The Making of the President 1960

By: Theodore H. White

Narrated by: Wayne Mitchell

A Harper Perennial Political Classic, The Making of the President 1960 is the groundbreaking national bestseller and Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the 1960 presidential campaign and the election of John F. Kennedy.

The Making of the President: 1960 revolutionized the way modern presidential campaigns are reported. Reporting from within the campaign for the first time on record, White’s extensive research and access to all parties involved set the bar for campaign coverage and remains unparalleled. White conveyed, in magnificent detail and with exquisite pacing, the high-stakes drama; he painted the unforgettable, even mythic, story of JFK versus Nixon; and most of all, he imbued the nation’s presidential election process with a grandeur that later political writers have rarely matched.

Mispronounced names, many names

Hard to concentrate on because of mispronunciations. Harkens back to the days when conventions, not primaries determined candidacies.

Making of the President 1960 - Masterful

Theodore White set a standard for reporting in 1960 (continued to do so in 1964, 1968, and 1972 but to a lesser degree) that may never be matched again. In 1960 both campaigns gave White a degree of access that no reporter can achieve today. The detail and thought brought to life in this book is masterful.

The United States - 64 Years After Kennedy’s Election

In trying to puzzle out our current situation in American politics and our standing in the world, this book helps shed light on it. I have read a couple of White’s books on the making of our Presidents. They are helping me to understand how we have gotten to this point. Knowing our history and seeing how things played out sheds light on the “soup” we are in as a nation. As Han Solo liked to say in Star Wars saga, “I have a bad feeling about this.”

Good history, horrid narrator

This is often considered to be the finest account of a presidential election ever. It is masterful. Tainted a bit by White's hero worship of JFK and the Democratic party. Nevertheless, a good work. The narrator, however, flunks. His voice and delivery are terrible. Speeding it up doesn't help. He's mispronounces names regularly and consistently. The publisher, out of respect for the author, should have audio version redone.

A Timely Book

This book provides almost a real-time view of people and events surrounding the 1960. It presents contemporary portraits of Kennedy and Nixon as they were then and not from a revisionist historic perspective. The style and reporting is a little dated but that makes the book more valuable because it makes the history fresh. The narrator is a bit irritating- mumbles sometimes, get worked up in other places- and is a little distracting. To compare the men in the election of 1960 with those of the current 2020 election is depressing though. Regardless of which candidate you support in this election they seem to pale in stature compared to those running in the 1960 primaries and election.