Author Talk: Joel Nelson, "Kennedy's Only Hero"

About this event

Darien Library and Barrett Bookstore welcome author, Joel Nelson, who will talk about his newly published book: Kennedy's Only Hero: How JFK’s Obsession with Winston Churchill Defined His Presidency. John F. Kennedy’s life was defined by an overwhelming and enduring fascination with Winston Churchill, and the book is the first to expose and explore this curious relationship. Drawing on vast amounts of unpublished archival material, including a lost interview with Jackie Kennedy, the private papers of British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, and the diaries of Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Nelson's's new book offers a fresh perspective on two iconic political figures. About the Book Kennedy discovered Churchill’s writings as a sickly teenager and, by his early twenties, had developed an unwavering belief in his brilliance. This attitude put him at odds with his father who, as the pro-Appeasement Ambassador to the United Kingdom in the lead up to World War II, had developed an intense hatred for Churchill. But this did not bother John F. Kennedy. He gave speeches inspired by Churchill, championed political causes pioneered by Churchill, and came to conceive of himself as the Winston Churchill of the 1960s, basing his successful bid for the Presidency on Churchill’s interwar campaign against appeasement. Kennedy even imitated Churchill’s personal habits, including his hobbies and his sleep pattern. Kennedy quoted Churchill in conversation with his family and friends, read Churchill’s books aloud to long-suffering guests, and tracked down every speech, article, and book that Churchill had ever written. In doing so, Kennedy transformed himself from an inarticulate isolationist into the eloquent, internationalist icon of the 1960s. Kennedy' Only Hero is an engaging and enlightening political history, as well as a deeply human story of the power of admiration and aspiration. About the Author Joel Nelson is a British writer and historian with a history degree from Jesus College, Oxford and an MPhil from Cambridge. An editor at Foreign Affairs, he served as Director of European Policy at an AI think-tank in Washington, D.C. After winning a Kennedy Scholarship to Harvard in 2020, he read Fredrik Logevall’s JFK biography, which sparked his interest in Kennedy’s admiration for Churchill. He researched the topic under Logevall at Harvard and spent five years writing Kennedy’s Only Hero, his first book, and now lives in London.