88. Pierre Salinger and Sander Vanocur published A Tribute to John F. Kennedy in 1964; Evelyn Lincoln published My Twelve Years with John F. Kennedy in 1965; that same year, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., published the first edition of A Thousand Days and Ted Sorensen came out with Kennedy; Paul "Red" Fay, Jr., published The Pleasure of His Company in 1966; Kenny O'Donnell, Dave Powers, and Joe McCarthy published "Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye" in 1972; Walt Rostow published The Diffusion of Power in 1972; and Rose Kennedy published Times to Remember in 1974.

89. Mark H. Lynch and John H. F. Shattuck to Admiral Stansfield Turner, March 17, 1977, Record Group 233, JFK Task Force, Box 85, Folder, "Downing-House Select Committee on Assassinations," Archives II, College Park, Maryland.

90. The committee also reviewed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., concluding "that there is a likelihood that James Earl Ray assassinated ... King as a result of a conspiracy." See "HSCA Final Assassinations Report," p. 5, History Matters website,

http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/hsca/report/html/HSCA_Report_0006a.htm

[accessed December 20, 2011].

91. Rudy Abramson and Robert Kistler, "Follower of Manson Held After Trying to Kill Ford," Los Angeles Times, September 6, 1975.

92. Richard West, "President Escapes Assassin's Bullet," Los Angeles Times, September 23, 1975.

93. Jess Bravin, Squeaky: The Life and Times of Lynette Alice Fromme (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997), 221.

94. President Ford Committee Campaign Commercial XXPFC756, "Feeling Good"-foreign trips footage 5:00, Courtesy Gerald R. Ford Library.

95. Spencer Rich and Mary Russell, "Congress Reacts Angrily: Very Few Back Granting of More Pardons," Washington Post, September 11, 1974.

96. "Gerald Ford Receiving the Profiles in Courage Award, May 21, 2001," in USA Today, Special Edition, "JFK's America," Fall 2010, p. 12.

97. See Jefferson Morley, "The Holy Grail of the JFK Story," Salon, November 22, 2011,

http://www.salon.com/2011/11/22/the_holy_grail_of_the_jfk_story/

[accessed January 11, 2012], and the Legacy of Secrecy official website,

http://www.legacyofsecrecy.com/tell.html

[accessed August 16, 2011].

98. Thomas M. DeFrank, Write It When I'm Gone: Remarkable Off-the-Record Conversations With Gerald R. Ford (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2007), 176.

16. THE CARTERS AND THE KENNEDYS: DEMOCRATIC HATFIELDS AND MCCOYS.

1. Interview with former president Jimmy Carter, June 18, 2013. For more information on the media's Carter-Kennedy comparisons, see "New Day A'Coming in the South," Time, May 31, 1971: 1520; Robert Shogan, "Georgia's Carter Brings Religion, Idealism to New Hampshire Presidential Primary," Los Angeles Times, May 25, 1975; Laurence H. Shoup, The Carter Presidency and Beyond: Power and Politics in the 1980s (Palo Alto, CA: Ramparts Press, 1980), 88; and Victor Lasky, Jimmy Carter: The Man and the Myth (New York: Richard Marek Publishers, 1979), 4546.

2. "Lady Bird Johnson Gets Jimmy Carter Apology," Associated Press, reprinted in Nashua [N.H.] Telegraph, September 24, 1976.

3. "Catholics/Image," President Ford Committee Records, 197576, Research Office: Carter Quotes-Carter Family, Box H23, Folder "Catholics," Gerald R. Ford Library.

4. Jimmy Carter, " 'Our Nation's Past and Future': Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Democratic National Convention in New York City," July 15, 1976, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project,

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25953#axzzifJ16eBn6

[accessed December 1, 2011]; Jimmy Carter, A Government as Good as Its People (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1977), 13839 and 163.

5. Maddox attracted national attention in 1964 by refusing to serve three African American Georgia Tech students at his Pickrick Restaurant (a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act). "When the three black men tried to buy some of his chicken in July 1964, Mr. Maddox waved a pistol at them and said: 'You no good dirty devils! You dirty Communists!' Some of his customers were sympathetic to his cause and interrupted their meal to take pick handles that Mr. Maddox had put by the door (and sold for $2 apiece) to make it clear that the blacks would not be served. The pick handles, which Mr. Maddox also sold in his souvenir shop, were called 'Pickrick drumsticks' and came to symbolize his resistance to the civil rights movement. On occasion, Mr. Maddox would autograph the handles." Richard Severo, "Lester Maddox, Whites-Only Restaurateur and Georgia Governor, Dies at 87," New York Times, June 26, 2003.

6. Jules Witcover, Marathon: The Pursuit of the Presidency, 197276 (New York: Signet, 1977), 161.

7. Shriver received a mere 304,399 votes in all the 1976 primary contests, or 1.9% of the total vote cast. By contrast, Carter won 6,235,609 votes, 39.3% of those cast.

8. Richard Reeves, Convention (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977), 12728. I attended the 1976 convention as a graduate student researcher, and I vividly recall this electric moment. Like most people there, I had never personally glimpsed Jackie Kennedy. It is no exaggeration to say that we could not take our eyes off her; the convention itself appeared to grind to a halt while thousands of prying eyes kept watch.

9. "Kennedy: Carter Is 'Imprecise,' " United Press International, reprinted in St. Petersburg Times, May 26, 1976.

10. "Kennedy," President Ford Committee Records, 197576, Research Office: Carter Quotes-Carter Family, Box H23, Folder "Carter vs. (1)," Gerald R. Ford Library.

11. President Ford Committee Records, 197576, Research Office: Carter Quotes-Carter Family, Box H23, Folder "Congress (1)," Gerald R. Ford Library. Earlier, as governor of Georgia, Carter gave a private indication of his equivocal view of JFK, noting that "Kennedy still occupies a position representing youth, idealism, vigor, etc.-which he may or may not actually deserve. Politically, of course, the image is the reality." See Gary M. Fink, Prelude to the Presidency: The Political Character and Legislative Leadership Style of Governor Jimmy Carter (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980), 1819.

12. Witcover, Marathon, 61011.

13. See Gallup poll numbers, Sept.Oct. 1976, iPOLL Databank, Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut,

http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/data_access/ipoll/ipoll.html

[accessed January 27, 2012].

14. Handwritten notes, Michael Raoul-Duval Papers, Box 30, Folder "Meeting with the President," Gerald R. Ford Library; President Ford Committee Records, 197576, Research Office: Carter Quotes-Gay Liberation, Box H27, Folder "Image," Gerald R. Ford Library.

15. For more information on Ford's gaffe and how the intense press coverage of it affected Ford's poll numbers, see my book Feeding Frenzy: How Attack Journalism Has Transformed American Politics (New York: Free Press, 1991), 12729.

16. Carter told a cheering crowd in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, "I had the best organization any candidate ever had. Had the best family any candidate ever had. Had the best home community any candidate ever had. Had the best supporters in my home state any candidate ever had. And the only reason we were close last night was because the candidate wasn't quite good enough as a campaigner. But I'll make up for that when I'm president ..." Martin Schram, Running for President 1976: The Carter Campaign (New York: Stein and Day, 1977), 357.

17. 281 of the 293 Democrats who were elected to the House of Representatives in 1976 received a higher vote percentage than Carter. During the same year, twenty winning Democratic Senate nominees surpassed Carter's vote percentage. John L. Moore, Jon P. Pre-imesberger, and David R. Tarr, Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections, vol. II, 6th ed. (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2010), 13026 and 143471.

18. Jimmy Carter, "Inaugural Address," January 20, 1977, Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project,

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=6575

[accessed January 4, 2012].

19. I was in attendance with a good seat at the inauguration, thanks to the beneficence of a Virginia politician, former lieutenant governor Henry E. Howell, Jr. Carter's address bore no resemblance to John Kennedy's; it sparked little applause and fell flat even among his most ardent admirers. But the unexpected stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue electrified the tens of thousands of spectators. I do not recall seeing Secret Service personnel, but photographs of the Carter walk show wide-eyed agents understandably looking even more serious and concerned than usual.

20. Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (New York: Bantam Books, 1982), 24.

21. Sensing defeat, Sorensen requested that Carter withdraw the nomination. Facing stiff opposition from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Sorensen said, "It is now clear that a substantial portion of the United States Senate and the intelligence community is not ready to accept as director of Central Intelligence an outsider who believes as I believe," and "It is equally clear that to continue fighting for this post, which would be my natural inclination, would only handicap the new administration if I am rejected, or handicap my effectiveness as director if I am confirmed." See Wendell Rawls, Jr., "Sorensen Withdraws, Bowing to Resistance to C.I.A. Nomination," New York Times, January 18, 1977.

22. E-mail from Ted Sorensen, October 12, 2010.

23. Interview with former president Jimmy Carter, June 18, 2013.

24. See Gallup poll numbers, Feb.Nov. 1979, iPOLL Databank, Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut,

http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/data_access/ipoll/ipoll.html

[accessed January 27, 2012].

25. Peter Maer, "Time Has Not Cooled Jimmy Carter / Ted Kennedy Feud," CBS News, September 17, 2010,

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20016854-503544.html