The Irish Brotherhood

January 26, 2015
Working from extensive recordings left by her father, former political aide Kenneth “Kenny” O’Donnell Sr., Helen O’Donnell (A Common Good) produces an intimate, complex look at the years leading up to J.F.K.’s presidency, a span covering 1946–1961. Drawing from these personal recollections, she reconstructs pivotal scenes, setbacks, and challenges as Kennedy ascended the political ranks. However, this is more than a book about Kennedy; it focuses on the so-called Irish Brotherhood: his closest friends and advisors, “the group of men who gathered around John Kennedy as he made his dramatic rise.” As she notes, “this book is my father’s story of his Jack and Bobby Kennedy”—a story her father always wanted to tell but never did. Certain themes, of course, crop up with regularity: politics, religion, and the tight-knit bond of Irish-Americans that helped hold this circle together over the years. Though mainly channeling her father’s experiences, O’Donnell presents them in an accessible, engaging manner; the figures portrayed are full-fledged characters, and the story unfolds like a political drama. Nevertheless, it remains a narrow slice of the Kennedy legend, focused solely on his political career, ending as he enters the White House and treating him as a larger-than-life icon.

January 1, 2015
The daughter of Kenneth O'Donnell, a principal adviser to John F. Kennedy, discusses the strategies, successes and failures that led to JFK's becoming the 35th president.O'Donnell, who had access to some key recordings and interviews her father had conducted, has written previously about him and the Kennedys, A Common Good: The Friendship of Robert F. Kennedy and Kenneth P. O'Donnell (1998). It was through Robert Kennedy (whom he had known at Harvard) that O'Donnell entered the Kennedy inner sanctum and became a dominant member of what the author calls "the Irish Brotherhood" (she disdains the darker "Irish Mafia" locution). O'Donnell begins the tale in Chicago in 1956, when JFK failed to win the vice-presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention. Then she rewinds a bit, taking us back to the late 1940s. We witness JFK's run for the Senate, watch the warriors working during the 1952 election, return for a closer look at 1956 and then arrive at the major focus of the story-the 1960 election, which consumes nine chapters. The author ends with the inauguration and the Bay of Pigs, responsibility for which she endeavors to lay at the feet of the Eisenhower administration. O'Donnell's subtitle is a bit misleading: Yes, she deals a bit with the other Irish advisers (Larry O'Brien and Dave Powers, principally), but the vast majority of the attention is on her father. Few of her characters have smudges. Yes, JFK had a wandering eye (mentioned once, never discussed), and RFK had a temper. But mostly it's virtue that interests the author-JFK's debating skills and intelligence, O'Donnell's bluntness and fierce loyalty (we're also told-more than once-that he was "quick as a cat"), and RFK's organizational skills. Lines from Camelot end the text. Swollen with a daughter's pride but also full of gripping detail.

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February 15, 2015

Although John F. Kennedy is remembered for surrounding himself with many high-brow advisors, he relied on an "Irish Brotherhood"--his brother Robert Kennedy, campaign director Ken O'Donnell, appointments secretary Dave Powers, and strategist Larry O'Brien--for running his successful campaigns for Congress, the Senate, and the presidency. This lively account from O'Donnell (A Common Good) shows just how much Kennedy depended on her father, Ken O'Donnell (1924-77), his "tough-talking, no-bull shit, political aide" for blunt advice. Much of the book is a first-person narrative, with the author skillfully using dialog quoted from the Kenneth O'Donnell/Sander Vanocer NBC tapes housed in Washington, DC and also from several oral histories. The most thorough and fascinating chapters cover the 1960 presidential campaign, especially the primaries in Ohio, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, and the nail-biting election-night results. Interestingly, O'Donnell describes how Kennedy could never overcome anti-Catholic bias and how bigotry nearly cost him the election. Ken O'Donnell continued to serve as Kennedy's most trusted advisor until his assassination in 1963. VERDICT This book will appeal to a wide range of audiences; general readers will relish the flowing, fast-paced anecdotes and informed readers and scholars will value insights into presocial media mid-20th-century politics.--Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA

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