilemma”
  • 26 The McCarthy Campaign
  • 27 The Last Crusade
• Postscript
• Index
• About the Author

Editorial Reviews

"More powerfully than any other chronicler of the 60’s, Mr. Goodwin has re-created the soaring hopefulness that suffused American liberals in the early years of the decade and the sense of loss and betrayal that enveloped them at its end.” —The New York Times

“Intimate, percipient, wry, marvelously anecdotal and often profound in its grasp of politics, character and paradox. John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson walk through these pages like major characters in a big novel.” —Norman Mailer

“This is more than a history, more than a memoir. It is a literary achievement that wonderfully relives its time.” —John Kenneth Galbraith

“Remembering America is an absolutely compelling book about the sixties; a beautifully accurate narrative of a man who saw it all from the inside. It was a unique period in American history—a time of hope and a time of tragedy—and Dick Goodwin has captured it all.” —Tip O’Neill

From the Publisher

Billed as a sweeping personal retrospective of the 1960s, and coming with high praise from luminaries, this is essentially a speechwriter's memoir that functions best as high-level insider's gossip. As assistant special counsel to John Kennedy, Goodwin was privy to the planning of the Bay of Pigs invasion against Castro and other matters. Yet he admits unblushingly that he knew almost nothing about the internal politics of Vietnam as late as January 1965. There are behind-the-scenes glimpses of Governor Wallace of Alabama and Che Guevara. Becoming Lyndon Johnson's chief speechwriter, Goodwin found LBJ to be a ``gargantuan manipulator'' but defends his politics (``The Great Society did not fail. It was abandoned''). His portrayal of Johnson as paranoid and out of touch with reality is certainly alarming. This self-congratulatory, rhetorically high-flown memoir also includes close-ups of Robert Kennedy and of Goodwin's role in Eugene McCarthy's bid for the presidency. (September)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly