Grace and Power; The Private World of the Kennedy White House
New York: Random House, 2004. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. xxix, [1], 608, [2] pages. The Kennedy Court. Preface. Illustrations. Source Notes. Index. DJ has slight wear and soiling. Sarah Bedell Smith (born May 27, 1948) is an American journalist and biographer. She has been a contributing editor for Vanity Fair since 1996. Previously, she was a cultural news reporter for New York Times and Time. She has written biographies of political, cultural, and business figures in the United States and members of the British royal family. She earned her Master of Science from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she won the Robert Sherwood Memorial Travel-Study Scholarship and the Women's Press Club of New York Award. From a Publishers Weekly article: Smith, narrates scenes from the Kennedy White House. Publicity for this volume emphasized that Smith has interviewed "scores of Kennedy intimates, including many who have never spoken before". Smith waltzes through portraits of the Kennedys entertaining, with the likes of Gore Vidal, Ben Bradlee, William Walton and Mary Meyer. Not a few of the people who loom large in Smith's volume have previously—as Smith's profuse footnotes attest—written their own accounts of the Camelot scenes in which they play. Endeavoring to interweave her eloquently rendered social history with the political history of the Kennedy administration, Smith tends on occasion to oversimplify and understate major strategic discussions and initiatives. For those who seek a highly readable account of the White House milieu shaped by John and Jackie Kennedy, Smith's book does the job. More