Kennedy insider Schlesinger dies
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/americas/6407011.stm Version 0 of 1. Pulitzer Prize winning historian and adviser to US President John F Kennedy Arthur M Schlesinger Jr has died aged 89 of a heart attack in New York. Mr Schlesinger helped define America's Cold War liberalism after World War II. He served in the OSS - the forerunner of the CIA - during WWII before taking up a dual role as political adviser and writer of prize-winning histories. He advocated defending American ideals abroad but in 2004 wrote a book critical of the war in Iraq. Mr Schlesinger won his first Pulitzer Prize in 1945 at age 28 for a best-selling history of US President Andrew Jackson, The Age of Jackson. He was often considered the epitome of the American intelligentsia, favouring bow ties and wearing horn-rimmed glasses. In the 1950s he worked on the unsuccessful presidential campaigns of Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson. He was an adviser and speech writer to John F Kennedy's successful 1960 run for the presidency. He advised President Kennedy against the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961. After serving as an a special adviser in the Kennedy White House he won his second Pulitzer in 1965 for A Thousand Days: John F Kennedy in the White House. He continued to write political histories and newspaper opinion pieces. In 2004 he criticised the presidency of George W Bush in War and the American Presidency. He was born on 15 October 1917 in Columbus, Ohio. |