Tom Wicker – författare

In JFK and LBJ one of our most astute political observers examines two important events of the 1960s: why John F. Kennedy, the popular president, failed to push his legislative program through Congress, and why Lyndon B. Johnson, the consummate domestic politician, squandered his great consensus in an unpopular war in Vietnam. Tom Wicker's theme is that personality and circumstance dominate political life–that government consists chiefly of "not measures but men." Mr. Wicker's detailed and absorbing account, much of it going behind the scenes, shows how Kennedy's brilliant campaign of 1960 made all but certain his deadlock with Congress, and how Johnson came to his most fateful decision within forty-eight hours of assuming the presidency. "It is difficult in short space to do justice to the subtlety, the human and political insight, of this double portrait in presidential frustration.... Wicker has found in these two presidents who longed to acquit themselves well before history embodiments of the limits of the presidency."—Edwin M. Yoder, Book World. "Steadily persuasive ... wonderfully astute and incomparably lucid."—Newsweek.

No one is more qualified to give a fully rounded, objective portrait of our forty-first president than Tom Wicker. A political correspondent for The New York Times for more than thirty years, Wicker was a first-hand witness to and reporter of George H. W. Bush’s political rise and presidential reign. In George Herbert Walker Bush, Wicker provides a richly drawn and succinct overview of Bush from his New England roots, his decorated service in World War II, and his successful oil businesses to his shift to politics and rapid rise within the Republican party. As he describes changes within the Republican party in recent decades, Wicker charts Bush’s career, including in-depth analysis of his campaign tactics and his gift for creating friendships and inspiring loyalty which, Wicker argues, has been the key to Bush’s success. The result is a fascinating, timely glimpse into one of the most powerful families in America today, complete with insights into the current reign of George W. Bush, the continued legacy of the Bush family, and contemporary American politics.