By Michael Beschloss (Introduction and annotation). In seven never-before-heard interviews conducted in 1964 with Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and sealed for half a century, Jacqueline Kennedy tells her story in her own words. This title ships in October. Hyperion; Har/Com ed. (September 2011), English, Hardcover: 400 pages / 8 set CD.
In 1964, Jacqueline Kennedy recorded seven historic interviews about her life with John F. Kennedy. Now, for the first time, they can be heard and read in this deluxe, illustrated book and 8-CD set. Shortly after President John F. Kennedy's assassination, with a nation deep in mourning and the world looking on in stunned disbelief, Jacqueline Kennedy found the strength to set aside her own personal grief for the sake of posterity and begin the task of documenting and preserving her husband's legacy. In January of 1964, she and Robert F. Kennedy approved a planned oral-history project that would capture their first-hand accounts of the late President as well as the recollections of those closest to him throughout his extraordinary political career. For the rest of her life, the famously private Jacqueline Kennedy steadfastly refused to discuss her memories of those years, but beginning that March, she fulfilled her obligation to future generations by sitting down with historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and recording an astonishingly detailed and unvarnished account of her experiences and impressions as the wife and confidante of John F. Kennedy. The tapes of those sessions were then sealed and later deposited in the JFK Presidential Library and Museum upon its completion, in accordance with Mrs. Show More.
In conjunction with the fiftieth anniversary of President Kennedy's Inauguration, Caroline Kennedy and the Kennedy family are now releasing transcripts and these beautifully restored recordings - eight and a half hours of material comprising a unique and compelling record of a tumultuous era.
About the authors and contributors: Caroline Kennedy is President of the JFK Library Foundation, Vice Chair of the NYC Fund for Public Schools and author/editor of eight bestselling books.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., the most distinguished historian of his times, was also renowned as a Public Intellectual and a political activist and served as Special Assistant to the President during the Kennedy Administration. Author of more than twenty-five books, he was twice awarded the Pulitzer. Arthur Schlesinger authored of major biographies of Andrew Jackson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt as well as John and Robert Kennedy.
Michael Beschloss has been called "the nation's leading Presidential historian" by Newsweek. Author of nine books and an Emmy award winner, he is a regular commentator on the PBS NewsHour.
