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THE INSTANT
NEW YORK TIMES
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A revealing look at the secret life of one of the most celebrated and public American presidents
John Fitzgerald Kennedy is one of the most well known, and least understood, figures in American history.
Since his tragic assassination on November 22, 1963, the man who came to be known simply as “JFK” has captured the imagination of generations that followed—of admirers, historians, and conspiracy theorists alike. Over the years, the myth of Camelot produced a one-dimensional version of a complex, multi-faceted individual who, by the time of his death, was just beginning to ask himself hard questions about who he had become—as a man, a husband, a president of the United States. While we will never know what might have come of his own personal reckoning, the truth of Kennedy’s evolution—from a one-time aspiring politician and happenstance playboy to a deeply introspective global leader determined to do right by his country, and his family—speaks to a universal principle as relevant to us now as it was then: “Character is destiny.”
With JFK: Public, Private, Secret, veteran Kennedy historian J. Randy Taraborrelli has delivered the complete and most detailed portrait published yet of John Kennedy. This deeply researched and authoritative account reexamines his life with unprecedented depth and nuance. More than the story of a presidency, this is an intimate study of a man whose public triumphs were shaped—and at times overshadowed—by the complex realities of his private life, from his legendary family to his marriage to Jacqueline Kennedy.
In 2023, Taraborrelli published the definitive account of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s life and legacy. Jackie: Public, Private, Secret, which debuted at #3 on The New York Times bestsellers list, was Taraborrelli’s fifth book on the Kennedys and the culmination of years of research and interviews with friends, family, and lovers—as well as previously unreleased papers from the JFK Library, including diaries and oral histories. Now, Taraborrelli has returned with a sequel that completes the story of one of the most famous couples in American history.
JFK : Public, Private, Secret
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A profoundly humanized portrait … With more than 25 years of historical research on which to draw, Taraborrelli’s powerfully resourced biography offers incomparable observations … Decades later, as the U.S. and the world again finds itself teetering on the brink of existential crisis, the ethos demonstrated through Kennedy’s public speeches and private musings resonates even more deeply. —Booklist, starred review
A Kennedy specialist, Taraborrelli has written six books on the family, but this is the first on JFK … An excellent biography of the 35th president. —Kirkus Reviews
A compelling read with standout quality and originality that reveals the much-discussed personal side of JFK’s life via Taraborrelli’s … impeccable research … A riveting exploration for the millions of readers still fascinated by the Kennedy family’s dynamics and legacy.
—Library Journal, starred review
Taraborrelli eschews sensationalism, casting doubt on several lurid Kennedy legends … [an] emotionally charged portrait … and entertaining take on a great American soap opera.
—Publishers Weekly
Taraborrelli has spent over 30 years researching the Kennedy family—meticulously assembling the pieces of their rich and complex story—but this is the first time he has dedicated a book solely to JFK.
After revisiting hours of interviews and thousands of pages of notes and documents—as well as candid, first-hand oral histories from the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Presidential Library, rare internal reports from the Secret Service, detailed files from the National Archives, and intelligence documents from both the C.I.A. and F.B.I.—JFK: Public, Private, Secret presents an unvarnished account of a deeply flawed leader who nonetheless captivated a nation. This is JFK as never before captured by history: brilliant yet fallible, revered yet human— a figure whose legacy continues to shape America and the world.
Groundbreaking revelations from JFK: Public, Private, Secret include:
- A marriage defined by devotion and distance—Jackie’s quiet but firm rule regarding her husband’s infidelities: “Show me some respect and don’t rub it in my face.”
- The romance with Inga Arvad that posed a potential national security risk.
- The long-awaited truth about Marilyn Monroe—uncovered at last through the firsthand account of one of her closest confidantes.
- The mafia’s role in his rise to power.
- A presidency tested by betrayal and crisis.
The JFK presented in Taraborrelli’s definitive biography is a complex and endlessly fascinating historical figure—despite, and perhaps even because of, his many flaws.
This is the deeply human story of a man shaped by emotional vacancy and parental ambition, and a woman who challenged him to face the consequences of both. When Jack meets Jackie, he’s emotionally stunted. His father Joe even tells her, “I wished him pain,” because pain, Joe believes, creates empathy, and empathy is essential to leadership. But Jack has learned to keep emotion at a distance.
What unfolds is both a private reckoning and a public awakening. From Jack’s affair with Joan Lundberg, who lived in a trailer park and taught him how to feel, to his being absent during Jackie’s grief after a stillbirth, this story reveals a man slowly learning to confront what he’s spent a lifetime avoiding. In the end, it’s Jackie who forces him to reckon with the past.
And then, of course, there’s Marilyn. The story of how JFK and Marilyn met, and what exactly happened between them, has been shaped by years of misinformation, innuendo, and myth. Here, for the first time, Taraborrelli settles the truth of this story by revealing what really did, and didn’t, happen.
But JFK: Public, Private, Secret is more than just the story of John Kennedy’s personal life. It’s also packed with political history, scrupulously chronicling everything from the Bay of Pigs to the Cuban Missile crisis, through the civil rights movement to the unraveling conflict in Vietnam. His chess-like moves against USSR’s Nikita Khrushchev couldn’t carry bigger stakes as two nuclear powers square off on a global stage. Throughout it all, Kennedy’s close relationship with his brother and confidante Robert F. Kennedy reveals a moving portrait of two siblings bonded in the principled pursuit to defend the United States and its democratic values. And the book documents the many different ways, both as a senator and then as president, JFK worked to help create a more equal and caring society. Some of the programs founded on that work are well known: He developed the Peace Corps so that American volunteers could assist humanitarian efforts in other countries. But Kennedy also pushed for programs that advanced disability education and treatments.