The enthralling, previously untold story of the friendships and forces that shaped the Kennedy presidency.

In the summer of 1938 a tall, raw-boned Harvard student arrived in London, where his father was the American ambassador and his favorite sister, Kick, had gained entree to a closed group of young aristocrats. In the run-up to World War II, as Winston Churchill called on a reluctant Britain to resist Adolf Hitler before it was too late, Jack Kennedy formed bonds of friendship and family that would forever change his life and the course of American history.

Drawing on many new primary sources, this book is the first to trace the dramatic arc of Kennedy's intellectual and political formation, and to detail the goals of his presidency as he saw them. For the first time we get an intimate picture of a leader torn between politics and principle, a president wrestling with private demons and unresolved conflicts dating back to the 1930s, when Churchill and Ambassador Joseph Kennedy were adversaries on the public stage. 24 pages of photographs.