"In 1948, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon were ambitious young congressmen in postwar Washington, all of them at a crucial turning point in their personal lives and public careers. Their future presidencies would dominate American public life from 1961 to 1974 and define one of the country's most turbulent eras. In this portrait, journalist Lance Morrow explores the passions, ambitions, and demons that drove these men, and reflects on the shadow they cast on American culture and memory." "In 1948, LBJ was in a desperate Senate race, running against a more popular candidate in his home state of Texas. Campaigning frantically by helicopter across the state, he won only with the help of corrupt political bosses, whose illegal ballot-stuffing put "Landslide Lyndon" into the Senate by 87 votes. At the same time, the earnest young Congressman Nixon was having his first meetings with Whittaker Chambers, the witness in the Alger Hiss trial that would launch Nixon's political career. It was also the year when Kennedy was still recovering from the near-fatal attack of Addison's disease he had suffered the previous fall. From that point on, he would conceal the truth about his health, just as he concealed his reckless personal life. In all three politicians, Morrow finds a streak of amorality and ruthlessness - each believed that the rules didn't apply to them. Lies of one kind or another - lies they told or lies they exposed - would propel each of them to power; lies would also undo Johnson and Nixon's presidencies, and ultimately tarnish Kennedy's reputation." "Telling the story of the three men and the choices they made in 1948, Morrow also tells the story of America in that year, when it, too, was learning the secrets of power, from the existential force of the atom bomb to America's new role as Cold War superpower. Against a fascinating backdrop - the paranoia of the early Cold War, the Marshall Plan, and the birth of mass consumer culture - Morrow portrays an America coming to grips with the vast changes of the postwar world. The Best Years of Their Lives offers a fresh look at a crucial year in the lives of three presidents."--Jacket.
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