John F. Kennedy and Eleanor Roosevelt: Conflict and the Common Good (hybrid)

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Barbara A. Perry, Co-Chair of the Presidential Oral History Program, Miller Center, will introduce her latest book, Reconcilable Differences: The Unlikely Political Alliance of John F. Kennedy and Eleanor Roosevelt. She will explore two of the most powerful political dynasties in 20th-century America that were destined to clash over personal and policy differences. To win the 1960 presidential election, John F. Kennedy needed Democratic Party power broker Eleanor Roosevelt’s support. But how to earn it? We begin with their crucial summit at Eleanor’s Hyde Park home. Would these two consummate politicians bury the hatchet in the bucolic woods surrounding Val-Kill Cottage - or in each other?