Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon by Larry TyeMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
During his life he was seen as the ruthless politico that guided his brother to the White House after his death he was viewed as the man who could have changed America in 1968. Bobby Kennedy: Making of a Liberal Icon by Larry Tye looks at the complicated life of the hardnosed campaign manager, young Attorney General, Senator, and slain Presidential aspirant.
Using a variety of historical resources and first-hand interviews, Tye brings the real Bobby Kennedy into focus from his cold warrior conservative days working for Joe McCarthy to his 1968 Presidential campaign that made him an icon to liberals only after his death. Given the numerous roles in government and politics Kennedy filled in almost two decades and the issues in the 1950s and 60s, Tye wrote a hybrid chronological-topical biography so during Kennedy’s time as Attorney General three different chapters were dedicated to being Attorney General, Civil Rights, and then essentially being his brother’s deputy president. Tye doesn’t shy away from exposing Kennedy’s flaws, long-held grudges, and major fibs—the Cuban Missile Crisis—but also give credit to Kennedy for changing his views and attitudes. Kennedy’s place within his family from runt of the litter third son to becoming the patriarch after his father’s stroke even with his brother still alive is an interesting dynamic that the reader see’s take shape through Tye’s writing.
Bobby Kennedy is an engagingly written biography that shows the full range of the life led by the third son of Joe and Rose Kennedy.
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