Trading anonymity for notoriety and privilege can be a tragic bargain. John F. Kennedy Jr., however, was never given that choice. From the moment an emotionally shattered nation witnessed 3-year-old John Jr. salute his father's coffin, his future was preordained. He was destined to inherit a presidential legacy that he would never be able to live up to.
Biographer and History Channel host Steven M. Gillon knew John Jr. at Brown University and went on to develop an at-times deferential friendship with him. In his new book, "America's Reluctant Prince: The Life of John F. Kennedy Jr.," Gillon taps his personal interactions, interviews with other friends and previously sealed government documents to give us a picture of a flawed man whose vanity insulated him from the course corrections of humbler people.
Gillon offers an alternately fawning and sober appraisal of a promising but conflicted dilettante, one addicted to his celebrity while impatient with its superficiality. Kennedy comes across as generous but inconsiderate; as cognizant of the signature Kennedy recklessness yet foolhardy himself.
John Jr. was ever conscious of the heavy weight of national expectation that had landed on him. Gillon reminds us that Jackie Kennedy strategically crafted an idyllic image of Camelot to secure the historical legacy of her husband's administration. That myth, she later realized, came to burden her son with imperial expectations that he was never able to manage or achieve completely.
As John Jr. grew up, he cultivated a pragmatic relationship with the media that followed him incessantly. When gossip and tabloid attention flagged, he was not above stripping off his shirt in Central Park to launch himself back into circulation. He also developed a well-known Kennedy family penchant for recklessness. He was prone to ditch his Secret Service protection despite credible threats and to expose himself to dangerous diversions such as flying and deep-sea diving without adequate training, relying on his luck to escape perilous situations.
Kennedy followed a similarly cavalier pattern in launching his political magazine, George. Though a managerial novice and certainly no professional journalist, he anticipated a blend of politics and pop culture that was soon to metastasize. Where he hoped emphasizing personal stories would increase voter interest in public affairs, it instead anticipated the cable news networks' cage-fighting approach to the subject — and arguably helped to degrade the political culture.
Kennedy's marriage entailed another tragic miscalculation. Drawn to Carolyn Bessette's feigned indifference to his fame, he lacked the ability to navigate conflict at home and at the magazine. Jealous of anyone with a close relationship with her husband, Carolyn routinely interjected herself in daily office politics, undermining essential employees whom she considered threats to her marriage. Toward the end of their lives, she had fallen into cocaine abuse to escape her loneliness and the predatory hectoring of the paparazzi.
Gillon's writing, like its subject, has trouble choosing between gossip and history. At moments, he enables Kennedy's self-absorption, accepting it as the understandable circumstances of a difficult life: a young man so cursed with wealth, notoriety, good looks and high expectations he couldn't muster consistent success. At other times, Gillon bluntly blames John Jr. for his reckless behavior, in particular for flying his Piper Saratoga into Long Island Sound when the weather and poor visibility grounded more prudent pilots.
Those who awaited a Kennedy presidential succession found John Jr.'s death tragic. Those who saw him as a second-generation bust and the Kennedy obsession as a whitewashing of upper-crust mischief viewed his passing as just another reckless celebrity death. John Jr.'s accomplishments, while impressive for the average citizen, never lived up to the mantle that had so uncomfortably been thrust upon him.
Jim Swearingen is a Minneapolis-based writer.
