Christopher Hitchens
The First Family
The Kennedys
By Peter Collier and David Horowitz
Secker and Warburg 576pp £12.50 order from our bookshop
Napoleon Bonaparte is supposed to have said that, had he been killed as he entered Moscow, he would have gone down in history as the greatest general who ever lived. Similarly, it is essential for the Kennedy myth that its exemplars should die young. If JFK had lived, his Presidency would have been besmirched by Vietnam and the domestic political corruption necessary to sustain the war. As it is, his worshippers can still convince themselves that ‘Jack’ would have made everything different. The rising generation of Americans is brought up to think of Kennedy as the man who had everything. Handsome, charming, witty, graceful, brave – a liberal but a tough guy.
Evidence makes no impression on the faithful. Every Kennedy who has survived beyond middle age has been an embarrassment, sometimes a distinct embarrassment. The young ones tend to die these days of overdoses in crappy motels. Rosemary, one of the
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'There are at least two dozen members of the House of Commons today whose names I cannot read without laughing because I know what poseurs and place-seekers they are.'
From the archive, Christopher Hitchens on the Oxford Union.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/mother-of-unions
Chuffed to be on the Curiosity Pill 2020 round-up for my @Lit_Review piece on swimming, which I cannot wait to get back to after 10+ months away https://literaryreview.co.uk/different-strokes https://twitter.com/RNGCrit/status/1351922254687383553
'The authors do not shrink from spelling out the scale of the killings when the Rhodesians made long-distance raids on guerrilla camps in Mozambique and Zambia.'
Xan Smiley on how Rhodesia became Zimbabwe.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/what-the-secret-agent-saw