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The Death of a President: November 20 – November 25, 1963 by William Manchester accounts in minute detail the five days when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Mr. Manchester, a published historian, was asked by the Kennedy family to write this book with unprecedented access to interviews, documents, and more.

This is a fantastic book, which tells in engrossing narrative the great American tragedy through impeccable research. The author delivers a magnificent, and riveting account of the five days which changed the nation.

If this wasn’t a history book, I would have thought that The Death of a President by William Manchester is a Shakespearean tragedy.

- President Kennedy – a charismatic king going to the hub of American fascism (Dallas), becoming a legend in a second.

- Jackie Kennedy – the widow, the North Star and moral compass. A representative of glamour, suffering and sorrow.

- Lyndon Johnson – the second in command, being thrusted in an instant from “the most insignificant office that ever the Invention of man contrived or his Imagination conceived”, to unhindered power. Maneuvering and intriguing to consolidate his rule.

- Lee Harvey Oswald – the lone assassin who has been demoted from a central character to a bit player in a drama of his own doing.

Other agencies play supportive roles in this tragedy. The press, the turf wars between government agencies, and the publicity hounds who at times seem to be there for comic relief no man could conceive in fiction.

At times, Mr. Manchester’s adulation of President and Mrs. Kennedy is naïve. However, the book, as a whole, is a superb and authoritative narrative, an account of almost minute-by-minute detail of these five days, as well as the impact on the nation as a whole. ( )

very detailed, but not very readable. ( )

אחד מני רבים בסאגה האינסופית על רצח קנדי ( )

Manchester is one of my favorite writers and this was my introduction to his work. Reading about Kennedy, whose death I still remember as I was a Freshman in high school sitting in geometry class when along with my classmates I was startled to hear the radio announcement over the school speaker system. This coming as an interruption to our day and so soon after his death was new experience, as was being let out of school early that day. This was history based on events through which I lived, about which I had spent time reading in the daily papers and weekly news magazines as they happened. It was the first, but not the last time I would find the history of events that occurred during my life to be even more interesting than they seemed to be at the time I experienced them. ( )

I've read this book three times over the years. An awesome account of the entire four days in November, 1963. ( )