American Journey: The Times of Robert Kennedy.

PLIMPTON, George. [Editor]. Interviews by Jean Stein [Edward M. Kennedy].

$950.00

Item Number: 142518

New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc, 1970.

First edition of this remarkable biography of Robert F. Kennedy, based on interviews by Jean Stein and edited by George Plimpton. Octavo, original cloth. Association copy, inscribed by George Plimpton on the front free endpaper to Robert Kennedy’s youngest brother, Ted Kennedy, “To Senator Kennedy with great admiration and best wishes, George.” The recipient, Ted Kennedy served as a United States senator from Massachusetts for almost 47 years, from 1962 until his death in 2009. A member of the Democratic Party and the prominent political Kennedy family, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died. During his tenure, Kennedy became one of the most recognizable and influential members of his party and was sometimes called a “Democratic icon”as well as “The Lion of the Senate.” Kennedy and his Senate staff authored around 2,500 bills, of which more than 300 were enacted into law. Very good in a good dust jacket. Jacket design by Hal Siegel. An exceptional association.

"His life, in a way, was all aboard that funeral train; all the phases: the people he had known, from school friends, family friends, college friends, his early political friends, and associates; and non-friends, but people who had gotten woven into his life..." So spoke American artist William Walton, an old friend of the Kennedys and Chairman of the Commission of Fine Arts. For over eight hours on June 8, 1968 Robert Kennedy's funeral train wound down the eastern seaboard from New York to Washington. Reminiscences of this journey - what Truman Capote called "the ride of the century" - are told in the words of those who were there and provide the framework of this book. the cradle upon which the other "journey" - that of Robert Kennedy's life story as recalled by his closest associates - is set.