One Brief Shining Moment

For his part, Jack had few, if any, illusions about the book. He understood that circumstances more than his skill as a writer and analyst had given the book its resonance. But he also understood that seizing the main chance when it presented itself was not to be despised; he was more than happy, then, to devote his summer to publicizing and selling Why England Slept.

Kennedy friend Charles Spalding remembers visiting Jack at the Cape shortly after the book has appeared. "Jack was downstairs with a whole pile of these books... it was just a wonderful disarray of papers, letters from Prime Ministers and congressmen and people you've heard about, some under wet bathing suits and some under the bed." When Spalding asked how the book was selling, "[Jack's] eyes lit up and he said 'Oh, very well. I'm seeing to that.' He was seeing that the books were handed out and he was really moving the books... It was just a sort of amusing pragmatism that he hadn't just written the book and then he was going to see it just disappear. He was going to see that it got sold. He was just laughing at his own success... He was doing everything he could to promote it. And he was good at that... The interviews, radio programs, answering letters, autographing copies, sending them out, checking bookstores."