This is the most comprehensive biography of John F. Kennedy ever undertaken. It centers on the his relationship to his awesome and powerful family- dominated by the one man in the United States both determined to place a son in the White House and capable of doing it. Combining vivid personal glimpses with insights into the political currents of the times, the author renders in fascinating and fully human terms Jack Kennedy's lifelong struggle to live up to his father's unbending expectations. There is much to this book that is new: It tells for the first time the full story of the grave illness that plagued Kennedy all his life, and of his desperate fight to overcome and then to conceal it. It brings to light the more shadowy of his celebrated affairs: the love for the suspected "Nazi agent" that resulted in his hurried transfer to the South Pacific during World War II, from which he returned a hero. It reveals the truth about his controversial friendship with Senator Joe McCarthy and it explores his peculiar relationship with Richard Nixon, whom he regarded as a rival but never an enemy. It also reconstructs the political machinations that led to Kennedy's election to the House and then to the Senate, and illuminates his complex relationship with the woman who was to become more famous as his widow than she was as his wife. -- Publisher description.