AFTER the Kennedys invited William Manchester in February 1964 to write an account of the assassination, Bobby Kennedy thought that the author might whip through his work before the 1964 election campaign; after all, the tragic ground had already been covered by others. Jacqueline Kennedy thought the book would wind up "bound in black and put away in dark library shelves." The publisher, Harper & Row, did not dream of a first printing of 600,000, or of "the bestseller of the century," as it is now freely described. Few foresaw that The Death of a President would become not only a publishing phenomenon but also an emotional battleground—a book about which other books will be written.
When it finally reached the public last week—some stores put it on sale ten days before the release date—it seemed the work had been prepublicized, predigested, precriticized and prejudged beyond the point that the book itself could make much difference.
Yet, astonishingly enough, nothing so far written about the book has stolen its sense of immediacy or muffled its sound of authenticity. Not even the remembered massive coverage—from the first unblinking TV hours to the 888-page Warren Commission report—can diminish the power of Manchester's all-encompassing narrative.
It is, nevertheless, a flawed book. Although Manchester considers himself a historian, it is not truly history, for the events of Nov. 22, 1963, are still too recent and Manchester's emotional trauma much too evident. Although he rather pretentiously alludes to his own gargantuan labors with Samuel Butler's classic line, "Poets by their sufferings grow," Manchester's writing falls far short not only of poetry but often of good prose. But all this is rendered comparatively irrelevant by his basic achievement, which was to assemble an overwhelming mass of detail—so much detail that the story becomes larger than life or death. For no one normally ever has that much information about any event, not even an event in one's own life.
Manchester seems to relish the lonely martyr's role and talks of himself as having been "in the arena" with his enemies. He insisted on making The Death of a President a one-man creation. From the workaday mechanics of transcribing his own tapes and shorthand notes to the responsibility of passing judgments on his own facts, he worked alone. He insists that he did not hire professional researchers because he wanted the force and conviction of a single viewpoint and, besides, that he was not sure whether the book would make enough money to justify the expense.* He held 267 interviews, and the Kennedys' early stamp of approval gave him easy access to virtually all sources. Indeed, of all the major Government figures involved, only Lyndon Johnson refused to give Manchester an interview, instead wrote out answers to 18 questions.